All human societies show a concern
for the value of human life; in all, self-preservation is generally accepted as
a proper motive for action, and in none is the killing of other human beings
permitted without some fairly definite justification. All human societies
regard the procreation of a new human life as in itself a good thing unless
there are special circumstances. No human society fails to restrict sexual activity;
in all societies there is some prohibition of incest, some opposition to
boundless promiscuity and to rape, some favour for stability and permanence in
sexual relations. All human societies display a concern for truth, through
education of the young in matters not only practical (e.g. avoidance of
dangers) but also speculative or theoretical (e.g. religion). Human beings, who
can survive infancy only by nurture, live in or on the margins of some society
which invariably extends beyond the nuclear family, and all societies display a
favour for the values of cooperation, of common over individual good, of
obligation between individuals, and of justice within groups. All know
friendship. All have some conception of meum
and tuum, title or property, and of
reciprocity. All value play, serious and formalized, or relaxed and
recreational. All treat the bodies of dead members of the group in some
traditional and ritual fashion different from their procedures for rubbish
disposal. All display a concern for powers or principles which are to be
respected as suprahuman; in one form or another, religion is universal.
The following abridges
and summarizes Finnis’s explanation of the seven basic values:
1. Life
A first basic value, corresponding
to the drive for self-preservation, is the value of life. Signifies here every
aspect of the vitality which puts a human being in good shape for
self-determination: bodily (including cerebral) health, freedom from injury.
2. Knowledge
Curiosity is the name for the
desire we have when, just for the sake of knowing, we want to find out about
something. E.g. What happened on the night of the murder? How does this clock
work? What did she mean by that? It would be good to find out. Knowledge is a
good thing to have (and not merely for its utility). In explaining, to oneself
and others, what one is up to, one finds oneself able and ready to refer to
finding out, knowledge, truth as sufficient explanations of the point of one’s
activity, project or commitment. Ignorance and muddle are to be avoided, simply
as such.
Some clarifications: to see
knowledge as a basic form of good doesn’t mean that every true proposition is
equally worth investigating, or that the truth about various things would be
equally valuable for every person, nor that it necessarily has priority for the
reader or writer at this moment, or that it is the only form of good or the
supreme form of good; yet still, it is an intrinsic good—i.e. desirable for its
own sake.
3. Play
Inclined to be overlooked by
certain sorts of moralists, play is a large and irreducible element in human
culture. Each one of us can see the point of engaging in performances which
have no point beyond the performance itself, enjoyed for its own sake.
4. Aesthetic experience
Many forms of play, such as dance
or song or football, are the matrix or occasion of aesthetic experience. But
beauty is not an indispensable element of play. Moreover, beautiful form can be
found and enjoyed in nature. Aesthetic experience, unlike play, need not
involve an action of one’s own; what is sought after and valued for its own
sake may simply be the beautiful form “outside” one, and the “inner” experience
of appreciation of its beauty.
5. Sociability (friendship). In its
weakest form, this is realized by a minimum of peace and harmony amongst men,
and which ranges through the forms of human community to its strongest form in
the flowering of full friendship. Friendship involves acting for the sake of
one’s friend’s purposes, one’s friends well-being. To be in a relationship of
friendship with at least one other person is a fundamental form of good, is it
not?
6. Practical reasonableness
It is a basic good to be able to
bring one’s own intelligence to bear effectively (in practical reasoning that
issues in action) on the problems of choosing one’s actions and life-style and
shaping one’s own character. This value
is complex, involving freedom and reason, integrity and authenticity.
7. Religion
Relationship of individual to
cosmos; sense of a higher order, making human freedom subordinate to something
which makes that human freedom, human intelligence, and human mastery possible.
Besides these seven values, there
are countless objectives and forms of good. Courage, generosity, moderation,
gentleness are not themselves basic values, but are ways (not means, but modes)
of pursuing the basic values. There are
many inclinations and urges that do not correspond to or support any basic value:
for example, the inclination to take more than one’s share, or the urge to
gratuitous cruelty. But these urges,
whatever their relative power, do not stand to something self-evidently good as
the urge to self-preservation stands to the self-evident good of human life.
* * *
Notes the entry on
Finnis at Wikipedia: Stephen Buckle sees “Finnis’s requirement that practical
reason requires ‘respect for every basic value in every act’ as intended both
to rule out consequentialism in ethics and also to support the moral viewpoint
of the Catholic Church on a range of contentious issues.” Be that as it may, do
not these seven basic values afford a basis for reaffirming our common
humanity? Why is it significant to be able to do that?
