2. Values
Values are beliefs about what is good and
what is bad.
Notions of good and bad vary from culture
to culture.
Values serve the culture that expresses
them.
Values reinforce the existing power
structure
Values reinforce the existing economic
structure
Values protect existing ideologies
Political ideology
Religious ideology
3. Values and Belief
A value is the belief that an idea, or
action or another belief is either good
or bad; Right or wrong.
Values are not usually negotiated in the
short term, but rather evolve over very
long periods of time.
But new values can arise in
subcultures, this can happen quickly
under some conditions.
Values are based in the culture, rather
than the society which exists at any
given time.
4. Ideas of Good and Bad
Genesis 2 17 , Genesis 3 22, 23
•“But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely
die.”
• And the LORD god said, "the man has now become like one of us, knowing
good and evil.
• So the LORD god banished him from the garden of Eden to work the ground
from which he had been taken
•Values are very powerful because they involve
judgment of others or the actions of others.
Religious beliefs often warn against this judgmental
part of human action. In Judeo-Christian belief it was
the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil
that got Adam and eve kicked out of paradise.
5. •Certainly disagreements over
what is good and what is bad
have brought many wars and
much personal grief.
•Sociologists don’t judge good
and evil. We simply observe
what others think is good and
evil and try to figure out why
they value what they value.
6. Right vs. Wrong
Judgments of right and wrong are the
basis for positive and negative
sanctions.
