What do values mean to a person? Life as a value

13.10.2019 -

Last update:6/02/17

Every person has days when he is overcome by doubts whether this is how he lives, whether this is what he does. He asks himself questions: why do I live, why don’t everything work out the way I want. Such vague anxieties and feelings that you are going somewhere wrong, that you are doing something wrong, do not allow you to enjoy life.

To sort out these doubts, ask yourself a few questions: What is important to you in life? What do you value most in people? What do you value about yourself? What should be present in your life to make you feel happy? What principles do you think cannot be abandoned? Which values of life do you think main?

If you want to understand yourself, first you will need to understand your system life values. Make a list of everything without which you think your life is meaningless. Write which ones life values already exist in your life, and which ones should be.

The most main values in life each person:

1. Health: the better your health, the happier you are. Health is the most important thing to value in life and something to constantly take care of.

2. Love: There should be love in every person's life. It's great if you have a loved one. But perhaps it is your parents’ love for you, or your love for your parents, love for your children, love for your neighbor, and finally, it is love for yourself.

3. Family: what could be more important than a happy family life?

4. Friendship: do not forget how important it is for you to understand, how important the support of friends is, how much they mean to you.

5. Success: for you this could be work, career, respect and recognition, material well-being. Answer the questions: What does success mean to you? What does it mean to you to succeed?

As you understand, this is not all values of life, and for you they may not be main. You can write in your list: stable financial situation, confidence in tomorrow. Another person will write: personality development, spiritual values, self-realization. The third will write: youth, beauty, travel. And he will set his priorities completely differently.

Write down as much as possible everything you value in life, being careful not to leave anything out. Explore the list and choose from it main for you values of life. Write them down as their importance decreases. Those life values, which took the first 7-9 lines of the list, are yours main values in life. Now think about whether you pay most of your attention to these values, whether you spend your time and energy on them. If you realize that you are busy with completely different things, it will become clear to you why doubts come to you. It will become clear to you why you do not feel absolutely happy - you are serving not your own, but other people’s values, or those values that are not at the top of your list.

Try to change your life! That's why they are called the main ones, because they mean much more to us than others, they are our beacons in life, and allow us to make sure that we are moving in in the right direction!

Life values are categories of moral and material aspects that are leading in the choice of life strategy, paths of achievement and orientation in the semantic space. In many ways, it is values that determine a person’s ability to make decisions, and also incline his activities in a certain direction.

The presence of stress factors, problematic situations and other troubles can force a person to change their positions or begin to make efforts to defend their point of view. We can say that all the difficulties encountered along the way test a person’s strength in his own convictions, making it possible to prove that the chosen categories represent precisely the person’s life values, and not immediate needs.

What is it

A person’s life values are fate-transforming and fate-realizing factors and directly influence the adoption of all life decisions. They affect all areas of life, including the highest purpose of the individual and soul, relationships with close and superficially familiar people, and attitude towards material wealth.

The diversity of the space of life values is unique to the same extent that each individual is unique. It is the interweaving of the importance of the relationship to one or another category that allows us to see the individual pattern of the semantic and value space. Most people use immediate impulses to build a life concept, without a deep awareness of their priorities, which work on a subconscious level.

Frequent painful thoughts, the inability to make a choice, to do the right thing, or subsequent reproaches to oneself for a mistake are common consequences of the lack of a clear position. If you increase your level of awareness and thoroughly understand your gradation of values, then you can avoid a significant share of doubts and difficult choices.

The road is made easier by the fact that the path has already been chosen, even if for the sake of a long-term perspective one has to sacrifice temporary comfort. Thus, a person who puts his family first will not have long doubts about how to react to his superiors’ proposal for a six-month business trip in another country, but someone who does not understand what is a priority for him in the context of his entire life may never decide to dramatic changes or make a mistake.

The determination of the most significant values is influenced by many factors, such as internal structure the human psyche and external events in the surrounding space. At first, the foundation is laid by personality characteristics and the educational system - many values have a biological basis (the need for an active or passive lifestyle, the number of contacts, medical care), and are also internalized from their immediate environment at a very early age.

As you grow older, your core values shape what you receive. life experience, personal emotional experiences from certain situations that form a general attitude towards life. As a result, a unique structure appears that separates important things and events from unimportant ones.

