1.The Meaning of Value

Considerationin Futures Studies

Anita Rubin

ELSE-WHERE

YONDER

THERE

Future is the only time there is that we can influence — at least a little — with our own decisions and choices. The past is beyond our reach, even though we can choose

•what we want to know about it, •how we want to interpret what we know, and •whose viewpoint we choose to do that.

Need for value discussion.

On the other hand. The only moment to make concrete choices is now, but then again,

when is NOW?

The future which will then take place some day is tied to our decisions and choices today. Those, for their part, are tied to the expectations, wishes, hopes and fears which we link to the future.

The desire to know about the future as such is an inevitable human need.

Human history is bursting with efforts to change the world to become more predictable and, thereafter, better.

On the other hand, only the future — the not-yet-existing state of affairs — can tell, whether our present activities and choices were good or bad.

The meaning of futures studies is to find or invent, explore and evaluate, as well as suggest possible, probable and desirable futures.

In order to do that, futures researchers search information on

•what can or may be (the possible);

•what probably will be (the probable), and

•what should be (the desirable) in the future .

Wendell Bell 1997

The consideration of the future (be it prediction, futures research, or foresight) •gives meaning to the past;•helps in analysing the present;•supports to make better decisions;•makes the choice process meaningful;•diminishes arbitrariness, unwanted/unexpected consequences and dependence on coincidence;•gives grounds to choice-making by opening up the values behind choices;•contributes to power/power relations/democracy;•helps to assess and evaluate probabilities, and•helps to structure wholes (systems thinking).

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As long as most of our everyday choices could still be made on a routine basis, it was not necessary to consider the values behind every decision.

People could rely on the values of human society which were in-built in the ways of acceptable action

➔The responsibility of a human being was to conduct his/her behaviour according to the guidelines on which social consensus prevailed.

➔it was not necessary to actively evaluate or even think about values each time a new situation was confronted.

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However, now we are in trouble every time when we face a situation where routine methods and the traditional way of conduct do not work (= bring about the expected outcome) anymore.

The social endorsement on which we could lean for so long and thus know that our choices and decisions were acceptable and good, is not self-evident anymore.

Instead, in our everyday life there is a growing inflow of various different social groups, cultures, habits and ways of actions, traditions, practices etc. which we have to take into consideration, evaluate and choose from.

Values and decision-making cont.

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Go with the flow

Adaptable, coping strategies

Foresight

Innovation, creativity

Passive

Reactive, i.e. adaptive

Preactive, i.e. anticipatory

Proactive, i.e. creative

Missing

”Business as usual” (BAU)

Based on trend analysis, probable

alternatives

Scanning possible alternatives

AttitudesVisions, goals, images

of the future Strategies

Original source: Godet 2001

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People live their lives in places.

Economic structure,power relations,values

No more dependent on spatial or temporal limits

SocietyCultureOrganisations

Result: new forms of coexistenceor

value collisions; different interpretations of same values

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People aim at rational behaviour (= rationally-oriented action towards one or several goals).

•However, what is regarded as rational is culture-specific and becomes re-defined by the needs and conditions given by culture.

There is a constant, systemic interaction guiding cultural development: individuals search for a rational explanation to their behaviour from their society and culture, while their choices and decisions then reinforce and also gradually change the culture.

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In addition to rationality, people are morally responsible beings.

1. Behaviour, choices and decisions are determined by• past individual experiences;• social environment

Similar situations are interpreted differently by different people.

2. People have free will and freedom of choice in the situations of decision-making.

moral responsibility

3. Dilemma: If responsibility both requires and is based on free will, then, if there is no free will, what happens to responsibility?

Rationality in the choices for the future?

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The futures story (scenario, picture, strategy e.g.) is composed of multiple levels and several varying viewpoints, for instance, social, technological, ecological, economic and political the original STEEP analysis (sometimesadded with C=cultural and V=values).

