When making life choices AND actions, a person is guided by their conceptions of the “proper” and the “just,” and when they doubt the correctness of their views, they turn to “universal human values.”
Universal human values are universal fundamental values, everything that is important and valuable for the individual and society, that represents the goal of human aspirations and has equal significance for the majority of people in the world, equally present in different cultures and religions.
The following approaches to identifying “universal human values” are distinguished:
- The religious-spiritual approach is based on faith in the existence of a Higher Power. The basis consists of the moral and ethical precepts of various religious denominations: do not kill, do not lie, do not steal, do not take revenge, respect your neighbor, be merciful, etc.;
- The legal approach is based on documents adopted and signed by many countries: the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” the “Convention on the Rights of the Child,” etc. Unfortunately, many rights written in such documents remain a declaration, and therefore they cannot be considered real universal human values.
- The humanistic approach takes as its basis the concept of the hierarchy of human needs (A. Maslow). This list includes physiological needs, needs for safety, needs for belonging and love, needs for esteem, and the need for self-actualization. The closer to the beginning of the list, the more the need is considered physiological and the less psychological. Examples of fundamental physiological needs inherent to all people are the satisfaction of hunger, thirst, or the need for sleep. The impossibility of satisfying them leads to illness. The extent and method of their satisfaction differ in different societies, but these needs can never be completely ignored. Every person also needs to develop their inclinations and abilities, that is, to satisfy the need for growth. In A. Maslow’s later works, the need for cognitive understanding is located in the list after the need for self-actualization. The need for cognitive understanding is an even higher expression of human nature than self-actualization. It represents the psychological reflection of the innate function of the nervous system to process and order information. The higher levels of the list of needs are connected with the ideals of goodness, beauty, truth, justice, and self-improvement.
- The idea of “primary good.” Such a good is considered to be a sense of self-worth. It is precisely this that determines life “success” and the feeling of a “fulfilled life.” Aristotle believed that “other things being equal, people derive pleasure from the realization of their abilities”