While words have a normative value as part of their common use, I think the reason you’re getting so many down votes for those comments is that “value” is only a behavioral mechanism on our own part. Lots of people ascribe negative or positive values to event X. Great. But that’s just a response in the human brain(s) that observe(s) event X, not a part of event X itself.
And to say that “his courage was vicious”—you know what, I like that. I’m going to look for a way to use that in prose.
I think the reason you’re getting so many down votes...
I think it’s more likely that I got downvotes because I was 1) telling people they’re using a word wrong, and 2) invoking Aristotelian idioms in a context not friendly to Aristotle.
I’m not concerned.
“value” is only a behavioral mechanism on our own part. Lots of people ascribe negative or positive values to event X. Great. But that’s just a response in the human brain(s) that observe(s) event X, not a part of event X itself.
That really isn’t relevant. The words are also produced by human brains, and are often about value. If you say “good” and mean “bad”, then you’re using the word wrong. At a minimum, that’s bad communication. And some words have “good” or “bad” as part of their meaning. If you don’t want to imply virtue, you can say (for example) “bold” or “fearless” instead of “courageous” (if you want to imply vice, you can say “brash” or “reckless”). There are many words.
While words have a normative value as part of their common use, I think the reason you’re getting so many down votes for those comments is that “value” is only a behavioral mechanism on our own part. Lots of people ascribe negative or positive values to event X. Great. But that’s just a response in the human brain(s) that observe(s) event X, not a part of event X itself.
And to say that “his courage was vicious”—you know what, I like that. I’m going to look for a way to use that in prose.
I think it’s more likely that I got downvotes because I was 1) telling people they’re using a word wrong, and 2) invoking Aristotelian idioms in a context not friendly to Aristotle.
I’m not concerned.
That really isn’t relevant. The words are also produced by human brains, and are often about value. If you say “good” and mean “bad”, then you’re using the word wrong. At a minimum, that’s bad communication. And some words have “good” or “bad” as part of their meaning. If you don’t want to imply virtue, you can say (for example) “bold” or “fearless” instead of “courageous” (if you want to imply vice, you can say “brash” or “reckless”). There are many words.