GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

446
ETHICS
followed this line of thought. Socrates called this unifying
value the Good; Plato, the Form of the Good. Nor can it
be doubted that, when Socrates announced that virtue
is knowledge, knowledge, that is to say, of die Good, he
meant by the term "the Good" not moral virtue, but that
universal value, which is at once the source o and the
common element in, the particular, absolute values truth,
moral virtue, beauty and happiness. To avoid confusion,
I propose to call the universal value, which is the source of
the common quality exhibited by the other values, "first
order value". Then beauty, moral virtue, truth and
happiness, which I have hitherto called ultimates, will
be "second order values", and virtuous characters, the
actions in which virtuous characters find their habitual
expression, beautiful pictures, true propositions and happy
states of mind will be "third order values."
Summary Statement of Theory of Value. It will be
convenient to summarize the argument up to the point
now reached. I am maintaining that the universe is, or
rather that it contains for I do not think that everything
that is, is valuable or partakes of value a unique and
independent factor which I am calling first order value.
Fint order value which may be identical with what the
theologians know as Deity, manifests itself in the form of
second order values, moral virtue, truth, beauty and
happiness. The mind of man, I am further suggesting,
possesses an innate knowledge of these second order
values and, accordingly, recognizes their manifestations
as third order values in particular persons and things,
and is moved to appreciate, to approve and to pursue
what it recognizes. At the present stage in the evolution
of our species this capacity for recognition, approval and
but there seems
pursuit is intermittent and precarious;
reason to think that it grows, albeit slowly, as the evolution
ofmankind proceeds. Indeed, it may not be too fanciful
to suggest that die object of the evolutionary process is so
to perfect and refine human consciousness that it becomes