The present paper aims to approach the problem of relationship between personal values and common values, in connection to an ideal of humanity. We start from the thesis that the human being, essentially determined by spirit, identifies itself through a set of values freely appropriated on the ground of its own cultural tradition, cognition and aspirations. Personal and common values permanently diversify as a result of the development of knowledge and increasing spreading of information, as well as under the pressure of the changes produced in the historical-social environment. This process is accompanied by a conflict of values that explains the crisis of the contemporary culture. Finally, I consider that the person, as a human being, identifying itself through its own values. In this position, it has to be open to those common values that lead the mankind, such as: peace, freedom, justice, truth, beauty, good, equality, sacred etc. Preserving a balance between personal and common values, the universal culture must be led by the ideal of person’s self-improvement. The education and the norms derived from the personal and collective values have to be subordinated to achieving this ideal.

Creativity is an emerging field of research for philosophy. A diachronic cultural value and fundamental human ability, creativity poses a host of questions that challenge us both on a theoretical and practical level. In this paper we explore creativity through the use of problem-solving lateral thinking techniques, as part of the C2Learn European Community research program. Lateral thinking is defined and then classified into three distinct kinds: conceptual, diagrammatic and emotive. Each kind is then explicated and its basic principles examined, in an effort to shed light on the different ways the space of possible solutions is affected by each kind of lateral thought. It is this active engagement with the space of possibilities itself, that separates a mere problem-solver from an actual creator.

The aim of the present interdisciplinary paper is to study the attitudes that the parents and/or guardians of the family have towards the values that are shared in the educational institutions where their children study. A questionnaire was administered about values, which can be found at htppt://violencia.dste.ua.es, to 100 parents and family representatives of both sexes, from a parish school of secondary education that gives our Christian values. The results show a favorable attitude toward the values that are seen supported by the assistance and participation of the parents in the educational activities on values created for the educational institution during the school year. Respect had reached the highest average (4.49) and is, precisely, an institutional value along with responsibility. The majority of mothers assist, whereas a smaller proportion of fathers and guardians do. In general, the mothers have a better opinion than the fathers; the differences are significant in regards to obedience, respect and knowledge.

One branch of virtue epistemology, Virtue-Responsibilism, has argued that the intellectual virtues are analogous in structure to Aristotelian moral virtues. Like Aristotelian moral virtues, intellectual virtues are acquired dispositions of motivation, emotion, action, and perception. Responsibilists argue that intellectual virtues, e.g., open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and intellectual autonomy, are praiseworthy character traits, over which we have some control and for which we are (partly) responsible. If Responsibilism is correct, is there a distinction between moral virtues and intellectual virtues? I address two different arguments for the claim that there is a distinction, in the sense that the intellectual virtues are a special subset of the moral virtues. Both Linda Zagzebski and Jason Baehr have argued that the criteria for intellectual virtue include all of the criteria for moral virtue, but also include additional criteria that set the intellectual virtues apart from other moral virtues. I contend that Zagzebski’s and Baehr’s arguments fail. Ultimately, we won’t be able to determine whether Responsibilist intellectual virtues are distinct from moral virtues until we decide on the scope of ‘the moral’ and ‘moral virtue’.

The number of wars in which modern countries, primarily the United States and Great Britain, have been involved in the past one hundred years might leave the impression that peace movements there are ineffectual. Virtually every war in recent US and UK history has had its corresponding anti-war protests, and there is no record of a peace movement actively stopping an impending significant military action at inception, although evidence exists that peace movements have affected martial policy after the initial stages of a military action. Instead, peace movements seem to elicit ill will and accusations of self-preservation and treason. This paper will show that peace movements are thus censored through a sense of patriotism constructed by those in positions of influence, including government entities and the press. More important, this paper will argue that the reasoning of these pacifist movements and of their detractors can be more clearly understood through application of the work of philosopher G.E.M. (Elizabeth) Anscombe, particularly her essay “Modern Moral Philosophy,” than through other philosophers such as Richard M. Weaver.

Virtue and wisdom has the relation of mutual promotion which can be illustrated from following three aspects. Firstly, the wish of virtue promotes the person to cultivate wisdom, and the wish of wisdom can also promote the person to possess virtue. Secondly, in order to cultivate virtue, the formation of wisdom requires the person who intends to utilize wisdom to be virtuous. Thirdly, the elevation of virtue requires the elevation of wisdom and vice versa.

“Hume’s Problem” is one of those great theoretical problems in modern ethics and axiology studies, the essence of which is the logical relationship between value and fact. The legal ground and rational route from “fact” to “value” lie in the revealing of the relationship of negative unity between value and fact. The basis and medium of this relationship are the “factual contradiction” and “actual dilemma” faced by us. The means of negative unity between value and fact in study is one kind of “factual epistemic means”, which is one general study means both different and relevant to “value expression means”.

