7.9 Variety of values. A two-way hierarchy of moral judgment.
The social sciences have the potential to explain and amend several causes of human conflict and to find ways for reconciliation. I am convinced that they will succeed better by taking into account the varieties of temperament. A personal disposition is modified by the interaction of genetic propensities with environmental events. The same stimulation can have entirely different effects on two different people: what is frightening to one, is a welcome challenge to another. What is avoided by the first is solicited by the second. We are in the realm of values: what is most rewarding is of most value.
Charles Morris (1956), a professor of religion, has extensively investigated people's preferences, as expressed in their choice of answers to questionaries. In earlier work C.Morris (1942) had distinguished three basic components of the human personality:
Dionysian: the tendency to give way to and enjoy the desires of the moment
Promethean: the tendency to manipulate and remake the world
Buddhistic: the tendency to seek inner peace and balance by holding one's desires in check.
The relative strength in which the components are represented, expresses itself not only in a variety of personalities but also in a variety of cultures, religions, manifestations of art and philosophy.
In his later empirical research C. Morris asked the subjects of his investigation to list their preferences of "Thirteen ways to live", 13 descriptions including values proclaimed by the various ethical and religious systems. The "ways" are spread over three categories: (I) dependence (II) dominance and (III) detachment. By statistical (factor) analysis Morris uncovered a limited number of factors that accounted for a large part of the results.
Factor A: social restraint and self-control. Its antithesis is: unrestrained and socially irresponsible enjoyment.
Factor B: enjoyment of progress in action; delight in overcoming obstacles by vigorous personal activity. The antithesis is: a life focussed on the development of the inner self.
Factor C: withdrawal and self-sufficiency; attaining a high level of insight and awareness. The antithesis is: continuous merging with others for group achievement and social enjoyment.
Factor D: receptivity and sympathetic concern.
Factor E: sensuous enjoyment, appreciating the simple pleasures of life or having the ability to live in the present in abandonment to the moment. The antithesis is: responsible submission of one's self to social and cosmic purposes.
Since the structure reminded him of the somatotypes (5.4) and the temperaments (5.5) Morris undertook the labour of relating his 'values' to the somatotypes in more than three hundred of his subjects. There was a significant correlation between the somatotypes of the subjects and the value-categories that one would expect them to be linked to:
dependance was linked to endomorphy
dominance to mesomorphy
detachment to ectomorphy.
Charles Morris work is extremely relevant to the social sciences. Yet it has gone largely unnoticed: it has probably been avoided as being politically incorrect. As I announced earlier this conflict will be resolved at the end of Chapter 8, where the two-way hierarchy within concentrically arranged systems is established.
8. GROWTH ZONES OF THE PERSONALITY. TRAINING OF SOCIAL INTERACTION.