Root and Branch: The Relationship Between Values and Ideas, 1977

1 April 1977
Chauncey C. Riddle

The opportunity to speak or to write to others is a sacred trust. I hope that I may speak truly and to the edification of each of my hearers.

One good place to begin in any scholarly discussion is with the things we say in our daily conversations. It is commonplace to distinguish at least two types of statements. One type concerns the “whatness” of the world. Utterances such as “today is Wednesday,” “apples are red,” “diamonds scratch steel,” and “E=MC2” are examples of this type. We speak of this type of utterance as having truth value, and we assign values to such statements under the aegis of our favorite theory of truth. Even if the truth value is unknown, we usually assume there is one.

The second type of utterance we deal with here we call value statements. Examples of these are “tamales are delicious,” “honesty is the best policy,” and “leisure time is a great good.” Admittedly there are problematic cases that make a precise division between truth statements and value statements very difficult. But we can in the vast majority of cases make an adequate division between these two types. Since the metaphysics of the truth type of utterance is better known and more well-established than that of value statements, let us analyze the first further, then see if we can use the structure of the first type as a map for value situations.

Truth-type statements or sentences are themselves but representations. As with all linguistic formulation, no symbol has any inherent meaning. When any person utters a sentence such as “it is dark,” there is in the mind of the speaker or writer a certain combination of ideas which he attempts to express using the words, “it,” “is,” and “dark.” That combination of ideas, the meaning of his sentence, is a function of the entire noetic frame, or the mindset of the speaker. We sometimes call the combination of ideas which the speaker has in his mind a proposition. Propositions are judgments about some aspect of the nature of the universe. When one wishes to have others share his ideas, he projects perturbations of the physical world such as body movements, written symbols, vocal and audible sounds. He hopes that these signs or symbols will stimulate in the minds of others the proposition he intends. Others, upon perceiving whatever the speaker has done, try to imagine what-on-earth might have been the intent that caused the communicator to make the expression he did. This second-guessing is for some strange reason called “communication.” It is always a game of charades in which we can never be quite sure that we really understand or are understood. It is not our business here to elaborate further on the problems of communication, great, pervasive and urgent though they be. We must rest content with the distinction between sentences and propositions, which is the distinction between symbols and meaning.

When we analyze meanings, especially those conjoined into propositions, we find that each proposition is a judgment. Judgments are made possible by the happy conjunction of experience—that raw material arising out of the stream of consciousness—and the programmed nature of our minds. Without arguing the case for naturism or the Kantian synthetic a priori, I simply take it as well established that every human being, taken as he is, has a mind somewhat analogous to a computer. Roughly speaking, experience is the data fed into the computer-like mind. The mind is programmed to process the data of experience and does so, producing the judgments which we have called propositions. Though it is plain that experience can affect some of the mind’s programming, it is also plain that there is some mental programming which is and remains independent of experience. Hume and Kant cannot be laughed away even though they did perhaps make mistakes.

Out of this hasty sketch we might now identify eight basic elements. First, the stream of consciousness, the basic stuff we experience as mental life. Second, a self, the “I” that emerges out of the stream of consciousness consisting of the body, mind, desires, etc. Thirdly, the external world, which we come to construct as a happy marriage of conception and sensation. Fourth, the data of sensation of which we become conscious when we begin to contrast the real universe from our solipsistic construct of it. Fifth, the programming of our minds, of which we become aware as we attempt to distinguish truth from error. Sixth, the propositions we form as self-conscious conclusions about the universe. Seventh, the statements we make to express our propositions. Eighth, the basic desires which we finally realize are irreducibly important to all of our judgments about prepositions.

In order to be clearer as to what I intend in distinguishing these eight elements, I give the following items and examples.

