On page 7 at the very bottom, a question is asked that I had never really thought about before that rather peaked my interest. Lewis asks, “But do values, in the sense of freely chosen values, truly exist? Are human beings instead driven by inherited instincts, instincts that we like to dress up with the term values, so that we can pretend there is a measure of choice in the process, when it is really all programmed into our genes”(Lewis 7)? In response to his own question he states that, “there is a good deal of evidence that human beings are not primarily driven by genetically determined instincts but are rather free to make their own choices” (Lewis 7)
I would like to first agree with this statement as I have found that not all of my family and friends believe in the same things as their parents or grandparents. For example, one of my best friends from high school is a stout conservative who agrees with almost anything and everything that he reads on fox news or hears on conservative radio. His dad however is the complete opposite. His core beliefs lie solely in the democratic party and he is quite liberal on almost every major political issue. Did my friend’s parents beliefs get passed down to him through his genetics? Obviously not because they are on both ends of the spectrum when it comes to politics. However, they are identical in physique, voice tone, and have the exact same mannerisms as one another so obviously their genetic makeup as far as physical appearance goes is pretty much identical. This just goes to show that in terms of our “values” and “beliefs”, not all are always passed down to us from the genetics of our parents or grandparents.
However, on the opposite side I would also concur that about 90% of my friends share the same beliefs and values as their parents. Ultimately giving a valid argument to the latter of what I stated above.
In conclusion, I believe that yes, human beings are free to make their own choices and decide on issues for themselves. But at the same time I also believe that a big part of the issue is the overall personality, influences, and upbringing of the child which play the biggest role in what they believe as adults.
Source: Lewis, H. (1990). A Question of Values: Six Ways We Make the Personal Choices That Shape Our Lives. Axios Press
I tend to agree with most of your thoughts regarding value creation. As humans, we are inherently molded by what authority figures like our parents tell us. However, you also bring up a valid point in that we don’t necessarily always follow in the footsteps of our parents. In the article, Lewis said, “You might reasonably reply that your choice would depend on the issue: one person for career counseling, another for marriage counseling, and so on.” (Lewis, 16) Lewis was arguing that we look to different authorities for different areas of values. Your friend that is a conservative appears to be looking to different authorities regarding politics. Maybe Bill O’Reilly’s way of explaining politics appeals to him more than his Father’s way.
Speaking from experience, I choose different authorities to follow depending on the subject matter. At a young age, I realized that I didn’t share the same political views that my Father believes in. I chose to look elsewhere, and have arrived at a different viewpoint. Our own personal experiences with certain authority figures can also force us to look elsewhere in finding our values as well. Ultimately, I believe you are correct in believing that we don’t all follow our family with regards to finding values. We are individuals that experience life in different ways. In school we are taught to find our own path, and that leads to questioning given authority figures. Through experiences and hearing different viewpoints, we are able to express our own individuality, which leads to finding our own values.
That is such an amazing quote for this discussion I can’t believe that I missed it the first time I read through the article. I completely agree with you and Lewis that our choice depends on the issue at hand. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve butted heads with my parents on certain political matters and yet, what’s funny is that we both share the same political views. It’s just that maybe one issue resonated differently with me than it did with my parents and before you know it we were on opposite ends of the spectrum even though we agreed on a majority of the issue. This just goes to show how deep our decision process goes when trying to make sense of a certain issue that rings close to home.
When looking at this situation from a 3rd person view I’ve come to realize that the way I come to “know” something is through a mixture of the 4 mental mode’s discussed by Lewis on page 9 rather than only using 1 or 2. I find that through a combination of sense experience, deductive logic, emotion, and intuition I have the best overall feeling of satisfaction about the correctness of my beliefs opposed to just using 1 to justify my belief.
We’re all different and its apparent that we come to know our “belief system” in completely different ways, and this is exactly the reason why it’s is such a fascinating topic to dive into.