Unit 2: Values
October 11, 2013
The article that we were assigned to read, “A Question of Values: Six Ways We Make the Personal Choices That Shape Our Lives” offered a lot of good insight on what values are, how to come to make our own values, and how they help guide our lives. I have to be honest, before reading this article I never put too much thought on my own values. That is how I came to create these values or if they were instead instinctive. However, after reading the article I put much more thought on how I came to my own values and I would have to agree with Lewis. That values are based off our own personal believes. This is of course obvious and goes without saying, but I thought it was pretty interesting how Lewis explains that what we believe in are based of 6 mental modes: Sense experience, deductive logic, emotion, intuition, authority, and science. Again I would have to agree with these mental modes because I know from experience that I have values in which at least every one of these mental modes helped shape. However, I have to disagree with what Lewis later claims. He states that although all of these mental modes help shape our values, there are certain mental modes that we hold to a higher standard than the rest. For example, one person might shape the majority of their values from emotion rather than the rest of the mental modes. To me this hard to distinguish and a pretty subject claim. As this might be true for some people, I doubt that it is true for everybody. Me personally, I believe that all of these mental modes do shape my core values but I don’t think I hold one higher than the other. To me they are all important on shaping personal values.
3 Responses to “Unit 2: Values”
October 11th, 2013 at 9:25 pm
You sound like a pretty balanced person if you don’t hold one mode higher than another (something many desire) in your decision making process, but your blog doesn’t fully portray Lewis’ point on that specific matter: mode emphasis.
Lewis’ (in his composition: “A Question of Values: Six Ways We Make the Personal Choices That Shape Our Lives”) isn’t trying to make subjective claims that disregard the diversity of people by boxing them into categories – as people more or less emotional than others, or more logical, etc. In fact, he does the opposite. He attempts to establish objective categories to identify the roots of the most basic human behaviors. His design of the mental mode ‘Intuition’, for example, applies to a Christian that makes decisions based on what they may call “divine revelation” and also a Hindu that makes decisions based on their encounters with Brahman (supreme being). Lewis understands that all people use all modes in most of their decision/value making. He states that people “do not rely on a single mental mode, but rather rely on a combination of modes, with sharply different emphases.” Therefore, Lewis acknowledges that while the very basic human functions are the same, certain cultural, social and political influences may determine when and in what context a person may place more emphasis on one mode. For example, the Hindu and Christian may place more emphasis on the emotional mode, while an atheist in medical school may place more emphasis on ‘Deductive Logic’ or ‘Science.’ At this point, Lewis is simply acknowledging and respecting the differences among us, while attempting to simplify the ways we are alike. He is trying to develop a “workable” approach to connect all types of people so as to better navigate through the complexity, unpredictability, and quarrelsomeness of people and their values.
October 13th, 2013 at 10:49 pm
Thanks for your input, I must of missed the point Lewis was trying to make. I went back and reread the article after reading your comment. I have to say that I took a different message from it after reading it a second time, and I would have to agree with both of you. It is most definitely true that we place more emphasis on different mental modes depending on our cultural, social, and political backgrounds. At first I thought he was saying that based on ones social, cultural, and political backgrounds an individual will place one of the mental modes over all others and use that specific mental mode to shape their values. That is why I could not agree with him at first. However, I’m in total agreement with Lewis now that I know he meant that we place certain mental modes above others during different scenarios based on our backgrounds.
October 14th, 2013 at 11:52 am
Great comments! An excellent example of helping each other clarify your posts and understand the course material. Kudos.