When a person builds his life based on deep, true values, he feels filled with energy and happy. The opposite law also applies - than more life moves away from internal needs, the less happiness there is in her, in emotional background personal dissatisfaction begins to prevail. It is necessary to decide on your top priorities, while not forgetting that the most harmonious life is one in which all areas are developed. Even if a person determines the importance of two or three values for himself, it is necessary to maintain all the others at the proper level in order to avoid imbalance and disharmony of the individual.

Basic values of human life

Basic values are understood as categories of universal human values that are of undeniable importance for all people, on a planetary scale and at the individual level. What is important is the value of your own life, love for any of your manifestations. This leads to concern for the physical and spiritual health, the ability to prioritize and ensure your survival first. In many ways, this most important point is regulated, but only by physical level, psychological sacrifice is increasingly manifested among people and has a detrimental effect on life and mental state.

As a social being, humans tend to value relationships as well as their quality. The need to be accepted and appreciated contributes to survival and better implementation in life space. Next after the importance of social relationships, or instead of them, value can be considered family relations, including the parent family and building your own.

Intimate relationships and romantic manifestations can also be attributed to this point. Developing this category, the value of love for children and the need for their presence appears. Several additional aspects can be realized here at once, for example, the implementation of your social function, purpose, ability to transfer knowledge, etc.

The importance of native places, those where a person was born, grew up, and spent most of his life, can border on patriotism. In the global understanding, the place of our birth and upbringing directly shapes our personality - it is there that we can feel accepted and understood. In your homeland and among people with the same mentality, it is easier to adapt and breathe easier, there is an opportunity to show all your capabilities brighter and more multifaceted. Many cultures have preserved traditions of maintaining connections with their native land, out of an intuitive understanding of the importance of the amount of energy a person receives from their familiar space.

Professional and social activities, realizing oneself as a specialist or achieving new results in one’s hobbies becomes an almost necessary factor in modern world. This touches on what will happen without material support and the desire for development and recognition as the main driving mechanisms of human activity. Such strong factors ultimately force many to prioritize work, resulting in a serious bias in one direction.

Inseparable from the value of work is the value of rest, which allows you to restore resources and switch. During rest, a person can discover a new vision of a past situation, feel the taste of life, and realize impractical but spiritually significant desires. All this ultimately allows you to harmonize the rest of your life.

Examples from life

To understand more clearly how values manifest themselves, it makes sense to consider several examples of each of them. Thus, the value of family and relationships is manifested by care, the ability to come to help and provide it even when it is not directly asked for. A person who devotes time to all the people important in his life clearly values this category. This also includes the ability to always treat people with respect, to be responsive, tolerant and tolerant. The absence of these manifestations can soon destroy any relationship and the person is left alone. Of course, he can sacrifice something like this, directing his energy to other things. attentive attitude to others, but to develop one’s own career or skills, but then a person’s priorities include completely different ideals.

When a person’s main value is material well-being, this manifests itself in constant self-development in one’s professional field, the search for new opportunities and positions.
A prime example is missing a family dinner or dinner together because of an important meeting or the need to complete overtime work. In pursuit of financial wealth, people can take on additional work, become freelancers in addition to their main activities, sacrifice work relationships, and substitute employees in order to take a privileged position.

When health has deteriorated, then this category comes first among the entire list of values, since otherwise a person cannot function normally, and perhaps even say goodbye to life altogether. In many situations the need to care for physical condition arises precisely against the backdrop of problems, but there are people who have set this value for themselves as one of the highest, trying to maintain constant wellness. This is reflected in regular check-ups, following a suitable diet and physical activity, undergoing periodic rehabilitation and restorative procedures.

The value of self-development and spirituality may seem like a choice instead of a pilgrimage beach or an esoteric festival; instead of new shoes, psychological training is preferred. Everything that is important to a person requires time and attention, so only awareness will help you plan time in such a way that other areas of life do not suffer.

Personal values are a reflection of our needs, desires, and everything that we especially value in life. Values are huge driving force, which can be considered as a guide with the help of which we create our essence. Defining your values will help you figure out what to pursue and what to avoid. This will allow you to go through life with a strong inner compass. And finally, in the most difficult situations Personal values can serve as a reminder of what you truly value. Thus, identifying them will help you stay true to yourself in any circumstance.

