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Saturday, 12 September 2015



Some values may be prompted by internal acts of estimation of where the good lies. Even if it is only a particular or instrumental good it is still understood to be in some relation to a universal idea of goodness and to derive some of its force from that. Our direct and prior relationship to the universal good being self-evident, or able to be made self-evident. Furthermore, these values can be corrected or changed on the same basis. A different source for value however is when it is an inference from what is seen to move people. This can be a mimetic estimation as when we are made aware of the effect of desire in others, or something less direct where we must draw conclusions from what is effective for others, as in pondering on what is is that they really want. Living amongst crowds of strangers in a modern city, all of us accessible to the same machinery with designs on our wants and opinions gives the second kind of source of values an overwhelming weight of authority, of obviousness. This authority is fundamentally alien, evident while not self-evident, but it is almost impossible to see it this way while still sharing in the enabling act of faith of the city and all its rewards.

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