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:
“Computers are good at swift, accurate computation and at storing great masses of information. The brain, on the other hand, is not as efficient a number cruncher and its memory is often highly fallible; a basic inexactness is built into its design. The brain’s strong point is its flexibility. It is unsurpassed at making shrewd guesses and at grasping the total meaning of information presented to it.”
—Jeremy Campbell (b. 1931)
“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)