Value concepts

Value concepts or values in general use linguistic usage as desirable or morally well-considered qualities or qualities that are attached to objects, ideas, practical or moral ideals, facts, patterns of behavior, character traits. By value decision is meant a decision based on values. The overall structure formed from the values ​​or values ​​of a society is called value system or value system. The network of linked, but differently weighted, values ​​is calledValue Hierarchy. If a value system contains a sole claim to truth, it is the mark of an ideology. Value creation can be understood in a material and ideal sense.

In ethics, value denotes the degree of importance of some thing or action, with the aim of determining what actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics), or to describe the significance of different actions. Value systems are proscriptive and prescriptive beliefs; they affect ethical behavior of a person or are the basis of their intentional activities. Often primary values are strong and secondary values are suitable for changes. What makes an action valuable may in turn depend on the ethical values of the objects it increases, decreases or alters. An object with “ethic value” may be termed an “ethic or philosophic good” (noun sense).

Values can be defined as broad preferences concerning appropriate courses of actions or outcomes. As such, values reflect a person’s sense of right and wrong or what “ought” to be. “Equal rights for all”, “Excellence deserves admiration”, and “People should be treated with respect and dignity” are representatives of values. Values tend to influence attitudes and behavior and these types include ethical/moral values, doctrinal/ideological (religious, political) values, social values, and aesthetic values. It is debated whether some values that are not clearly physiologically determined, such as altruism, are intrinsic, and whether some, such as acquisitiveness, should be classified as vices or virtues.

Philosophy
In the philosophy of values, especially in its subarea ethics, the terms “value perception”, “value attitude” or “value creation” according to their significant representatives Oskar Kraus, Hermann Lotze or Max Scheler embody the foundation and orientation of thinking and acting according to idealistic values. Under ideal values is understood to Sigibert Warwitz A. Values ​​that are not primarily intended to increase material profits, but that are aligned with social standards or that increase the mental quality of life, an inner enrichment, a maturing of the personality. This requires an understanding of intangible values ​​and the ability to discriminate between useful thinking and aspirations. He sees “a metaphysical, religious orientation, a humanistic thinking or a social orientation” as the most important sources of motivation.

Fromm differentiated in its social criticism in principle between “idealistic” and “materialistic” value views. He is concerned with the alternative of enrichment by external goods or human qualities. Hermann Lotze uses the term “value” in the sense of an “emotionally recognized as superior, to which one can behold, acknowledge, worship, aspire, behave”.

Representatives of the philosophy of value are of the opinion that the question of value has been posed since the beginnings of philosophical thought of the question of the character and mode of being of values, above all in the goods ethics of Aristotle. Plato described in his work the idea of the good. The ancient Aristotelian ethics of origin was picked up in theology and in the context of moral theology continued.

Windelband, Rickert and others developed a value ethic with the intention of basing philosophical ethics more anthropologically than ontologically. Significant importance is given to the term in the approach of material value ethics by Max Scheler in the years 1913 to 1916. Scheler has explicitly distanced his value ethics from traditional goods ethics.

Bochenski (1902-1995) distinguished 1959 three groups of immaterial values, which one can realize by his behavior: the moral, the aesthetic and the religious.

The moral values ​​are demand for action; they contain the do-it-yourself.
The aesthetic values ​​contain being-should.
Religious values, as a combination of moral and aesthetic values, also take into account the not-wanting-to-do and the not-to-do-ought and to indicate it in the form of sin.
In the recent discussion, the attempts to substantiate values ​​ontologically or anthropologically have come under strong criticism. For example, the Freiburg philosopher Andreas Urs Sommer argues in a highly acclaimed book in 2016 that values ​​are “regulative fictions” that are constantly being redesigned according to individual and social needs. The conceptions of eternal, existing values ​​reject summer, but without diagnosing a decline in value. Values ​​are necessary plural and relative – and that they are, should be welcomed.

Psychology
The value concept was handled in psychology “generous” and “often only in the sense of ordinary language” used. It has also been customary to explain and vary the term used in philosophical terms based on the results of psychological research. In 1924, the term was used in the decades-old, youth- psychological work of Eduard Spranger in phrases such as “value-totality”, “value realization” and “value of the world”.

