Your Goal

Determine which values are most weighty as these are the ones you will want to try and realise with your decision. In order to weigh up the values you will have to be clear about what you mean by the value, check the value is acceptable and relevant to this decision, and come to some sort of assessment of how important the value is.

Try the following tasks

• Write down any candidate values you have come up with in the table below.
  
  
• Check that you have not put any values down more than once. Eliminate any duplicates.
  
  
• Alter values so that they are precise (for instance replace 'spending time with X' with 'spending at least 1 month with X') and make sure that you are clear about what particular terms, such as duty, fairness, happiness etc., mean by writing out what these imply someone should do as fully as possible.
  
  
• It's very important to separate those things that you value as ends in themselves from those things that you desire mainly as means to something else. This is because you will be able to think much more productively about options if you are more aware of what you ultimately want.Suppose Stan is in a restaurant and wants steak and chips but there may be no steak and chips on the menu. If Stan realises that want he actually wants is not steak and chips, but something tasty and hunger-quenching, then he's much more likely to get something approaching what he wants. So asking of everything in your what matters table "What will happen if I get this - will I have got what I wanted?" In the case of Stan, he will have had a pleasurable experience, and had his hunger satisfied. So Stan might put 'no' in column two against steak and chips, and add new entries in column one 'pleasure gained' and 'hunger removed'.
  
  
• Look at the list of values and ask if each one is acceptable (ask yourself "does this matter at all, whatever the problem?"). If you think it isn’t see if you can alter it so that you find it acceptable. Cross out any you think are not acceptable, and put a question mark by those you are not sure about. Write ‘yes’ if you are sure it is acceptable
  
  
• For the remaining candidate values ask if each one is relevant to this problem (ask yourself “does this matter to this problem?”). If you think that it is isn’t try and alter it so you can find it relevant. Cross off any that are not relevant and put a question mark by any that you are not sure about. Write ‘yes’ if you are sure it is relevant
  
  
• For the remaining candidate values ask if each one is important. To do this give reasons for why you think some things are important or otherwise, including looking at the appropriate emotions as well as the parties affected and how much they are affected. Try to grade importance as a number from 5 (very important) to 0 (not important at all)
  
  
• Now do a final weighing up. Express the final weight as a number from 5 to 0. For values which are totally acceptable and totally relevant this will be the same as importance, for those where you have question-marks make it lower than importance

Templates

Weigh Up Values: