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:
“I believe in the total depravity of inanimate things ... the elusiveness of soap, the knottiness of strings, the transitory nature of buttons, the inclination of suspenders to twist and of hooks to forsake their lawful eyes, and cleave only unto the hairs of their hapless owner’s head.”
—Katharine Walker (1840–1916)
“When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)