• Item: the stream of consciousness, Example: these are moment-to- moment flow of sensations, thoughts, reactions, judgments, etc., that constitute our living.
• Item: the self, Example: to each person, his body, mind, desires.
• Item: the external world, Example: Other people, the earth, the heavens, the events observed in daily life.
• Item: the data of sensation, Example: noises, sights, tastes, touches, smells which we come to realize are our unique contact with the external world.
• Item: the noetic frame, Example: the grammar, symbols, mathematics, logic, and concept of the universe which we discover ourselves to use in creating an external world out of data of sensation.
• Item: propositions, Example: consciously formed hypotheses which we form in an attempt to characterize some aspect of what we hope to be the true nature of the external world, such as: the cost of energy will be double in the next five years.
• Item: statements, Example: symbolic expression of propositions in gestures, words, writing, etc. All sentences are examples.
• Item: desires, Example: personal propensities which we come to recognize as our prejudices. These color all judgment, making objectivity only a relative thing, never absolute.

Some important things to note about this scheme are:

1. It is a dynamic process of the self interacting with the external world through time.
2. It is an adaptive process as the self reacts to the external world to adjust to reality, then attempts to affect that reality.
3. The adaptive process involves a heightening of self-consciousness and tentativity. Judgments become less categorical and actions become less impulsive as one learns by experience.
4. The more refined our understanding of these matters becomes, the more alone we become. To put it another way, the more we understand about the universe, the more free we become from the trammels of other peoples opinions and ideas.
5. There is the possibility that the irreducible “self” is a collection of desires and that these desires pattern to form a personality. Perhaps we know ourselves only as we can observe our own desires shaping and guiding our actions and ideas as we become intellectually acute.
6. If the self is a pattern of desire, that would explain why we have such a difficult time agreeing with each other about the nature of the universe. Desires seem to shape inquiry and to mold conclusions.
7. Of one thing we are sure, no finite set of data about the universe uniquely determines what hypothesis is necessary to explain it. This is to say, no set of observations ever uniquely constrains its own interpretation. In fact, any finite set of data has an infinite number of hypotheses logically available as potential self-consistent devices for explanation.

Perhaps it is our desires that save us from the absurd relativity of an infinite explainability. While they may do so, they apparently also create the illusion of objectivity, which leads to dogmatism, which leads to orthodoxy, which in turn often leads to inhumane treatment of other people. But that is another story also. Let us turn now to the consideration of value statements.

Value statements such as “pie is good,” all have something very simple in common. Every genuine value statement is a reflection of a value judgment. The essence of each of these valuations is the judgment that the object in question will satisfy some desire of the self. Thus when I say “pie is good,” I am saying that I expect that the normal case will be that if I eat pie, it will satisfy my desire to sweetly titillate my palate as the pressure increases inside my stomach and I get that nice “full” feeling. The simple thing that all value judgments have in common is that they are judgments that the thing valued will satisfy or has satisfied some personal desire.

Some value statements relate to the future and may be called “anticipatory” value judgments or statements. Others are a recognition of satisfactions already achieved and may be called “reflexive” value judgments or statements. Anticipatory value statements are always guesses, for they are at best inductions. Reflective value statements represent the knowledge of hindsight, the value of accomplished fact. These two are usually sufficiently distinguished by grammar. For example, the categorical statement, “honey on hot bread is delicious,” may indeed be based on reflection of past experience, but the intention of the utterance is for future use as a guide to action; this example is an anticipatory judgment. When a purely reflective judgment is made, the utterance is usually more restricted, e.g., “The sweetness of honey has in the past enhanced the eating of hot bread for me.” Reflective statements are less presumptive. They stick to the known facts (all known facts are of past time) and do not arrogate omniscience or unerring induction as do the utterance of categorical statements.

I take it to be an important truth statement to note that we human beings are sufficiently limited in mental capacity that while we can judge many things to be good with a high degree of accuracy, we always need to allow the possibility of having made a mistake. We can say fairly surely “that x was good,” but not “that x is good” as an anticipatory statement, meaning “that x will satisfy my desire,” for surely each of us has eaten and has remained unsatisfied. More important even is our necessity to note that we human beings cannot ever rationally assert that “x is best,” that is the most satisfying of all things relative to a given desire.

One might ask about the statement “John is good.” Is this also but anticipated satisfaction of desire? The answer is “yes,” unequivocally. To say that John is good is to presume to know enough about John to anticipate that he will act in such a way as to satisfy at least one desire I have.

