What are Values?

[trish]

What are values? Are values distinct from the things we value? There are the things we value, and the value of the things we value; i.e. the value inherent in those things. What are core values? What is a value system? Do people really have divergent value systems?

Most of the people on these forums value pornography. Is pornography a value? Or is there an especially erotic aesthetic in the photographs we find here that speaks to us in particular? Perhaps the value we find in pornography is it’s power to arouse us sexually. Clearly what arouses on person won’t necessarily arouse another. But I think it’s an unusual human being that doesn’t value sexual arousal. It’s a value everyone has but few own up to.

Most people value education. Of course education is not a value. Truth, knowledge and intellectual integrity are the values we seek and we aspire to educate ourselves. Even the few who mock the university education and tout the self-made man, do so because in their estimation it is the self-made man who is the more likely to be knowledgeable, have intellectual integrity and speak the truth.

Most people value life. Of course we still eat living things. We don’t care so much if others get ill and can’t afford the simple medical procedures that would save them. When we say we value life, we’re usually thinking of our own. We still have capital punishment and we still fight wars. Nevertheless most of us will say that we value life in some general sort of way. Even pro-choice feminists and gun toting NRA members who brag about how they’d kill anyone who crosses their threshold uninvited. They just disagree on the details. Is a small colony of a few hundred cells embedded in the uterine wall of a woman an independent life. Is the value of the trespasser’s life equal to that of your own?

It seems to me that almost all human beings have the same values. We value family, truth, wisdom, life, security, joy, freedom etc. Talk of divergent value systems has always mystified me...the questions posed above.

[rodinuk]

You're playing around with the semantics of a term 'value' like a cat playing with a dead mouse.

....and no global generalisation thank you.

[trish]

Of course "semantics" is "meaning" and that's exactly my question, what do the words and phrases "value" and "core value" and "value system" mean to people?

[rodinuk]

ok then....


But I think it’s an unusual human being that doesn’t value sexual arousal. It’s a value everyone has but few own up to.
Sexual arousal is valued unless it's at an inopportune time but a transgender might find the arousal resulting in an unwanted erection of no value whatsoever.

Corporate values can be divergent because they're polarised to that company's interests although they may encompass more altruistic values e.g. charity giving

[trish]

Still we all value arousal. So it's not that our values diverge but rather we disagree on when and how to express and enjoy those values.

I'm not sure what you mean by "corporate values." E.g. Corporate lobbyists say they value fair and free "competition," even though they lobby for advantages and corporate security. But granted that they do value competition, can you name the value of competition. The line often given is that competition enhances, corporate strength, corporate fitness etc. So competition per se is not the value, strength and fitness are. We all value strength and fitness.

[tsadriana]

I value a good life,good friends,nice sexy lingerie ,my new mobile phone heheheh ,good sex with quality men lol,I value a good conversation ...

[rodinuk]

Corporate values are sets of stated values which the workforce must adhere/aspire to and ultimately be measured against.

BP's corporate values:
http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=903935 2&contentId=7072114

[trish]

Sounds like we (adriana and i) have convergent values. What I'm wondering though is whether the new mobile phone or the good conversation are values in and of themselves, or that we value them because they have value. Perhaps a new mobile phone and a good conversation exhibit some overlapping values; both have something to do with communicating, exchanging ideas and stories and relating to people...if we had to come up with a word for the value in doing that, what would the word be?

[trish]

I'm not sure "One Team" is a value, but okay. I'm also a little uneasy about the conjecture that a company can value anything. What we're given is what an internal committee came up with when given the assignment: advertise something about our corporate values. I'd rather focus on the value systems of people.

We're told all the time that as individual people we fall into groups that have conflicting values systems. Do we really? I kinda doubt it.

[tsadriana]

Sounds like we have convergent values. What I'm wondering though is whether the new mobile phone or the good conversation are values in and of themselves, or that we value them because they have value. Perhaps a new mobile phone and a good conversation exhibit some overlapping values; both have something to do with communicating, exchanging ideas and stories and relating to people...if we had to come up with a word for the value in doing that, what would the word be?
Comunication x

[rodinuk]

I'm not sure "One Team" is a value, but okay. I'm also a little uneasy about the conjecture that a company can value anything. What we're given is what an internal committee came up with when given the assignment: advertise something about our corporate values. I'd rather focus on the value systems of people.

