Second-order value
Hey!
You tend to distinguish, rightly, between religious values and moral values. In your opinion, the former are particular and the latter are universal. Question: Do you accept that there is a second-order value that obliges us to adhere to first-order values?
The background is the assumption that the condition for the existence and/or validity of first-order values is that they are from God. That is, we are obligated to God and to the two types of values (religious and moral) that He has instilled in us.
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I don't see how an infinite chain is created according to my proposal for the existence of a supervalue (second-order). On the contrary, I think that if you don't assume the existence of such a supervalue, you won't be able to explain how values sometimes conflict with each other. For example, a religious value that conflicts with a moral value. In order for such a conflict to arise, we must assume a common ground that allows it. This ground is universal and can be formulated as follows: God wants humans to carefully select their different values, weigh them, and finally decide on only one of them (in the event of a conflict).
On the other hand, the supervalue is logically prevented from falling into such a regression for the simple reason that it is unique and cannot conflict with other supervalues (which would require third-order values).
A conflict between values does not require any common ground. The conflict arises because of the situation in which value A tells me to do X and value B tells me not to do X. There should be nothing in common between A and B except that they both have instructions on what to do in the given situation.
I thought you were claiming that the mere subordination to a value system distills a supervalue. This is not true as I wrote in the previous message.
Now I've lost you. Is commitment to God not a value in your eyes?
I lost you a long time ago. I don't understand where this question is related.
Commitment to God is a meta-value. Like commitment to morality. It is artificial and almost absurd to say that there is a super-value of commitment to morality from which commitments to specific moral values are derived. This is not a process of deriving something from a word, but rather a detail. Commitment to morality is commitment to all moral commandments. The same is true with respect to the commandments of the Almighty.
The word “commitment” in everyday language (you can also check the use you yourself make of it in your writings) is logically connected to the concept of “values” or to the idea of a value choice. Therefore, the commitment to what you call a “meta-value” *is itself* a value choice, that is, a second-order value system. I don't understand why it is “artificial” or “absurd” in your eyes. At most, you can say that there is dialectical thinking here, but in this case it is required.
What you call “detail” is indeed a derivation. For example, Reuven and Shimon agree that commitment to God is the basis of values (meta-values), but the way they derive them, i.e., the application, is not the same: Reuven thinks that male intercourse is categorically forbidden halakhically (no matter what its “moral” cost) and that this is God’s true will, and Shimon thinks the opposite (that there is room for leniency sometimes). Each of them “derives” differently the benefit from the same super-value (meta-value) that they have already agreed upon.
We enter into a sophism that is essentially semantic.
In my opinion, there is no point in talking about a commitment to morality as a value on its own, otherwise it itself would have distilled another value that would justify it, and so on – “standing all the way down”. The commitment to morality is understood from within itself and does not need to rely on anything else. The commitment to specific moral precepts is a specification of the general commitment to morality, and is not derived from it. Just as the claim that Socrates is mortal is not derived from the fact that all humans are mortal but constitutes a specification of it (its own particular case).
The same is true of a commitment to God. In my opinion, it is not based on a prior value, but rather the commitment is understood on its own. Its specification is all of its specific precepts.
Consider, for example, the prohibition against breaking one's vow (“Let not his word begin”). Suppose I vowed not to eat bread. Is my prohibition on eating bread derived from the prohibition “He shall not begin His word”? No. This is a specific application of the prohibition and not another prohibition derived from the original prohibition. It has to do with what in my writings I have often called elaboration versus branching (you can search on the website).
The fact that there is a dispute about God's will is irrelevant to the discussion. There is a dispute about what God wants, but we are both committed to what He wants. Just as there would be a dispute about what exactly I vowed, but we would both agree that I must not break what I vowed. This is the same value itself, and we are not talking about a ‘derivation’ of a value from a set, but in a very artificial sense. This may be a derivation in the logical sense (as with Socrates), but the derivation only reveals the content of the original value. It is not a value that derives from another set, in the sense that these are two different values.
I do not see where this discussion is going.
So we disagree. But notice a significant change in your position in the last two sentences (in your last response): Now you agree that this is a “deduction”, even if a deduction of specific content only (“in the logical sense”).
I have already explained at length what “deduction” means and how it requires a completely different worldview than the one you present on this specific matter.
There is no change in my position. I simply clarified that you are probably talking about a decree in its logical sense, which I read as a detail, and I wrote my opinion on its meaning.
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