Steps

Tracking emerging values

Clear space for “your” time. Since determining your personal values requires so-called soul-searching, create your own space for this. Turn off your phone, listen to soothing music, or do anything that helps you relax and focus on the present.

Write down the moments of your greatest happiness and deepest sadness. Remember all your ups and downs, while highlighting the details and feelings associated with each memory. Include in the list only those that have had an impact greatest influence on your life and well-being, not on what earned you praise or recognition from others.

For example, you can remember the evening on which you met your best friend. It may not have been the biggest achievement of your life, but on that day you may have learned a lot about your personality and how to start making friends and sharing experiences with other people.
Identify the themes that run through your most vivid memories, good and bad. They may also be informed by your spiritual or political leanings. You will likely identify several things that make you feel unfair, sad, angry, or all of the above. Try to do the same with happy moments.

Let's consider the common values of humanity. We all have relatively similar, very basic needs that come from the constitutions and evolution of human culture. The things we value ultimately stem from our needs - that's why we are so passionate and committed to our values! Studying human needs will give you a powerful boost in understanding your own values. More or less universal needs include:
- Physical well-being (food, rest, safety)
- Autonomy (freedom of choice, self-expression)
- Peace (hope, calm)
- Feelings (praise, participation, understanding)
- Connection (warmth, respect, attention)
- Entertainment (adventure, humor, joy)
Sketch out an initial list of personal values. Include items without which you cannot imagine your life. In it you can connect personal experience with your culture's values as well as universal human needs.
Record how you select these values. These may vary depending on the strategy you used. Often the strategy comes from the religion of the family in which you grew up. By knowing this, you will have a better understanding of the values that allow you to do things that you can be proud of.
- For example, you have a value - a high position in society. But how will you follow it - will you wear designer clothes or become a human rights activist? If you value a deep sense of peace and order, would you set up a home plant in your home to create essential oils? Or maybe you are used to resolving conflicts that arise in your family? Make connections between your values and your daily life.
Checking and balancing personal values
1. Determine what drives you in life. One way to test your values is to spend an entire day observing and identifying what drives you in life. If you have a certain priority value and you find yourself in a situation in which it is threatened, you will feel anxious, vulnerable, or even angry. What you hear or see on the news can also change the course of your life.
  - For example, your boss might tell you that your knit vest isn't the most appropriate attire for work. Instead of just feeling a little upset, you might feel angry or even irritated. In this case, you can say that your values are making your own decisions and autonomy.
2. Look at decisions made under the influence of your values. This can be done using both real and fictitious situations. For example, you value independence and are considering the possibility of moving in with a new roommate. Given your worth, what will you do? If you value peace and spontaneity, but your job takes up 70 hours a week, how can you avoid stress and internal conflict? In situations like these, understanding your values can really help you make creative decisions that reflect your true self.
  - Keep in mind that you will only see your value most clearly when you make a real decision. Sometimes we are so enamored with a certain value that we believe it will definitely trigger the best decisions (even though it doesn't have to).
3. Decide how you will defend it. If you are in difficult situation, and you find it difficult to defend the correctness of your value, think about whether you should speak up or not. Are you unable to live according to your value because everything in the world is changing? What value is at risk and why?
  - Let's say you're in a relationship with someone who doesn't appreciate your work, and you set a goal to get recognition for your efforts. Is it possible to solve this problem by talking? Would you enjoy it if your partner began to express gratitude to you?
  - Another way to check is as follows. Speak to the community about an issue. Perhaps you're concerned about cuts to public school funding - would you like to know more about it, or have you been affected in some way? Depending on the answer, your value could be either a concern for future generations or a call to action.

Human values are an extremely pressing issue. We all know them well. But hardly anyone tried to clearly define them for themselves. Our article is dedicated to precisely this: awareness of modern values.

Definition

Value is what a person consciously or unconsciously reaches for, which meets his needs. Of course, people are all different, which means that a person’s values are also purely individual, but one way or another there are common moral guidelines: goodness, beauty, truth, happiness.

Positive and negative values of modern man

It is clear to everyone that it is normal to strive for happiness (eudaimonism) or pleasure (hedonism). Now this is even more clear than, for example, 100 or 200 years ago. Although office workers certainly get tired at work, life nowadays has become much easier than it was for our grandparents. Russia is still shaken by various crises, but still these are not wars, not besieged Leningrad and other horrors that the crazy 20th century bestowed on history.

