Political Values

Abstract

Present-day confrontation of social systems and civilizations implies a confrontation between various systems of values. As creations of given social forces, each type of civilization embodies the values of the respective social forces. We distinguish between the sociological-politological and the axiological approach to values. To some degree the former disregards the intrinsic substance of value. The axiological approach is based on historical experience, on the social situation, on the interests and ideology determining the way in which a social group, a human community, a society ascertains values, nonvalues and antivalues. In Marxist philosophy, there is a correspondence between these two approaches. We define political values as political relationships, institutions, organiza tions, views and ideas resulting from the transforming, creative sociopolitical practice of the social forces that meet the requirements of social progress and of the development of human personality on a social scale. We reject the postulation of an abstract hierarchy of values or exclusivism of values, but nevertheless emphasize the special role of political values. Without denying the intrinsic character of political values—a characteristic procedure of several spiritualistic axiological constructions-we acknowledge their mediating role in the creation-and, respectively, assimilation-of these values. The man of today experiences the values centered on political values. For all the differences between civilizations and their values, the common fundamental interests of mankind—the necessity of setting up a new economic and political order, of creating a new climate of peace and cooperation among states and peoples—require the assertion and promotion of common, general, and acknowledged poltical values.