Moral Values

Values are defined in literature as everything from eternal ideas to behavioral actions. As used here values refer to criteria for determining levels of goodness, worth or beauty. Values are affectively-laden thoughts about objects, ideas, behavior, etc. that guide behavior, but do not necessarily require it (Rokeach, 1973). The act of valuing is considered an act of making value judgments, an expression of feeling, or the acquisition of and adherence to a set of principles. Values education is an explicit attempt to teach about values and/or valuing. Superka, Ahrens, & Hedstrom (1976) state there are five basic approaches to values education: inculcation, moral development, analysis, values clarification, and action learning. This text was used as the major source for the organization of the following presentation.

Moral Development

Educators adopting a moral development perspective believe that moral thinking develops in stages through a specific sequence. This approach is based primarily on the work of Lawrence Kohlberg (1969, 1984) as presented in his 6 stages and 25 "basic moral concepts." This approach focuses primarily on moral values, such as fairness, justice, equity, and human dignity; other types of values (social, personal, and aesthetic) are usually not considered.

It is assumed that students invariantly progress developmentally in their thinking about moral issues. They can comprehend one stage above their current primary stage and exposure to the next higher level is essential for enhancing moral development. Educators attempt to stimulate students to develop more complex moral reasoning patterns through the sequential stages.

Moral values are things held to be right or wrong or desirable or undesirable. While morality is 'innate' in humans, the scientific view is that a capacity for morality is genetically determined in us, but the set of moral values is acquired, through example, teaching, and imprinting from parents and society. Different cultures have very different moral value systems. Moral values, along with traditions, laws, behaviour patterns, and beliefs, are the defining features of a culture.

Nationalists believe that a society needs one culture to hold it together, as has tended to be the case historically, and that 'multiculturalism' is not desirable as it tends to lead to conflict.

In Evolutionary psychology, moral values are seen as part of cultural evolution. They reduce conflict within the group and make reciprocal altruism possible. They are one mechanism by which the 'Tragedy of the commons', in which selfish individuals spoil things for everyone by taking more than their fair share, might be prevented.

Moral values are enforced by peer pressure, conscience, disapproval, shunning, and only in some instances by law. They were effective in small communities before laws were formalised. They can also be sustained by the concept of 'status', which used to be measured in terms of honour, fairness and honesty, before it was degraded by consumerism into a show of wealth and power.