Universal value

"Mathematics and ethics have this much in common, if they claim to be sciences they must be based on pure concepts. Experience and history are further from representing the laws of ethics than nature is from the accurate realisation of mathematical ideas; but these laws and ideas are rational forms equally necessary, the one to be the rule of the senses, and the other to guide and form a judgment on life."

"What morality requires is that the individual in all circumstances shall make his individual interest that of the universal interest. We even censure those who do not succeed in reconciling in their own souls the contradictions between the individual interests of the universal and interests which are merely individual. "Morality triumphs over interests only because it is itself the supreme interest" (Pratica p. 242)"

"In reviewing the several levels of life which morality defines, we may observe two types of universal value. The lower values in relation to the higher are indispensable. There is no health without satisfaction, no achievement without health, no rational intercourse without achievement, and no true religion except as the perfecting and completing of a rational society. The higher values, on the other hand, are more universal than the lower in that they surpass these in validity, and are entitled to preference. Thus the lower values are ennobled by the higher, while the higher are given body and meaning by the lower. Satisfaction derives dignity from being controlled by the motive of good-will, while the moral kingdom at large derives its wealth, its pertinence to life, and its incentive, from the great manifold of particular interests which it conserves and fosters."

"If we are content to accept that it is in Universal Value... that all values meet, that the Universe is one, and that goodness, beauty, and truth, are but aspects of it... then we may begin to understand how it is that in a world of all sorts, all sorts and conditions of men may, if they will but gaze outwards from themselves, see Value in the infinite from the side of the finite, and be strengthened thereby in their own finite lives. It is in that sense that the one Value which before we called by the name "good" may appear to ten thousand men in ten thousand different ways, though mainly by the great avenues, Goodness, Beauty and Truth."

"Every inspirational leader defines and, most importantly, lives by the values he holds dearest. It is in our nature to live by universal values, and generally speaking, we try and uphold them."

"There are other contentions which are more vital, and these Mr. Bradley himself urges. The State of to-day may not be reconcilable with the morality of to-day. The State may be in a confused or decadent condition; short of that, it may, being as it is in a state of development, retain unresolved elements of its past, which are opposed to ideal morality. Again, we have to reckon with cosmopolitan morality in the individual, who may seek to transcend the function allotted to his station in a particular community; we must recognise, for instance, the desire to produce philosophic truth or artistic beauty of a universal value, which can hardly be connected with the duty of a station. Such recognition may serve to drive us, or to lift us, to the conception of a higher organism than that of the State. By faith we may come to believe in the realisation of a society of all humanity as a divine organic whole; or as St. Paul wrote, we may come to see that we are organs, diversely endowed, "unto the building up of the body of Christ," which is "fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth."

"Despite dissent [such as from the United States] a universal value has come into being, that an International Criminal Court should be established to prosecute and punish the most serious crimes defined in the Rome Statute."

"Universal values are created by means of contract. Treaties and customs [are] the two major sources of universal values. ...flexibility allows nations to modify or even repeal universal values. ...Peremptory norms of general international law, also known as jus cogens, share the attributes of "permanent" universal values. ...Universal Democracy does not embrace the notion that all universal values are timeless. ...even a peremptory norm can be modified."

"Values contained in a universal treaty are universal values, since no value is placed in a universal treaty if too many nations dispute its legitimacy."

"The opposition Islam versus the West appears less relevant if one refers to the other Third World cultural areas, which tend to agree with the Muslim countries in their critiques of Western cultural and political encroachments. By identifying democracy with Western culture and reproducing the clash-of-civilizations paradigm, many non-Western regimes of course want to delegitimise democracy as a universal concept. They love Huntingtons statement that claims that Western values are universally relevant are false, immoral and dangerous. By contrast, many US universalists firmly believe that democracy is a universal value..."

"President George W. Bush viewed freedom as a universal value, with religious freedom as the preeminent characteristic of free, robust societies. With this assumption, he viewed the post-9/11 conflict with the Taliban and al-Qaeda as a battle over freedom. He believed that repressed Iraqis and Afghans would welcome the U.S. military as liberators bringing greater freedom, to include freedom of religion. President Bushs assumptions were only partially validated. Part of the problem was the dissonance between a Western concept of freedom to choose and worship God over against an Islamic concept to submit to God. Bushs construct of Religion as Freedom did not offer the optimal framework."

"The first of the universal factors, the purpose of teaching, has been considered to convince the teacher that in every lesson he should be conscious of the value of the experience produced in terms of the spiritual development of the child; that, for instance, in teaching a lesson in geography, the universal spiritual value of the lesson to the child should be the conscious guide in all that the teacher does; and that thus the utilitarian value of the subject will be more fully realized than if directly sought. In fact, the industrial end can furnish no guidance in the actual process of teaching. The universal value which the teacher is to feel, and by which he is to be guided, is in the experience produced, and not in something external and remote in time and application. The value is imminent in the experience itself; and is here and now and always to the pupil."