312. Descriptive Values

When we think about why we do something, we might believe it is ultimately because we hold certain values. We act in support of freedom, for example, because we value freedom. On this understanding, it is our prior state of valuing that explains why we do the things we do.

But in practice the relationship works in the opposite direction. It is because we take action to support freedom that we value freedom. If we didn’t act in this way, we could not plausibly be said to value freedom. The values we hold do not explain our actions. They are rather post hoc descriptions for the ways we actually do act.

We act in support of freedom (or any other principle, person, or thing) because we feel it is necessary to do so. There is nothing other than this intuitive necessity that causes us to take action. There might be practical considerations that give us reasons to act, but these are not sufficient on their own to create action, as we can always choose to ignore any reason we are given.

The story of values producing action appeals to us because it allows us to say that our values determine who we are. And by identifying with these strongly-held beliefs, we can be proud of ourselves for caring about what is most important. Without values to define us, who would we be and how would we understand our motivations? We desperately want answers to these questions, so we reify our values into substantive entities that can provide the foundations we think we need. We then fall back on our values as the core of our identities, when in fact, we have only constructed these entities from thin air.

The possibility that we act only from personally-felt necessity might seem too uncertain and mysterious to accept. But while this necessity might be unpredictable, it is not especially mysterious. It arises from our experiences, from our existence as human beings living in a world. The more we experience, the more aware we become that there are certain actions necessary for us to live well. No particular values are needed for this to happen. If we live openly, honestly, and attentively, we can always see what is needed and what we must do.