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longer do so? Or because he has no-one to share his appreciation with? It might be
more plausible to say that values which derive from social or cultural sources may be
less likely to endure if they have no social practices to sustain them. I value democracy.
But if my home country is taken over by a fascist dictator for the remainder of my life, I
will not cease to value it. Indeed, it is probable that I will value democracy even more
in these circumstances. Similarly, if an individual has never experienced democracy,
this does not preclude him from valuing it.
The intricacy of individual values, their mechanisms and influences is so complex that
the source of values may not always be identifiable. For some, religion may be seen as
a source of values. For others, life’s experiences, the societies in which they live and
work and the cultures with which they identify may all be the source of our values. I
prefer a conception of values which acknowledges and encompasses a variety of
possible sources for people’s values. Values are an integral component of individual
character, essential to the human condition, a culmination of a person’s passions,
emotions, and lived experience, guiding responses to all we encounter in our day to day
lives.
Values instrumentality
To support his theory of values-based medicine, Fulford draws on the work of Hare
(1952) who highlights the prescriptive or action-guiding property of values. Fulford
uses this action guiding property to explain that values are one of two feet on which all
decisions stand (fact being the other). The sociological value theorists have also
considered the function of values, in so far as recognising their role in supporting and
guiding human reasoning, giving expression to human needs, rationalising action,
resolving conflicts and making decisions (Rescher, 1982, p. 12; Rokeach, 1979, p. 48).
But how do values work instrumentally to guide and influence us?
The Scottish Eighteenth century enlightenment philosopher David Hume considered the
place of passion in human reasoning in his work A Treatise of Human Nature (Hume,
1969). Hume famously made the distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ to explain the
place of values in human reasoning. Hume explained that no factual statements by
themselves support a conclusion about value, about what ought to be done. An ‘ought’
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