We're told all the time that as individual people we fall into groups that have conflicting values systems. Do we really? I kinda doubt it.

A company can value its assets such as its workforce and other assets like buildings, plant, fleet and brand, IPR etc which enable it to generate money to pay shareholders, Government or invest in its stated aims.

An individual can: have their own value system
follow a religion that has its value system
work for a company that has another value system
belong to a political party that has its value system

or any combination thereof.

Enough for me thanks. I value my sanity :dancing:

[trish]

True, we exchange messages when we converse and we exchange messages when we use the phone and that's what communication is: the exchanging of messages. But is communication value? Different communications can be valuable for different reasons. The communication that tells me my flight has been cancelled is valuable for a different reason than the communication I have when I dine with a friend and console her 'cause of her recent breakup. It seems to me, that communication is just to complex and wierd a thing to be a value.

I'm sorry for being really unclear about this...which is why I started this thread...'cause I find this talk about values to be really confusing. It has sidetracked our politics, and divided us over a lot a confusing nonsense (imo).

[trish]

A company can value its assets such as its workforce and other assets like buildings, plant, fleet and brand, IPR etc which enable it to generate money to pay shareholders, Government or invest in its stated aims.
So assets are valuable, but are they values? What is it about an given asset that makes it valuable?

The value systems you mention seem to be more about what various groups value then about what about what those values are. My tentative contention is that we have the same values but we find those values in different things. Of course it's also possible that having the same values, we may prioritize them differently.

(I gotta go now too, but I'm be checking back in)

[hippifried]

Even within an individual interpretation, the meaning of the term "value" changes contextually. It's too overly spinnable & way too over used, to the point of being meaningless.

[BluegrassCat]

If you're talking about the values that divide us politically, liberals tend to value fairness, equality and care (or preventing harm) while conservatives tend to value sanctity, authority, and strength. Everyone appears to value those things somewhat, but it's a question of which is more important. And of course to say that "liberals believe x" is not at all explanatory since it's really more that we call them liberals because they believe x.

[Prospero]

Value is a complex word. if as I suspect Trish, you are talking about one's basic values in life - then I think that most of us would agree here (above and beyond the political spectrum). Honesty, life, decency, fair play, justice, honour, the Earth, the rights of others.... liberte, egalite fraternite.

What do I value in my life... well the above plus my family, my friends, my lovers (past and present), my health, my freedom. my human rights. my skills and talents. My cats.
I enjoy my possessions - but do not value them beyond the fact of their existence. possession is temporary.

[Stavros]

At a simple level, I think values are those things, mostly abstract, which we believe benefit our lives. Honesty, kindness, love, justice and entertainment are things with value.

The value in honesty comes from its expression of virtue, or truth -you value someone's opinion not just because it may resemble your own, but because you recognise a truth in what they say.

The value in kindness can be expressed through sharing, be it things or time -kind people will do something for you even if you did not ask them to do it, and at no cost to themselves.

The value of love is that can not only benefit your life, but benefit others too.

Justice is a value when what is perceived to be a wrong -a personal wrong or a social wrong -such as theft- is corrected: your stolen goods are returnd, the thief is punished. Justice can be political, it can also be emotional -justice as a value suggests that power may not necessarily be an expression of force alone.

If entertainment has value, it is because it benefits life through the generation of laughter, through the admiration of physical, intellectual and emotional skills -for example in music, dance and the visual arts.

No doubt Sophocles, speaking through Plato could show how something that benefits ME, is gained at the expense of someone else, but that would not be a value.

Marx based a large part of his analysis of capitalism on the way that value has been transferred from people to Material things or commodities, and was concerned to show how capitalism tends to turn everything into commodities, including human beings, so that a human being becomes valued for his or her ability to operate a machine, rather than for the operation of their brain or their heart.

Philippa Foot would argue against a relativist conception of value. Rather than arguing that values change in their contexts, she would argue that there are essential properties to values that do not change, it is the contexts that change.

Some things in life should be non-negotiable: treating other people with respect to their person, for example is a universal value be it Ancient Greece or contemporary London.

