https://www.facebook.com/groups/philosophyknowledgethoughtexistence/posts/5496053303771771/
QUESTION:
"I'm a 16 year old teen [from Taiwan] who is thinking about my future. Most of the careers are trying to solve the challenges, improving techniques, but few of us think about the major part, which is the direction about our "real" "right" meaning of life and promote the values. Altruism, positive thinking, gratefulness, honesty, morality are the values of most people, but Buddhism, Nihilism are different kinds of value, too. You can share other values of life, but anyway, do you think there’s a “better” value, living way for “each” people? Due to Plato’s cave, people have blind spots, we may be in a stratosphere, can we claim a value is better than other value? Should everyone use the same values in life?
This can be concluded to three questions:
a) Are values objectively true?
b) Are life values universal for all individuals?
c) Are values universal in all circumstances?
These questions are important because if there’s a “best” value, then we can try to promote it. The popular jobs like AI, medical science, global warming solving will keep changing by decades, but the needing education of moral values doesn’t. Only a few people are thinking about these questions
Any thoughts about this?"
ANSWER:
"Wow! Great question Jack! I taught English in Taiwan in the past and your ability to communicate so clearly on such a deep topic is quite impressive! It seems obvious to me that you have the soul of a philosopher. It seems like you will not be happy if your career only gives you money, but no meaning or greater purpose. I share your concerns about morality and values and have been thinking about it for some time.
a) Are values objectively true?
I believe values are not objectively true in two ways - 1) there is no divine authority behind them, 2) there is no magically self-existent rational/logical premise that functions as the foundation to move us from "is" to "ought".
I believe values are objectively true in two ways - 1) they are ontologically objective in that they truly exist inside people's heads; 2) they are evolutionarily objective in that some values are measurably better for the purposes of evolution, and some values are measurably worse for the purposes of evolution.
b) Are life values universal for all individuals? Studies have been done across 60 different cultures and they found 7 universal values that were commonly shared amongst them all. Since human societies have similar needs, it would make sense that they evolve similar values.
https://qz.com/.../the-seven-moral-rules-that-supposedly.../ https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/701478
c) Are values universal in all circumstances? I view values as an evolutionary response to circumstances. I tend to think that the more simple an issue is, the more universal and consistent the evolutionary response will be. The more complex the issue, the more varied and inconsistent the evolutionary response will be. Also, the more evolutionary exposure we have historically had to a problem, the more universal our evolutionary response will be. The more novel a problem is (little prior historical exposure), the less universal our evolutionary response.
Also, I think that human societies have a social style of evolution that is similar to ants - niche role evolution. This means that each niche role might evolve different values, but the entire tribe does better with a diversity of values. If some people care about truth and goodness, they can become philosophers and inspire the group. If some people care about health, they can become doctors to heal the group. If some people care about honor, order, and justice, they can become police officers, soldiers, and judges. We want people to be passionate about their roles. So, values that are role-specific might vary, while values that are role-independent will be more universal."
I have a series of blog articles on morality if you want to dig deeper -
And a YouTube channel - https://youtu.be/8O3Ti8VzWcI