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others attempted to instill certain values in us; do not lie, do not steal, be kind to your
friends and siblings. Kohlberg worked with prisoners and discovered that harsh
backgrounds had affected their moral values. Many had never lived in a co-operative,
helpful environment and many of them did not know that such a situation could exist
(Kohlberg, Scharf & Hickey, 1973) 1 .
Raz has developed the ‘special dependence thesis’ which claims that some values exist
only if there are social practices sustaining them (Raz, 2003, p. 19). One example Raz
uses to demonstrate his thesis is valuing opera. He identifies attendance at operas,
music school, listening to compact discs and reading and writing about them as
examples of sustaining practices. Raz’s theory has some exceptions; sensual and
perceptual pleasure, aesthetic values of natural phenomena, such as the beauty of
sunsets, and values whose good is in facilitating other values, such as freedom which
acts to allow individuals to pursue choices (Raz, 2003).
An example given by Ball-Rokeach and Tallman (1979) of the transient value change
which resulted from the American civil rights movement to some extent supports Raz’s
theory. In that example, mechanisms were employed by the civil rights movement to
appeal to social conscience and change people’s values. For instance, saturation of the
media, labelling racist groups as ‘bad’ and methods of moral confrontation challenged
the then existing standards of morality. However, with the onset of the Vietnam war,
the black civil rights movement lost its momentum and whilst equalisation of economic
and social conditions were affected in part, the changes were not as radical as the
movement had hoped (Ball-Rokeach & Tallman, 1979). The social practices targeted
by the civil rights movement to reduce racist values were only partially effective
following their original campaign in the short term because their efforts could not be
sustained.
But is it really possible that a person’s values only exist under certain social conditions?
Consider the individual who is isolated in a culture or society alien to the one in which
his values developed. Will his values therefore adjust according to the society in which
he is living? Will the opera lover cease to value hearing an aria because he can no
1 I consider Kohlberg’s theory in greater depth in the next section on values instrumentality.
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