To me the big debate is on values and relativism -post-modernism tried to argue that there are no essential, fixed facts, that these change across time. The definition -even the practise- of something called homosexuality in Ancient Greece is different from what it is today, but today it is possible to argue that homosexuality does not exist, because gender only exists as a category defined in law, in 'real life' gender has no meaning other than whatever the person concerned attaches to it. But what post-modernism says about meaning can not be applied to everything, that is where the debate becomes more complex.

[trish]

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful responses.

Recently I’ve been listening to people explaining their thinking about the upcoming presidential election. One Hispanic woman loves Dream Act proposal but she’s leaning toward for Romney because his values and the GOP values are closer to hers. When pressed all she can come up with is that Romney’s stand on gay marriage is commensurate with hers. When pressed further she just feels that if the nation returned to Christian values things would get better. Her take is not an unusual one. It parallels the trumped up culture war attitude manufactured by Fox News.

It occurred to me that my values and this woman’s values really can’t be all that divergent. We both probably claim Love, Honesty, Truth, Security etc. as values. We both probably hold that marriage and family are institutions that secure these values for large numbers of people and for ourselves in particular. We seem to differ on the availability of these institutions to gays and lesbians. It seems wrong to say she and I have different values. We have the same values, and we probably even have them prioritized in approximately the same way. I think our disagreement is much less fundamental than O’Reilly and other culture warriors would have you believe.

(I do realize that the view of value as distinct from the institutions, behaviors and goods that exhibit those values is reminiscent of Platonism, but I don’t believe the picture is essentially Platonist.)

[Stavros]

Trish, I think that is why some argue that it is the context that changes, not the values. If someone is not comfortable with the idea of a 'gay relationship', that is the problem, not the values associated with marriage -sharing, caring, creating a home and so on. I think if anything it exposes the irrational -if we can assume that it is rational for a human being to want something that benefits its life. It is irrational for someone who is not going to be forced to be 'gay' to be intolerant of it. There are many ways of accepting same-sex relationships with the Christian faith, because Christianity values the ingredients that make all relationships successful and valuable -but if people want to create a context that challenges the values, as I say, I think they are diverting attention from the values and drawing it to their prejudice.

[Prospero]

I am sure your values and hers are largely congruent. But she also perhaps adheres to an inflexible belief system that informs her that Lesbianism, Gayness etc are deviant, unnatural and - thus almost certainly sinful. This in the abstract she hates the sin and with it, sadly the sinner. You cannot expect rationality in such a situation where the values are derived from rules in turn taken from such codifications as the Bible, The Torah, The Qur'an etc - viewed in literal terms. The centuries of subtle interpretation and analysis that Christians, Jews and - to a lesser extent Muslims - have subjected their sacred texts to are usually ignored by the new breed of literalists.

[BluegrassCat]

It seems wrong to say she and I have different values. We have the same values, and we probably even have them prioritized in approximately the same way. I think our disagreement is much less fundamental than O’Reilly and other culture warriors would have you believe.


I agree that you share the same values with this woman and this particular disagreement could be an example of a different perceptions rather than weighting of values. I assume that she values fairness but feels ambivalence over the issue, worrying that gay marriage violates her values of tradition and sanctity. I feel no such ambivalence and I bet you don't either, arguably because we don't perceive gay marriage as violating the value of sanctity.

But a lot of other political disagreements do boil down to value priorities. The health care debate involved a lot of harm reduction vs. individualism. I assume that most Americans value both, but you could reliably predict support or opposition to Obamacare based on which they prioritized.

[buttslinger]

In religion, the road IS the goal, and the Golden Rule is a simple value that anyone can understand and if they live by it, they can safely travel through life on the middle path. The real action in religion is through prayer, though.
In politics winning by 51% can be better than winning by 75% because you get to keep your conservative or liberal values more potent. But again, the real action goes on behind closed doors.
In both cases, it is a given that most people have no clue of what's going on.

[Erika1487]

As transsexual christian conservative, my values are a tad 'askew' from the rest of my political friends & foes.
As far as 'values' outside of the political relm, 'the 'golden rule' still applies.

