Moral valuation is asking the question of what is worthy of your respect.
To not invest sufficient study into philosophy is actually the most dangerous kind of mistake you can make. This is because without a foundation of philosophy, one’s life actions will be wasted in futility without knowing meaning nor purpose nor true deep rooted happiness.
Before we begin I want recognize that moral value formation is a path dependent process and that people generally adopt the faith of their family and accept the cultural standards of the society into which they are born. I mean to say that you have your values and someone else has another set of values that may not be the same.
We will not be concerned with who’s values are more important nor will we be discussing whether one religion is better than another or which political economic system is more efficient. We are simply investigating the dynamics of how moral individuals ought to reason once these values have been set. So let’s begin, shall we.
The human moral system is categorical and hierarchical in nature. Morality is defined in sets of value clusters that superseded each other in terms of importance. This unique structure has helped humanity rise above the animals to civilization in its deepest sense, and I will clarify what I mean for you with a few examples.
Imagine if you will a policewoman named Susie who goes to work everyday knowing she might die. Susie is such a badass that she will never betray her sense of justice even if it means getting shot in the face.
This individual is operating in the clearest sense with two clusters of value in her moral system.
The first cluster is one that every animal has. The natural value of self preservation to care about one’s own life and protect oneself against harm.
The second cluster of values are the ones she has chosen with her intellect. In this situation, she has chosen to fight for Justice and Dignity for the weak.
This is also true for the single mother who gives up her immediate happiness so that her children may thrive. She also knows what she values and lives to grow this higher value. Humans operate with a categorically hierarchical moral value system in the sense that individuals with a sufficiently developed moral system will never trade any value of a greater category for any amount of a lesser category. This mom will never let her child go hungry.
This is why integrity is a key component of any philosophical system and without it moral values are useless. In its essence integrity means knowing what you value and what you are willing to sacrifice in order to optimize your moral objectives. Cause you got to know clearly what it is you will be giving up in order to achieve something greater.
This mechanic of moral formation can also account for what appears to be irrational behavior. A lunatic may seem like a mad man and other people are astonished at the lack of emotion and empathy that serial killers have. They are deemed criminally insane.
However, these deranged individuals are actually rationally achieving their goals, it is just that they’ve unfortunately stopped caring about others or they never learned that value to begin with. There is no greater cluster of values ( like justice, equality, love for the commonwealth) that prevents them from acting on their base savage instincts.
This is why it is so important to note that the mechanics of moral value involve clustering sets of values together into group that can be ranked such that a greater value will never be traded for a lesser one. We humans like to group things in our minds, it’s an evolutionary trick we developed.
I suspect that game theoretic analysis would be necessary to derive the optimal equilibrium states and thus predict the strategic actions of any given hierarchical value cluster system.
Nevertheless I would like to switch gears now and talk about how this dynamic of moral clustering also rings true in the organization of humans whether they be nonprofits, governments, businesses, or even armies.
A non profit organization that acts with integrity should never trade their mission for profit. This is why the public will naturally feel a moral outrage when they hear about charities scamming people.
A government that acts with integrity should never sacrifice the sovereignty of the nation and the future of it’s citizen’s for short term economic prosperity. This is why political corruption is universally despised across human society.
An army that acts with integrity should never betray the global strategic political agenda that it was set out to achieve, even though it may freely deploy regiments on the tactical level within the theater of war.
Let me send you off with a personal example of how this plays a role in the business world.
As a tech entrepreneur I am blessed to work with an amazing team that is defined by our shared greater values. We are driven by the philosophy that in our own unique way, we can use technology to empower every future human to such a degree that war and poverty will be made obsolete forever.
Corporate integrity, therefore, is a part of a duty that our team undertakes to protect and execute that vision. We recognize that our mission is at the core of our work and we take great pride in growing our higher values for the world.