Our contemporary may well say, looking back at history: “I’m tired of suffering, I want to enjoy.” Of course, here he does not mean himself, but man as a generic essence, embodied in different bodily shells from ancient times to the present day.

Therefore, current reality, perhaps more than all other historical realities, sets him up for the pursuit of happiness and pleasure (positive human values) and escape from suffering and pain (negative constants of his existence). We have the joy (albeit of a very dubious quality) to observe how the classical ethical triad of “goodness, beauty, truth” gives way to such landmarks of human existence as money, success, happiness, pleasure. It is difficult to assemble them into some kind of structure, but if you try, then happiness and pleasure will definitely be at the top, money at the bottom, and everything else in between.

The time has come to talk about such a concept as “a human value system.”

Religious values

It is clear to sensible people that the world is capitalist, i.e. one where money decides everything or almost everything is not eternal and not the only one, and the order of values that is offered to them is not universal. Also, it is almost self-evident that the natural opposition is the religious interpretation of reality, which is subject to moral and spiritual laws. By the way, the eternal duality of existence between its spiritual and material aspects does not allow a person to lose his humanistic essence. That is why a person’s spiritual values are so important for his moral self-preservation.

Christ as the initiator of a spiritual revolution

Why was Christ a revolutionary? He did a lot of things to deserve such an honorable title, but the main thing in the context of our article is that he said: “The last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Thus, he turned over the entire structure, which is called the “system of human values.” Before him (as now) it was believed that wealth, fame and other delights of a soulless life are precisely the highest goals of human existence. And the Messiah came and said to wealthy people: “It is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” And they thought that they had already bought everything for themselves, but no.

Jesus saddened them, and the poor, unfortunate and disadvantaged began to have some hope. Some readers who don’t really believe in heaven will say: “But can the goodness promised after death atone for the existing suffering in a person’s earthly existence?” Dear reader, we completely agree. Future happiness is little consolation, but Christ gave hope to the losers of this world and charged them with strength to fight against their unenviable fate. In other words, human values, personal values have become different and have acquired variability.

Vertical world

In addition, Christianity made the world vertical, i.e. all earthly values are now recognized as base and unimportant. The main thing is spiritual self-improvement and unity with God. Of course, a person will still pay dearly for his spiritual aspirations in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, but all the same, the feat of Jesus is extremely significant even outside of a religious context, because the prophet showed, by sacrificing his life, that other values are possible in a person’s life, which harmoniously form into a system.

Variations of value systems

From the previous section it became clear that a person’s system of aspirations can be completely different. It all depends on what the individual or group is focused on. There is, for example, a sociological approach to this issue: the vertical of what is significant is built from the highest to the lowest in accordance with the interests of the collective. The latter can mean both individual groups and society as a whole. And we know those periods when some nations put the collective above the individual. This reasoning is perfect for the topic “Values of Man and Society.”

Personalization

The individualized world has its own priorities and its own understanding of higher and lower. We can observe them in our contemporary reality: material well-being, personal happiness, more pleasures and less suffering. Obviously, this is a rough sketch of significant human landmarks, but one way or another, each of us falls into this picture. There are not enough ascetics now.

Formal and actual values

If someone asks what role values play in a person’s life, then this question is difficult to answer. It’s one thing what a person says, and another thing what he does, i.e. the difference between formal and real semantic priorities. For example, in Russia many consider themselves believers. Temples are being built. Soon every yard will have its own temple, so that devout people will not have to go far. But this is of little use, because, as the bishop from the third part of the film saga “The Godfather” says to the main character of the film: “Christianity has surrounded man for 2,000 years, but it has never penetrated inside.” In fact, most people perceive religious institutions as conditional, and they are not particularly interested in the problem of sin. It is also strange that, thinking about God, believers completely forget about their neighbors, i.e. Human social values are in a sense corralled. Naturally, in such a situation it is difficult to talk about true faith.

Pitirim Sorokin and his value periodization of cultures

Renowned sociologist and public figure P. Sorokin based his typology of cultures on nothing other than values. He quite rightly believed that every culture has its own face, its own individuality, which stems from a guiding principle or idea. The scientist divided all cultures into three types.