[trish]

The golden rule embodies a number of values but is not a value in and of itself. The things you and I value, love, liberty, friendship, security, fairness, etc. are all ideals that nobody denies. Our political disagreements are NOT disagreements on values. We disagree on what political institutions best embody those values and perhaps on which values trump others.

[buttslinger]

I remember when politics was about values, now it's about motives.

[Erika1487]

The golden rule embodies a number of values but is not a value in and of itself. The things you and I value, love, liberty, friendship, security, fairness, etc. are all ideals that nobody denies. Our political disagreements are NOT disagreements on values. We disagree on what political institutions best embody those values and perhaps on which values trump others.Ok Trish you got me on this one, I have to agree with you a 100% with this.

[hippifried]

The golden rule embodies a number of values but is not a value in and of itself. The things you and I value, love, liberty, friendship, security, fairness, etc. are all ideals that nobody denies. Our political disagreements are NOT disagreements on values. We disagree on what political institutions best embody those values and perhaps on which values trump others.
Wrong. The "golden rule", or the principle of reciprocity, is the universal code of human interaction. It's the basis of all morals & ethics. Without that, there's no society & therefore no values other than how fast you can run to escape predators in your hermitage. All the rest of the blather is just an attempt to explain it or make excuses for ignoring it.

[trish]

Nevertheless the golden rule is not a value. It is a rule which if universally followed would in most cases have people treat each other fairly as equals. Some of the values embodied by the golden rule are equality, fairness and respect. If the golden rule didn't propagate these values and others through its implementation, then it we wouldn't have any reason to value the rule.

[Stavros]

The golden rule embodies a number of values but is not a value in and of itself. The things you and I value, love, liberty, friendship, security, fairness, etc. are all ideals that nobody denies. Our political disagreements are NOT disagreements on values. We disagree on what political institutions best embody those values and perhaps on which values trump others.

I dont see how values can be ideals -you can work toward the realisation of an ideal- such as a happier life- and achieve it or not. But with regard to liberty and fairness in particular, these values relate to real things, real people and real situations which you may encounter every day, and which can be as it were, realised. Some are coded in law, others in normative behaviour. The mistake I think is to assume values are some kind of idea floating around detached from reality, whereas they do relate to reality rather than utopia.

When Tony Blair and George W Bush said that the aggressors on 9/11 were attacking 'our values' they used the concept to avoid discussing the real issues which bin Laden had been publicising ever since he issued his so-called 'fatwa' in 1996 called A Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html

Bin Laden had a political agenda, neither of the two political leaders wanted to get into the political debate about the issues bin Laden raised, and thus shifted the debate to an appeal to 'values', much as Reagan did, although he did then negotiate missile reductions with the head of the Evil Empire. Values, after all, do not grow on trees, they come from our experience of life.

[buttslinger]

You can SELL people Laddy GaGa, Mozart, Beatles, NWA, etc, but unless they have a feel for it they won't BUY it.

[trish]

Values relate to real things, real people and real situations, yes. But the key word is "relate" and not "equate". Values are coded in laws and normative behavior. But the laws and behaviors are not the values but "encode" the values.

I think the example Stavros provides shows how public confusion concerning the distinction between values and the ways in which we attempt to realize those values within our respective cultures can all too easily be exploited to avoid real political issues and to falsely divide us on fundamentals upon which we have no real disagreements. Al Qaeda does not hate us for our freedom. The differences between Christians and Muslims are on a doctrinal level, or at least on a level much higher than the level of human values. At least that is my contention.

[buttslinger]

"Love God"-Jesus
"Hell is other people."-Jean-Paul Sartre

[buttslinger]

Okay Trish, Okay.
Are values part of our DNA?
VALUE is a noun and a transitve verb.
A transitive verb is a verb that requires both a subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.
A blade iof grass wants to live. On a cellular level.
Now that I think of it, mankind might be on the verge of engineering our own DNA. I wonder if we'll weed out that pesky "homo gene?"

