Revision summary
A value is a stable criterion of the worthy, not a passing mood or an unexamined habit. It differs from need and from law, though it must live with both. Central elements are stability, preferential ranking, cognition joined to affect, and a force that issues in conduct. Values are socially taught yet open to public reason, and they sit in a hierarchy when goods clash. A wall motto that never meets a file is not yet a value.
Model answer
Introduction
A value is a lasting standard of what a person holds as worth choosing when interest, fear, or fashion pull another way. Its central elements are those features that make a preference a public ethic rather than a passing taste.
Body
What values are
- A value is a relatively stable criterion of the worthy — truth, dignity, fairness, compassion — by which a person ranks ends and means, not a mood that dies with the hour.
- It is distinct from a need, which is felt lack; from a habit, which may be unexamined; and from a law, which is enforceable command without always answering why the command is good.
- Rokeach treated values as enduring beliefs that a mode of conduct or an end-state is personally and socially preferable; Allport placed them among the unifying traits of personality.
- In Indian public life, dharma and the Preamble’s justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity name civic values that an officer must be able to justify to a stranger, not only to a clan.
- A slogan that never appears in a file or a queue is not yet a value; value is a standard that binds inner conscience to outer conduct under power.
Central elements
- Stability: a value survives a change of posting, party, and crowd; a fashion that flips with the news is not yet a value.
- Preferential ranking: values order what comes first when two goods collide — honesty before speed, dignity before convenience — which is why they are the stuff of dilemma, not of slogan charts.
- Cognitive and affective join: a value is believed and felt; mere knowledge of a Conduct Rule without shame at a lie is an empty head, not a value.
- Conative force: it disposes a person to act, so that truth-telling, refusal of a gift, and a speaking order are the test, not a wall motto.
- Social source and public reason: values are taught in family, school, faith, and office, yet a human value claims a worth that can be examined even against custom.
- Hierarchy and conflict: terminal values (ends such as equality) and instrumental values (means such as courage) sit in a map; ethics is the craft of ranking them when they clash.
- Case-ready: the same relief list can honour equality or kin; the central elements of value are what make the first choice inspectable.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD V[Value as lasting standard] --> S[Stability and ranking] S --> A[Belief feeling and will] A --> P[Public reason] P --> C[Conduct under power]
Conclusion
Values are lasting standards of worthy choice, distinct from mood, need, and mere statute. Their central elements are stability, ranking, belief joined to feeling, a will to act, public teachability, and a hierarchy that can be reasoned when goods collide.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Define the ethical concerns in Government and Private Institutions.
Next question in the 2018 paper (Q2). View answer →
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Are values the same as attitudes?
No. An attitude is a relatively specific liking or disliking of an object. A value is a more general, more stable standard that can judge many attitudes.
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Can a person hold values and still act wrongly?
Yes. Values can be weak, conflicting, or unused. Ethics is the discipline that joins the standard to a costly act.
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