VALUES—WHAT ARE THEY?

If there ever was a word that is suppose to convey an understanding of human psychology, motivation, purpose, ethics, pathology, and much more which utterly fails in its communication endeavor—it is the word “values.” It fails because it sounds like a thing, and yet it is not. As a noun, it sounds like something external, yet it is not. It is not a true noun nor is it external. The term “value” is a false-noun, a nominalization—a verb turned into a noun. To value, as a process, is to think, deem, and treat something as important, significant, and/or meaningful. That’s what we do when we value. We think, “X is important.” Actually, saying that something is important is the easy part, living that value—that’s harder. When we have to act according to our espoused values by devoting our energy, time, effort, and priorities to it—that makes it most challenging. And yet, that’s what a value true is—a lived significance.

This raises the next question, a critical question for your well-being. “What is valuable to you?” “What do you value?” Fortunately this was one of the key subjects Abraham Maslow began studying. Then, out of the years of his research, he discovered that we humans have a built-in value system—namely our socio-biological needs and our higher semantic needs. He called the first our D-needs (for deficiency) and the second, our B-needs (for being). The first set of needs drive us with an impulse energy so that we would figure out how to gratify that drive. And these needs are at the same time our most fundamental values. Because we need oxygen, food, water, sleep, and shelter, so we value these items. We value these for survival, for life, for well-being.

We need safety and security—a stable world to live in, one that we can figure out how to protect ourselves, be safe, and have a sense of structure. So needing these, we value them. We need love and affection, belonging, a sense of attachment to others, a community and so we value the same. We need social recognition, respect, and dignity, and so we value these. Our needs are our values.

Then, above and beyond these first needs/values which enable us to have health and well-being are the truly unique human needs/values—knowledge, meaning, justice, equality, love, beauty, music, contribution, excellence, making a difference, etc. These are the higher needs, the being- needs, which are the human needs/values. While the first needs/values make us fully alive, these higher needs/values enable us to be fully human. So within them are our highest and most important values.

What are the intrinsic human values? They begin with the D-needs along with the B-needs. All of the things that the classic philosophers said were among the most important human values— truth, beauty, and justice are part of the Being-values. What’s amazing about what Maslow discovered was that he reached the same conclusions, not philosophy but through psychological research. As he extended his studies about “good humans,” he started identify “good

specimens.” He started identifying people who were using a lot, if not most, of their talents and potentials and using them as those who had happened upon the highest human values. He reasoned that if the healthiest among us, those “fully functioning” or nearly so, and whose well- being and productivity was of great value to mankind, their lived values must be innately significant. From that, he, his colleagues, and his students began making a list of these being- values.

This was and continues to be quite revolutionary. What truly and adequately gratifies the D- and the B-needs consist of the essential and intrinsic human values. This enables us to generate a list of values which are not imposed from the outside and on which you must take them on faith or because you believe in some ideology or philosophy. We accept these values because these are the ones which enable our well-being and full functioning. Anyone looking for a set of values to guide one’s life by or a set of values to invest your time, money, effort, etc, into can start here.

If that doesn’t convince you, consider the converse. Again, that’s what Maslow did. He looked at people who failed to gratify the need–values, and especially the B-values. What he found was that those who failed them suffered various pathologies. In the D-realm, the pathologies were physical and psychological addictions and in the B-realm, they were loss of motivation, depression, anhedonia, uncertainty, etc. He called the problems in the B-realm, meta-pathologies and he created long lists of these “sicknesses” of the spirit.

Values are what you need—what’s required—to be fully alive/ fully human. That’s why when a person suffers from value sickness, they have problems being human. It is why a value-crisis can be so devastating. It is why we live best when we live by the highest values. It is why education, coaching, therapy, parenting, and other domains desperately need to recover the highest human values—the being-values.