[trish]

The capacity to experience hunger is part of our DNA. The strategies that we developed to avoid hunger are probably largely culturally transmitted. The ones that work are valued. But I draw back from claiming that the strategies themselves are values. So what is the value of domesticating plants and animals, of farming, of hunting, of animal husbandry etc.? Obviously we engage in these practices to feed us when we're hungry. But hunger isn't a value, nor hunger avoidance. Hunger is evolution's way to if not motivate us to recharge our energy reserves at least to warn us when the reserves are low. Humans know this. Unlike other animals which may be driven to eat entirely out of hunger without ever having intellectualized about the practice of capturing prey and devouring it, humans see that eating is necessary for living. Humans have invented/abstracted the notion of life as a value and hold it up as a teleological explanation for the practices of hunting and food production. We see life as one of our ultimate values, the ultimate goal of our practices. Indeed it is difficult for us to see that life is not nature’s reason for the existence of those practices. But in nature teleology is an epiphenomenon. There are no irreducible teleological explanations of behavior, rather there are differential rates of reproduction and differential rates of cultural transmission as determined by natural and cultural selection.

I still don’t know what values are. But here’s a stab: values are not ideals in the platonic sense, nor are they actual things one can touch and hold. They are the abstracted universal goals of successful and desirable human behaviors. Examples include Life, Love, Liberty, Health etc. Abstract goals all human beings desire. Non-examples include iPhones, the Constitution, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the Parallel Postulate, Jesus, Mohammad, the Golden Rule, Prayer in School etc.

(Notice I just begged the question by putting my desired conclusion-universality-in the definition. Ouch. That's why I still don't know what a value is exactly. But I hope in these four pages to have outlined enough of the characteristics that I have in mind to communicate the basic idea.)

[Stavros]

Perhaps values have become concepts because they existed in practice before human socieites developed the language to express them. I think values must be real, and that the act came before its description. Thus, what the Germans (Hegel, Heidegger and Jaspers in particular) would call a phenomenological realization of the idea, is the act itself.

It is odd to me that some Christians argue that to think of a sinful act is to commit it; because they don't apply the same rule to graceful thoughts. It is useless for me to see someone starving in the aftermath of an earthquake and think of giving them bread, but deciding that as I thought about it, I therefore don't need to do anything practical to help that person. To think of a good act is not in fact to commit it. I can either find a loaf or bread or give £10 to an emergency fund who will. I think that makes more sense and is a practical example of kindness.

So it may not be in our DNA but the way human societies have evolved over the millenia must mean that we have reached a consensus on what our core values are, even if the expression of them is not always the same from one culture to another, or even consistently applied in our own. Perhaps the greatest challenge in the towns and cities that we live in, where most people are strangers, is to meet the challenge posed by those values we hold dear.

[buttslinger]

I think you can have values and still not know what you WANT.
You know what Buddha said "Destroy Desire"
I thought Trish knew what Values were and was just testing us.
Immanuel Kant died a virgin. Different strokes for different folks.

[hippifried]

What the hell are you people talking about? The universal moral code is THE value. It's the only reason that the rest of this shit exists, because it's what allows us to live in close proximity to each other. Comparatively, we're not fast or strong. We're bereft of fang & claw. Without the creation of the society (even before we metamorphed from scavenger-gatherer), we wouldn't have survived as a species. Personally, I think it's innate. But even if I'm wrong on that, it's universally recognized as the moral code in every society & culture on Earth. Every philosophy talks about it. It's not some made up rule.

"Not a value"? "Values relate to real things"? Like what? Possessions? Money? Relationships? None of that's universal. All those "values" change from culture to culture, sub-culture to sub-culture, place to place, & person to person. It's all artificial. If that's how you're going to define it, then you can't relate anyone's "values" to anyone else's. The term loses its meaning & just becomes overused rhetoric.

[Stavros]

What the hell are you people talking about? The universal moral code is THE value. It's the only reason that the rest of this shit exists, because it's what allows us to live in close proximity to each other. Comparatively, we're not fast or strong. We're bereft of fang & claw. Without the creation of the society (even before we metamorphed from scavenger-gatherer), we wouldn't have survived as a species. Personally, I think it's innate. But even if I'm wrong on that, it's universally recognized as the moral code in every society & culture on Earth. Every philosophy talks about it. It's not some made up rule.

"Not a value"? "Values relate to real things"? Like what? Possessions? Money? Relationships? None of that's universal. All those "values" change from culture to culture, sub-culture to sub-culture, place to place, & person to person. It's all artificial. If that's how you're going to define it, then you can't relate anyone's "values" to anyone else's. The term loses its meaning & just becomes overused rhetoric.

