THE HIERARCHY OF HUMAN VALUES

WALERIAN SLOMKA

Independently of all theories of value, throughout history man has given continuous evidence of living in a world of values and anti-values. At the same time he has left many examples of his enchantment with true values and has disillusionments with anti-values or false values. Contemporary theories of values are aware of the importance of the problems, but many lack an integral anthropology and thus have been incapable of coping with the tasks they confront. The sources of such limitations regarding a theory of values can be psycho logism, sociologism or basic elements in their theory of knowledge.¹

The first condition for a true theory of va lues must be the truth about man conceived integrally. Only in the light of such a truth about man is it possible properly to understand the full needs of man and to respond to his need for values.

An integral vision of man always has been a subject of the teaching of the Catholic Church; it has become a special concern of John Paul II . Referring to the cognitive possibilities of man and to the data of divine revelation, this teaching sees man in the world, but as a quite distinctive entity. By nature he belongs to the world, while transcending it by the personal character of his existence--particularly his capacity to enter into personal communion with God and other personal beings. In such a vision man appears within nature, but at the level of a personal subject with a personality or psychic structure characteristic of his human mode of existence.

This mode reveals itself as an order or hierarchy constituted of nature, personality and personal subject. It is in this order that one must seek the basis for understanding the hierarchy of human values.²

VALUES OF NAT URE

Analogously to all other living natures, human nature, potentiality and values, through which it is fulfilled and achieves its proper fulfillment. The needs of human nature can be expressed as tendencies to self-preservation, to preservation of the species and to the acquisition of the material conditions necessary to achieve those needs.

To the need of self-preservation corresponds the value of food and drink. More recently we have become aware also of the value of the natural environment. This need is so unconditional that failure to satisfy it threatens the human individual with inevitable ruin, while its insufficient satisfaction paralyzes one's development and sentences one to a slow and painful reduction of human capabilities. The satisfaction of this need can be accomplished either in harmony with the human mood of existing or through its abandonment. The person-subject retains its human identity only when it does not violate its nature. When satisfaction of human needs breaks the bonds of human integrity food and drink are replaced by the anti-values of debauchery, drunkenness or drug addiction (narcomania).

To the need for the preservation of the species corresponds the value of sex. In itself this is not evil but good; it is a real value corresponding to a real need in human nature. It should be noted, however, that there is a difference between this and the former needs. Whereas the need for food, drink and the natural environment were unconditional needs of the human individual; the need for sex is an unconditional need not for the human individual, but for the species. In order to live the individual must satisfy the need of self-preservation, but it is not necessary for the human species that each individual satisfy his/her sexual need. This may be important for understanding the value of virginity or celibacy.

In spite of this, the need for preservation of the species is rooted in the concrete human individual. Concrete human individuals are carriers of this need, which is satisfied in them by the value of sex. Each normal individual of the human species is marked with a sexual need and its connected powers, and has a natural right to satisfy this need for sexual values. This right, however, can be realized only while respecting the right of the species to exist and respect the character of the personal subject created to the image and likeness of God. With the choice of virginity or celibacy the above right is fulfilled by abnegation, motivated by dedication to higher values.

The use of sexual values contrary to the good of the species or the human person, or against chosen higher values, creates disorder in human life. Independently of the pleasure experienced, it will lead to behavior contrary to the dignity of the person subject and his God-given goals.

The need to possess material goods and their satisfactions does not belong to human nature in the same sense as do the former needs. Nevertheless, due to the role of this value in relation to self-preservation and the preservation of the species, it should be counted among the needs of human nature, although in a derivative sense. Under the value of material goods must be listed primarily the possession of a home, clothing, and the means for living without fear of tomorrow. Absence of those values undermines the potentiality of the person for self-preservation and preservation of the species. Danger to humanity may consist not only in the lack of those values, but also in the imprisoning effect of such possessions as they alienate the person and do violence to the hierarchy of human values. The Catholic Church expressed this point in the Vatican Council II in the Constitution on "The Church in the Modern World": "A man is more precious for what he is than for what he has." (n. 35).

THE VALUES OF PE RSONHOOD (PER SONALITY)

Although the notion of personhood is still a matter of debate, generally it is agreed to consist in a holistic unity of psychic characteristics which is organized into a dynamic structure acquired during a life-long experience and open to the world of values and meaning.³ Adapting somewhat the thought of A.H. Maslow⁴ we may say that the basic needs of the human personhood can be reduced to three: existential security, personal security and development. To these correspond three basic values: the existence, the value of personal security and dignity and respect.

