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Ethics and Values / Unit 7   Ethics 303 short lesson, about 20 seconds

The Regress Argument

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The idea

Chains of instrumental value cannot run forever: each "for the sake of" must end at something valued for itself, or nothing in the chain was worth anything.

In practice

Why the alarm? For work. Why work? For pay. Why pay? Somewhere the answers stop at a life — the classic regress, and its floor.

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