Trish gave a concrete example of the problem in an earlier post when she wrote:

Recently I’ve been listening to people explaining their thinking about the upcoming presidential election. One Hispanic woman loves Dream Act proposal but she’s leaning toward for Romney because his values and the GOP values are closer to hers. When pressed all she can come up with is that Romney’s stand on gay marriage is commensurate with hers. When pressed further she just feels that if the nation returned to Christian values things would get better...

It occurred to me that my values and this woman’s values really can’t be all that divergent. We both probably claim Love, Honesty, Truth, Security etc. as values. We both probably hold that marriage and family are institutions that secure these values for large numbers of people and for ourselves in particular. We seem to differ on the availability of these institutions to gays and lesbians. It seems wrong to say she and I have different values. We have the same values, and we probably even have them prioritized in approximately the same way. I think our disagreement is much less fundamental than O’Reilly and other culture warriors would have you believe.

Although I agree that human societies share core values, the anxiety that the woman cited by Trish feels, is that her 'family values' are under threat from same-sex marriage. On examination, Trish and this woman do not disagree on fundamentals, and it seems that the fear associated with same-sex marriage is therefore irrational. How does one explain to this woman that same-sex marriages [re]-affirm the same values Trish has? I suspect that like many people she believes marriage can only be between people of opposite gender, she cannot see that a same-sex marriage can be legitimate -but that is not a debate about values, but cultural attitudes, these are not the same, and are less stable than either values or morals.

Is there a contradiction between Hippifried's first and second paragraphs? There is said to be a subtle difference between morals and values, that the former are the rules that govern human socities whereas the latter are attributes attached the activities of that society. Someone can be called immoral if they behave in a bad way -murdering their parents to benefit from their wills, for example- but if the same person just refuses to turn up at the family home at Christmas/Thanksgiving and never acknowledges birthdays people may wonder what his 'values' are but he is not described as being immoral.

I am not sure if the distinction is necessary, because in all situations people are making a moral judgement about what is good or bad.

Its when a 'sub-culture' exists that these issues become clearer: in gangs, armies and organized crime syndicates, for example, a unique set of rules exist that conflict with society in general. Honesty in society can become treachery in a gang -one witness to a murder may insist he knows nothing about it to the police, even though he was standing next to the murderer. If a sub-set of society is allowed to subvert the values of society as a whole, then I think we can argue that society has lost its 'moral compass'. Some might try and apply the same thinking to a 'sub-cultural' group, say, homosexuals, and argue that because homosexuals have formed secretive groups (at one time for legal reasons) and have dress codes, honour codes (what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas), even their own language (Polari, if now dead), they are a threat to society at large. But since homosexuality was de-criminalised I don't think so.

A closet 'tranny chaser' may lie to his wife about his weekend in Vegas and what he did, and his attraction may never threaten his marriage. So does his activity undermine his fidelity to family values? Is his behaviour immoral?

[Prospero]

Values in the sense that they're being discussed here are generated from our deepest sense of morality. So we hold to be of the deepest importance those things which accor dwith our sense of how the world and behaviour should be according to a moral code. This can derive from faith or it can derive from other sources - humanistic codes.

Often these are coincident - the teachings of Jesus and the values embodied in humanism are virtually the same leaving aside God.

As I said and Stavros echoed Trish and this woman essentially share the same core values - but have different cultural overlays which lead them to different conclusions. This woman's interpretation of her faith tells her that marriage should only be between people of the opposite sex. Otherwise it is "sinful."

Values are not in the end though fixed things but to some considerable extent culturally determined - and are thus relativistic. In Aztec culture, to give one example, killing was considered good - as in the mass human sacrifice of prisoners. Most Judaeo-Christian societies pay lip service to the idea that killing is bad. (With many exceptions - the US justice system for instance). But this value placed oh human lives is very culturally determined. So at a time when religion held far greater thrall in Europe the killing of heretics, public executions, killing of witches etc were hugely popular when those who were to die became exceptional to the dominant value system of the time..