Material security, already mentioned in connection with the value of nature, is reflected on the level of the person and pertains to the very existence of man. It is not the mere fact of possession that counts here, but societal affirmation and security through belonging to a definite social group.

Acceptance, love and friendship are values of personal security. Lack of these produces pathological individuals. The profile of this malady has been developed amply by Karen Horney as rendering a human individual incapable of loving himself but incessantly desiring to be loved, reaching for threads and manipulating others even through demands for justice.⁵

The development dynamism of the human person as directed toward the realization of self-identity, one's own dignity and respect for this dignity. Here we see the bridge between the needs and values of personhood and the human person in whom both nature and personhood find their completion.

VALUES OF THE PE RSON

The mystery of the personal subject can be, and de facto is, felt in experimental psychology. This is reflected by Maslow's statements about the so-called peak experiences of human beings which bring them closer to the realm of "being" through selfless experiences of truth, goodness and beauty and through the experience of purpose, growth and happiness.⁶ This is studied directly, however, in the philosophy of being and ultimately by God as creator and savior. The foundations of human dignity and immortality, as well as its moral character and the ultimate beatific fulfillment are founded at this level. It is in these terms that we shall seek to formulate the problem of the needs and values, or rather the problem of their corresponding potentialities and dynamisms. Among these would include the capacities proper to man as man for knowledge, love, wonder, conscience and goal directedness. To those capacities and dynamisms correspond the values of ultimate truth, good and beauty, as well as the moral values and that of happiness.

The Value of Tru th. Human history bears witness to the fact that man carries within himself a hunger for truth which does not allow him to rest until he reaches the ultimate truth, which is G od. This hunger expresses itself in the search to discover others and oneself. It may lead to practical pragmatic knowledge; ultimately, however, it leads one toward the ultimate Mystery of Being and forces one humbly to open oneself to its sphere of action. Thus, it leads to meditation and contemplation in which knower and known merge into oneness without losing their identities.⁷

The Value of the G ood. To the capacity to love or to "be for" corresponds the good, both possible and actual. This capacity is rooted in the very structure of man's personal existence which defines itself by existing in relationship. Existing in relationship has cognitive and aesthetic aspects also, but existing in a relationship of love means being a gift of the actual Good. Precisely because of love possible goods are changed into actuality. Along with beatific, cognitive and aesthetic communion, in the communion of love the lover and the beloved by becoming gifts for each other constitute an inseparable unity. This is the second half of the self: a communion of indivisible happiness.

Philosophy speaks at this point about a unity of truth, goodness and beauty; it is Christianity that raises specifically the values of love. The originality and essence of the Christian religion is expressed in the thesis that God is Love; that God loves us to the point of giving his Son and the Holy Spirit, and that He made us capable of loving as He Himself loves. Within this context it can be said that realization of the capacity for loving through existing for God and others reflects Divine love as a Source. In that sense, making love present makes God present.

The Value of Beaut y. Although theories of the beautiful and of aesthetic experience are so many that it is impossible to find a common dominator, nevertheless looking at the problem from the vantage point of a philosophy of being and of man's personal potentialities we can expect to achieve some understanding. Man is endowed with a capacity for admiration or fascination to which there corresponds the value of the beautiful extending even to Absolute Beauty or God. The peak human experience described by Maslow confirm this capacity and its corresponding values, as well as the unity of being, truth, good and the beautiful.⁸ For Christians it is precisely God who is the Truth, the Good and the Beautiful so that their highest experience is ecstatic fulfillment through beatifying communion with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Moral Values . Though it has been disputed that humans are characterized by conscience, whenever faced with evil, even though it may have been legalized by human law, people judge it as evil. As an ability rooted in the human being by the Creator, conscience is directed towards moral values as a dynamism discriminating moral good and evil and making it possible to choose the good as a moral duty. Conscience is the first judge of man and bespeaks duty.

As a special presence of God in man, conscience is a sanctuary of one's humanity; it is the basis of human dignity and freedom against all pressures and forces of unfreedom. The betrayal of one's conscience and sense of duty is a betrayal not only of God, but also of human dignity and freedom. It is deviation from one's own happiness, which ultimately consists in communion with God and with the creatures participating in this communion.

