The part of the article I am going to talk about here is the second question they ask about whether values are inherited instincts, or whether we are free to choose our values? I have thought about that question a lot and have decided that they are only half right when they say that we are completely free to make our choices and values. As an economic major I deal a lot with grouping people or making assumptions about them, how they spend their money, how they respond to a price drop in the market, etc. but one thing that we never account for is the human value or the individuals right to make their own choice. It may be because it is too hard to actually measure that quantity and we make it easier on ourselves to leave it out, or because when it comes to things like money we as human beings are more instinctual, that is to say that we would rather maximize our own utility rather than the group at large which I believe is an instinct. I think the difference between a value and an instinct is who you are thinking about, a value is when you take other people into account as well as yourself, and an instinct is when you think about yourself first. So as an economist I make models showing how people maximize their own utility or their firms utility before they think of the social cost. Now that i said that though, coming from the son of two doctors i know that people do value other things than themselves especially family, and community, maybe even country. And i think those are values that we are free to choose and are passed down from family and loved ones or mentors. Those are the values that when you see someone in trouble and you help them or donating to charity those values are not instinctual but come from thinking about something larger than yourself. So while the article says that we are free to make our choices, i think that we choose to make some choices but some other choices, like money, are instinctual.
Terran,
Your blog was an analysis on chapter 2 of “A Question of Values: Six Ways We Make the Personal Choices That Shape Our Lives” by H. Lewis. In this particular chapter, Lewis describes the modes by which people tend to choose specific values: “…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 (paragraph 6).” In one passage the author spoke of instincts versus choices, in which you had some disagreement. In response, you wrote: “I think the difference between a value and an instinct is who you are thinking about, a value is when you take other people into account as well as yourself, and an instinct is when you think about yourself first.” Also written was: “…they are only half right when they say that we are completely free to make our choices and values.” Your blog later describes your personal thought process on how people associate values and instincts to their decisions. The true drive of instincts from a human being’s perspective in today’s world does seem to have an affect on decisions, especially in the case of bettering that person and not the larger community. At the same time, there are individuals out there who do seem to have that instinctual drive, but hide it in order to make the best decision for everyone around them. For example, my mother has gone through periods of having little money, but instead of making rash decisions based on penny-pinching, she gave up her last dime to her children in order to put food on the table. This example seems to sum up what you were writing in this blog post about instincts and values.
Thank you for your comment, I see that you are questioning that people don’t have values only instincts. To that I say you may have misinterpreted that and not seen my last part where i mentioned we have an instinct nature to help people and that some people, like my parents who are doctors and at the beginning they struggled to put food on the table as well, let that shine through more than the economist that i am taught to think like. My point of my blog post was to say that we are instinctual and that there are some values that we do not have decisions over because we just react without thinking. Because yes people who put their children ahead of money treat that as a value, but without children and by yourself money becomes an instinct and we react to the changing market more often than going against it.
This was a very interesting take on the reading and you provided me with some insight that I hadn’t seen before. I like how you took knowledge you have from your own background and applied it to the reading. I also kind of touched on this in my blog post about how our chosen career paths can shape and alter our values. I would like to challenge your idea though that money is instinctual. I personally think that money is something our society has to come value and whether that is instinctual, I don’t think so. There’s obviously a historically progression of money and it’s beginnings in trade where certain metals were given value in order to make purchases. I think that with these beginnings people came to place a value on money and it was a learned behavior, not necessarily something that’s an instinct. Money has worth because we have given it value and I think it’s instinctual to want more out of life (or else we’d all still be cave men) but I don’t think attaining more money is an instinctual value humans have.
This was a very interesting take on the reading and you provided me with some insight that I hadn’t seen before. I like how you took knowledge you have from your own background and applied it to the reading. I also kind of touched on this in my blog post about how our chosen career paths can shape and alter our values. I would like to challenge your idea though that money is instinctual. I personally think that money is something our society has to come value and whether that is instinctual, I do not think so. There’s obviously a historical progression of money and it’s beginnings in trade where certain metals were given value in order to make purchases. I think that with these beginnings people came to place a value on money and it was a learned behavior, not necessarily something that’s an instinct. Money has worth because we have given it value and I think it’s instinctual to want more out of life (or else we’d all still be cave men) but I don’t think attaining more money is an instinctual value humans have.
Hi, your commit of article is about that you think the answers of second question on article are half right. You think that people cannot completely free to make choice and value. You provide your experience that when people face money issue, they always think about themselves, so money is like instinct. I agree the point that money is more like instinct, when people facing money issue, they all become greedy and selfish. But I think what article talking about is that people always can overcome the instinct to make choice freely, like the examples from article that even self-preservation is human instincts, some people still ritual suicide. So I think like money as instinct, people can find a way to overcome it and make the choice they like. Or if people do not make choice or value when they face instinct problem, they will be “directionless, chaotic, and ultimately self destructive”.