Universal value

“Every inspirational leader defines and, most importantly, lives by the values he holds dearest. It is in our nature to live by universal values, and generally speaking, we try and uphold them.”

“Mathematics and ethics have this much in common, if they claim to be sciences they must be based on pure concepts. Experience and history are further from representing the laws of ethics than nature is from the accurate realisation of mathematical ideas; but these laws and ideas are rational forms equally necessary, the one to be the rule of the senses, and the other to guide and form a judgment on life.”

“Universal values are the values of the people of the world. Hence they should not be confused with imperial values or Western values. The state of diversity recognizes the uniqueness of communities, warning against unnecessary standardization of global life. The state of conflict arises when community practices violate universal values.”

“Despite dissent [such as from the United States] a universal value has come into being, that an International Criminal Court should be established to prosecute and punish the most serious crimes defined in the Rome Statute.”

“Universal values are created by means of contract. Treaties and customs [are] the two major sources of universal values. ...flexibility allows nations to modify or even repeal universal values. ...Peremptory norms of general international law, also known as jus cogens, share the attributes of "permanent" universal values. ...Universal Democracy does not embrace the notion that all universal values are timeless. ...even a peremptory norm can be modified.”

“Values contained in a universal treaty are universal values, since no value is placed in a universal treaty if too many nations dispute its legitimacy.”

“To win the war against terrorism and help shape a more peaceful world, we must speak to the hundreds of millions of moderate and tolerant people in the Muslim world... who aspire to enjoy the blessings of freedom and democracy and free enterprise. These values are sometimes described as 'Western values,' but, in fact, we see them in Asia and elsewhere because they are universal values borne of a common human aspiration.”

“Rationally there is no means of showing that Religion is not pure illusion; for it does not enter into the intellectual life of the subject. The only demonstration that one can give of its universal value is to show that it alone responds to the aspirations and needs of the moral spirit, and that the pretension of man to raise himself above nature, although rendered legitimate by morality, can be satisfied only by Religion.”

“It is fair to conclude that religion is universal in two senses. On the one hand it springs from a universal need. On the other hand, it possesses a universal value, and cannot fail, however much of error or blindness there may be in it, to elevate and dignify life. True religion is better than false, but it is not less certain that religion is better than irreligion.”

“Some masterpieces will ever have a universal meaning for all mankind. The European can find keen pleasure in Japanese art, and Shakespeare's plays have long been translated into Chinese and acted in China.Yet if art can transcend space, can it also transcend time? The modes of art vary from age to age no less than the modes of human thought.”

“No doubt every scientific application assumes certain philosophic postulates which criticism has readily discovered: for instance, that there are laws of nature; that the principle of causality is of universal value, and of necessary application to phenomena, etc. This is used to prove—poor victory—that every philosopher and moralist alike does the same without hesitation, so that neither science nor ethics is independent of philosophic criticism.”

“The authors define a data type (following Scott's work) as "a set of operations specifying an interpretation of values of a universal value space." These data types are themselves elements of a universal domain. Variables are not considered. Data types are treated as arguments to procedures, functions, and data types.”

“What morality requires is that the individual in all circumstances shall make his individual interest that of the universal interest. We even censure those who do not succeed in reconciling in their own souls the contradictions between the individual interests of the universal and interests which are merely individual. "Morality triumphs over interests only because it is itself the supreme interest" (Pratica p. 242)”