However, the term has received a definitional ambiguity, “in two directions” (Rolf Oerter) since the 1960s due to multiple studies (for example, Kurt Lewin, Clark L. Hull, Edward C. Tolman, Desmond Morris): 1. Values ​​as the Things or living things own reference points have an attractive or repulsive effect. 2. A value conveyed by the culture serves as a “guideline” for the understanding or knowledge of the world and consequently becomes the premise in the planning of the behavior.

As a hypothetical construct of an individual-world relationship, value is either perceived as a complex of the world’s factors of impact on the living entity, or used in the motivational concept of the individual as a design or corrective for shaping the world. Mostly, however, the value concept was to be found as a dynamic concept in the literature. In this “value concept”, which is based on a broader basis of psychological investigations, the action-oriented meanings of the terms “value experience” and “value realization” described in German-speaking countries were rediscovered. As a result of his research on cognitive development, Jean Piaget explained1966 that the formal thinking acquired in the childhood stage is a later affective accompanying condition in order to be able to structure the “values ​​associated with future projects” suitably for the planning of life designs in adulthood. From the point of view of Existential Analysis, Frankl gave values ​​in 1974 as “comprehensive possibilities of meaning”.

Within the theory of motivation, Haseloff described in 1974 the value attitudes as long-term efficient complexes of action from the motivational class of the strivings “representing socio-culturally themed and standardized sources of duration”, directly referring to the “value systems and the order of preference of the personality” and according to the Law of Functional Autonomy of Motifs “(G. Allport). From a synopsis resulted in of psychological with sociological literature Hans Joas the description of an intra-individual dynamics in 2004 in the term “value bonds,” the man in an active process, “in the processes of self-education and in experience the self-transcendence “.

Types of study
Ethical value may be regarded as a study under ethics, which, in turn, may be grouped as philosophy. Similarly, ethical value may be regarded as a subgroup of a broader field of philosophic value sometimes referred to as axiology. Ethical value denotes something’s degree of importance, with the aim of determining what action or life is best to do, or at least attempt to describe the value of different actions.

The study of ethical value is also included in value theory. In addition, values have been studied in various disciplines: anthropology, behavioral economics, business ethics, corporate governance, moral philosophy, political sciences, social psychology, sociology and theology.

Similar concepts
Ethical value is sometimes used synonymously with goodness. However, goodness has many other meanings and may be regarded as more ambiguous.

Personal versus cultural perspectives
Personal values exist in relation to cultural values, either in agreement with or divergence from prevailing norms. A culture is a social system that shares a set of common values, in which such values permit social expectations and collective understandings of the good, beautiful and constructive. Without normative personal values, there would be no cultural reference against which to measure the virtue of individual values and so cultural identity would disintegrate.

Personal values
Personal values provide an internal reference for what is good, beneficial, important, useful, beautiful, desirable and constructive. Values are one of the factors that generate behaviour[dubious – discuss] and influence the choices made by an individual.

Values may help common human problems for survival by comparative rankings of value, the results of which provide answers to questions of why people do what they do and in what order they choose to do them.[clarification needed] Moral, religious, and personal values, when held rigidly, may also give rise to conflicts that result from a clash between differing world views.

Over time the public expression of personal values that groups of people find important in their day-to-day lives, lay the foundations of law, custom and tradition. Recent research has thereby stressed the implicit nature of value communication. Consumer behavior research proposes there are six internal values and three external values. They are known as List of Values (LOV) in management studies. They are self respect, warm relationships, sense of accomplishment, self-fulfillment, fun and enjoyment, excitement, sense of belonging, being well respected, and security. From a functional aspect these values are categorized into three and they are interpersonal relationship area, personal factors, and non-personal factors. From an ethnocentric perspective, it could be assumed that a same set of values will not reflect equally between two groups of people from two countries. Though the core values are related, the processing of values can differ based on the cultural identity of an individual.

Cultural values
Individual cultures emphasize values which their members broadly share. Values of a society can often be identified by examining the level of honor and respect received by various groups and ideas. In the United States of America, for example, top-level professional athletes receive more respect (measured in terms of monetary payment) than university professors.