The Value of Ha ppiness. Human beings as such are characterized by a sense of purpose directed toward union with a personal God. In turn, this produces ecstasy, joy and happiness. Man is created for happiness, which consists not only in self-fulfillment, but above all in communion with the Divine Persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and also with all persons and everything in communion with God. This communion of love is the final all-embracing fulfillment, the ultimate happiness no longer subject to any danger. "I saw" new heavens and a new earth . . . God's home is with mankind! He will live with them and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them, and he will be their God. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes. There will be no more greed or crying or pain" Rev. 21, 1-4.

Accusations against Chri stianity as doing violence to the requirements of human nature have their source in the lack of an integral vision of man and in neglect of the hierarchical character of the human being and its values. The Christian vision of man does not question the reality of the human body and senses, their needs and values. Nor does it question the reality of the psychic, personal life of man and its related needs and values. But neither does it overlook the reality of the human being as a personal subject, with its proper dignity, a vocation to self-awareness and self-direction, and their distinctive needs and values. It maintains that the basis of the dignity and freedom of the human being is located in one's personal subject. In effect this dimension of human existence must be acknowledged as the foundation of ordering and composition within man, as well as of the related needs and values.

The source of unfreedom in the realm of human values lies not in the acceptance of the reality of its needs of the biological-sensory nature of man or in the reality of psycho-personality needs and values, while rejecting the hierarchical composition of the human being. This results in confusion regarding the value of that being. This may take place whenever the needs and values of man's biological nature are considered without regard to the needs and values of human personality; it may occur also whenever the needs and values of one's personality are considered without taking into account those of the human person. Finally, confusion is possible whenever the needs and values of the human person are experienced without taking into account the hierarchic composition of the person with its implications for an ordered harmony of needs and values.

Material needs and their related values will not threaten human dignity and freedom if they are conceived in connection with those of personality and the personhood. On the contrary, the satisfaction of one's biological needs and its corresponding values is the condition for proper human development on the level of personality. Similarly, satisfaction of psychological needs and their corresponding values is a condition for the proper development of a personal life.

It must be stressed, however, that properly human fulfillment or value is based upon not what is conditioned, but what transcends conditioning. In this sense we may say that man's physical nature is fulfilled through relation to his personality; similarly human personality is fulfilled through its place in the human person. Analogously, the needs and values of human nature are fulfilled in relation to the needs and values of the human personality. This, in turn, finds its fulfillment in relation to the divine through the similarity of the person to God and its existence in communion with God: Father, Son, Spirit, and with the whole divine order.

Violence to this hierarchical order of human needs and values may imply deception in the experience of human freedom. Ultimately, however, it constitutes an attack upon the orderliness of being life and upon the achievement of one's final fulfillment and happiness.

In this regard the position of H.C. Li nk, an American psychologist, is very instructive. At first he objected to the demands of religious life as inimicable to humanism and human freedom. Afterwards, he arrived through experience at the conclusion that psychology shows that man cannot reach his full happiness without discipline and sacrifice. Because he found man to be incapable of these without the values based upon religion, he entitled his book: The Return to Religion.⁹

The Catholic University

Lublin, Poland

1. A.J. N owak. "Hierarchia wartosci a sumienie w aspekcie psychologii glebi," Rocz. Fil., 30 (1982), z.4 pp. 105-124; A.L. Qui ntas, Las experiencias de vertigo y la subversion de valores (Madrid: 1986); A.L. Quintas, A Methodological Introduction to the Study of Values. (Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy and the University Press of America, 1989).

2. W. Sl omka, Wolnosc i zniewolenie (Clifton, N.J.: Computoprint, 1988).

3. W. Pr ezyna, Funkcja postawy religijnej w osobowosci czlowieka (Lublin, 1981, p. 32; G.W. Alport, Personality: a Psychological Interpretation (New York: 1937).

4. A.H. Ma slow, Toward a Psychology of Being (New York: Van Nos Reinhold, 1968).

5. K. Horn ey, The Neurotic Personality of Our Time (New York: Norton, 1964).

6. A.H. Maslow, ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid., ch. II.

9. H.C. Li nk, The Return to Religion (New York: Folcroft, l977 [1936]).