Moral Values

Extract

A study of moral values is a study of the values relevant to character and conduct. Since conduct consists of actions (including refusals to act) and character is exhibited in and inferred from actions, the phrase “values relevant to actions” would perhaps suffice. The term “values” needs little amplification. But it is necessary to observe that there are on the face of it two sets of values relevant to actions, namely (1) those which actions themselves possess, so that we differentiate them as good and bad actions—a differentiation which may be made by a spectator in regard to a process in which he himself takes no part; (2) those asserted implicitly by an agent in his action considered as an interference with the course of events. In the most obvious and typical cases this second set of values attach themselves, not to actions, but to the environment of action as modifiable by it; in particular, to states or events which action may help to maintain or bring about. Thus the act of tidying a room implies a preference under the given circumstances for a tidy rather than an untidy room.