Americans take pride in the Democratic practice of choice. We choose to think individually and believe in different things. This leads to a very muddled, confusing outlook on values. People could believe in x, y, z, or 27. So with the evident lack of regularity it is difficult to break down our beliefs to create a uniform set of values. Take the ongoing discussion on gay marriage. Some people strongly oppose gay marriage, some people think it’s an indisputable right, and some don’t care. I personally don’t think it is anyone’s business what goes on behind closed doors and if gay marriage bothers people so much they could simply not go to a church that allows it, but I digress. It is obvious in this situation people have different beliefs but if we break it down to the core value must people would align. If everyone is fighting over marriage then this means that people view marriage as something that is important. We can go even further and say that most people view marriage as a bond between two people that demonstrates their commitment and love for each other. Who is marrying who ends up being minor details. We all see the importance of marriage in a similar light even if we cannot ultimately decide who should marry whom; that is up to our own judgment. According to Lewis, we judge and create our own beliefs in four main ways: sense experience, deductive logic, emotion, and intuition. Sense experience means you learn directly through one (or more) of your five senses. Deductive logic means testing your beliefs to make sure that they consistently lead to the same answer. You judge based on emotion when you feel something is right or wrong. You make decisions through your intuition unknowingly (unconsciously); your brain comes to a judgment while you aren’t thinking about it. The latter four ways of “knowing” help shape our beliefs and values. If we return to the gay marriage example people could use any of these four to make their decision. They may also rely on two other modes of knowing that combine the four basic ones. The two new modes are authority and science. So one person may look to an authority figure like the church in their opinion on gay marriage (the bible); while another person relies on science (i.e the presence of gay animals in nature). We can determine our beliefs and values using any of these modes. We could be reliant on any one of these modes to make our judgments. One person may rely more on emotions while another relies on science. This is why I believe our values may come off as confusing and muddled. We have the ability to come to the same reasoning through different modes or different reasoning through the same mode.
Hi there!
After reading your post in reply to the reading by Lewis H. I find that you gave an excellent example of a value that people can agree or disagree with. It is a daring but perfect topic to discuss due to America’s history with gay rights but it really does get the point across. It is something that is the up most important value to some people in the world. Personally it is not on my list of important values.
Something that striked interesting to me was how you believe that the outlook on values is confusing and muddled. In Lewis H’s paper he stated that without values, humans would be chaotic and self-destructive. Do you believe that whether we had values or not it would be chaotic or confusing?
Also I found your comment about how the “lack of regularity is difficult to break down our beliefs to create a uniform set of values” very interesting. I personally believe that values should not be uniform between every human. I feel that having different values is a part of life and helps humans be individuals and think for themselves. If all values were the same it seems like there would never be any disagreements and things would be too perfect?
I would be interested to hear your opinion on this…
Thank you for your feedback Jocelyn. In response to your first question on whether the absence or presence of values would affect the chaos and confusion in the world I would have to say that some values add to the chaos and self-destruction. People have been fighting and dying for their values since the beginning of time. Whether the value is religion, patriotism, or family people have been fighting for what they believe in. Since we all hold different values we end up clashing with each other over various hot topics. Our intense beliefs can in fact add to the confusion and create a lot of chaos. When I was talking about the chaos and confusion I was actually referring to what Lewis mentions in the beginning of his article; to an outside observer we would seem to be in utter chaos. However, I believe that certain values keep us in check from true chaos. There are certain beliefs that almost all of us hold in common. For instance murder is bad. When we get into the details of is murder right in self-defense, war, etcetera we start to have different opinion but, overall, we can agree that murder is wrong. If we didn’t all have this belief we wouldn’t be able to live in the society we do. With the absence of this belief and other similar ones we wouldn’t be able to live in a civilized world. The world would be a lot more chaotic than a world with values. So I think we have chaos in the world presently but it could be on a whole different level.
Hi aharman!
I think you’ve brought up a crucial point in your murder example: the subjectivity of values themselves. When do people utilize one particular value (or mode) instead of another? What situations warrant a reorganization of one’s values? How do different situations affect our decision/value making? I think that murder can be viewed as both right and wrong by the same person. For instance, although I initially think murder is wrong, if someone was attacking my child, or another child, I would likely be okay with that attacker being murdered. In some situations, people may be forced to make on-the-spot decisions about which values they prioritize. For instance, In my murder example, although I value community, I would prioritize my value of family in that instance.
In our class e-mail, it was discussed that many people don’t even know or understand their own values. If people don’t understand why something is important to them, how can they make split decisions that force them choose one value over another? I think this is where much of the confusion and conflict comes from. Like Jocelyn already pointed out, two people may both value one thing, but to varying degrees and in varying situations.