Idiational - when religious beliefs prevail over material wealth and such a dominant attitude determines the values and norms of a person and culture as a whole. This is reflected in architecture, philosophy, literature, and social ideals. For example, during the European Middle Ages, the canon of a person was considered to be a saint, a hermit or an ascetic.
Sensual type of culture. The most striking example is, of course, the Renaissance. Religious values are not just trampled upon, they are actually abolished. God begins to be perceived as a source of pleasure. Man becomes the measure of all things. Sensuality, which was suppressed in the Middle Ages, wants to reveal and express itself to the fullest extent of its capabilities. This is where the famous moral conflicts of the Renaissance arise, when a significant cultural upsurge coexists with a fantastic moral decline.
Idealistic or mixed type. In this model of culture, material and spiritual ideals and human aspirations find agreement, but the primacy of the latter over the former is affirmed. Orientation towards high moral ideals helps a person to live with the least in the material sense and believe in spiritual self-improvement.

In this construction of P. Sorokin there are no extremes of the two previous types, but there is one significant drawback: it is impossible to find a real example of such a culture. We can only say that this is how people live who find themselves in extremely difficult circumstances (illness, poverty, natural disasters, poor neighborhoods in countries around the world). The poor and disabled, of their own free will, have to minimize their bodily needs and keep before their eyes a high moral ideal. For them, this is an indispensable condition for survival and existence within a certain moral framework.

This is how the article turned out, the focus of which was human cultural values. We hope that it will help the reader understand this difficult and at the same time extremely interesting topic.

2. Philosophy of values

3. Values in literature

4. Life values and culture modern youth(sociological research)

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

System value orientations, being psychological characteristics of a mature personality, one of the central personal formations, expresses a person’s meaningful attitude to social reality and, in this capacity, determines the motivation of his behavior and has a significant impact on all aspects of his activity. As an element of the personality structure, value orientations characterize the internal readiness to perform certain activities to satisfy needs and interests and indicate the direction of its behavior.

Each society has a unique value-orientation structure, which reflects the originality of this culture. Since the set of values that an individual acquires in the process of socialization is “transmitted” to him by society, the study of the system of value orientations of an individual seems especially actual problem in a situation of serious social changes, when there is some “blurring” of the social value structure, many values are destroyed and disappear social structures norms, contradictions appear in the ideals and values postulated by society.

Essentially, the entire variety of objects human activity, social relations and natural phenomena included in their circle can act as values as objects of a value relationship, can be assessed in the dichotomy of good and evil, truth and error, beauty and ugliness, permissible or forbidden, fair and unfair.

1. Values: concepts, essence, types

The cybernetic understanding of society consists in presenting it as belonging “to a special class of universal adaptive systems.”

From a certain perspective, culture can be considered as a multidimensional adaptive management program that sets the basic parameters for the self-organization of communities and coordinates the joint activity of fairly autonomous individuals. At the same time, culture can also be understood as a kind of generator of structure inherent in any highly organized system: “Order is achieved by limiting diversity possible states elements of the system by establishing the dependence of some elements on others. In this respect, culture is similar to biological and technical programming devices."

Culture itself is defined axiologically as a set of material and spiritual values and methods of their creation and transmission. Values as such are inextricably linked with the sociocultural context and can be considered as certain quanta of the general cultural field. It is in this sense that values can be considered as structural invariants different cultures, defining not only the content specificity of a particular culture as an arsenal of effective adaptive strategies, but also the features of its dynamics and development. Chavchavadze N.Z. and defines culture as a “world of embodied values,” distinguishing between values as means and values as goals.

A person’s value system is the “foundation” of his relationship to the world. Values are a relatively stable, socially conditioned selective attitude of a person towards the totality of material and spiritual public goods.

“Values,” wrote V.P. Tugarinov, is what people need to satisfy their needs and interests, as well as ideas and their motivation as a norm, goal and ideal.”

The value world of every person is vast. However, there are certain “cross-cutting” values that are practically core in any field of activity. These include hard work, education, kindness, good manners, honesty, decency, tolerance, humanity. It is the decline in the significance of these values in one period or another of history that always causes serious concern in a normal society.

