Each of us finds ourselves to some extent compelled to follow some of the priorities our families have. Following these priorities directs us to the regulation of our behaviors which in turn allows us to achieve, perhaps, a kind of acceptance and adaptation. Moral values function as the foundations of what our responses will ever correspond to. This is why in this Psychology-Online article we share and explain Moral values: list and examples.
The values can be qualities that are captured in people, things or experiences. These qualities direct us to choose them over others that we do not like or leave us indifferent.
Ortega y Gasset (1961) maintained that we capture values through estimation (sensitivity will capture the qualities of physical objects; intelligence will capture abstract concepts; and estimation will capture values). Values are on the one hand subjective, since they exist only if a human being grasps them and they are objective, because they are a quality that objects (people, animals or situations) have when we enter into a relationship with them.
When we think of moral values and a definition that we can give them, thoughts about justice, goodness, altruism, kindness, humility, selflessness, love and respect for others often come to us – and many other active and almost automatic ideas from our mental structure rush in -. Some other well-known definitions such as the one offered by Torres Triana, (2009), where moral value is understood as:
The positive, good social significancein contrast to evil, which guides man’s attitude and behavior towards evil. do wellordering their judgments about the moral life and actions derived from them.1
But I suggest we try to address the following question to resolve the pandemonium of ideas that will be presented in the following paragraphs: Are my moral values the same as those of my friends and family? There are probably many that are repeated in my list of values and in theirs as well and that makes it easier for us to relate and understand each other.
Moral values can have a label (term), for example: respect, solidarity and responsibility. Our environment (family, school, friends and television) educated us with some of these three terms (values). But this memetic process also has differences despite having the same name (label/term), its meaning. The meaning of these moral values will vary by not implying the same thing for me and for other people.
Below you will find detailed some of the most important moral values:
- The honesty. This moral value represents the behavior and expression of sincerity (truth). Although analyzing this characteristic, sometimes we are compelled to lie to achieve the same objective that moral values seek: adapt by doing good to ourselves and others. We lie sometimes to avoid harming someone by not giving them tragic news. A variant would be the .
- The tolerance. It is respect for ideas, beliefs or practices when they are different or contrary to one’s own. Alluding to how important it is to make conscious the idea of Scott Fitzgerald (1925) who points out that first-order intelligence is the ability to have two opposing ideas present in the spirit at the same time and, despite this, not stop functioning.
- Freedom. It is the capacity of consciousness to think and act according to one’s own will. Per se this definition could be analyzed from existentialism where through this freedom we are forced to choose; Sartre (1943) said that we are condemned to be free; Freedom itself requires being aware of the imperative of the corresponding consequences of our decisions. In the following article you will find more information about .
Definitions that are oriented in the opposite direction or disagree with the apology of the well-known dichotomy or duality of “good and evil” in human beings are somewhat reviled: a scheme shared in the previous paragraphs where moral values are associated. to what is just, to act positively well and always against evil. These definitions consider that much of the binary thinking of good and evil tends to value himself or consider his actions as pure or correct, without opening room for the possibility that these moral values are based on the unconscious and shameful scoop that We all like to think well of others because we fear ourselves, Oscar Wilde (1890) called this the basis of optimism.
One of the fundamental arguments for this antithesis is that presented by Nietzsche (1883). This author explains that traditional values had lost their power in people’s lives, what he called passive nihilism. Nietzsche expresses it with his forceful proclamation “God is dead,” convinced that traditional moral values represented a morality created by weak and resentful that encouraged submissive and conformist behaviors or behaviors since these tacit values worked in their interests. It is for this reason that this author prevails over the need to replace or transform traditional moral values, which would lead him to the structure of the übermensch (superman).
The failure of traditional moral values is characterized by its unnaturalness, since it uses imperative norms or laws that go against the fundamental instincts of life; according to Freudian theory they are against the id; For Nietzsche these values are against the Dionysian and create a panegyric concept of the uniqueness of everything that represents the Apollonian.
In the malaise in culture, Sigmund Freud (1930) states that:
Moral conscience behaves more severely and distrustful the more virtuous the man is, so that, ultimately, those who have gone furthest along the path of holiness are precisely those who accuse themselves of the worst sinfulness.2
Freud also states that there are two origins of guilt: one is the fear of authority and the second is the fear of the super-ego. The first forces us to renounce the satisfaction of instincts; The second drives punishment, because it is impossible to hide the persistence of forbidden desires from the super-ego.
This traditional moral conscience is the consequence of instinctual renunciation. These moral values can lead to repression of dozens or countless behaviors typical of human beings and concluding in various mental and also physiological pathologies.
For example: a person who considers that “selflessness” (term) should be an unavoidable basis for personal growth, which implies the renunciation of most of one’s own desires, interests and affections in order to benefit others. This chronic sacrifice that also preaches “that things should be done without expecting anything in return” and then feels a despair and frustration always finding that no one is able to thank him for all those sacrifices. This further exacerbates the predisposition to suffer from one or more of the following pathologies presented in DSM 5 (2013):
Nietzsche said that guilt or an altered conscience does not arise as a natural consequence of the transgression of protective norms or of what is good in itself, but from the cruelty of the self towards itself as an inoculation of domestication. Freud exposes the same thing in Malaise in Culture (1930), the affirmation that the human being is indebted to his origin (the origin of the gods), which is what generates this feeling of culpable commitment.