Values clarification differs from cognitive moral education:

Value clarification consists of “helping people clarify what their lives are for and what is worth working for. It encourages students to define their own values and to understand others’ values.”
Cognitive moral education builds on the belief that students should learn to value things like democracy and justice as their moral reasoning develops.
Values relate to the norms of a culture, but they are more global and intellectual than norms. Norms provide rules for behavior in specific situations, while values identify what should be judged as good or evil. While norms are standards, patterns, rules and guides of expected behavior, values are abstract concepts of what is important and worthwhile. Flying the national flag on a holiday is a norm, but it reflects the value of patriotism. Wearing dark clothing and appearing solemn are normative behaviors to manifest respect at a funeral. Different cultures represent values differently and to different levels of emphasis. “Over the last three decades, traditional-age college students have shown an increased interest in personal well-being and a decreased interest in the welfare of others.” Values seemed to have changed, affecting the beliefs, and attitudes of the students.

Members take part in a culture even if each member’s personal values do not entirely agree with some of the normative values sanctioned in that culture. This reflects an individual’s ability to synthesize and extract aspects valuable to them from the multiple subcultures they belong to.

If a group member expresses a value that seriously conflicts with the group’s norms, the group’s authority may carry out various ways of encouraging conformity or stigmatizing the non-conforming behavior of that member. For example, imprisonment can result from conflict with social norms that the state has established as law.[clarification needed]

Furthermore, institutions in the global economy can genuinely respect values which are of three kinds based on a “triangle of coherence”. In the first instance, a value may come to expression within the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as (in the second instance) within the United Nations – particularly in the Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) – providing a framework for global legitimacy through accountability. In the third instance, the expertise of member-driven international organizations and civil society depends on the incorporation of flexibility in the rules, to preserve the expression of identity in a globalized world..[clarification needed]

Nonetheless, in warlike economic competition, differing views may contradict each other, particularly in the field of culture. Thus audiences in Europe may regard a movie as an artistic creation and grant it benefits from special treatment, while audiences in the United States may see it as mere entertainment, whatever its artistic merits. EU policies based on the notion of “cultural exception” can become juxtaposed with the policy of “cultural specificity” on the liberal Anglo-Saxon side. Indeed, international law traditionally treats films as property and the content of television programs as a service. Consequently, cultural interventionist policies can find themselves opposed to the Anglo-Saxon liberal position, causing failures in international negotiations.

Development and transmission
Values are generally received through cultural means, especially diffusion and transmission or socialization from parents to children. Parents in different cultures have different values. For example, parents in a hunter–gatherer society or surviving through subsistence agriculture value practical survival skills from a young age. Many such cultures begin teaching babies to use sharp tools, including knives, before their first birthdays. Italian parents value social and emotional abilities and having an even temperament. Spanish parents want their children to be sociable. Swedish parents value security and happiness. Dutch parents value independence, long attention spans, and predictable schedules. American parents are unusual for strongly valuing intellectual ability, especially in a narrow “book learning” sense. The Kipsigis people of Kenya value children who are not only smart, but who employ that intelligence in a responsible and helpful way, which they call ng’om. Luos of Kenya value education and pride which they call “nyadhi”.

Factors that influence the development of cultural values are summarized below.

The Inglehart–Welzel cultural map of the world is a two-dimensional cultural map showing the cultural values of the countries of the world along two dimensions: The traditional versus secular-rational values reflect the transition from a religious understanding of the world to a dominance of science and bureaucracy. The second dimension named survival values versus self-expression values represents the transition from industrial society to post-industrial society.

Cultures can be distinguished as tight and loose in relation to how much they adhere to social norms and tolerates deviance. Tight cultures are more restrictive, with stricter disciplinary measures for norm violations while loose cultures have weaker social norms and a higher tolerance for deviant behavior. A history of threats, such as natural disasters, high population density, or vulnerability to infectious diseases, is associated with greater tightness. It has been suggested that tightness allows cultures to coordinate more effectively to survive threats.

Studies in evolutionary psychology have led to similar findings. The so-called regality theory finds that war and other perceived collective dangers have a profound influence on both the psychology of individuals and on the social structure and cultural values. A dangerous environment leads to a hierarchical, authoritarian, and warlike culture, while a safe and peaceful environment fosters an egalitarian and tolerant culture.

Properties and forms

Relative or absolute
Relative values differ between people, and on a larger scale, between people of different cultures. On the other hand, there are theories of the existence of absolute values, which can also be termed noumenal values (and not to be confused with mathematical absolute value). An absolute value can be described as philosophically absolute and independent of individual and cultural views, as well as independent of whether it is known or apprehended or not. Ludwig Wittgenstein was pessimistic towards the idea that an elucidation would ever happen regarding the absolute values of actions or objects; “we can speak as much as we want about “life” and “its meaning,” and believe that what we say is important. But these are no more than expressions and can never be facts, resulting from a tendency of the mind and not the heart or the will”.