All of this brings us to a definition of value. Value is the property we ascribe to something when we think it will satisfy a desire we have. Categorical ascriptions of value are anticipatory. The value of something increases as desire for satisfaction increases and as we see the object being valued as the supposed means to that desired satisfaction. Value is thus instrumental. It is the worth we ascribe to something as a potential satisfier of desire.

It is plain from what has been said that value statements are expressions of value judgments. Value judgments are the result of the careful intertwining of propositions or judgments about the truth of the external world, of the desires of the self, and of understandings of how things I the external world can satisfy the desires of the self. Error is of course possible at each point. We may misjudge our own desire. We may only guess that an object or event in the external world will be instrumental in satisfying us. We may possess or control something we value but may be unable to apply it to our desire, as the person who has always wanted to fly an airplane suddenly discovers that his pilot companion has just had a heart attack, and that he is now flying an airplane even though he does not know how to control it.

It is important at this point to distinguish two things which have usually been confused in the history of value discussions. This is the difference between “good” and “right.” Good is the proper domain of value judgments. Goods, values, are subjective, related to the desires of some real, existent self. It is here assumed that different persons have different desires and that these different persons therefore value things differently.

The term “right,” on the other hand, is not a value term as has so often been supposed. “Right” is a truth-type term. To use it correctly is to make a judgment about the world which is not dependent upon the desires of the self which is doing the judging. The term “right” concerns that which will bring about the happiness of other persons. Doing what is right is not necessarily doing that which those others think will satisfy their basic desires. To be concrete: if my neighbor is starving it is right for me to take nourishment to him.

But suppose my neighbor is not starving but it seems good to him to steal my food. If I wish to be righteous, I have the opportunity to do that which will help to meet his need. One of the ideas which I believe is that wickedness, such as stealing, never was and never will be happiness. So if I tempt my neighbor to steal, I may increase the good of stealing in his eyes, but it will not make him happy in the long run. So I must not tempt him to steal. If I am prompted by the Holy Spirit to share with him before he is tempted to steal, perhaps he will see the happiness and satisfaction that comes from sharing and will avoid the empty satisfaction of stealing.

The point of this discussion of right is that right is truth-related, not value-related. It is objective, not subjective. It is absolute, not relative. To find what is good I must know my own desire and what will satisfy it. To find what is right I must know what is my neighbor’s need and how to satisfy it.

The same difficulty that attaches to my discovery of good also attaches to my discovery of right. If I have difficulty in discerning my own true desires and in knowing what will satisfy them, an even greater difficulty attaches to discerning what my neighbor needs and what will satisfy him. Even as I cannot maximize my own decision as to what is my best good, I indeed cannot maximize my decision as to how best to help my neighbor.

But even if I cannot find my specific good or a particular right, I can understand the general nature of what they are. My mind is sufficient at least to compare my inadequacy with my ideal. And my mind is sufficient that I can place a high value on doing what is right. To make this clear, let us now return to the analysis of truth statements and relate the analysis of value statements to it.

Very possibly it is the functioning of desire in the stream of consciousness that makes possible the concept of self. Desire gives rise to action, as when a baby cries out of hunger. Action leads to reaction, and an external world begins to take form in the mind of the child. Frustration of desire through inappropriate action leads to refinement of the concept of the external world, separating data from construct. This separation enables constructs of the mind to come to consciousness, and noetic systems are refined. Refined noetic systems coupled with carefully gathered data make possible responsible value judgments. Value judgments about the world lead to our actions; for example, if I desire nourishment and perceive oranges hanging on a tree, and if I know that the oranges are good inside even though they taste nasty on the outside, I will value what I see and perhaps pick and eat. But it is important that I be able to judge this act of mine to be right or wrong. If I have to steal the orange, my initial valuation of good may be overridden by my desire to do what is right. Perhaps I err in choosing good and right, but I am often very successful in recognizing that certain acts are wrong.

