Single Idea 4937

[catalogued under 22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / b. Fact and value]

Full Idea

Early and central in the development of the brain are the dimensions provided by value systems indicating salience for the entire organism.

Clarification

'Salience' is significance

Gist of Idea

Systems that generate a sense of value are basic to the primitive brain

Source

G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.13)

Book Reference

Edelman,G/Tononi,G: 'Consciousness: how matter becomes imagination' [Penguin 2000], p.174


A Reaction

This doesn't quite meet Hume's challenge to find values in the whole of nature, but it matches Charles Taylor's claim that for humans values are knowable a priori. Conditional values can be facts of the whole of nature. "If there is life, x has value..".