Total Value
The total ethic or philosophic value of an object can be regarded as being the product of its average value, average intensity and value duration. It may be either absolute or relative or both.
Any decrease in the whole value, intensity or duration of an object decreases its total value and vice versa. For example, again taking a fictional life-stance regarding waffles as of ends-in-themselves, it still doesn't generate any total value if there are no waffles, no intensity, no matter how much average value a waffle has.
Alternatively described, the total value can be regarded as being the sum of the total intrinsic value and total instrumental value. Still, it may be either relative or absolute, or both.
Read more about this topic: Value (ethics)
Famous quotes containing the word total:
“The only way into truth is through one’s own annihilation; through dwelling a long time in a state of extreme and total humiliation.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“Unlike Descartes, we own and use our beliefs of the moment, even in the midst of philosophizing, until by what is vaguely called scientific method we change them here and there for the better. Within our own total evolving doctrine, we can judge truth as earnestly and absolutely as can be, subject to correction, but that goes without saying.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)