Twentieth-century philosophy and culture have moved away from experience and the prescience of emotions, making studying values more abstract and academic. Amid the twenty-first century's pervasive uncertainty and disruption, the quest for values and peaceful coexistence has never been more crucial. Values are the fundamental principles or standards individuals hold, guiding decision-making, problem-solving, and behavior, fostering heroic qualities of life.

This entry discusses values as practical virtues closer to everyday experiences, for example, life and death, war and peace, acknowledging that definitive answers may be and often are elusive. Highlighting values, especially shared values, reminds us that agreeableness is an essential human super-trait, putting hate and other forms of negativity, for example, global disruption, into a sobering perspective. Thus, a positive roadmap is presented as a realistic lens for navigating these harsh seas.

Philosophers Paul Lapie and Eduard von Hartmann introduced the concept of "value" in the early 20th century. It gained prominence in philosophy before declining with postmodernism in the 1950s. Understanding value and virtue helps explain how cultural trends emerge across generations.

Values, linked to worth, beliefs, and ideals, guide behavior and influence attitudes, preferences, and actions. Conscious values, distinct from implicit virtues, are tied to moral excellence and motivational goals. Values and virtues, resonating together, correlate with endogenously shared psychological super-traits: agreeableness with cooperation and neuroticism with irritability, disruptive, and hostile behavior. Values and virtues have individual roots but can be shared, becoming group behaviors.

Though distinct, values and virtues are interwoven. Values provide standards and motivation. Virtues like wisdom and justice act as behavioral compasses leading to moral excellence. Aristotle’s virtues, foundational for a good life (that is, eudaimonia), on........

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