The relative value can be considered as an ‘experience’ by the subjects of the absolute value. The relative value varies according to individual and cultural interpretation, while the absolute value remains constant, regardless of its individual or collective ‘experience’.

The relative value can be explained as an assumption, from which the implementation can be extrapolated. If the absolute value were known, it could be implemented.

Intrinsic or extrinsic
Philosophic value may be split into instrumental value and intrinsic values. An instrumental value is worth having as a means towards getting something else that is good (e.g., a radio is instrumentally good in order to hear music). An intrinsically valuable thing is worth for itself, not as a means to something else. It is giving value intrinsic and extrinsic properties.

An ethic good with instrumental value may be termed an ethic mean, and an ethic good with intrinsic value may be termed an end-in-itself. An object may be both a mean and end-in-itself.

Summation
Intrinsic and instrumental goods are not mutually exclusive categories. Some objects are both good in themselves, and also good for getting other objects that are good. “Understanding science” may be such a good, being both worthwhile in and of itself, and as a means of achieving other goods. In these cases, the sum of instrumental (specifically the all instrumental value) and intrinsic value of an object may be used when putting that object in value systems, which is a set of consistent values and measures.

Intensity
The intensity of philosophic value is the degree it is generated or carried out, and may be regarded as the prevalence of the good, the object having the value.

It should not be confused with the amount of value per object, although the latter may vary too, e.g. because of instrumental value conditionality. For example, taking a fictional life-stance of accepting waffle-eating as being the end-in-itself, the intensity may be the speed that waffles are eaten, and is zero when no waffles are eaten, e.g. if no waffles are present. Still, each waffle that had been present would still have value, no matter if it was being eaten or not, independent on intensity.

Instrumental value conditionality in this case could be exampled by every waffle not present, making them less valued by being far away rather than easily accessible.

In many life stances it is the product of value and intensity that is ultimately desirable, i.e. not only to generate value, but to generate it in large degree. Maximizing lifestances have the highest possible intensity as an imperative.

Positive and negative value
There may be a distinction between positive and negative philosophic or ethic value. While positive ethic value generally correlates with something that is pursued or maximized, negative ethic value correlates with something that is avoided or minimized.

Negative value may be both intrinsic negative value and/or instrumental negative value.

Protected value
A protected value (also sacred value) is one that an individual is unwilling to trade off no matter what the benefits of doing so may be. For example, some people may be unwilling to kill another person, even if it means saving many others individuals. Protected values tend to be “intrinsically good”, and most people can in fact imagine a scenario when trading off their most precious values would be necessary. If such trade-offs happen between two competing protected values such as killing a person and defending your family they are called tragic trade-offs.

Protected values have been found to be play a role in protracted conflicts (e.g., the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) because they can hinder businesslike (”utilitarian”) negotiations. A series of experimental studies directed by Scott Atran and Ángel Gómez among combatants on the ISIS frontline in Iraq and with ordinary citizens in Western Europe suggest that commitment to sacred values motivate the most “devoted actors” to make the costliest sacrifices, including willingness to fight and die, as well as a readiness to forsake close kin and comrades for those values if necessary. From the perspective of utilitarianism, protected values are biases when they prevent utility from being maximized across individuals.

According to Jonathan Baron and Mark Spranca, protected values arise from norms as described in theories of deontological ethics (the latter often being referred to in context with Immanuel Kant). The protectedness implies that people are concerned with their participation in transactions rather than just the consequences of it.

Value system
A value system is a set of consistent values used for the purpose of ethical or ideological integrity.

Consistency
As a member of a society, group or community, an individual can hold both a personal value system and a communal value system at the same time. In this case, the two value systems (one personal and one communal) are externally consistent provided they bear no contradictions or situational exceptions between them.

A value system in its own right is internally consistent when

its values do not contradict each other and
its exceptions are or could be
abstract enough to be used in all situations and
consistently applied.
Conversely, a value system by itself is internally inconsistent if:

its values contradict each other and
its exceptions are
highly situational and
inconsistently applied.