[trish]

Although I agree that human societies share core values, the anxiety that the woman cited by Trish feels, is that her 'family values' are under threat from same-sex marriage. On examination, Trish and this woman do not disagree on fundamentals, and it seems that the fear associated with same-sex marriage is therefore irrational. How does one explain to this woman that same-sex marriages [re]-affirm the same values Trish has? I suspect that like many people she believes marriage can only be between people of opposite gender, she cannot see that a same-sex marriage can be legitimate -but that is not a debate about values, but cultural attitudes, these are not the same, and are less stable than either values or morals.Thank you Stavros for the clarity with which you’ve stated my position.

Even individuals within gangs, armies and crime syndicates adhere the core values the rest of us recognized. Truth is valued by syndicate boss to the extent he uses the threat of death and torture to secure the veracity of his minions. On the other hand, the syndicate boss sees nothing wrong with deceiving the authorities. The syndicate and society in general both agree that truth is a value, but they disagree on with whom one should be truthful. The syndicate does not see keeping the truth to themselves as immoral so much as expedient. To the syndicate honesty is a value but also a liability. [This is not so unusual when you think about it. To a prisoner of war, to a corporate scientist, to an undercover police detective complete honesty is a liability. Sometimes complete honesty is called insider trading. Honesty is certainly a universal value, but one that, most of us agree, need not direct our actions at all times.] I would say the syndicate boss numbers truthfullness and honesty among his values but does not subscribe to the usual moral codes which embody those values. It seems to me that one can have all the values shared by humanity in general and still be amoral. Moral codes encourage behaviors that embody our shared values, but moralities themselves are not universally shared and indeed morality itself is not universally recognized.

Subcultures may indeed influence the larger culture to reconsider it’s moral customs and laws. (The gay and lesbian subculture in the U.S., for example, is making headway on the issue of gay marriage. ) People are not so much reconsider their values as reconsider the expediency, fairness and integrity of the moral customs that are meant to uphold our shared values. The subculture is usually protesting that they do not. If the larger culture is eventually agrees that the current moral customs and institutions do not effectively embody the very values they’re meant to enhance, change will be forthcoming. Values large remain fixed and universal (I would contend that even the Aztecs valued life but erroneously thought that to preserve it one has to ritually sacrifice it). The rules, customs, laws and institutions that are meant to support those values change with the advances of the times.

[Stavros]

It seems to me that one can have all the values shared by humanity in general and still be amoral. Moral codes encourage behaviors that embody our shared values, but moralities themselves are not universally shared and indeed morality itself is not universally recognized.

Values largely remain fixed and universal (I would contend that even the Aztecs valued life but erroneously thought that to preserve it one has to ritually sacrifice it). The rules, customs, laws and institutions that are meant to support those values change with the advances of the times.

There is some confusion here. Hippifried has said and I agree that human societies over millenia have developed core modes of behaviour shaped by a moral sense of what is right and wrong, what is good and evil, what is beneficial and detrimental to the survival of the group. The concept of sacrifice, Girard has argued, is linked to religion and the attempt to expunge guilt from society, but that human socieites have tended to replace human sacrifice with animal sacrifice. He argues that Cain, as a tiller of the soil, killed Abel precisely because he had no alternative on whom to vent his jealous rage, but the consequence was a profound guilt that was even worse than the jealousy that caused the murder. From this spring moral rules in ancient Jewish societies which forbid the coveting of things possessed by others -both an early form of the prohibition of theft, as well as an early concept of private property. The Crucifixion was thus an ambitious attempt to end all human sacrifice, be it in a ritual, in anger, or war: Jesus put himself up to demonstrate the futility of violence, and to encourage its polar opposite: love and life.

However, consider Kant and his categorical imperative. If categories such as truth, as honesty are believed to be pure virtues, important social values, morally unimpeachable goals -to lie undermines them and diminishes the person, it sets society out on the road to ruin. But it means that if a man in 1944 sheltering Jews in his house in Amsterdam is visited by the Gestapo who ask him: are there any Jews in this house? He must say yes, or be morally compromised. Perhaps because it did not occur to Kant, who lived in relative security in the international community in Konigsberg, that the moral act in 1944 was to lie. Or maybe, because he was a philosopher, Kant valued truth more than a human life. And he would not be the first person to put doctine before human life, Lenin springs to mind, for example.