Blackwell Reference Online

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Social values are relatively abstract and generalized standards or principles of what the individuals in a society consider good and desirable. Equality, justice, and freedom are examples of such values. They are the basis for creating evaluative criteria for judging concrete social behavior as good or bad, desirable or despicable, acceptable or unacceptable. Values are the source of concrete prescription for behavior in practical situations of everyday life. Where the general value is equality, the norms of teacher impartiality or the presumption of innocence in courts are concrete norms derived from the abstract value. There are two important points to be made regarding values and their role in understanding social life. First, society is partially constituted through values and the study of sociology is the study of values. Society can usually tolerate highly diverse attitudes, but it requires some degree of homogeneity and consistency in the values held by people. This provides a commonality of shared values, which shape social and political consensus. To what extent shared values are a necessary precondition for society to survive is a hotly debated issue in sociology. In Parsonsian sociology, social order depends on the existence of such general and shared values. They are regarded as legitimate and binding, and act as standards by which particular actions are selected. The ... log in or subscribe to read full text