Value (personal and cultural)
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- "Values" redirects here. For other uses, see Value.
Each individual has certain underlying values that contribute to their value system (see value in semiotics). Integrity in the application of a "value" ensures its continuity and this continuity separates a value from beliefs, opinion and ideas.
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[edit] Characteristics
Values are implicitly related to a degree of behavioural freedom or autonomy by human beings; values steer or guide the person, on the basis of internally chosen options. Thus, values imply the (conscious) prioritising of different behavioural alternatives which are perceived to be possible for the individual. Values can apply to groups (such as 'American values') or individuals (religious values), and can be both processes or goals. In example, democracy is both a process, and a goal.
[edit] Definition
From the wiktionary entry:
"The quality (positive or negative) that renders something desirable or valuable; 'the Shakespearean Shylock is of dubious value in the modern world'."
"An ideal accepted by some individual or group; 'he has old-fashioned values'."
Principles, standards or qualities considered worthwhile or desirable by the person who holds them.
Abstract ideas about what a society believes to be good, right, and desirable.
Those qualities of behavior, thought, and character that society regards as being intrinsically good, having desirable results, and worthy of emulation by others.
Assumptions, convictions, or beliefs about the manner in which people should behave and the principles that should govern behavior.
Values are our subjective reactions to the world around us. They guide and mold our options and behavior. Values have three important characteristics. First, values are developed early in life and are very resistant to change. Values develop out of our direct experiences with people who are important to us, particularly our parents. Values rise not out of what people tell us, but as a result how they behave toward us and others. Second, values define what is right and what is wrong. Notice that values do not involve external, outside standards to tell right or wrong; rather, wrong, good or bad are intrinsic. Third, values themselves cannot be proved correct or incorrect, valid or invalid, right or wrong. If a statement can be proven true or false, then it cannot be a value. Values tell what we should believe, regardless of any evidence or lack thereof.
Beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an emotional investment (either for or against something); "he has very conservative values"
[edit] Categories
In this context a value (e.g. Truth, Freedom, Greed) is part of the core value system from which one operates or reacts. These values can be grouped into six categories:
- Ethics (good - bad, virtue - vice, moral - immoral - amoral, right - wrong, permissible - impermissible)
- Aesthetics (beautiful, ugly, unbalanced, pleasing)
- Doctrinal (political, ideological, religious or social beliefs and values)
- Innate (inborn values such as reproduction and survival, a controversial category)
- Non-use/passive - includes the value based on something never used or seen, or something left for the next generation.
- Potential/option - the value of something that's known to be only potentially valuable, such as a plant that might be found to have medicinal value in the future.
[edit] Value System
A value system is the ordered and prioritized set of values (usually of the ethical and doctrinal categories described above) that an individual's culture upholds.
[edit] Virtues
A virtue is a character trait which is evaluated as being good. Some values recognized as virtues in various Western cultures might include:
Societies have values (norms) that are largely shared among many of the participants. In this case those participants share a culture, even when an individual participant's cultural values might not entirely agree with some normative values sanctioned in the larger society.
[edit] Clash of differing Values
If an individual expresses a value which is in conflict with their society's norms, the society can carry out various ways of stigmatizing or conforming the individual. For example, imprisonment can result from conflict with social norms that have been established as law.
