Is Life the Ultimate Value?

Abstract

We all value things. For example, we value friendships, prosperity, and knowledge. These seem to be good things and things worthy of pursuit. They seem better and more worthy of pursuit, at least, than do their opposites: enmity, poverty, and ignorance. A notable fact about the things we consider valuable is that most of them appear to be valuable not merely as things worth having for their own sake, but as things worth having for the sake of something else. Consider prosperity: Though we genuinely value prosperity—we want it, we think it is good, and we act to gain and keep it—we value it not merely so as to be prosperous, but so as to achieve something further, such as steady access to food, drink, and clothes. Were it not for the food, drink, and clothes—and the other things that prosperity brings about, such as transportation, medicine, and homes—a great deal, if not all, of the value of prosperity would be lost. Food, drink, and clothes, moreover, do not seem to be ends in themselves either. Though they are ends of prosperity, they are also—from another perspective—means to avoid hunger, thirst, and cold. Furthermore, avoiding hunger, thirst, and cold seems to be a means to yet another end: remaining in good health.