The centre of moral construction is the social virtue in the times of universal interaction. Social virtue can be defined as a combination of the morality of the public and the public universal morality. Social virtue, broadly speaking, refers to everyone and it has two aspects: positive and negative one. A positive aspect means that everyone has to accept the moral obligation as a kind of minimal requirement. A negative one shows that no one is permitted to destroy the public activity. The moral construction of citizens, should respect the individual freedom. Therefore, the issue of social virtue is the issue of human nature.

The communication is about the space graveyard as an educational tool for humanities classes, since it provides numerous attributes for the study of religion, art, and especially in philosophy classes, on the topic death and history. The communication aims to suggest a methodology that encourages new teaching practices that meet the contemporary teenager that every day is more inserted in virtual reality and real distanced every day. We believe that the study of representations of Death in the graveyard art will contribute to the approximation of teenager with related issues its own finitude, in addition to providing the student and the teacher a space of exchange, identification and reflection on various themes and values that permeate our lives and that are of fundamental importance for the composition of adults who will compose the society of the future. Working with the dying and the graveyard in classroom enables the realization of interdisciplinary work, besides providing a reflection about teaching practice, acting in the formation of the identity of the student, the ability to create and share meaningful experiences in education space, in developing reaffirmation of values and cultures and beliefs, as well as the formation of a future centered consciousness in the human condition, not just market.

The aim of our paper is to present a project within the dynamics of knowledge as an extension of Roman Suszko’s diachronic logic. A hierarchical system of knowledge can be seen as a toolkit for philosophical study in some aspects of the dynamics of knowledge, especially scientific knowledge. They can also be considered as models of rationality – they help to describe and analyze historical and sociological aspects of the dynamics of knowledge by means of formal methods. The project shares some connections with the following conceptions: the semantic epistemology of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, the diachronic logic of Roman Suszko, and the historical epistemology of Jerzy Kmita. Three main situations are investigated – a perfectly normal situation, the situation of constraint, and that of exasperation. These situations were introduced by Leszek Nowak in the framework of non-Marxian historical materialism. Our approach results in models (matrices) for such fundamental processes as innovation, development, and advancement as composed of three strictly axiological concepts. Also, we consider going beyond rationality and rational values. Therefore, we are interested particularly in the irrationality and counterrationality of scientific change. Finally, through a pragmatist approach, we can cope with responsibility within social structures.

The mode of thinking in ethics has been transformed in modern times. Whitehead’s impact is decisive for this change. First, Whitehead’s philosophy, in later period, expresses a kind of expectation of constructing a kind of metaphysics and cosmological/ideological system rooted in aesthetic values, or in empirical values. Second, in a certain sense, Whitehead’s ‘holistic value metaphysics’ helped in establishing a new ethical discipline: ecological ethics.

Civil identity is a societal construct of consciousness and communicative practices, the construal of public and private levels of social life emerging around the recognition of the values of individual freedom, dignity and uniqueness of man. It is influenced by the involvement of knowledge in the organization of social and economic development and is associated with the generation of cultural and emotional values and norms of everyday life. Civil identity exists as a discursive-ethical activity focused particularly on the person’s moral self-determination in the dealings with the community and society. Contemporary semiotic studies allow combining the development of the signs language and art representation with that of the physical senses and emotional perception of reality within one context of understanding. All human systems interact with the brain and are interdependent. Attention is drawn to fact that civil identity as ethical self-determination is congruent with the responsibility that exists in connection with the growth of civilization’s potential of empathy. In this way a constructive basis could be found for some relevant arguments and discussion in the areas of philosophy of civil society, economic history, semiotics and brain science.

This paper concerns the distinction between intrinsic and instrumental goodness, and the claim that intrinsic goodness is somehow prior to instrumental goodness. Although the idea is ancient, one version of it going back at least to Aristotle, and although it may initially seem obvious, I suggest that its truth is not obvious at all. In fact, I try to make out a case for thinking that all goodness is fundamentally goal-oriented and contributory. It is goodness for an objective, in the sense of being adequate for, or such as to be successful at, realizing an end. Success in and of itself is an intrinsic good, but it is a rather special object of preference or desire: it is a second order case of goodness, having no content without actions which are directed at an end. The Aristotelian picture of intrinsic goodness being chosen for its own sake and more primary than instrumental good is a misleading picture of the situation.

