Me and My Values

There is a tendency in philosophy to believe we define ourselves. That we define ourselves by our values or what we ‘care about’, see for instance Helm and Frankfurt.

“I have claimed that one’s identity is fundamentally a matter of the kind of life worth living and that this is determined largely by one’s personal priorities and values; ….Thus when asked who I am I do not say a 6-4 –inch former soccer player who likes chocolate and is susceptible to the gambler’s fallacy … I respond by saying that I am a philosophy professor, father of three, etc.” (1)

“It is in the nature of a lover’s concern that he is invested in his beloved. That is, he is benefited when his beloved flourishes; and he suffers when it is harmed. Another way of putting it is that the lover identifies himself with what he loves. This consists of accepting the interests of his beloved as his own.” (2)

In this posting I do not want to deny we partly define ourselves by our values or what we ‘care about’. However I will suggest there is a tendency to overstate this self-definition. Moreover I believe this overstatement applies to the importance of values and what someone ‘cares about’ and ignores other things that help define her.

Helm when asked who he is does not say he was a soccer player or that he likes chocolate and is susceptible to the gambler’s fallacy but replies by choosing certain things he values. Helm is identifying himself with his values and seems to assume others will identify him in a similar way. However there are problems with this approach. Firstly someone may be unaware of some of the values she possesses. Secondly we must be careful about the idea of choice. As I noted in my previous posting what someone values need not be identical with the values she explicitly identifies with. She can be mistaken about some of her values. Our values are determined just a much by what someone actually does as by what she thinks she should do. I believe Helm would accept this point as he argues someone sometimes discovers her values.

However even if someone is unaware of some of her values, does she sometimes choose her values and in so doing is she creating her identity like some existential hero? Personally I am unhappy with such a position. Recent research in experimental philosophy has shown that sometimes someone’s choices are influenced less by her character and more by the situation she finds herself in; see for instance Appiah (3). It follows someone’s choices may sometimes be determined less by her character and more by her situation. It further follows some of someone’s values might well be determined by the circumstances she finds herself in. Helm holds our identity is determined by our values. It still further follows if we accept Helm’s position that in practice someone’s identity is not simply chosen by her. Accepting the above is one of the reasons I rather like Helm’s idea of someone discovering her values; discovering her identity. In spite of the above I do not want to completely downplay the role someone’s explicit choices about value play in creating her identity, I only want argue such choices do not play as big a part as we might assume. The fact someone has some value may in many cases be partly be due to the fact she made a choice. But even if someone has genuinely chosen something as a value does not guarantee it is in fact value. She must also be able to live up to her choice. In some cases she may discover she cannot, see Frankfurt discussion of Sartre’s young man (4). It might be objected there is some circularity in the above arguments concerning character, value and identity. I will not pursue this objection here but believe it can be overcome, see (5).

Helm and Frankfurt hold that our identity depends on what we value or ‘care about’. However I would suggest the fact that we often appear to discover our identity means other factors play a part in determining this identity. In my posting of 12/12/11 I argued that the fact someone suffers from Asperger’s syndrome partly determines her identity. Asperger’s syndrome affects someone’s neural development and hence the way she thinks, she chooses. I would go even further than this and suggest factors independent of our neural makeup also affect our identity. Consider someone born without legs and as a result of this is confined to a wheelchair. I would argue this fact affects the choices open to her and hence her identity. She may not for instance become a mountaineer like her parents. An objector to the above might use my wheelchair example to argue against me. She might argue if a soldier who loses his legs in Afghanistan and becomes confined to a wheelchair that this does not change his identity. Our intuitions about the mountaineer’s daughter and the wounded soldier seem to lead us to a paradox. I believe this paradox can be resolved. I accept soldier’s identity is not changed at the time of his injury but I would argue his identity will be changed over time. Let us assume prior to his injury the soldier identified himself with being a soldier leading his men into battle. This option is now closed to him. Let us further assume that post his injury he becomes a Para-Olympian and identifies himself with sport. It would appear then that over time the fact he has become a wheelchair user has in some ways affected his identity.

I have argued that in practice someone’s identity is not simply chosen by her but is also determined by her physical body and the circumstances she finds herself in. Part of these circumstances is the way other people see her. It follows our identity is linked to the way others see us. Let us return to a soldier example. Let us assume our soldier is a paramedic who does not see herself as brave. Let us further assume one day she tends to a wounded colleague under enemy fire. Her colleagues see her as brave and because of this she discovers herself to be brave. Of course she was brave before her discovery but her bravery was unreflective whilst after her discovery her bravery came to play a more central part in her life, in her identity and this centrality would not have happened had not others seen her as brave.

1.      Bennett Helm, 2010, Love, Friendship & the Self, Oxford University Press, page 130.

2.      Harry Frankfurt 2006, Taking Ourselves Seriously, Stanford University Press, Page 41.

3.      Kwame Appiah, 2008, Experiments in Ethics, Harvard University Press, chapter 2.

4.      Frankfurt, 1988, The Importance of What We Care About. Cambridge University Press, page 84.

5.      Helm, page 140.