Personal values

Personal and cultural values
Each individual has a core of underlying values that contribute to our system of beliefs, ideas and/or opinions (see value in semiotics). Integrity in the application of a "value" ensures its continuity and this continuity separates a value from beliefs, opinion and ideas. In this context a value (e.g. Truth or Equality or Greed) is the core from which we operate or react. Societies have values that are shared among many of the participants in that culture. Individuals' values typically are largely but not entirely in agreement with their culture's values.

These values can be grouped into four categories:
 * Ethics (good - bad, virtue - vice, moral - immoral - amoral, right - wrong, permissible - impermissible)
 * Aesthetics (beautiful, ugly, unbalanced, pleasing)
 * Doctrinal (political, ideological, religious or social beliefs and values)
 * Innate/Inborn (inborn values such as reproduction and survival, a controversial category)

A value system is the ordered and prioritized set of values (usually of the ethical and doctrinal categories described above) that an individual or society holds.

Some values (a virtue is a character trait valued as being good) recognized in various Western cultures of the world include:


 * acceptance
 * accountability
 * adventure
 * altruism
 * agape
 * altruism
 * appreciation
 * assertiveness
 * autonomy
 * awareness
 * balance
 * beauty
 * being beautiful in spirit
 * care for others
 * charity
 * chastity
 * cleanliness
 * commitment
 * compassion
 * confidence
 * consciousness
 * continence
 * co-operation
 * courage
 * courtesy
 * creativity


 * critical thinking
 * curiosity
 * democracy
 * dependability
 * detachment
 * determination
 * diligence
 * discipline
 * education
 * effort
 * empathy
 * endurance
 * enthusiasm
 * equality
 * etiquette
 * excellence
 * fairness
 * faith
 * fantasy
 * fidelity
 * focus
 * foresight
 * forgiveness
 * fortitude
 * freedom
 * free will


 * friendship
 * generosity
 * gentleness
 * happiness
 * helpfulness
 * honesty
 * honour
 * hope
 * hospitality
 * humility
 * humanism
 * humor
 * idealism
 * imagination
 * independence
 * innocence
 * integrity
 * intuition
 * inventiveness
 * justice
 * kindness
 * love
 * loyalty
 * magnanimity
 * mercy


 * moderation
 * manners
 * modesty
 * morality
 * nonviolence
 * nurture
 * obedience
 * openness
 * optimism
 * patience
 * peace
 * perfection
 * perseverance
 * piety
 * potential
 * prudence
 * purpose
 * respect
 * responsibility
 * restraint
 * satisfaction
 * self-awareness
 * self-discipline
 * self-esteem
 * self-reliance


 * self-respect
 * sensitivity
 * service
 * sharing
 * sincerity
 * socialism
 * spirituality
 * sympathy
 * tact
 * temperence
 * tenacity
 * thoughtfulness
 * tolerance
 * tradition
 * trust
 * truth
 * truthfulness
 * understanding
 * unpretentiousness
 * unselfishness
 * utility
 * wealth
 * well-being
 * wisdom
 * zeal