Goals
- Become familiar with the basic relationship of human values to psychological and philoshopical endeavors.
- Understand that values are formed from external and internal drives of an individual.
A Question of Values
In “A Question of Values” I think that the general framework of “mental modes” is one that seems to be intuitively correct and it is clear in human behavior that not all humans process decisions in the same way, be it by nature or nurture. Also the different ways in which one could arrive at a value is robust. However I take issue with the some of the claims of finding a “Primary mental mode.” First I don’t think anyone can have a “primary mental mode,” people react to things situationally and the modes that are in use are always in flux, when he asks us to assign different percents to each mode adding up to 100 I don’t think that this should be seen as a static binary condition that makes up the way that “human x” uses each mental node but instead each individual decision or action we make is influenced by our mental and subconscious state at that time, and this is in constant change. Any person is capable of making an implosive decision out of anger or sadness no matter how much they respect an authority or value logic. This is where my biggest problem with the article lies. To say that a Philosophy professor would give advise based on structure or logic, or that a Catholic Priest would hold the authority of the church as the answer, or even that a family member would be an emotional voice is all narrow and simplistic. Is a Philosopher only concerned with logic? Of course not, there are philosophies of intuition, the logos is not all of philosophy. Is a Catholic priest not capable of making any other argument than that of authority? Of course not, a priest is far more complex and a thinker beyond just church authority. So while I do think the general ideas are sound the simplistic nature that some things are presented seems flawed.
Reflection:
Because I misread the syllabus the “A Question of Values” post ended up being my first blog post. So it was with this post that I went through the process in creating my blog and had my introduction to word press, so I think that in that I learned a lot of skills that I have continued to use throughout this class. Though the Question of Values post was not my favorite reading we have done this term, I do now think that it was an important step in developing the necessary language and basic understanding that has allowed us to move further in finding the limits of art, and what drives values.
I think that looking back at this post, we as a class have come a long way in our understanding of art and value. I came in with a lot of preconceived notions of what I though art was and this class has slowly broken that down and rebuilt a new understanding of art, culture, species, and values and the relationship between these things and the interconnection of art on all parts of our daily life. Specifically the Question of Values gave us the basics of what exactly values are, and what forces that are put upon us shape these values. In a way we as people are born with a blank slate, with no inherent values, then as we grow we are exposed to more outside forces and experiences which shapes are person and therefore our values.
Future:
Again since I am looking at this post now with some distance I am able to better understand it in the context that the rest of this class has given us. I think this was an important first article to give us our first taste of the formation of values. I think it is important to break down preconceptions and this reading gives us some of that as we move forward in the class.