Value (ethics and social sciences)
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Values can be defined as broad preferences concerning appropriate courses of actions or outcomes. As such, values reflect a person's sense of right and wrong or what "ought" to be. "Equal rights for all", "Excellence deserves admiration", and "People should be treated with respect and dignity" are representatives of values. Values tend to influence attitudes and behavior and these types include ethical/moral values, doctrinal/ideological (religious, political) values, social values, and aesthetic values. It is debated whether some values that are not clearly physiologically determined, such as altruism, are intrinsic, and whether some, such as acquisitiveness, should be classified as vices or virtues.
Fields of study
Ethical issues that value may be regarded as a study under ethics, which, in turn, may be grouped as philosophy. Similarly, ethical value may be regarded as a subgroup of a broader field of philosophic value sometimes referred to as axiology. Ethical value denotes something's degree of importance, with the aim of determining what action or life is best to do, or at least attempt to describe the value of different actions.
The study of ethical value is also included in
.Similar concepts
Ethical value is sometimes used synonymously with goodness. However, goodness has many other meanings and may be regarded as more ambiguous.
Types of value
Personal versus cultural
Personal values exist in relation to
Relative or absolute
Intrinsic or extrinsic
Philosophic value may be split into
An ethic good with instrumental value may be termed an
Summation
Intrinsic and instrumental goods are not mutually exclusive categories.
Universal values
Intensity
The intensity of philosophic value is the degree it is generated or carried out, and may be regarded as the prevalence of the good, the object having the value.[4]
It should not be confused with the amount of value per object, although the latter may vary too, e.g. because of
Instrumental value conditionality in this case could be exampled by every waffle not present, making them less valued by being far away rather than easily accessible.
In many
Positive and negative value
There may be a distinction between positive and negative philosophic or ethic value. While positive ethic value generally correlates with something that is pursued or maximized, negative ethic value correlates with something that is avoided or minimized[citation needed].
Protected value
A protected value (also
Protected values have been found to be play a role in protracted conflicts (e.g., the
According to
Economic versus philosophic value
Philosophical value is distinguished from
Nevertheless, economic value may be regarded as a result of philosophical value. In the
Personal values
Personal values provide an internal reference for what is good, beneficial, important, useful, beautiful, desirable and constructive. Values are one of the factors that generate behavior (besides needs, interests and habits) and influence the choices made by an individual.
Values may help common human problems for survival by comparative rankings of value, the results of which provide answers to questions of why people do what they do and in what order they choose to do them.[
Over time the public expression of personal values that groups of people find important in their day-to-day lives, lay the foundations of law, custom and tradition. Recent research has thereby stressed the implicit nature of value communication.[16] Consumer behavior research proposes there are six internal values and three external values. They are known as List of Values (LOV) in management studies. They are self respect, warm relationships, sense of accomplishment, self-fulfillment, fun and enjoyment, excitement, sense of belonging, being well respected, and security. From a functional aspect these values are categorized into three and they are interpersonal relationship area, personal factors, and non-personal factors.[17] From an ethnocentric perspective, it could be assumed that a same set of values will not reflect equally between two groups of people from two countries. Though the core values are related, the processing of values can differ based on the cultural identity of an individual.[18]
Individual differences
Schwartz proposed a theory of individual values based on surveys data. His model groups values in terms of growth versus protection, and personal versus social focus. Values are then associated with openness to change (which Schwartz views as related to personal growth), self-enhancement (which Schwartz views as mostly to do with self-protection), conservation (which Schwartz views as mostly related to social-protection), and self-transcendence (which Schwartz views as a form of social growth). Within this Schwartz places 10 universal values: self-direction, stimulation and hedonism (related to openness growth), achievement and power (related to self enhancement), security, conformity and tradition (related to conservation), and humility, benevolence and universalism (relate to self-transcendence).[19]: 523
Personality traits using the big 5 measure correlate with Schwartz's value construct. Openness and extraversion correlates with the values related to openness-to-change (openness especially with self-direction, extraversion especially with stimulation); agreeableness correlates with self-transcendence values (especially benevolence); extraversion is correlated with self-enhancement and negatively with traditional values. Conscientiousness correlates with achievement, conformity and security.[19]: 530
Men are found to value achievement, self-direction, hedonism, and stimulation more than women, while women value benevolence, universality and tradition higher.[20]: 1012
The order of Schwartz's traits are substantially stability amongst adults over time. Migrants values change when they move to a new country, but the order of preferences is still quite stable. Motherhood causes women to shift their values towards stability and away from openness-to-change but not fathers.[19]: 528
Moral foundations theory
Moral foundation theory identifies five forms of moral foundation harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sancity. Harm and fairness are often called individualizing foundations, while the other three factors are termed binding foundations. The moral foundations were found to be correlated with the theory of basic human values. The strong correlations are between conservatives values and binding foundations.[22]
Cultural values
Individual cultures emphasize values which their members broadly share. Values of a society can often be identified by examining the level of honor and respect received by various groups and ideas.
