RSVP (refined subjective
value
procedure) is a 5
stage procedure to help you develop enlightened values. It synthesises
many
ideas about well-being, values and meaning from philosophy with
questions
philosophically-minded therapists have found helpful to their clients.
RSVP provides a framework
for thinking critically and creatively
about what makes life go well. It will help you produce a list of
values which
can be defended as those that would make your life go well if they were
fulfilled.
RSVP has the
following five stages :-
1) Thinking up
'candidate' values
2) Grouping values
together
3) Assessing whether
each 'candidate' value
should be accepted
4) Clarifying the
relative importance of
each value
5) Thinking up virtues
and goals associated
with each value
1) Think up candidate
values
The aim of this part
of the exercise is
similar to brainstorming - it's trying to avoid missing out things that
appear
valuable to you. Note
that it's
choosing things that appear valuable. Later (stage
3) we will assess
whether they really are valuable.
i) Your present values
Start by writing
down a list of your ultimate values off the top of your head. For
example, you
might write down 'pleasure, accomplishment, autonomy, helping others,
money'.
Start by writing down as many good things as you can, then restrict
yourself to
the top 5. Don't spend too long on this. There will be plenty of
opportunity to
add more values later. Part of the benefit of listing your values now
is to
measure the progress you make.
(Example) My top 5 values are:
1. Pleasure
2.Accomplishment
3.Autonomy
4.Helping Others
5.Money
My top 5 values are:-
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
ii) Develop more
enlightened values by
examining your past.
1) The Life Review
Exercise
Think
about periods of your life, when things have been going particularly
well or
badly. Fill in the first two columns in the life review table
accordingly. Next
come up with a ‘well-being’ rating for that period
– 100 means great, 0 very
bad. In the next
two columns write down
the good things and bad things that were happening at this time.
Finally, in
the last column, extrapolate the values which seem to have been most
important
in affecting how well or badly your life has been going.
When thinking of
good things and bad things, bear in mind that these can include the
three
following sources of value:
·
Achievements (e.g. getting your first
job)
·
Experiences
(e.g. having a
nice vacation)
·
Character
& virtues (e.g.
becoming more proactive)
A useful map to
check that you have included all areas of life is as follows:-
·
Personal
(e.g. emotional
life, intimate
relationships, close
friends)
·
Social (e.g.
jobs and colleagues, status)
·
Physical (e.g. health,
geographical location)
·
Ideal
(e.g.
values, religion,
virtues, goals)
Example of Life
Review Table
Age | Period | Well-being | Good
things |
Bad
things |
Values |
5-9 | School | 70% | Lots
of friends |
| Friendship |
10 | Last
year at school |
20% | | Bullied | Popularity? |
| | | | | |
My Life review
table
Age | Period | Well-being | Good
things |
Bad
things |
Values |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
2)For
any of the negative events
that you listed, is it possible to see any meaning in them, or some
good that
came out of them? Would
have it been possible
to adopt an attitude that would have made them less bad? If so, add
this
attitude to your list of values.
3)What
advice would you give yourself about how to live, if you could revisit
the
'you' of 5, 10 and
20 years ago (don’t
feel restricted by these dates)? What
values do you think are implied by this advice?
4)The
'It's a Wonderful Life'
Thought Experiment
Imagine that you
had never lived. What difference would it have made? Do not dismiss
this
question with "not much, alas", but try to think of how, in your
personal, social and professional life, you have
5)Think
of one of the best
days of your life so far?
Describe it.
What made it so
good?
Use these insights
to
i) Reassess your
past life (as the James Stewart character did in the film)
ii) Think about
what values you might want to satisfy in the future
iii) Develop more
enlightened values by
thinking about your future
a)
Plan a perfect day for next year – where would
you be, who would you be with, what would you be doing
?
b) If you had six
months left to live, how would you spend
it?
c) If you had to
give one good
reason why you should be
allowed to continue to live, what reason would you give?
d) Imagine your own
funeral. What would you like to be able to say about your life? If it is helpful, think in
terms of
experiences, achievements and attitudes.
