VALUES
What are values?
Norms and values are interrelated. Everytime we ask ourselves or to other people:
What is this norm good for?
Why should I obey this norm?
The answer is that norms exist to protect, to sustain, to encourage something valuable. Broadly speaking, we can say that:
Norms (formal and informal) specify how we should behave. When written, norms may require a lot of words to specify who, when and how we should behave. Think about the regulations of your school or the traffic regulations of your country.
Values are the motives why we follow or obey norms. Values are named by single words, usually abstract substantives (e.g. honesty, safety etc.), so they are much more general than laws and regulations.
Because norms and values go hand in hand, many of the questions we have asked ourselves when talking about norms we can ask them again now when talking about values:
Does everybody have the same values? Do we all appreciate the same values?
Are there different kinds of values? We can distingish between two very general types of values:
Intrinsic values. Can you give some examples? Can you advance a general definition of intrinsic values?
Instrumental values. Can you give some examples? Can you advance a general definition of intrinsic values?
Values in publicity
Publicity tries to convince us to buy things and services. But how do they do it? They link the thing they want us to buy with certain value we consider important. Therefore, we end up buying something because that thing is valuable for us.
Of course, different things are capable to be linked to different values. The marketing department decides which values should be emphasized by the publicity campaing. Try to identify as many values as possible in the following adds:
Socialization
As well as norms, values are cultural: they belong to the culture of every society and they are transmited to new members by what are called socialization agents.
Moral development: towards autonomy
Among the many values that society transmits to all of us there are moral values: solidarity, honesty, fairness, loyalty, etc. Moral values are connected with our ideas of what is a good life and what is right.
As with moral rules, moral values should be adopted by each of us not just because we are told so, but also because we have decide by ourselves that these are valuable by themselves.
Autonomy (abstract noun) : situation in which a person (or a group of people) gives and obeys its own rules.
Opposite concept: heteronomy.
Autonomous (adjective) : a person capable of governing himself. Opposite concept: heteronomous
A non-autonomous person is a person which is governed by others.
An autonomous person is more free than a non-autonomous person.
An autonomous person is more independent than a non-autonomous person.