Value exceptions
Abstract exceptions serve to reinforce the ranking of values. Their definitions are generalized enough to be relevant to any and all situations. Situational exceptions, on the other hand, are ad hoc and pertain only to specific situations. The presence of a type of exception determines one of two more kinds of value systems:

An idealized value system is a listing of values that lacks exceptions. It is, therefore, absolute and can be codified as a strict set of proscriptions on behavior. Those who hold to their idealized value system and claim no exceptions (other than the default) are called absolutists.
A realized value system contains exceptions to resolve contradictions between values in practical circumstances. This type is what people tend to use in daily life.
The difference between these two types of systems can be seen when people state that they hold one value system yet in practice deviate from it, thus holding a different value system. For example, a religion lists an absolute set of values while the practice of that religion may include exceptions.

Implicit exceptions bring about a third type of value system called a formal value system. Whether idealized or realized, this type contains an implicit exception associated with each value: “as long as no higher-priority value is violated”. For instance, a person might feel that lying is wrong. Since preserving a life is probably more highly valued than adhering to the principle that lying is wrong, lying to save someone’s life is acceptable. Perhaps too simplistic in practice, such a hierarchical structure may warrant explicit exceptions.

Social norms
Values ​​(such as the value of respect for property) can be used to derive social norms (concrete rules for social action), such as: B. “Who takes away a foreign, movable thing with the intention of acquiring it…”. However, historically concrete commandments like “Thou shalt not steal!” Often precede their value abstractions. Values ​​are central to many behavioral codes, but they are not behavioral codes of their own. Values ​​are attractive, while norms are restrictive.

“The norm says what needs to be done in a situation that is necessary and universal.” A certain kind of linking of conditions of action in a situation leads to the claim of a demand to do. How does the social norm relate to the spiritual dispositions of the will? The norms include ideality. They are based on designs that are prepared as ideal possibilities in the spirit of building a life concept. The reference point of these standards is “clearly the value as a category of selection”. The observance of the norms “is launched by the negative consequences of their non-compliance”. “Social norms give order to behaviors. They act as group stabilizers. ” From a sociopolitical point of view, Habermas 2004 naturally refers to the orientation of the citizen to the normative; he uses the term “norm consciousness” for this ethical disposition.

Value change
Values ​​are usually passed on through socialization to subsequent generations. This does not happen completely. For example, a steady change in values ​​can be observed in western industrialized societies. The causes for the change in values ​​are manifold (changed environmental conditions, conflict over other generations, etc.). Values ​​differ from settings in that they are more stable.

Value Conflicts
The system of all values ​​does not appear to be consistent or individual values ​​appear to be in competition with certain other values. It is sometimes postulated that the value of wealth conflicts with the value of sustainability or the value of individual freedom with other values ​​(such as equality).

A more differentiated view, however, also gives a more differentiated picture here. Thus, such debates often mix different levels of time and abstraction. For example, in the example above, the value of wealth conflicts only briefly with the value of sustainability; In the long term, without sustainability, no wealth can be generated. Freedom, too, is fundamentally not in contrast to other values, but with other freedoms (or the freedom of others).

On the other hand, values ​​that seem abstractly compatible can conflict with each other in concrete situations. It is then not possible to behave in such a way as to live up to all values ​​at the same time. In this context, we also speak of a value hierarchy. Not all values ​​are considered as equal, so that even in such cases usually a more or less clear orientation is given. The respective weighting of a value is situation-dependent and / or culture-dependent in the individual case. Here, too, it has to be examined whether it is actually a collision of (abstract-general) values ​​per se – or not yet a (concrete-individual) normative conflict of aims (“duty conflict”). This conflict became relevant by Max Weberexpressed by the distinction between responsibility and ethics of conviction.

Political, business, interpersonal or even internal conflicts can often be traced back to a collision between different values ​​or beliefs. In the Gordon model, a communication model for resolving conflicts, a distinction is made between value conflicts and conflicts of need.

Although sharing a set of common values, like hockey is better than baseball or ice cream is better than fruit, two different parties might not rank those values equally. Also, two parties might disagree as to certain actions are right or wrong, both in theory and in practice, and find themselves in an ideological or physical conflict. Ethonomics, the discipline of rigorously examining and comparing value systems, enables us to understand politics and motivations more fully in order to resolve conflicts.

An example conflict would be a value system based on individualism pitted against a value system based on collectivism. A rational value system organized to resolve the conflict between two such value systems might take the form below. Note that added exceptions can become recursive and often convoluted.

