21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

T W E N T Y - O N E L E V E L S

19. Intrinsic Value

‘The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.’

Thomas Berry

To have a basis for goodness and beauty — that is, to our moral and aesthetic judgements — there seems to be a requirement for some kind of underlying sense of value. As the previous chapters suggested, the universe is up to something! It may be that value is already embedded in things right from the start (top-down). Or it may be that who and what we are — our bodies and minds — might be all it takes to create value in the universe (therefore, bottom-up). Or again, if we can stretch our minds to it, perhaps both of these — the top-down and the bottom-up scenarios can be true at the same time — with value arising from the most rudimentary levels of complexity and emergence in the higher levels cascading back down to what is below. It’s very difficult to get away from the idea that many creatures — even some a long way down the evolutionary tree — have some sense of value, and therefore we’re led to the conclusion that value is innate. So if we accept that value enters at an early stage —

163