What are values and do they exist? This is a complicated question, I believe there are many answers and it is impossible to say about true or fault. In this book “A Question Of Values”, the author Hunter Lewis explores the often conflicting value systems that compete for attention in American life. Logic, experience, emotion, intuition, and science are six different American value systems.
“Confronted with the unexpectedness, diversity, and argumentativeness of American values, with the apparent lack of any real agreement or uniformity in our personal beliefs, the beliefs that guide our everyday speech and conduct and make us what we are, how should we respond?” Lewis asks. He then shows us a way to clear our mental clutter, to decide what our basic moral alternatives are, and “how each thinker or would- be prophet that we meet, either directly or through books and film, relates to these basic alternatives.”
For myself, I think values are something that guide our behaviors. Values are standards in our minds about choices. Values can be based on many things, like science, faith and emotions. Those things can affect our daily choices, like Hunter Lewis mentioned in his book, “values are not the muddle they sometimes seem. There are some basic choices…Our challenges as Americans and as human beings is to identify these options, and then to choose among them, not blindly but with a discerning eye, and thus to answer the recurring biblical question:’What manner of men shall we be?’”. Therefore, values are something we choose to believe, we choose to behave, and we choose to like and dislike.
I think there is no right or wrong value, it could be only one person’s value, and it also could be a society’s value. Do someone’s behavior has to be related to values? Perhaps not. Does value even exist? It depends on how you define it. When it comes to philosophy, there is no absolute answer.
Hi! I just read your comment for unit 1 readings and I really like the way how you paraphrase the ideas about value. Like you said in your response:”values are something we choose to believe, we choose to behave, and we choose to like and dislike.” Personally I strongly agree with you about this point because I believe that the human instinct is controlled by human value because human knows what to choose and decide, not like animals which are controlled by their natural instinct.
Since you have talked about how important the human value is, in the last paragraph you also mentioned that “Do someone’s behavior has to be related to values? Perhaps not.” It sounds a little bit self-contradiction to me. Since everyone decides before they behave, and value is “something we choose to behave”, base on this logic chain, personally I think people’s behavior should relate to their own values. Besides that, I also think it is value makes people to behave in the very first place.
In general, I really like your comment on this topic. Good Job!
Hi Li:
After reading your response, I think you have a very interesting idea about value. The value is hard to define. It affects our ideas and behaviors. But like the A question of Values: Six Ways We Make the Personal Choices That Shape Our Lives said, our sense experience, deductive logic, emotion, intuition also change our value (Page 9). In addition, value changes with time. So to say what’s value is a difficult question. For your idea, values can be based on many things, like science, faith and emotions (paragraph 3). It is the similar opinion with the author. However, as for the rightness or wrongness about the value, I hold the different opinion against you. Though it may be hard to define what value is on some extent, it is easy to judge whether a value can be stable or not. And that is the value should base on the commonsense of the citizens, the norm of action of the people and the morality of our society. Which means the angle we treat a value should base on the public rather than a single person.
Hi Kaiqing, thank you for replying me and I have to say it is such an interesting response. You said “the angle we treat a value should base on the public rather than a single person.” Which I totally agreed. I was considering how human value be shown in real life based on what you though. According to “relatively recent one and is sometimes dismissed as a piece of barbarous jargon” (p.7) it is hard to ask someone what truly value is so that Lewis gives us six characteristic systems based on different attitude or way that people behave. It is smart to put intangible idea into categories, and people will find one class that suitable them the most. Press also pointed out that people might not just belong to a single category, and it can be “cross-fertilized”. Thank you again for your interesting point, and hope to hear from you again!
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I think you have mentioned one very interesting topic. I agree with your opinion that your value are “values are something that guide our behaviors. Values are standards in our minds about choices. Values can be based on many things, like science, faith and emotions”. Value can be anything that guide us to make decisions in our lives. I agree that “values are something we choose to believe, we choose to behave, and we choose to like and dislike.” However, I also think environment plays an important role in choosing value. We will be influenced by the surrounding, by parents and friends, by our society. Although it is hard to define and evaluate values, I still think some basic values have the difference between right and wrong, such as the basic human rights. The mainstream in our society forbids harming others’ rights and lives. However, some people may think they are free to do the bad things.