Value thinking, such as ethics and politics, has always been the main theme of traditional Chinese philosophy. Two major approaches for capturing the gist of value were formed in as early as pre-Qin dynasty: the “attribute view” of the Confucius school, and the “relation view” of the Daoist school. The persistent pursuit and the rich intellectual heritage cultivated throughout the long history has become the ground from which Chinese value philosophy rise two-thousand years later, and it is also the theoretical gene for its theoretical characters. During the last 30 years, enlighten by the Western philosophy dialogues, especially those between empiricism and pragmatism, contemporary Chinese value study started to address more universal and public issues, to further develop the theory of value relationship and subjective thinking on the basis of new practical experience and rational critiques, and to try to find a new way of thinking which can better fit in with contemporary context.

There are some conclusions which are very confusing and needed to be clarified in present comparison on Chinese and western views of harmony. The paper intends to discuss three popular and typical statements, namely, “Only individualism is promoted in western ethics”, “Virtue is promoted only in Chinese ethics” and “China has no law of western style in some sense” and tries to clarify some misguiding conclusions on the comparison between Western and Chinese views of harmony from the perspective of axiology.

The slogan ‘to the victor belong the spoils’ which, at one point, defined government policy under President Jackson of America in the 1800s is a rather unique but significant philosophical framework to inform our reflections on the question of human dignity, ethics and politics in postcolonial Africa. The spoils system also shares a long history in traditional Africa. Having defeated a rival tribe, the victor looted grain, livestock and even women as spoils of war. It was through brutal acts of colonial conquest and usurpation of territory from the indigenous peoples that the ideology of spoils almost became part of the modus operandi in modern Africa. While these historical facts are crucial, the aim in this work is not to retrace the origins of the spoils ideology but to project in philosophical terms the ways in which the modern and postcolonial state in Africa has perpetuated this practice in new forms and guises inimical to the welfare of its people. The predatory elite in Africa view power as entitlement to spoils of government. It is for this reason that the work concludes by examining how African morality can be used to fight the mentality of spoils, foster servant leadership, and create conditions for a new humanity to emerge.

This paper explores the virtue of integrity and certain paradoxes and problems with its assertion. It examines the social and pragmatic dimensions of integrity, especially as regards the norms of self-ascription. These generate a dangerous dialectic of perception and reality, and set up an illusory half-way house between inner possession and social attribution. The temptations to self-deception and impression management are inherent in any attempt at self-evaluation. This essay attempts to negotiate these conflicting tensions by advocating silence regarding one’s own integrity, not just instrumentally but as an intrinsic requirement of authentic integrity.

Nowadays, the process of globalization is speeding up, the interaction and collision of value among people in different areas of the world is getting more and more frequent, and serious. Philosophers are responsible to help people to get scientific and comprehensive understanding of the issue of value. All the theories, conceptions concerning the issue of value could be sorted out as three viewpoints: realism or monism, relativism or pluralism, skepticism or nihilism. Nihilist view is obviously nonsense. The relative view is not rational but it perplexes many people sometimes, it usually defends itself by some strategies. My paper aims to refute all the strategies of their defense and to expose their fallacies. It follows that only the realist view on value which considers only the humanitarian and all what is based on humanitarian could be the criterions of judging what is right or wrong, what is good or evil, what is beauty or ugly. Only with this universal and objective criterion, we could find the right way of the progress of human history.

According to the teachings of ancient philosophers, a wise person does not always know everything. On the other hand, knowledge by itself does not make a person wise (Heraclitus). Wisdom is part of the process of cognition to the extent that the latter determines practical activity of a person and, first of all, his or her moral behaviour. As Aristotle pointed out, wisdom is knowledge of the Good. Ancient thinkers ascribed the property of wisdom to experiential knowledge and perceived wisdom in various kinds of art and trade, in state government. The subsequent history of philosophical thought shows, that wisdom itself contains, yet another dialectical contradiction – a contradiction between cognitive and axiological principles. Wisdom is the fruit of the knowledge of life, but knowledge in its axiological aspect, experiential understanding of values in their vitality. Wise knowledge is not simply a possession of information, but knowledge – often intuitive – of the value of information. Wisdom is an intuition of reason, a synthesis of rational and intuitive comprehension of values. Philosophy as love of wisdom – like wisdom itself – presupposes attention both to cognitive and to value-oriented human activity.

Since Husserl raised the mysterious concept of life world in his later philosophy, there has been a great change in western philosophy in the 20th century. It not only causes the philosophical change in theoretic content and trend which leads to existentialism, neo-pragmatism, but also brings about the radical transformation in understanding on philosophy itself. Hence, the touch between philosophy and life, and the basis of philosophy in life world is getting clear more and more. This change gives us a new angel in thinking about the difference and intercourse between Chinese philosophy and western philosophy. There might be some fresh elements in contemporary philosophical research if we can put Chinese philosophy and western philosophy together from the aspects of life modes, life ideals and the reflective ways in them.