Can you test your values with logic?

Question

Can you test your values with logic?

Answer 1

No. Values are what you have considered to be the worthwhile standards by which you live. Logic, from logos, is eternal and unchanging truth present from the time of creation. You can use logic/logos to attain wisdom, but you cannot apply it to values.

The test of your values is in the choices made when faced with a situation that demands action....ie...your best friend steals a bracelet in front of you...do you apply your values and either tell someone or get them to put it back? Or, do you fail the test and simply turn your back and let it happen.  

Answer 2

not really  

Answer 3

No.

Values are not empirically verifiable. A positive value means "it makes me feel good" and a negative one "it makes me feel bad." You can see whether your values are consistent with each other, you can see whether your values lead to greater or lesser happiness for others, but the values themselves come from emotions. Emotions can be defined, can be shown to emanate from sets of circumstances, can be found solid or ridiculous or anything in between, but they have nothing to do with logic, which is a self-contained system apart from fact and verifiability.

Answer 4

Yes. Values can be expressed as propositions (e.g. Murder is wrong.) So they are subject to logic. The most obvious test would be to see if one's values are in contradiction. This is probably one of the most common forms of debate about moral issues - people involved in the debate usually try to appeal to some deep moral intuition that contradicts their opponent's view. So, for example, in the abortion debate pro-lifers may argue that abortion is murder and violates another human's right to life. Pro-choicers may argue (as Judith Jarvis Thompson did) that we have a right to bodily privacy, even when others' lives may hang in the balance. Both try to appeal to some moral intuition, then try to show that the other side cannot be right because they logically contradict that self-evident intuition.

One of the most common reactions that people have to unusual moral claims is "why?" When presented with an unconventional moral claim (let's say, animal rights) people demand reasons to believe it. The giving of reasons for one's beliefs or values make these beliefs and values subject to logic and reason. If a person cannot give any reasons for their values, their values are literally irrational - without reason. So demanding reasons for accepting a different value is another way that logic is a key part of talking about values.

Roger: Something does not have to be empirically verifiable in order to be subject to logic. This is why philosophy is not an empirical science. It uses logic (and other tools) to examine non-empirical claims, such as value statements.

What you are saying is that values "come from" emotions, emotions are not subject to logic, therefore values are not subject to logic. This is just bad logic on your part. A large number of statements that we all make "come from" emotions. If I am very angry, the statements I may utter are likely going to be a product of my anger. Does it then follow that because they come from an emotion, they cannot be logically evaluated? Of course not. If I start telling lies about the person I am angry at and fall in to a contradiction, I don't get to claim that logic cannot be used to test my statements because my statements are emotional. Likewise value statements which are based on an emotion can't be ruled off limits to logic simply because they "come from" and emotion. You really need to make more of a case, since "coming from" an emotion is not sufficient to show that a statement is necessarily alogical.

Answer 5

Yes

Answer 6

You can test anything with logic. Whether they will stand the test, or not, remains to be seen.

Answer 7

Absolutely. That is what epistemology is: the identification of metaphysical values, and those values are ALWAYS hierarchical, meaning your mind places them in a pyramid. For example, if you are a devout theist, God would be at the top of your pyramid.

And why is God there? Because your epistemology identified God as the most important thing in the universe.

If you are an atheist, of course you will say something else is the most important thing.

If you are speaking in terms of things less important, your values might place your wife above your mother, especially if your mother didn't want you to marry your wife. Your epistemology identified your wife as more important.

Epistemology is "The branch of philosophy which investigates the origin, structure, methods and validity of knowledge." Notice the word "validity." That means "test." There are tests of whether or not your logic is valid http://www.iep.utm.edu/v/val-snd.htm

and it is completely possible that you made an honest but fallacious error somewhere and put a thing of lesser value ahead of something of greater value.

It happens all the time. It's one of those cases where you "could have kicked yourself for not seeing" the truth, when it was "right in front of you."

Answer 8

Testing is not consistent with logic. This is the common misconception of the predicate...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Volition relates to assertion as logic relates to the matter of the impersonal thing. That's why Earwax's re-quest is fundamentally ignorant [of analogy] at the moment of noesis, the meeting of the homogeneous with heterogeneity.

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Yaoi-Rand stooge trickery manifests again! Assertions regarding logic are illogical. Men make assertions about what they mistake to be "knowledge" - pretense. The logic is not in the man. It's in the matter of the thing.