Values clarification differs from cognitive
- Value clarification consists of "helping people clarify what their lives are for and what is worth working for. It encourages students to define their own values and to understand others' values."[23]
- Cognitive moral education builds on the belief that students should learn to value things like democracy and justice as their moral reasoning develops.[23]
Values relate to the
Members take part in a culture even if each member's personal values do not entirely agree with some of the normative values sanctioned in that culture. This reflects an individual's ability to synthesize and extract aspects valuable to them from the multiple subcultures they belong to.
If a group member expresses a value that seriously conflicts with the group's norms, the group's authority may carry out various ways of encouraging conformity or stigmatizing the non-conforming behavior of that member. For example, imprisonment can result from conflict with social norms that the state has established as law.
Furthermore, cultural values can be expressed at a global level through institutions participating in the
Nonetheless, in warlike economic competition, differing views may contradict each other, particularly in the field of culture. Thus audiences in Europe may regard a movie as an artistic creation and grant it benefits from special treatment, while audiences in the United States may see it as mere entertainment, whatever its artistic merits. EU policies based on the notion of "cultural exception" can become juxtaposed with the liberal policy of "cultural specificity" in English-speaking countries. Indeed, international law traditionally treats films as property and the content of television programs as a service.[citation needed] Consequently, cultural interventionist policies can find themselves opposed to the Anglo-Saxon liberal position, causing failures in international negotiations.[26]
Development and transmission
Values are generally received through cultural means, especially
Factors that influence the development of cultural values are summarized below.
The Inglehart–Welzel cultural map of the world is a two-dimensional cultural map showing the cultural values of the countries of the world along two dimensions: The traditional versus secular-rational values reflect the transition from a religious understanding of the world to a dominance of science and bureaucracy. The second dimension named survival values versus self-expression values represents the transition from industrial society to post-industrial society.[29]
Cultures can be distinguished as tight and loose in relation to how much they adhere to social norms and tolerates deviance.[30][31] Tight cultures are more restrictive, with stricter disciplinary measures for norm violations while loose cultures have weaker social norms and a higher tolerance for deviant behavior. A history of threats, such as natural disasters, high population density, or vulnerability to infectious diseases, is associated with greater tightness. It has been suggested that tightness allows cultures to coordinate more effectively to survive threats.[32][33]
Studies in
Value system
A value system is a set of
Consistency
As a member of a society, group or community, an individual can hold both a personal value system and a communal value system at the same time. In this case, the two value systems (one personal and one communal) are externally consistent provided they bear no contradictions or situational exceptions between them.
A value system in its own right is internally consistent when
- its values do not contradict each other and
- its exceptions are or could be
- abstract enough to be used in all situations and
- consistently applied.
Conversely, a value system by itself is internally inconsistent if:
- its values contradict each other and
- its exceptions are
- highly situational and
- inconsistently applied.
Value exceptions
Abstract exceptions serve to reinforce the ranking of values. Their definitions are generalized enough to be relevant to any and all situations. Situational exceptions, on the other hand, are ad hoc and pertain only to specific situations. The presence of a type of exception determines one of two more kinds of value systems:
- An idealized value system is a listing of values that lacks exceptions. It is, therefore, absolute and can be codified as a strict set of proscriptions on behavior. Those who hold to their idealized value system and claim no exceptions (other than the default) are called absolutists.