What may we conclude from all of this, about ideas and values and their relationship? Perhaps the following: 1) Values are ideas. They are notions of instrumental worth, attributed to objects or events by individuals. Values are real to the extent some persons hold them. They are unreal for persons who do not hold them. 2) Some value attributions are correct, some are incorrect. Reflective value is always the judge of anticipatory valuing. 3) Values can be partly correct, as when the holding of values is temporarily socially satisfying but ephemerally so. An example would be walking a tightrope to show bravery, then living as a cripple ever after from falling. Time and perspective are all important in assessing the correctness of any assumption of anticipatory value. We can also be satisfied at a given moment, only to discover that a new vista of truth has uncovered in us a latent desire that surpasses or conflicts with the desire which has just been satisfied, as when someone discovers that the pleasure of accomplishment exceeds that of indolence. 4) Our understanding of the processes that operate in the universe is critical to our judgments of anticipatory value. Satisfaction is a function then of the truth we know about the universe. The more we know, the more correctly we can value things. Correct values make possible correct action to gain satisfactions. 5) We might conclude then that our beliefs about truth and our judgments about values are all relative to our desires and our desires are relative to the passage of time. In a real sense, we do not know what is true or good; we only feel what appears to us now.

Now some general further conclusions to all of this:

1. We can rightfully judge no man, including ourselves. We perforce will judge some men to be good, but we must in all humility forebear to judge the righteousness of any man.
2. To be able to judge every man is necessary before we can be righteous beings. We are righteous only when we can righteously judge everyone around us and so act as to maximize the happiness of each and every one. Since attainment of that lofty goal is impossible for any unaided human being, no man can of himself be righteous.
3. The only kind of being that could be righteous would be one that was omniscient and omnipotent, and whose only desire was to do what is right. A clear perception of truth coupled with unlimited power to do the good things the omniscient mind has shown would lead to the happiness of others, would make a righteous being. Only gods could be righteous beings.
4. Happiness comes only in doing good for others. Happiness is a function of righteousness. Only a righteous being can truly be happy.
5. Unaided human beings cannot become truly happy.

Let us turn now to the analogy which stimulated the title of this paper. We might liken the human being to a tree. The roots of the tree are the desires of an individual. The roots of a tree provide the drive, the pressure for growth and accomplishment, as desires drive a person. I remember cutting down a young Box Elder tree one spring. Sap swelled up and flowed copiously from the sawed trunk drenching the ground around the base of the stump. So do desires well up within us.

The trunk and scaffold of the tree we might liken to the noetic frame a person has, which is his understanding of the universe. A great and strong understanding can support a great weight of activity and accomplishment, just as a strong trunk and scaffold can support much fruit. I suppose we all have seen fruit trees broken down by the weight of their own growing product, just as we have seen people broken by the tasks for which they were not prepared in understanding and ability.

The branches and twigs of the tree are like the values a person has. Ideas and understandings are translated into particular choices through valuations, even as the trunk and scaffold of the tree transmit the drive and nourishment of the roots to the twigs.

The leaves of the tree we might liken unto our sensory capacity. Through our senses we observe the world and generate and gather strength for our understanding. By this means we receive words and other symbols from other people which also build our understanding, even as the leaves of the tree receive sunlight and carbon dioxide and manufacture the cellulose which accrues to the structure of the tree in its annual growth.

The fruit of the tree would be our actions, our words and deeds. A good tree brings forth good fruit, an evil tree, evil fruit. The kind of fruit may be determined by genetics, but the quality and quantity of the fruit are determined by the individual tree. The spread of its roots, the strength and shape of the trunk and scaffold, the spacing and direction of the limbs and twigs, all of these factors determine how much and how well the tree will bear fruit, be it good or evil.

As the strength of the roots of the tree are always transported through the trunk and branches, even so in human beings desires are always translated through beliefs (understandings) in the creation of values, and all action is a reflection of values. The power of our actions is a function of the strength, the power, of our desires. But desire not given a pattern and outlet by understanding is as sap that spills onto the ground. Desire comes to fruition only through ideas and values.

There are three basic morals to this analogy. First, desires, however good and noble, if filtered through error in the process of creating values, will produce poor fruit and will not yield satisfaction of desire. Second, we can see that evil desires, when translated through truth or error into values, will produce evil fruit. Third, we see that only as good desires are translated through truth can correct values be formed and thus good fruit is born. Perhaps an example would clarify each of these three.

