Important Difference Between Morals and Values: Morals and values are basic aspects that make up and largely determine the behavior of every individual. The difference between morals and values are very devious. Understanding the difference between them will need a wide examination of what they actually mean. In this article, we will show you the important difference between morals and values.
Values guide an organization’s or individual’s behavior as the collective formations of what is considered bad, undesirable, and improper or good, desirable, and proper in a culture. Morals are beliefs and principles concerning right and wrong behavior.
What are values?
Values are the grounds of a person’s ability to judge between right and wrong. It includes a deep-rooted system of beliefs. They have inherent worth but are not universally accepted. This system also allows each individual to determine what should and shouldn’t be.
It may be specific such as honoring one’s parents or owning a home or they may be more general, such as health, democracy and love. ‘One good turn deserves another’, ‘truth prevails’ ‘learning is good as ends itself’ are few examples of general values.
Features of Values:
- Values are practical, and valuation needs not just techniques but also an understanding of the strategic context.
- These can provide standards of morality and competence and can also go beyond certain situations or persons.
- Personal values can also be influenced by tradition, culture, and a combination of external and internal factors.
- These are more leading to the core of a person and are relatively permanent.
- Most of our central values are learned early in life from family, friends, mass print, neighborhood school, visual media and other sources within the society.
- They also contain a judgmental element in that they carry an individual’s ideas as to what is right, good, or desirable.
- Values can vary from culture to culture and even person to person.
- Values also play an important role in the combination and fulfillment of man’s basic impulses and desire stably and frequently appropriate for his living.
- They are common experiences in social action made up of both individual and social responses and attitudes.
- Values also build up societies, integrate social relations.
What are morals?
From the reading of bedtime stories to children’s books to advanced fables, we get very familiar with the phrase, ‘And the moral of the story is…’ However, that’s not exactly the type of moral we’re actually talking about here, but it does follow a similar concept.
A moral is a shared ideal that is certain to a community or to a group as a whole. In general, it could be as basic as being honest, even when it’s difficult or not being jealous of others. But, a moral can also be a much more difficult idea. These are emotionally similar to deciding right or wrong.
Morals also have high social value and acceptance than values, hence a person is judged more for his moral character than the values. But, one is said to be immoral for a person without morals but no such term is there for a person without values.
Important Difference Between Morals and Values
1. Values are the concepts that shape a moral code, the rules by which a person behaves.
2. Morals are commonly taught by society to the individual while values come from within.
3. Morals also act as a motivation for leading a good life whereas values can be called an intuition.
4. Values are personal fundamental beliefs or concepts while morals are mostly related to one’s religion, business or politics
5. Morals are deep-seated while values keep on changing with time and needs.
6. Moral is also a motivation or a key for leading a good life in the right direction.
7. A person’s values won’t always be good, it could be bad.
8. Morals are also like commandments set by the elders and to be followed by the descendants.