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Fire ! Fire !
Fire ! Fire !
Imagine you are at home, with your family. Then you hear one of your neighbors yelling:
Fire! Fire!
Immediately after that, you hear the sirens of the firefighters approaching your home. Your parents tell you:
“Go to your room, take your most valuable things and get out of the house as fast as you can!”
What would you take with you?
Only your most expensive things? Or maybe the things you can not replace buying new ones?
Do you have a pet? Would you leave it behind?
What about your school books and notebooks?
What are values? Kinds of values
What are values? Kinds of values
The fire situation teaches us that we value things because of different reasons:
Some things are valuable because of the price we (or our parents) have pay for them, such as our mobile phone or some expensive jewelry. They are valuable because they cost a lot of money. They have economic value.
Some other things are valuable because of sentimental or biographical reasons. Such as a paper photograph or an award we won in primary school. They are valuable for us because of the feelings and memories they evoke in us. They have sentimental value.
Other things are valuable because we need them for achieving our projects. Think of your school notebooks, if you loose them, you may fail the course.They are valuable because they are useful, they have instrumental value.
Some things we value them because they are beautiful. Think of a drawing, a music CD or a piece of jewelry that is very beautiful although it did not cost you much money. All these things are valuable because they are beautiful, they have aesthetic value.
Finally, there are other things like your pet, that are not valuable because of the money, or the memories, or the useful they are. It may not even be beautiful (imagine you have an ugly turtle). They are valuable in themselves, and you would be a bad person if you did not save them. They have moral value because they reflect the kind of person you are.
Exercise 3.1
Exercise 3.1
Complete the following table with valuable things.
Values
Values
A value is one of the many characteristics of a person or of a thing. This characteristic makes us appreciate that person or that thing.
We can appreciate people or things because one of the many different characteristics they have: because of their price, their utility, their beauty, etc. And different people may appreciate the same thing because of different characteristics: for some, it is the high price, for others, it is because of the beautiful colors, etc.
We can appreciate people (but not things) because of their moral value, because they do good actions, because they are good to other people.
Exercise 3.2
Exercise 3.2
Little children are very curious: they like to know why things are the way they are and why people do what they do. Their parents try to answer their questions the best they can.
Children soon discover they can put their parents into trouble asking "Why?" again and again. Sooner or later, their parents can not provide any more answers and just say "Because it is so, and that's it!".
Asking "Why?" until we reach a final answer may help us to discover our fundamental values. It may help us to discover why we do what we do. Not because it is useful for getting another thing (intermediate values) but because we value it by itself.
Price and value
Price and value
Price and value are two different things.
The price of something goes up or down depending on many factors that you do not control.
The value of a thing depends on you: how much do you need it, how are you going to use it, if you can easily replace it, etc.
Some things are very pricey (they have a high price) but their value to you is not so high.
Other things are very valuable to you and fortunately their price is not too high.
Exercise 3.3
Exercise 3.3
For each of these things, write why are they valuable to you and also write their price:
Exercise 3.4
Exercise 3.4
The price of things depend on many factors. Their prices go up or down depending on those factors.
Which of these factors (usually more than one) play an important role in the price of the following things?
Factors:
The weather conditions.
The number of fans.
The number of people working in the country.
The money collected by the government form taxes.
The money invested in promotion and marketing.
The negotiations between trade unions and factory owners.
The amount of money consumers have to spend in non-essential things.
The price of transportation.
The price of raw materials.
The working hours of the workers.
Fair Trade
Fair Trade
Search in the Internet answers to the following questions:
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