Value is one of those general scientific concepts, the methodological significance of which is especially great for pedagogy. Being one of the key concepts of modern social thought, it is used in philosophy, sociology, psychology and pedagogy to designate objects and phenomena, their properties, as well as abstract ideas that embody moral ideals and act as standards of what is proper.

Essentially, the entire variety of objects of human activity, social relations and natural phenomena included in their circle can act as values as objects of value relations, can be assessed in the dichotomy of good and evil, truth and error, beauty and ugliness, permissible or forbidden, fair and unfair.

Value as a concept defines "... importance anything as opposed to existence object or its qualitative characteristics."

There are a huge number of values and they can be divided into two large groups: into material and spiritual:

We included the following as material assets: car, aquarium, garage, jewelry, money, food, house, toys, cosmetics, musical instruments, books, clothes, apartment, tape recorder, computer, TV, telephone, furniture, sports equipment;

To the spiritual: active life, life wisdom, life, family, love, friendship, courage, work, sports, responsibility, sensitivity, honesty, good manners, beauty, mercy, creativity, freedom, human, peace, justice, self-improvement, health , knowledge.

We can touch, see, buy material values, and they depend on the time in which a person lives. For example, 300 years ago there were no cars and that means there was no such value.

Spiritual values, unlike material ones, we cannot always see and they are not bought, but we can feel them through our actions and the behavior of the people around us. For example, if beauty is important to a person, then he will strive to create it around himself and perform beautiful deeds. Thus, these are higher values that are universal and valid at all times.

2. Philosophy of values

In philosophy, the problem of values is considered inextricably linked with the definition of the essence of man, his creative nature, his ability to create the world and himself in accordance with the measure of his values. A person forms his own values, constantly destroys the contradictions between the established world of values and anti-values, uses values as a tool for maintaining his life world, protection from the destructive effects of entropic processes that threaten the reality it gives birth to. A value-based approach to the world requires consideration of objective reality as the result of human self-affirmation; The world with this approach is, first of all, a reality mastered by man, transformed into the content of his activity, consciousness, and personal culture.

M.A. Nedosekina in her work “On the Question of Values and Their Classification” (Internet resource) defines value concepts, understood as the basis of assessments and the prism of a goal-oriented vision of reality, as needs and interests translated into the language of thoughts and feelings, concepts and images, ideas and judgments . Indeed, for assessment it is necessary to have developed ideas about values that act as orientation criteria for the adaptive and active activity of an individual.

Based on their value ideas, people not only evaluate existing things, but also choose their actions, demand and achieve justice, and carry out what is good for them.

E.V. Zolotukhina-Abolina defines values as an extra-rational regulator. Behavior that is truly regulated by reference to value criteria is ultimately aimed at achieving maximum emotional comfort, which is a psychophysical sign of achievement specific purpose associated with the affirmation of a particular value.

N.S. Rozov identifies several evolutionary types of development of the worldview of communities: mythological consciousness, religious consciousness and ideological consciousness. This kind of classification is more than obvious. However, few people dare to abandon the finality of the last form of social consciousness and even suggest the possibility of the birth of a new one, completely different from the previous ones. N.S. Rozov did this: “Value consciousness is most likely to claim the role of the leading form of worldview in the coming historical era.” Values within the framework of value consciousness as a new form of worldview, firstly, come out of a subordinate position, and secondly, they absorb and rethink the entire diversity of existing worldviews, since communication and the search for productive compromises between representatives of these different worldviews become urgently necessary... Concept value consciousness is not reduced to a combination of the meanings of the two words that make up this name. This concept is constructed, first of all, normatively: value consciousness is a form of worldview based on values that satisfies the requirements established above.

The world of values that teleologically determine their object, to which it is initially directed, does not hang in the air. It is rooted in the affective life of the psyche no less than vital needs. The first contact with values occurs through communication with significant persons - parents. From the initial stages of ontogenesis, they interfere with the spontaneous functioning of vital needs, introducing into them the order necessary for the entire society. And if the becoming consciousness draws its strength mainly from affective images significant persons, then in the future it is freed from the need for such support and, in the pursuit of a goal-value, it self-organizes and produces its structure and content, moving in line with objective laws. The existing hierarchy of values, teleologically defining its subject - human consciousness, can give rise to values that lead out of the sphere of immediate vital needs of a given society. This is the axiological basis of progress.

What do values ​​mean to a person? Life as a value