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Identifying Values

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One of my favorite quotes from Ayn Rand, from Philosophy Who Needs It, is:

"Values which one cannot identify, but merely senses implicitly, are not in one’s control. One cannot tell what they depend on or require, what course of action is needed to gain and/or keep them. One can lose or betray them without knowing it."

I have been trying to identify my values explicitly so that I can formulate a meaningful hierarchy and central purpose. I have made a lot of progress, but it is surprisingly difficult. After all, one's values reside inside oneself, so it ought to be a simple matter of raising the question, "what is important to me?" But in practice, I have been so indoctrinated for so long that my life was not my own and that I ought to pursue certain prescribed values that it is hard to clearly identify what matters to me. One thing I have found that is helpful is hearing what is important to other people.

One thing that's helped me is the definition of value: that which one ACTS to keep or gain. So I try to pay attention to what actual actions I take, rather than which ones I think I should take. For example, I want to think that health is important to me, so how does that measure up to my actions? It turns out fitness is more important to me than diet, because I make sure I work out hard every day, but then I eat whatever I want. Using this kind of thinking, I find that understanding the world around me is a very high priority, and so is my own self-esteem, which I develop by taking on projects that require my creative effort. Talking to rational friends gets very high billing. Those are some I've identified.

One friend summarized it like this:

1. the highest value is my own life, and anything I need to do to sustain it.

2. my long-term self-interest

3. my short-term self-interest

4. passing interests of the moment

That's a general guideline. I'm looking for more specific ideas. I would like to hear from others of you who have thought about this for yourself: what are your most important values, and how did you identify them in yourself?

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I think you've got it: it's what you spend most of your time thinking about and actually doing. Of course, your values should be checked to make sure they fit in a rational life, but once that's settled, it's what you like and do the most.

As for not knowing what you like because you habitually make your decisions based on what a religion would want instead, don't worry and keep trying. With time, your new habit will be to first check with yourself, and then to always check with yourself. When I was changing that habit, I would say I noticed significant differences at six months, and then again six months after. Maybe it will happen with you sooner. :)

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I would like to hear from others of you who have thought about this for yourself: what are your most important values, and how did you identify them in yourself?

Most people have at least one concrete thing they are interested in, even if they haven't identified it as being a value. We all need something that keeps us going and gets us out of bed each day. For me, ever since the age of 13, music has been my most important value. After I began playing the violin, I became super interested in everything musical and started transcribing melodies (especially ones from soundtracks, like star wars) just for the fun of it. Then I started to realize, "gee, I spend a lot of time doing this, it must be really important to me!". And I guess that's when I began to identify music as being a value. But I imagine it happens that way for most people. You're automatically going to enjoy doing certain activities more than others, and then you'll stop and look at what you've been putting all your time into, and identify that as being your main value.

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Through the years I can say I've pretty consistently acted to search for understanding of the world around me, either through philosophy or religion before I concluded it was a dead end path. A tenacious desire to attain independence is another long standing theme. Achievement in multiple fields is a third.

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One of my favorite quotes from Ayn Rand, from Philosophy Who Needs It, is:

"Values which one cannot identify, but merely senses implicitly, are not in one’s control. One cannot tell what they depend on or require, what course of action is needed to gain and/or keep them. One can lose or betray them without knowing it."

I have been trying to identify my values explicitly so that I can formulate a meaningful hierarchy and central purpose. I have made a lot of progress, but it is surprisingly difficult. After all, one's values reside inside oneself, so it ought to be a simple matter of raising the question, "what is important to me?" But in practice, I have been so indoctrinated for so long that my life was not my own and that I ought to pursue certain prescribed values that it is hard to clearly identify what matters to me. One thing I have found that is helpful is hearing what is important to other people.

One thing that's helped me is the definition of value: that which one ACTS to keep or gain. So I try to pay attention to what actual actions I take, rather than which ones I think I should take.

This is an incorrect concept of "value" according to Objectivism. (Although, IMO this is a very confusing subject which is only presented clearly in Leonard Peikoff's "Objectivism through induction" where he goes through concept formation of "value").

A value has three components, according to Objectivism:

1. It is demonstrably good for you (like health, good nutrition, self-esteem)

2. It is something you want

3. It is something you act to gain or keep.

If one has a masochistic desire it does not make physical violence a value. It has component #2 but not component #1.

An objective value has all three. For example, my career (I'm a painter) is demonstrably good for me (for my specific personality and abilities and my need of productivity as a general virtue), it is something I want and I act to gain and keep it.

