1. Value Conflicts and Assumptions

2. Values When you hear the word “values,” what does it mean to you?
Most people often call up a list of qualities or ideals that many of us highly regard.
Some might be friendship, loyalty, safety, freedom, friendship, and honesty.

3. Values Conflicts
However, each of us often hold one value as more important than another.
For example, one person may hold friendship to be a higher value than honesty, and another person might hold honesty to be a higher value than friendship.
These two opposing views set up a conflict of values when each person is asked if lying is ever justified.

4. Value Assumptions
While value conflicts are not weaknesses in arguments, unsupported assumptions based on these values are.
Consider the following argument:
We should have more airport security because leaving any opening for safety problems is something no American wants.
The problem here is the person is making a broad assumption that “leaving any opening for safety problems is something that no American wants.” He is assuming ALL Americans share his value that safety is more important than other values (privacy for example).

5. Being Aware
When you are aware of your values and what value conflicts are, you can see that a values conflict is an opportunity for each party to make their case for holding one value above another.
Also, when we are able to see unwarranted assumptions made based on values, we can see a definite weakness in an argument, which helps us to determine the argument’s credibility.