[Morality Games]

I'm not asking how we evaluate or the products of evaluations (our values)... I'm asking why we need to evaluate something in the first place.

Here's my answer (and the essentials of my view on ethics):

A man needs an ethical code because his survival requires it.

That's a common consideration and outcome, but valuation is not limited to personal survival.

A man must act to gain/keep a value in order to survive.

Definitely.

The highest value is one's own life and one must act to keep it, in other words, man eats food, drinks water, finds medical care, etc. because he wants to stay alive. Man must pursue some sort of value in order to stay alive.

The highest value is whatever each individual decides it is, although the kind of value they will have depends on the constitution of their nature and the world around them, meaning only a finite (though very large) number of values are possible for any being to adopt.

Anyway, it's possible my brother's life is more valuable to me than my own. If I derive my joy from that, then power to me, it is a perfectly authentic expression of my existence. I don't condemn those people who think their lives are more valuable than their brother's though. More power to them. Both my reasoning and theirs are based on sound logic.

How does man discover what values are proper for his survival? How does man define what values further his life? The science that deals with those questions is ethics.

Ethics should not be considered a science. It falls short of the criteria (does not fulfill the logical conditions in the same way physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology do). It is a practical discipline, like engineering, which while giving nod to scientific research, is not science itself.

Put simply, the logical form of ethics does not fall coincide with the abstract logical form we designate as 'science' in the same way the study we call 'chemistry' does. Calling ethics a 'science' is a nominal gesture (nothing but empty words).

Since man requires a code of ethics, or a code of values to survive he evaluates a particular action with his life as the standard of value.

Sounds religious enough to be a dogma. A man does not require any kind of code (most people don't have codes) even to survive. They also don't really require values any more or less than they require sight -- they simply have it because that was how things turned out, and they make use of it because it is an immediate part of what they are.

A value is a necessary consequence of being an evaluator (ability intrinistic to humans), in the same way sight is a necessary consequence of functional eyes (an ability intrinistic to functional eyes). However, there is no quality intrinistic to all evaluators which nessitates they must value their life (survival, as you put it) above all else.

It is improper for a man to pursue a value that harms his life; it is only proper for a man to pursue a value that furthers his life.

And who is the judge that decides that is the case? From whence comes the authority to judge for everyone what shall be right and wrong? Why does their greater than mine? I should value my life more than a loved one because they say so?

Now, I also hold the view of objective morality. Why? Because I hold that values are objective.

Everything is 'objective' in the sense it exists in-itself, with its own actual features, abilities, and potentiality to change (in effect, all of its own powers).

Values are objective because the good is an aspect of reality in relation to man. In other words, anything that is good for man can be validated by a fact of reality. For example:

Pretty much point for point, 'In relation to man' is synonymous with 'subjective determination'. It is only objective in so far as it is a subjective (personal) determination.

1. Fact: In order to survive a man needs food. 2. A man evaluates this fact by using his life as the standard of value. 3. Man realizes that eating food is good.

Until Man realizes that, because he was sating his hunger, he was late to meet his wife, and consequently she was raped and murdered by some other guy. So, from there on out, food tastes bitter to him. I'm not saying that eventually he shouldn't get over it, but the valuables of his existence can certainly transcend his own life.

Of course, this isn't an issue that has a morally complex issue, but that is the essential view I have on ethics.

Well, I'll wait to see your next explanation before casting judgment then.