Values

It is not possible to know everything and all things are not within our control. Within the framework of what we can know and do, it is values that make it possible to live successfully and happily in this world. Without values, success and happiness are both impossible.

Values are principles. Values are not “rules of behavior” or “codes of conduct.” Values are not a set of proscriptions and prescriptions, like the ten commandments. People who substitute codes and rules for values, however faithfully they follow them, seldom find happiness, and always find themselves unable to judge correctly in situations requiring moral choices not covered by their list. (In such cases, there is usually an attempt to force new cases under one of the existing “commandments.”)

Rules, laws, and codes frequently are examples of true values, but, even when correct, because they are used as substitutes for the real moral principle behind them, and are much narrower in scope than the principles themselves, following the “rules” often results in violating the moral principles. For example, the commandment, “thou shalt not steal,” is based on moral principles which those who would not dream of disobeying the ten commandments, not only regularly violate, but work for the violation of.

There are two moral principles behind the prohibition on stealing. Both are based on the nature of what is of value to human beings. Nothing of value simply exists, but must be acquired or produced by the effort of individual human beings. Every thing of value that exists has been produced by some human being for that individual’s own benefit.

Productive effort is a requirement of human nature for its existence. Stealing is an attempt to avoid this requirement. Stealing also deprives those who do produce from keeping the product of their effort. Stealing therefore violates the requirements of human nature for both the thief and his victim, and it is ultimately the thief who is the more damaged by this violation.

These principles reduce to the simple one, it is impossible to get something for nothing. For those who understand it, there is no necessity to command them not to steal. They have no desire to have what they have not earned or produced, and will themselves take precautions to protect what they have earned.

For those who do not understand the principle, the commandment has no meaning. Those who regularly receive unearned benefit from the government, for example, are sure they would never steal.

The worst things in life are free. Poverty, disease, and ignorance are the kind of things you get for nothing. Everything of value costs time, reason, and effort.

I love people to tell me the “the best things in life are free.” Of course, as soon as you offer them one of life’s best free things, for a job they have done, for example, or in exchange for their products or goods, they immediately decide they would prefer on of life’s less than best things, like money. (The next time you go shopping, leave your wallet and credit cars at home and see how much you can get with “love,” and “kindness,” and “compassion.”)

There are no conflicts in true values. What is truly good for you can never be bad or harmful to someone else. Nothing is good for you, if it is at the expense of someone else’s good. Nothing is good for someone else if it is at your expense.

Those who believe one person’s good is and must be at the expense of another person’s good, do not understand the difference between producing wealth and stealing it, and are themselves, essentially, thieves.

There is no such thing as an intrinsic value. Nothing is good or bad in itself. Things are good or bad only in relationship to some purpose or end, that is, only in relationship to beings capable of having purposes and ends.

So much for “animal rights.”

If it is not good for you, it is not good.

And whenever the government does something for your own good, it isn’t.