Human values

A frequently asked question is, "What are the differences between

values, ethics, morals and principles?" The short answer to the question is
usually, "Values motivate, morals and ethics constrain." In other words
values describe what is important in a person’s life, while ethics and
morals prescribe what is or are not considered appropriate behaviour in
living one's life. Principles inform our choice of values, morals and ethics.
"Generally speaking, value refers to the relative worth of a quality or
object. Value is what makes something desirable or undesirable"
(Shockley-Zalabak 1999, p. 425). Through applying our personal values
(usually unconsciously) as benchmarks, we continually make subjective
judgments about a whole manner of things:
“...we are more likely to make choices that support our value
systems than choices that will not. Let us say that financial security is a
strong value for an individual. When faced with a choice of jobs, chances
are the individual will carefully examine each organization for potential
financial and job security. The job applicant who values financial security
may well take a lower salary offer with a well established company over a
higher-paying offer from a new, high risk venture. Another job seeker with
different values, possibly adventure and excitement, might choose the
newer company simply for the potential risk and uncertain future”.
Values, therefore, become part of complex attitude sets that influence our
behavior and the behaviour of all those with whom we interact. What we
value guides not only our personal choices but also our perceptions of the
worth of others. We are more likely, for example, to evaluate highly
someone who holds the same hard-work value we do than someone who
finds work distasteful, with personal gratification a more important value.
We may also call the person lazy and worthless, a negative value label.
(Shockley-Zalabak 1999, pp. 425-426)
Clearly our values influence what we will determine as ethical;
however, values are our measures of importance, where as ethics
represent our judgments about right and wrong. This close relationship
between importance and right and wrong is a powerful influence on our
behaviour and how we evaluate the behaviour of others.
There are three principle types of values which humans can have:
preferential values, instrumental values and intrinsic values. Each plays
an important role in our lives, but they don't all play equal roles in the
formation of moral standards and moral norms.
Ethics, Morals, and Values, How do they relate?
One of the most important characteristics of moral judgments is that they
express our values. Not all expressions of values are moral judgments,
but all moral judgments do express something about what we value. Thus,
understanding morality requires investigating what people value and why.
There are three principle types of values which humans can have:
preferential values, instrumental values and intrinsic values. Each plays
an important role in our lives, but they don't all play equal roles in the
formation of moral standards and moral norms.
Preference Value
The expression of preference is the expression of some value we
hold. When we say that we prefer to play sports, we are saying that we
value that activity. When we say that we prefer relaxing at home over
being at work, we are saying that we hold our leisure time more highly
than our work time. Most ethical theories do not place much emphasis on
this type of value when constructing arguments for particular actions being
moral or immoral. The one exception would be hedonistic ethical theories
which explicitly place such preferences at the center of moral
consideration. Such systems argue that those situations or activities which
make us happiest are, in fact, the ones we should morally choose.
Instrumental Value
When something is valued instrumentally, that means we only value
it as a means to achieve some other end which is, in turn, more important.
Thus, if my car is of instrumental value, that means that I only value it
insofar as it allows me to accomplish other tasks, such as getting to work
or the store.
Instrumental values play an important role in teleological moral systems -
theories of morality which argue that the moral choices are those which
lead to the best possible consequences (such as human happiness).
Thus, the choice to feed a homeless person is considered a moral choice
and is valued not simply for its own sake but, rather, because it leads to
some other good - the well-being of another person.
Intrinsic Value
Something which has intrinsic value is valued purely for itself - it isn't
used simply as a means to some other end and it isn't simply "preferred"
above other possible options. This sort of value is the source of a great
deal of debate in moral philosophy because not all agree that such
intrinsic values actually exist. If intrinsic values do exist, how is it that they
occur? Are they like color or mass, a characteristic which we can detect
so long as we use the right tools? We can explain what produces the
characteristics like mass and color, but what would produce the
characteristic of value? If people are unable to reach any sort of
agreement about the value of some object or event, does that mean that
its value, whatever it is, can't be intrinsic?
Instrumental vs. Intrinsic Values
One problem in ethics is, assuming that intrinsic values really do
exist, how do we differentiate them from instrumental values? That may
seem simple at first, but it isn't. Take, for example, the question of good
health - that is something which just about everyone values, but is it an
intrinsic value? Some might be inclined to answer "yes," but in fact people
tend to value good health because it allows them to engage in activities
they like. So, that would make good health an instrumental value. But are
those pleasurable activities intrinsically valuable? People often perform
them for a variety of reasons - social bonding, learning, to test their
abilities, etc.
So, perhaps those activities are also instrumental rather than
intrinsic values - but what about the reasons for those activities? We could
keep going on like this for quite a long time. It seems that everything we
value is something which leads to some other value, suggesting that all of
our values are, at least in part, instrumental values. Perhaps there is no
"final" value or set of values and we are caught in a constant feed-back
loop where things we value continually lead to other things we value.
Values: Subjective or Objective?
Another debate in the field of ethics is the role human play when it
comes to creating or assessing value. Some argue that value is a purely
human construction - or at least, the construction of any being with
sufficiently advanced cognitive functions. Should all such beings
disappear from the universe, then some things like mass would not
change, but other things like value would also disappear.
Others argue, however, that at least some forms of value (intrinsic values)
exist objectively and independently of any observer. Thus, our only role is
in recognizing the intrinsic value which certain objects of goods hold. We
might deny that they have value, but in such a situation we are either
deceiving ourselves or we are simply mistaken. Indeed, some ethical
theorists have argued that many moral problems could be resolved if we
could simply learn to better recognize those things which have true value
and dispense with artificially created values which distract us.