First, an example of a good desire translated through false ideas to produce bad values and evil fruits. One basic human desire is to help other people who are ill. But not long since, the medical profession entertained the false understanding that bleeding a patient would improve his health. Bleeding was therefore a valued therapy. But the resulting fruit was unfortunate, as when the good doctors bled George Washington and doubtless contributed to his demise.

Second, an example of evil desire and good understanding. We might take Adolph Hitler as a prime case. He seemed to be driven by the desire for power and dominion, which I take to be an evil drive. But he and his collaborators knew a good deal about the world. They were sufficiently understanding of psychology and power to dominate the politics of their country. They understood social organizations sufficiently to build and awesome social mechanism for both internal control and external aggression. They understood science and technology sufficiently to equip their armies, navies and air force formidably. They understood economics enough to avoid internal insolvency. They understood almost enough to conquer the whole world. The values those desires and understandings produced were predictable: loss of personal freedom, demand of total loyalty to the state, inhumane ability to cause suffering in others in behalf of their cause, etc. The fruits were war, destruction of the Jews, untold suffering.

A third example, this one of good desires coupled with correct understanding, might come from the founding fathers of this nation. Their desire was to bless others. They understood that liberty was one of the greatest human needs, and that it could be attained only through a limited republican government of checks and balances. Thus they valued limited sovereignty for the government, with the remainder accruing to the people. The fruit they bore was the constitution of the United States of America.

I take it that it is not necessary to give an example of bad desires coupled with bad ideas. Prototypes of this variation abound everywhere, and we can be grateful that they seldom come to fruition. I suppose further that we all agree that good desires coupled with truth yield good values and fruits. But the question might be asked, “Which is worse: good desires coupled with false understanding or evil desires coupled with correct understanding?” This question results of course in a value judgment, but I suggest that the most troublesome of the world’s problems come from good desires coupled with error rather that from evil desires coupled with truth. As a case in point I would like to contrast Hitler’s socialism with communist socialism.

I again take Hitler’s socialism to be based on an evil desire, the domination of the world by the Aryan race, but applied with much skill and realism as to how to make things work in this world. Hitler possibly was finally contained and destroyed because so many persons of differing persuasions recognized the evil desire of his group. He forged his own opposition by the obvious malappropriateness of his intent. No outsider was surprised that his regime bore evil fruit of suffering and repression; these were expected as the natural consequence of a recognized evil desire.

A contrasting case is that of the communist movement of the twentieth century. I include in this many flavors, such as both British socialism and Russian socialism. Here we have a political movement with obviously good intent: the focus is on freeing mankind from economic want. It is difficult to find anyone who seriously agrees to the contrary of that desire, who believes that economic deprivation and differentiation are good. A little reflection shows, however, that the good desire of the communist or socialist approach is filtered through an unreal romantic notion of the reality of this world. For example, the supposition that forced cooperation is superior to voluntary cooperation as an efficient and effective means of producing the goods by which to relieve want has been shown to be untrue again and again. The supposition that people prefer economic security to personal liberty has been found wanting, necessitating iron and bamboo curtains.

Filtering the good intention of communism through such bad ideas about the world, has produced incorrect, unfortunate valuations which in turn have led to massive evil. Soviet communism has produced chambers of horrors equally as bad, if not much worse, than those of Nazi Germany. But the world looks on communism with some indulgence because the intent, the desire, seems defensible. I maintain that evil is evil, regardless of intent, and that only good intent coupled with truth about the nature of man and the universe can produce a good society. Only then will values be correct and appropriate to good desires. I further maintain that most human beings have good desires, and that the evils of our world are the flower and fruit of untruth more than of evil desire. The conclusion I reach then is that while we must not lose sight of the goodness of desire, our main concern to make a better world must be the beliefs we hold which give rise to our values.

It is plain that what the world needs is a new mode of gaining truth. Tradition is obviously inadequate. Science, the successor to tradition as a source of truth has done well, but is also obviously insufficient, for it can only deal with questions which have an empirical testability. Before this age sinks completely back into the morass of astrology, soothsaying and priestcraft, perhaps it will listen to the profound conclusion of David Hume:

“A person, seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity: … To be a philosophical Skeptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian; …” (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion).

