"Value" is a concept pertaining to a relation—the relation of some aspect of reality to man (or to some other living
entity). If a man regards a thing (a person, an object, an event, a mental state, etc.) as good for him, as beneficial in
some way, he values it—and, when possible and appropriate, seeks to acquire, retain, and use or enjoy it. If a man
regards a thing as bad for him, as inimical or harmful in some way, he disvalues it—and seeks to avoid or destroy
it. If he regards a thing as of no significance to him, as neither beneficial nor harmful, he is indifferent to it—and
takes no action in regard to it.
Although his life and well-being depend on man selecting values that are in fact good for him, i.e., consonant with
his nature and needs, conducive to his continued efficacious functioning, there are no internal or external forces
compelling him to do so. Nature leaves him free in this matter. As a being of volitional consciousness, he is not
biologically "programmed" to make the right value-choices automatically. He may select values that are
incompatible with his needs and inimical to his well-being, values that lead him to suffering and destruction. But
whether his values are life-serving or life-negating, it is a man's values that direct his actions. Values constitute
man's basic motivational tie to reality.
In existential terms, man's basic alternative of "for me" or "against me," which gives rise to the issue of values, is
the alternative of life or death (Chapter Twelve). But this is an adult, conceptual identification. As a child, a human
being first encounters the issue of values through the experience of physical sensations of pleasure and pain.
To a conscious organism, pleasure is experienced, axiomatically, as a value—pain, as a disvalue. The biological
reason for this is the fact that pleasure is a life-enhancing state and that pain is a signal of danger, of some
disruption of the normal life process.
There is another basic alternative, in the realm of consciousness, through which a child encounters the issue of
values, of the desirable and the undesirable. It pertains to his cognitive relationship to reality. There are times when
a child experiences a sense of cognitive efficacy in grasping reality, a sense of cognitive control, of mental clarity
(within the range of awareness possible to his stage of development). There are times when he suffers from a sense
of cognitive inefficacy, of cognitive helplessness, of mental