Duration
Philosophic or ethic value duration is the time that an object exists, or more specifically, has any intensity.
It is contrasted with chain of events duration, which is the time it takes for a chain of events to reach its terminal event, in this case the object with intrinsic value.
The chain of events duration may be significantly longer than the value duration, especially for objects with long term instrumental value. In the intervening time, the value of the object is converted into the value of the intervening objects in the chain of events.
Read more about this topic: Value (ethics)
Famous quotes containing the word duration:
“This pond never breaks up so soon as the others in this neighborhood, on account both of its greater depth and its having no stream passing through it to melt or wear away the ice.... It indicates better than any water hereabouts the absolute progress of the season, being least affected by transient changes of temperature. A severe cold of a few days’ duration in March may very much retard the opening of the former ponds, while the temperature of Walden increases almost uninterruptedly.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he would be a great soul in future must be a great soul now.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“What matters it that man should have a little more knowledge of the universe? If he has it, he gets little higher. Is he not always infinitely removed from the end, and is not the duration of our life equally removed from eternity, even if it lasts ten years longer?”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)