I would like now to be specific about some of the values of our culture and the beliefs that create them. One obvious desire of American civilization is “the good life.” Perceived values of “the good life” are financial security, elimination of physical labor, elimination of pain, prolongation of life, high consumption of energy and goods, and social esteem. This partial list of values accounts for a vast bulk of the verbal and physical acts of persons in our society, such as the desire for publicity and degrees, fashion consciousness, demands for health care, the stifling of every discomfort with pills, proliferation of labor-saving devices or systematizing some form of slave labor, and the willingness to do almost anything that is financially profitable.

The acts mentioned clearly arise from the values mentioned as those values clearly arise from the desire for “the good life.” But the desire for this good life is transmitted through a set of beliefs, a set of ideas about the nature of people and the universe. In the case mentioned, the functional beliefs of the typical American are that man is only a physical body, that one does not exist after death in at least anything like the present situation, and that one has obligations only to himself. Now I admit that some of these typical Americans say, when asked theological questions, that they believe otherwise. But it has long since been shown that in many typical American religions theology is not correlated with religion, i.e., theory has little effect on practice. The functional belief is that selfishness, the concern for the comforts of the self, is the appropriate means to the good life. Selfishness may be itself a basic desire for some persons. But I assume there are many persons who would not be so selfish if they had true beliefs.

It is possible, for instance, to assume that the true nature of our situation is that the true person of each human being is his spirit, not his physical body, that we human beings will continue to exist forever with social and environmental concerns very much like the present, and that we are obliged to account to everyone whom our lives affect and to every physical thing around us which we use or abuse. I assume, of course, that all of us live on eternally, even after what we call death. None of these fundamental ideas I here mention as the true nature of our situation is susceptible of scientific proof or disproof. Nevertheless, every intelligent human being has some belief on each topic, which beliefs are the translating mechanism by which desires pass into values and become acts.

Should a person believe this second set of ideas, and have a desire for the good life, he would substitute a desire for anonymity in place of the honors of men, so that all men may have their fair share of esteem. Fashion consciousness would be replaced with the desire to help all persons be neatly and comfortably clad. Demand for personal health care would be replaced with concern for proper hygiene for all persons in order that disease might be prevented. Pain would often be endured as part of needed learning experience rather than treated as an evil. Personal physical labor would be seen as a valued contribution to the well-being of society and nature, replacing the obverse high consumption demands upon society and nature. The drive for amassing money would be replaced with the hunger to give service with as little thought for reward as possible.

What is the real difference between these two frames of mind? The one I have labeled as typical American assumes that the strong might as well take all they can, for life is soon over and ended, and if I am rude to someone, they probably cannot get back at me. The contrasting frame of mind assumes that we are on an eternal trip together; the weak will eventually become strong and all will be equal. We therefore would need to learn to cooperate and to treat everyone else as we would like to be treated, that rudeness will come home to haunt every selfish person as he is eternally confronted by and must account to his ancestors, his neighbors, and his posterity.

I suppose that everyone here is convinced that values and valuations are important to our lives or you would not be here. It has been my attempt as the main thrust of this paper to demonstrate that considerations of truth must go hand-in-hand with considerations of value and that our ideas of what is true inevitably guide and shape our values. I conclude that we must be very concerned that our ideas about the universe be true in order that our valuations will be correct.

A second emphasis of this paper has been to show that unaided human ability, individual or collective, is not sufficient to know those truths about the unseen world which are essential to correct values, nor is it sufficient to be able to make correct anticipatory valuations. This thrust has not been here fully demonstrated. I assert it, but also have full confidence that complete demonstration of this point can be made by any of you, for I have seen this demonstration made many times. I conclude from this that men must look to their spiritual resources to discover those truths and values which will enable them to attain happiness.

I further suggest that the key to using spiritual resources is to honor our own best ideas and feelings and through them to find the prophet of God. When we get a consonance between what we feel and what the prophet of God says, we will then find those truths and values which will enable every one of us to find happiness.

Finally, I witness to you that there is a true and living God who does reveal truth and correct values to men. The name of that God is Jesus Christ. The name of his true living prophet is Spencer Woolley Kimball. Thank you.