We explain what moral values are and what kinds of values exist. Examples of moral values. Differences with ethical values.
Kindness, for example, is the ability to do good selflessly.What are moral values?
Moral values are a set spiritual, social and even personal norms with which a community human (and each individual within it) decides to rule, based on what is considered as "good" and as "bad" in their tradition specific culture.
Moral values are the result of a complex series of choices that individuals make throughout their lives, based on the teachings received during their childhood and youth, the lived experiences and the emotional impact they have had, and the normative, religious, ethical and social discourses of the context in which they live. For this reason, moral values are not uniform, universal, or coercive, although breaking them can lead to social rejection and, in some cases, legal punishment.
The moralIn that sense, it is a concept of historical construction, determined by public opinion and the prevailing social model. This means that it changes with the weather, and what in a time or a culture Some may be considered immoral or depraved, in another it may be perfectly acceptable.
Even so, moral values are usually considered transcendent, so their dynamic change is slow and complicated. What can vary more quickly is the way of interpreting a moral value and what it translates into when dealing with it. society. For example, goodness is an absolute moral value, but under what circumstances it is translated in real life and in what way such a concept is relative varies according to perspective.
Types of securities
The values of a society can be classified according to the cultural framework from which they come, as follows:
- Personal. Those to which a person adheres individually, whether or not they agree with the society that surrounds him and with his historical moment.
- Relatives Those that an individual inherits or receives as teaching within the family, whether or not they agree with the rest of society and its historical moment.
- Religious or spiritual. Those who a person and a community profess and preserve through congregation and the exercise of a religion, mystique or specific faith.
- Traditional Those that a certain community professes over time and that it tends to preserve against the designs of its time.
- Ethical or professional. Those that a college or group of professionals chooses to govern the exercise of their profession, linked in particular with the ethics.
- Commercial. Those that concern the commercial sphere and the healthy exchange of goods.
- Democratic or Republican. Those values that preserve the democratic or republican political system, such as the equality, fraternity and Liberty.
Examples of moral values
Generosity is help that is given without expecting anything in return.
Moral values are diverse, but a general list implies the following:
- Goodness. Ability to do good selflessly.
- Generosity. The delivery of one's own resources and desires to another, without expecting anything in return.
- Compassion. The ability to sympathize with another, to feel their pain as your own.
- Virtue. The incorruptibility, the commitment with the highest good above personal benefits.
- Loyalty. Give back to those who are like us or have done us good.
- Tolerance. The ability to live together with those who are different or think differently in a peaceful way.
- Honesty. Commitment to truth and integrity.
- Modesty. Be aware of your own limitations and accept them.
Ethical values
Moral values are distinguished from civic values or ethical values, in that the former are of an absolute type, linked to somewhat abstract notions of good and evil. Ethical values, on the other hand, are linked to responsibility in the exercise of a profession, or in behavior linked to specific situations that may be problematic for society considering its moral, religious tradition, etc.
So when we talk about bioethics to think about the dilemmas of contemporary science in the life of the human beingWe are not thinking about good and evil, but about the implications that certain decisions may have for society as a whole. The same occurs with professional ethical codes, which govern the responsible use of the knowledge imparted to a professional in a subject.