Do all people have equal value regardless of their actions or is a person’s value based on their actions? Value is one of those words that pushes people in the direction of making and accepting bad answers to good questions. Of course, trivially so, is someone’s value dependent at least in part on their actions. People make themselves “useless” all the time, and their stock in all regards—economic, cultural, political, spiritual, etc.—tumbles accordingly.
It's an odd point. I wonder what's behind it. The debate, if there is one, rests on what sort of actions and what of value one is talking about. Reading David Horowitz's book Radical Son in this context is quite revealing, because it shows many Democrats liberating themselves from their actions and consequences by averting their eyes and by concluding their actions are for the good of the cause. They didn't care about having two standards of justice, writes Horowitz, because they automatically assumed, "knew" with certainty, that their standard was better. What difference did reality make? They were trying to build their own reality, their own castle in the air. Christians make a similar mistake, all religious people do, that what you believe is more important than what you do. This is backwards. Not in the sense that you must contribute to the GNP but, for example, in Mark Twain's comment that untested virtue is as weak as water. One needs to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
It's an odd point. I wonder what's behind it. The debate, if there is one, rests on what sort of actions and what of value one is talking about. Reading David Horowitz's book Radical Son in this context is quite revealing, because it shows many Democrats liberating themselves from their actions and consequences by averting their eyes and by concluding their actions are for the good of the cause. They didn't care about having two standards of justice, writes Horowitz, because they automatically assumed, "knew" with certainty, that their standard was better. What difference did reality make? They were trying to build their own reality, their own castle in the air. Christians make a similar mistake, all religious people do, that what you believe is more important than what you do. This is backwards. Not in the sense that you must contribute to the GNP but, for example, in Mark Twain's comment that untested virtue is as weak as water. One needs to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.