Objective:
- Understand that values are formed from external and internal drives of an individual
- Explore one’s own value system
Artifact:
The topic of discussion this week is “ A Question of Values”. How did they come about? What do they mean? From the opening section, the point I grasped about values with complexity and quarrelsomeness comes down to individuality. I think depending on how you were raised, what religion you practice, where you went to school among other things greatly influences our beliefs and values. In my opinion genetic instincts have very little to do with values and beliefs. The quote “perhaps we are not driven by immutable instincts…alternatively, by peer pressure, by the relentless demands of the society in which we happen to live” makes great sense to me (pg 8, Lewis). It applies to my opinion about how values come about.
If I were to define values, it would simply be ideas or thoughts with great importance to a person. Ideas and thoughts are subjective to that person and therefore not everyone shares the same. I think values reflect what someone thinks or knows is good in the world, or right. Whether it is trust, honesty or loyalty etc. Some people may value a lot of the same things but carry them out differently, or their IDEA of that value is different. It is a very blurry subject and I can see the complexity. The fact of knowing something arises an entirely different dilemma. The four basic ways of how ‘knowing’ comes about mentioned in the article seem reasonable to me. I began to think about the things I claim to know and why I think I know it. Logic mostly, I am a logical minded person. Secondly, emotion. If something I or someone else has done that made me angry, or sad then that to me is wrong and cruel. Therefore I form a value based on how I think and feel. I value other people’s feelings; it is of importance to me.
I believe I have good morals. My behaviors reflect “the ‘good”, the ‘just’ and the ‘beautiful’” things I believe (pg 7, Lewis). I act the way I do because of they way I was raised, the lessons I learned, the experiences and feelings I went through. They all taught me the good, the just and the beautiful. A combination of the above gave me my values.
Reflection:
This week’s topic was tricky to define. But after reading the Lewis article I began to decipher what a value is and how values develop. In order to gain a better understanding, I started think about my own values, honesty for example. I value honesty greatly. But why? It is because in my lifetime, at some point I was lied to and it hurt pretty badly. Not wanting to experience that pain again, I sought out honesty in the people love, spend time with and associate myself with. This discovery of where my value of honesty came from meets the first objective of this unit: values are formed from internal and external drives of an individual. Because of my experiences and emotions, I, individually have the values that I do. And I also have the drive to be honest with other people. Not everyone is going to value the same things, in the same ways as I do because they haven’t necessarily had the same experiences.
Lewis defined a framework for what a value is “personal evaluations and related beliefs about the ‘good,’ the ‘just,’ and the ‘beautiful,’ personal evaluations and beliefs that propel us to action, to a particular kind of behavior and life” (Lewis, 7). I defined a value above as the ideas or thoughts with great importance to a person. Expanding further, taking those important ideas and thoughts and following them in your daily living with action. Honesty was just one example of mine, but the explanation of how it became a value represents my system, and that meets the second objective of the unit. The picture present shows some of the major values I have and I have an experience to go along with probably all of them.
In the future, I imagine my list of values will only continue to grow with my life experiences. As I move on to the next steps of my life of gaining a career I will gain values in that direction as well. I believe all of the things I currently value; will remain values of mine, as they are important. Now that I have a clearer understanding of my own value system, I can generate both internally and externally, a plethora of greater values.