- A realized value system contains exceptions to resolve contradictions between values in practical circumstances. This type is what people tend to use in daily life.
The difference between these two types of systems can be seen when people state that they hold one value system yet in practice deviate from it, thus holding a different value system. For example, a religion lists an absolute set of values while the practice of that religion may include exceptions.
Implicit exceptions bring about a third type of value system called a formal value system. Whether idealized or realized, this type contains an implicit exception associated with each value: "as long as no higher-priority value is violated". For instance, a person might feel that lying is wrong. Since preserving a life is probably more highly valued than adhering to the principle that lying is wrong, lying to save someone's life is acceptable. Perhaps too simplistic in practice, such a hierarchical structure may warrant explicit exceptions.
Conflict
Although sharing a set of common values, like hockey is better than baseball or ice cream is better than fruit, two different parties might not rank those values equally. Also, two parties might disagree as to certain actions are
An example conflict would be a value system based on
- Individuals may act freely unless their actions harm others or interfere with others' freedom or with functions of society that individuals need, provided those functions do not themselves interfere with these proscribed individual rights and were agreed to by a majority of the individuals.
- A society (or more specifically the system of order that enables the workings of a society) exists for the purpose of benefiting the lives of the individuals who are members of that society. The functions of a society in providing such benefits would be those agreed to by the majority of individuals in the society.
- A society may require contributions from its members in order for them to benefit from the services provided by the society. The failure of individuals to make such required contributions could be considered a reason to deny those benefits to them, although a society could elect to consider hardship situations in determining how much should be contributed.
- A society may restrict behavior of individuals who are members of the society only for the purpose of performing its designated functions agreed to by the majority of individuals in the society, only insofar as they violate the aforementioned values. This means that a society may abrogate the rights of any of its members who fails to uphold the aforementioned values.
See also
- Attitude (psychology)
- Axiological ethics
- Axiology
- Clyde Kluckhohn and his value orientation theory
- Hofstede's Framework for Assessing Culture
- Instrumental and intrinsic value
- Intercultural communication
- Meaning of life
- Paideia
- Rokeach Value Survey
- Spiral Dynamics
- The Right and the Good
- Value judgment
- World Values Survey
- Western values
References
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- ^ a b Inherent and Instrumental Values in Ethics by Stanley Riukas
- ^ Schwartz & Bilsky 1987, p. 550
- ^ Schwartz 1994
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- ^ Baron, Jonathan; Ritov, Ilana (2009). Protected Values and omissions Bias as Deontological Judgements (PDF). Elsevier Inc. pp. 134–35.
- PMID 9236161.
- ^ Maiese, Michelle. "Causes of Disputes and Conflicts." Beyond Intractability. Ed. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado. October 2003. Downloaded 13 February 2016.
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Santrock, J.W. (2007). A Topical Approach to Life-Span Development. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill
- ^ Lamy, Pascal, WTO Director-General, Speech to the European University Institute in Florence on 19 February 2011 (http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/sppl_e/sppl187_e.htm)
- ISBN 978-0-7656-2561-8.
- ^ Hacker, Violaine (2011a), "Building Medias Industry while promoting a community of values in the globalization: from quixotic choices to pragmatic boon for EU Citizens", Politické Védy-Journal of Political Science, Slovakia, pp. 64–74.
- ^ a b c d e f g Day, Nicholas (10 April 2013). "Parental ethnotheories and how parents in America differ from parents everywhere else". Slate. Retrieved 19 April 2013.
- ^ Day, Nicholas (9 April 2013). "Give Your Baby a Machete". Slate. Retrieved 19 April 2013.
- ^ Ronald Inglehart; Chris Welzel. "The WVS Cultural Map of the World". WVS. Archived from the original on October 19, 2013. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
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Further reading
External links
- Media related to Value (ethics) at Wikimedia Commons