Values can be conscious or subconscious, ideally a value should be both. But it is not so all the time. I may value something subconsciously and not identify it. Some people value strong, uncompromising characters from movies as teenagers and act to a limited degree to pursue that value (being such a person themselves) to a limited degree, but they do not understand the roots of the value and so when they grow older they loose that value and become cynical about human nature.

Objectivism only gives general values which apply to human beings in general (like self esteem, knowledge etc') but it is your job within the context of those values to see how to achieve them in a way that fits your unique personality. "Productivity" won't tell you to be a fireman or a poet. This is up to you to get to know yourself and figure out the right thing for you.

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Thank you Ifat for this post, you summed it elegantly.

Time can be a factor but not an accurate one. We as human beings are doing mistakes constantly and also about our own interests. One of the most important and common fallacies in economy is that in a perfect world there will be no loses when in fact loses have an important role.

This is my opinion on the psychological aspect which is crucial if one's goal is to find good ways to manage his passions:

Man's value is a dynamic concept. Those of you who practice art, music or any other profession which demands creativity constantly may confess about times when they just don’t have the "muse" for it. I don't know much about painting but this is the reason by my opinion that most of the modern musicians are over after three or four albums.

In a way this is how organizational psychology works: you need a dynamic target. It might sound very clear for a man or a woman living and working in a free society, but in the army and in communist countries it is from time to time the difference between great depression and partly healthy psychological life.

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It's also not sensible to think that values "reside inside yourself" and all you have to do in order to decide what you should do is to introspect. By the time most people are adults, they have formed a mishmash of emotional preference so there is *some* benefit to be gained from introspection in order to learn that you prefer the pursuit of a career in music rather than sports. That's an optional value as long as you do desire to pursue a productive career. But if you're in the position where you'd prefer NOT to pursue a productive career, first you have to spend some time looking at reality and thinking in order to change your subconscious conviction that, say, only suckers work. You won't be able to choose WHAT productive career you want until you decide that you want a career, period.

The reason I stress this is because a lot of people arrive at around age 20 with no particular preference for one work over another because they haven't really done much work in this area or that. They think there's something wrong with them because no particular career appeals to them. What they need to do is not drive themselves crazy with introspecting and instead get out and try a number of different types of work until they find one that they do definitely prefer.

But in identifying values, you always have to look at reality FIRST. Introspection only helps once you've accumulated a variety of material that's stored in your mind.

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Through the years I can say I've pretty consistently acted to search for understanding of the world around me, either through philosophy or religion before I concluded it was a dead end path. A tenacious desire to attain independence is another long standing theme. Achievement in multiple fields is a third.

You said it all for me. :)

JMegan makes up the rest of the story with her warning against excessive introspection. She's right: value does not exist within one, not immediately, from early on.

(Too much 'navel-gazing', and not enough action, is something I'm familiar with.)

Reality is where one discovers and tests ones values. It is amazing how much one can talk oneself out of acting at all - only to find that ANY action can often lead to interests and passions that could never be predicted.

But of course, action for the sake of action is the sub-optimal path (maybe only to be used to break out of a period of immobility), and integrating thought with action is what we aim for.

Edited by whYNOT
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It's also not sensible to think that values "reside inside yourself" and all you have to do in order to decide what you should do is to introspect. By the time most people are adults, they have formed a mishmash of emotional preference so there is *some* benefit to be gained from introspection in order to learn that you prefer the pursuit of a career in music rather than sports. That's an optional value as long as you do desire to pursue a productive career. But if you're in the position where you'd prefer NOT to pursue a productive career, first you have to spend some time looking at reality and thinking in order to change your subconscious conviction that, say, only suckers work. You won't be able to choose WHAT productive career you want until you decide that you want a career, period.

The reason I stress this is because a lot of people arrive at around age 20 with no particular preference for one work over another because they haven't really done much work in this area or that. They think there's something wrong with them because no particular career appeals to them. What they need to do is not drive themselves crazy with introspecting and instead get out and try a number of different types of work until they find one that they do definitely prefer.

But in identifying values, you always have to look at reality FIRST. Introspection only helps once you've accumulated a variety of material that's stored in your mind.

I agree (minus some small ways of phrasing things here and there).

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But of course, action for the sake of action is the sub-optimal path (maybe only to be used to break out of a period of immobility), and integrating thought with action is what we aim for.

Well, yes. Even with your data-collection activities, you want to have a plan and a goal. You don't want to say "huh, I'm not sure what I like, so I'm going to shove potato chips up my nose and see whether I like that" or "I'll just do some drugs, that's experience, right?" No. But making a plan such as "I'll go to college and take the general education courses so I can decide on a major" is sensible. "I'll borrow a bunch of books from the library to learn about careers" is sensible. "I'll tour local businesses" is sensible.

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