Individuals may act freely unless their actions harm others or interfere with others’ freedom or with functions of society that individuals need, provided those functions do not themselves interfere with these proscribed individual rights and were agreed to by a majority of the individuals.
A society (or more specifically the system of order that enables the workings of a society) exists for the purpose of benefiting the lives of the individuals who are members of that society. The functions of a society in providing such benefits would be those agreed to by the majority of individuals in the society.
A society may require contributions from its members in order for them to benefit from the services provided by the society. The failure of individuals to make such required contributions could be considered a reason to deny those benefits to them, although a society could elect to consider hardship situations in determining how much should be contributed.
A society may restrict behavior of individuals who are members of the society only for the purpose of performing its designated functions agreed to by the majority of individuals in the society, only insofar as they violate the aforementioned values. This means that a society may abrogate the rights of any of its members who fails to uphold the aforementioned values.

Enforcement of values
The general acceptance of certain values ​​as binding norms – ideally created in a democratic process – does not automatically follow their observance. Because willingness to act is related to personal attitudes. These, in turn, are shaped by many social factors that may well be in conflict with the values ​​of society. The lower the social consensus of a norm – that is, the more the individual has the feeling that it has been arbitrarily fixed and “unjust” – and the more inconsistent a society is (eg ethnic composition, religious affiliations, Differing communities of interest and the number of subcultures is within a corporation), the greater the number of those it from selfish keep perspective advantageous to not to comply with this standard. The enforcement of such “unpopular” norms can only be achieved by a sanction system that works as well as possible.

A consideration under the paradigm of game theory suggests that only an evolutionarily stable strategy can endure. Since the same values can be related to the time to different patterns of action and one and the same patterns of behavior over time to different values based, there is no clear relationship between values and the reproductive success of a population.

Universal Values
In the 1980s, the psychologist Shalom H. Schwartz together with Wolfgang Bilsky raised the question of whether there are universal values. He designed a value model and postulated a number of values ​​that all people in different forms should have in common. His research focus was on the value structure and its motivational relationship.

The InterAction Council, a group of experts consisting of politicians, social scientists and representatives of worldwide religious communities, developed the largest possible minimum synthesis, based on political premises and an inventory of ideological and religious ideals. In 1997, ethical options for everyday life were presented as the ” Universal Declaration of Human Dignity “.

Other approaches are the project world ethos of Hans Kung, the international Earth Charter, the discourse ethics or project Ethify Yourself.

However, global ethical perspectives are not accepted without criticism. In 2004, J.-C. Kapumba Akenda as a Dilemma of Ethical Universalism: On the one hand, the worldwide claim of reason and justice and on the other hand, the sovereignty of local communities should be respected (see also the different beliefs of the “cold and hot cultures”) as “building blocks of ethical universalism” struck In this regard, Akenda envisages “solidarity without paternalism ” and “communication without consensus”.

Economic and philosophic value
Philosophical value is distinguished from economic value, since it is independent on some other desired condition or commodity. The economic value of an object may rise when the exchangeable desired condition or commodity, e.g. money, become high in supply, and vice versa when supply of money becomes low.

Nevertheless, economic value may be regarded as a result of philosophical value. In the subjective theory of value, the personal philosophic value a person puts in possessing something is reflected in what economic value this person puts on it. The limit where a person considers to purchase something may be regarded as the point where the personal philosophic value of possessing something exceeds the personal philosophic value of what is given up in exchange for it, e.g. money. In this light, everything can be said to have a “personal economic value” in contrast to its “societal economic value.”

In economic life, the concept of value is primarily used in material terms: for example, the monetary economy understands “value creation” as the essential goal of productive activity. It is about the conversion of existing goods in goods with higher monetary value. Manufacturing companies expect a production account to show revenue and expenses generated by production activity. The “gross value added” is considered as a measure of the economic performance of a farm.

However, in the context of the banking and managerial crisis in recent years, the topic of values ​​has also received increasing (and new) attention in the economic discussion. In the sense of Erich Fromm, a renewed ethical discussion on the relation of material and immaterial values ​​in a knowledge-based economy and its evaluation has broken up. Relevant measures could include sustainability, social responsibility (CSR), value management, value-oriented personnel management, value-balanced corporate governanceand ethical development. In view of the scandals, the public has increasingly come to the point that the material value orientation must not be disconnected from the ethical if society is to be given a humane orientation.