The final paragraph, “Personal values matter a great deal. Without them, we cannot live at all, they are just as essential as air, food and water” (19) is a great summary of what I conclude of this reading. Personal values are such a critical part of being a human, without them we would be cookie cutter and with no unique opinions of beliefs. This article certainly created questions and self reflection on how I have become the person I am with the values that I hold.
The section titled “The Most Basic Ways We Come to “Know” Something”, are categories that I have never considered before, but I definitely agree with. In my life, after contemplating which categories I use most and why, I believe that I use all of them (sense, logic, emotion, intuition) fairly evenly. My values based around religion, for example; I concluded that I used both sense experience and emotion in defining my faith. Sense, because my family has told me countless stories of their faith and how it has changed their lives, as well as hearing sermons and talking with other people of faith throughout my church community. Emotion, because when I attend church or are involved in religious activities, I feel enlightened and connected in a way that just feels right. Regarding the two major synthetic mental modes, I fall into the authority category when regarding religion.
These categories certainly all play a significant role into how I have developed and chosen my personal values. When the reading began questioning if there were other modes of developing values, I began brainstorming of other possible categories, but anything I came up with fell into one of the broader categories that was already listed.
“Not only is the very desire to be objective a “value judgement” or bias, so is the desire to define, categorize, compare, and contrast the different ways that we choose values” (17). This quote ties up the chapter in a nutshell for me. How people feel about values, whether they disagree with one another or feel they base their value off the wrong internal mental mode is pretty irrelevant in my opinion. I can’t imagine a world where everyone’s values are based off the same reasoning (logic, sense, emotion, etc.). This reading certainly exposes and peels away all the layers choosing and developing values, and I agree that this reading can “spark a more meaningful dialogue between opposing viewpoints” (19).
Great post! I agree that personal values are what makes us unique and interesting. The article also make me think a bit about how I became who I am today. You mention the “basic ways we come to know something,” and like me, you said that you seem to use all of the categories. I think that everyone does, just with different emphases. I tend to be more logical than emotional, for example, but it doesn’t mean I ignore emotion. It just doesn’t have as big of an impact on me as the other categories.
At the end you quote saying “not only is the very desire to be objective a ‘value judgement’ or bias…” and I think it’s really true. Wanting to be objective is a judgement that being biased isn’t desirable. This is because we are aware of how much personal bias gets in the way of seeing things objectively, but like you say, it is what makes us unique. I can’t really imagine a world where everyone has the exact same values either.
Kiki, I had to same thought process as you when I was trying to figure out which categories I use. However, I noticed that emotion played the most dominant role. I have always been an “emotional” person. The way I feel about something or someone always determines how much I value them. I believe this also stems from my family because how they value things is also a very emotional process. Similar to you, certain things such as certain books and certain religious message makes me feel enlightened. Usually this leads me to placing high value on the lessons and views they are presenting. If I do not feel connected or emotionally charged by something, I will not incorporate it into my value system. The emotional aspect of creating my values has become a very large and important factor in my values. It has ensured that I hold all my vales to a high standard and make sure that they all mean something to me.
When you say “If I do not feel connected or emotionally charged by something, I will not incorporate it into my value system”, this really hit home with me! I feel the exact same way, and reading that sentence made me realize that emotion is a huge deal to me as well. I use it much more often than I use logic to decipher my values. One thing I have also started thinking more about is how unique and awesome it is that each person deciphers their values in their own way they see fit. Some people are wired to think analytically about a situation, where others base their decision off of a feeling (as we both have mentioned). Just as is the case in so many other aspects of our lives (how we dress, what our hobbies are, etc.), we are all made a little differently and the reason there are so many different interpretations and values in this world is because we all emphasize different process to create these values.
In your first paragraph stating that personal values are essential for survival, I 100% agree with that statement. Though we all have many different and unique values, these values that we all have help us live our daily life. Growing up in a Catholic family and going to Catholic church since the age of 5 I also felt emotion when I was at church. My family discusses how faith has helped them grow into who they are today and I value all of the knowledge they share with me.
I also think for me now I relate to experience a little more. I am not as religious as I once was but I still feel that it is important to still use the morals and values I once learned from the church. My experience with emotion now help me with my take on values today.
Hey Kiki,
It is enjoyable for me to read your post about what the values means for you. I agree with you that the environment we lived in will have a huge influence on what the values we got. You are doing a great job on how to explain the forming process of your value system. It is true that we will perceive value from outside world both by sense and emotions. We will be influenced by daily events and we are free to choose the values we like. In the article, Lewis stated 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” (Page 7). This means that we get our values from the environment we are living. This explains why you are influenced by the church community which contains your family and friends.