ABSTRACT
The theory of values is one of the most difficult, obscure, and controversial fields in philosophy and behavioral science. Values are things or acts which are chosen by and are desirable to an individual or to society within a certain frame of reference. Human values are viewed as being derived from and ultimately reducible to biological values which essentially entail maintenance of the individual, survival of the group, and evolution of the species. The basis of the parallel between organic evolution and human progress is what is known as the postulate of reductionism: that is, that biology should eventually be reduced to physics and chemistry and, correspondingly, the behavioral and social sciences to biology. The man-created symbolic universe partly depends on categories which are universally human, and partly on categories developed historically within a certain civilization. The whole of human culture simply has nothing to do with biological values of maintenance, survival, adjustment, or homeostasis.
