Meta-Values is a philosophical introduction to the psychology of constructive beliefs and values. It explores the origin, structure and content of man's beliefs and resulting values and examines them for their effect on mental health and the experience of psychological quality. The book also introduces three fundamental "meta-values" as the basis of all beneficial human values.
This work defends an interrelated set of theses in value-theory, normative ethics and meta-ethics. The three Parts correspond to these three areas. Part One (Value) defends a biocentric theory of moral standing, and then the coherence and objectivity of belief in intrinsic value, despite recent objections. Intrinsic value is located in the flourishing of living creatures; specifically, a neo-Aristotelian, species-relative account is supplied of wellbeing or flourishing, in terms of the development of the essential capacities of one's species. There follows a theory of priorities, or of relative intrinsic value, in which the satisfaction of basic needs takes priority over other needs and over wants, and the interests of complex and sophisticated creatures over those of others, where they are at stake. Part Two defends a practice-consequentialist theory of the criteria of rightness and of obligation, which leaves room for supererogation, underpins our intuitions about justice, commends population growth only where it is genuinely desirable, and responds better than act-consequentialism to objections like that concerned with the separateness of persons. Part Three sifts meta-ethical theories, rejects moral relativism, and defends a cognitivist and naturalist meta-ethic. In defending analytical naturalism, it takes into account the latest literature on supervenience. By responding to recent discussions, this study supersedes my Theory of Value and Obligation (1987). It is equipped with detailed end-notes and an ample bibliography, which could prove a research tool of itself.
"The book gives a uniquely comprehensive philosophical analysis of Nietzsche's thinking. It shows how this thinking has its unifying focus on values--both the past and prevailing values that his psychologies and genealogies explain, and the new values that he himself creates and defends. It maps, in detail, the argumentative structure of his thinking as it bears on this central topic. It argues that his ultimate ambition is to show how we can incorporate the truth about values into our own valuing-and that he is therefore more deeply committed to truth than often supposed. The book's chapters examine twelve key concepts, each at the heart of a network of problems and ideas. A first group of concepts (value, life, drives, affects) treat the bodily valuing he attributes to our drives and affects; a second group (human, words, nihilism, freedom) treat the valuing we carry out in our deeply-flawed conception of ourselves as moral agents; the third group (the Yes, self, creating, Dionysus) project the values he offers as the lesson of his critiques--values centered on a universal affirmation expressed in the idea of eternal return. Each chapter organizes the rich complexity of Nietzsche's thought on its topic, and works to resolve contradictions, often by showing how he treats the concepts and problems as historical. The book synthesizes these detailed analyses into a systematic picture of his thought"--
This book offers a comparative analysis of value and identity changes in several post-Soviet countries. In light of the tremendous economic, social and political changes in former communist states, the authors compare the values, attitudes and identities of different generations and cultural groups. Based on extensive empirical data, using quantitative and qualitative methods to study complex social identities, this book examines how intergenerational value and identity changes are linked to socio-economic and political development. Topics include the rise of nationalist sentiments, identity formation of ethnic and religious groups and minorities, youth identity formation and intergenerational value conflicts.
This book answers the question of how soft factors such as corporate cultures and individual and corporate values can be transparently steered. With its C4 management tool and reflecting the seven driving forces of corporate culture, the Values Cockpit is a powerful solution designed to steer all dimensions and processes of a company, pursuing a lean approach. The book links strategic approaches on how to steer a company towards excellence with insights into the driving forces of human thoughts and actions. It subsequently introduces the Values Cockpit, which allows individual corporate cultures to be developed and controlled on the basis of a rational approach. It has since become commonplace that, for the best companies in the world, it is their great corporate culture that sustains their excellence and economic success. In order to establish such a corporate culture, all corporate values must be thoroughly controlled, steered and measured. This book serves as an essential guide, helping companies to reach these goals and ensure their sustainable economic success.
There is a truly enormous literature on using stated preference information to place a monetary value on environmental amenities. This three volume set provides the key papers for understanding the historical development of contingent valuation, its theoretical and statistical foundations, and the major controversies. It also contains representative papers covering all of the major application areas in environmental valuation.
Web Standards: Mastering HTML5, CSS3, and XML provides solutions to the most common website problems, and gives you a deep understanding of web standards and how they can be applied to improve your website. You will learn how to create fully standards-compliant websites and provide search engine-optimized Web documents with faster download times, accurate rendering, correct appearance and layout, lower development cost, approved accessibility, backward and forward compatibility, and easy maintenance and content updating. The book covers all major Web standards, focusing on syntax, grammar, recommended annotations, and other standardization concerns. Web Standards: Mastering HTML5, CSS3, and XML is also a comprehensive guide to current and future standards for the World Wide Web. As a web developer, you'll have seen problems with inconsistent appearance and behavior of the same site in different browsers. Web standards can and should be used to completely eliminate these problems. Web Standards: Mastering HTML5, CSS3, and XML describes how you can make the most of web standards, through technology discussions as well as practical sample code that you can use for your own sites and web applications. It also provides a quick guide to standard website creation for Web developers. Learn techniques and best practices to achieve full standards compliance Write valid markup, styles, and news feeds from scratch or standardize websites by redesign Restrict markup to semantics and provide reliable layout
This guide extensively covers the latest developments through PHP4, including extensive coverage of Zend. PHP functions are clearly illustrated with detailed examples, and there is unbeatable coverage of using PHP alongside MySQL.
You have built your website, you have taken up blogging, you have started a business online, now all you have to do is lie back and watch the money come rolling in. Right? Wrong. Learn the organic techniques and methods that will let the world know where your website is, using real life case studies and techniques, this book shows you how to make sure that you rank for popular key words on Google, Yahoo, Bing. You will learn the importance of picking the right keywords, writing great copy, and how to generate thousands of back links from high authority sites. whether you are start up entrepreneur or aspiring search engine optimization analyst. learn the does and donts of Google, Bing and Yahoo. You will learn practical Blackhat techniques that will get you banned, you will learn how to avoid them and use methods that will guarantee your indexing and high rankings. This is as real as it gets, take your business, blog and website to the next level, become the next toast of the online world and do it all ethically!
This book has already been published in Italy by the university press Aracne (http://www.aracneeditrice.it/aracneweb/index.php/pubblicazione.html?item=9788854857957). Its twofold purpose is to define some dimensions of individual autonomy (in particular, existential, functional and relational autonomy) and promote their dissemination within society, mainly through the introduction of some legal and economic tools. Starting from references to authors such as Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, John Rawls, Theodor W. Adorno, Jurgen Habermas and Amartya Sen, this book highlights the key role of individual autonomy for rediscovering a sense of community and dealing with social challenges. This implies analyzing the difference between the currently widespread individualism (as the free choice of means) and individuality (which focuses on the determination of personal objectives). The book also illustrates the contribution that inner motivations, on which autonomy is grounded, can make to tackling several important issues of our time, such as pollution, the growing sway of finance over the economy, the unbalanced distribution of income and the choke-hold of lobbyists on politics. This could mainly take place through transactions involving the exchange not only of actions (as in our daily life) but also of inner motivations (values and metavalues). Although the positive effects of autonomy are primarily of an economic nature, the author has followed an essentially interdisciplinary approach, based on the assumption that the fragmentation of knowledge prevents us from fully grasping the potential of individuals and from questioning the cultural and social mechanisms that hinder its development.
