Definition of Universal Values
Miscellanea / / July 04, 2021
By Javier Navarro, in Jul. 2016
The concept of universal values must be framed within the dimension moral of the human being. When referring to values we refer to freedom, justice, generosity, love, peace, solidarity wave honesty, concepts that are present in all cultural traditions.
The concepts listed above make sense for what they're worth. Thus, we say that something is valuable because we consider it good. Therefore, values do not exist properly (there is no freedom anywhere or any other value), but what we do is that certain things have a certain value.
What do we understand by universal values?
The moral values They can be understood from individual subjectivity, in relation to a specific culture or as universal ideas.
A person can understand a value (for example, freedom) based on personal experience of it. This same value can be conceived from a changing perspective (for example, the idea of freedom for the ancient Greeks, freedom for the man of the Renaissance or for the man contemporary).
Another perspective consists in understanding freedom as a universal idea and, therefore, that despite individual criteria or the historical circumstances, freedom is a universal value and, in fact, it has been reflected on for more than 2000 years. This vision implies understanding freedom or any other value as a constant reference and that in one way or another is always present in the human being.
The controversy over universal values
Ethics is the discipline that analyzes the moral behavior of the individual. Some philosophers maintain that one cannot speak of universal values, since they consider that these assumptions Values are changing and they are also ideas created by the Western world and not by all cultural traditions.
This conception is relativistic and according to it each tradition cultural understands values according to its own cultural coordinates. On the other hand, other philosophers claim that there are universal values, because if we say that something is good it is because we consider that this idea is universalizable, that is, it is good not only for me but for the whole humanity.
A concrete example of universal values can be found in the Universal Declaration of the Human rights of 1948, a document that claims to be valid for the whole of humanity and, therefore, with a global and universal dimension.
Photos: iStock - rainyk / Joel Carillet
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