LOGOS

                                                            LOGOS Home

ETHICS
The Nature of Value: A Student Questionnaire

A. Instructions: Evaluate the statements below according to the following options and circle the appropriate number.

B. Statements

1. We never desire anything because we deem it to be good; but, rather, we deem a thing good because we desire it. 1 2 3 4 5

2. Food and water are universal, involuntary values for human beings in general. 1 2 3 4 5

3. All values, and value itself, are relative to or dependent upon an individual, culture, or species. 1 2 3 4 5

4. “X has value” means X is useful or instrumental in achieving some desired goal. 1 2 3 4 5

5. Any object of desire is, by definition, a value. Hence, values are created by desires. 1 2 3 4 5

6. The view that we can make X (any object) a value, purely on the basis of personal desire and regardless of the objective features of X, is arbitrary and subjective. 1 2 3 4 5

7. Even if human beings did not exist, appropriate levels of rainfall (not too much or little) would have value in relation to plants. 1 2 3 4 5

8. Clean air is a basic biological and environmental value, not because we decide it to be, but because clean air is an objective reality required by all human beings. 1 2 3 4 5

9. Value is neither purely objective (existing independently of desire) nor purely subjective (existing dependently on the basis of subjective interest), but rather a relational reality composed of both subjective and objective components. 1 2 3 4 5

10. Some values are objectively higher (e.g., food ranks higher than TV) because of the independent nature of reality (human nature and the nature of objects). 1 2 3 4 5

11. Canned sardines is a positive value (very desirable) or a negative value (very undesirable) relative to an individual subject; but food itself is a positive value for all human beings (a universal value which is not created but discovered). 1 2 3 4 5