Audio Lecture #3

This audio lecture and accompanying powerpoint look at how both individual and societal values impact social policy. In particular look at the American value system and think about how your views either match those of society or differ from them. Values determine both how we define what the problem is and then the solutions that we offer to solve the problem. Thus, is the current health care debate about health care reform or health insurance reform? The debate has gotten muddy because we talk about it as representing health care reform, when actually we are only reforming health insurance. Listen to friends talking about social policy issues and identify how people tend to present their values as facts. Our national debates would be greatly improved if we first stated our values and worked to clarify our value positions and how they shape our view of the problem and the solution. We could then better clarify the value issues that need to be worked out prior to advancing a particular solution. Facts should be presented as such. We might adhere to a set of values that hold that the earth is flat, but in view of the facts we would be deemed the fool.