By nature, futures studies

•is multidisciplinary (striving for holistic models of reality);

•aims at being distinguished from the futures scanning of different individual sciences by especially emphasising the holistic point of view, and

•utilizes systems theory and other methods and tools which highligh diversity.

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In addition to personal experiences, human choices derive from both the knowledge base and from the value base – i.e., from instrumental and intrinsic values.

Values play a role first in the selection of the idealised outcome, and then the selection of the means to achieve that outcome.

Choice of behaviour (based on available information, which is defined as relevant to the issue at hand and understood as reliable.)

The so-called ’Hume’s Guillotine” reminds us that we cannot make claims on what ought to be on the basis of statements about what is. What is is descriptive, while what ought to be is normative and includes a value.

Bell does not see it meaningful to separate the values and the central means or factual assertions on those from each other. This idea derives from ”Means – ends model”:•If you want x, then you ought to do y.

In human decision-making, people do not make a difference on their desire to do something and their means to reach that as a goal.

Also many endeavours may be goals as such the activity itself already is a pleasure, i.e.

Georg Henrik von Wright (Finnish philosopher) makes a clear difference between values (as goals) and the things which bear that value (value bearers) i.e. healthiness (value) vs. eating fresh food; exercise; mental balance, etc. (value bearers)

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Ethical responsibility presupposes a broader perspective than just the consideration of wishes and expectations of individuals at the moment at hand.

Structures and social institutions of modernity that used to support identity-construction and decision-making, are rapidly disintegrating or moving onto a more abstract level – i.e. global.

•In general, ethical considerations have been delegated to increasingly abstract social actors;

•The consideration of grounds behind personal choice have become a private matter;

•People are losing touch with "larger-than-life" moral questions and consequently set aside ethical ideals.

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Living with constantly developing technology ➔dependency on technology (esp. social media and networking) ➔growing social vulnerability to disturbances and breakdowns.

Living within constant change ➔need to be continuously open to new influence and things ➔constant re-learning and ➔constant alert.

Living with social pressures ➔responsibility of individual success the modes of which are repeatedly re-stated by the culture ➔hardening of values.

Vanishing meaningfulness (Spranger, Krohn)?

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The set of adopted cultural and social values form the ground on which lifestyles are constructed.

Traditionality• Habits and traditions guide decision-making and choice

of action• Ordinary, conventional, unchangeable tendency to act

in a similar way in similar conditions

Emotionality (instinctiveness, intuition, emotionality)• Action based on emotions a goal in itself

Value rationality• The contents of action determine the objective.

Means-ends / goal-oriented rationality, instrumental rationality• Goals more important than the contents of action in

itself

Source: Modified from Pirjo Ahponen’s presentation

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Public debate emphasizes reactivity: how to cope in growing transition? Everything is going to be worse. How then to gain such abilities, skills and learning that we will pull through the global challenges facing us in the future?

The ethos of coping

What are those qualities?

➔Learning lists, required skills and know-how, the discourse on innovation and effectivity Futures method Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) and its first horizontal level “Litany”

Are we asking the correct questions? What among all information is relevant and, in that, critical and therefore valuable?

Are we asking enough questions?What amidst all (available) information is sufficient?

Are we targeting our questions correctly?Who, when and how do we ask?

Can we search information from adequate sources? Source criticism: in what (and in whose) sources of information do we trust?

What is the precision of our enquiry?➔Economy: Do we really need all the information which we can gain/which is of interest to us?

And yet we have to ask, if we truly want to know about the future…

Who has the responsibility?

Immediate relationship to Nature/the environment/reality:•Experiential•Intuitive•Automatic•Natural•Non-verbal•Narrative

Indirect relationship to Nature/the environment/reality: •Analytical, •Contemplative, •Verbal,•Rational

Navigating in the still more uncertain, complex and abstract space-time requires both. Individual vs. collective responsibility

Indigenous people, historychildren

technology, scienceculture