THE TAXONOMY OF
HUMAN VALUES
Human values are an individual matter, because each person judges what is good and important and what is not.
These judgments relate to things that are good and important for him personally, for a social group he belongs to or the society as whole and in general. According to this principle of classification we distinguish:
PERSONAL VALUES - SOCIAL VALUES - GENERAL VALUES
I was studying only personal values.
The taxonomy of human values should answer questions: "Which human values exist in reality?", "How many human values exist?" and "How can we classify human values in a logical system (What are the relations among human values)?".
Because human values are the conceptions of basic categories of desired and because their number is the same as the number of basic human motives, my list consists of the following human values:
social gathering
hobbies / free time
food / drink
property / money
beauty / art
power / influence
moral, ethical principles
new experiences / adventures
personal safety / health
children
partner / love
rest
job / work
friends
self-image
sexuality
parents / home
freedom / independence
sport activities
pleasure / comfort
prestige / fame
creativity
faith / God
knowledge / wisdom
Because of the universality of human values I had no major problem in translating the values list from Slovenian language.
In The Theory of Values chapter the relations among human values are explained. It is worth mentioning here that some human values express biological needs (food / drink, sexuality, pleasure / comfort etc.), and the other human values express social needs (job / work, friends, faith / God etc.).