For each answer, ask
yourself what they
tell you about your ultimate values
iv) Develop more
enlightened values by
looking at states of mind and states of the world
1) The Experience
Machine
An inventor offers
to plug you in to a machine which will give you the authentic
experience of
anything you like.
a) Design a day
for yourself plugged in to the
Experience
Machine. What experiential values does this suggest?
b) You are offered
the choice to stay plugged in to the machine for the rest of your life.
Would
you accept? If not, why not? What (non-experiential) values does this
suggest?
2) Three wishes
You are given
three wishes which can change the world in any way you like. What would
your
three wishes be? What values does this suggest?
v) Use emotions as
your 'sixth sense' which
detects value
Start by writing
down a list of people (dead or alive, real or fictional, famous or
obscure) you
admire, respect, or envy and people you despise, lack respect for or
pity. For
both sets of people, ask what reasons you have for
your attitude. Extract from this a list of values. For
example,
you might have written down that you admired Nelson Mandela, because he
has
helped other people and has complete integrity. Next think of things
that you
are passionate about and
those that
make you angry, and ask yourself what it is about them that elicits
this emotion
and so what the corresponding value is.
Example:
Person/Thing | Emotion
(e.g. admiration, respect, envy, despising, lack of respect, pity) | Value |
Nelson Mandela | Admiration | Helping others,
integrity |
| | |
Person/Thing | Emotion
(e.g. admiration, respect, envy, despising, lack of respect, pity) | Value |
| | |
2) Try to group values
together, and weed
out things that are valued
purely as means to
other values.
You may now have quite
a long list of 'candidate values'. There are two ways to make this list
more
manageable.
i) Group values
together where you can. For example, if three values are 'spending time
with
friends', 'being liked by friends' and 'comradeship' then you can group
these
three values together under
'friendship'.
ii) Check that
each value is not valued purely as a means to something else. You can
do this
by asking yourself about the reasons why you want it. Next ask whether
you
would still want to satisfy your value if you already had what it gives
you. If
the answer is 'No' then it is valued only as a means so should be
eliminated
and replaced by the more ultimate value.
For example,
suppose you have written down 'money' as one of your values.
a) What reason do
I have for wanting
money? Answer - more status, bigger house and
more
security.
b) If I had more
status, a bigger house, more security, would I still want money? If you answer 'no' then you should replace
'money' as a value with the other items.
3) Assess whether each
'candidate' value
should be accepted
The questions you
have answered have been designed to come up with enlightened values, so
there
is a good chance that these 'candidate' values should be accepted.
However we
need to verify that this is the case.
For example,
suppose your more enlightened list of values is:
·
Positive
emotions
·
Absence
of negative
emotions
·
Accomplishment
·
Friendships
and intimate
relationships
·
Intellectual
stimulation
·
Helping
others
1) Imagine that
all of these values are being satisfied in your life. What would your
life be
like? Remember to think in terms of states of the world and states of
mind and
each of the areas and sources of value described above. Would anything
be
missing? Would any of the values interfere with each other? Have you
any
evidence for these views (for example from the life review)
2) Ask yourself
why you think each of these things is a good thing. Again, do this in
terms of
states of mind and states of the world. For example, you might say that
intellectual stimulation is a good thing both because it is a preferred
state
of mind and because it can lead to worthwhile
states of the world. Next ask yourself if you are making
any presuppositions
- for example that worthwhile things can only be produced by the
intellect -
and whether these presuppositions can be justified.
Use your answers
to identify any missing values, and also to justify whether each value
should
stay on your list. Do this by giving reasons for and against the value
, and
asking whether the reasons are true, relevant and strong.
It is important to
do this in the spirit of genuine enquiry, trying to find arguments
against
things even if they seem obviously good. Imagine that you are trying to
convince a Martian - assume nothing. Be prepared to make your values
even more
enlightened by refining them slightly. For example, a reason against
valuing
the positive emotions is that positive emotions are not always
appropriate e.g.
when a loved one has suffered a misfortune. So you might change "have
positive emotions" to "have appropriate positive emotions". If
at any stage you become unclear about what a value really means, try to
become
clear by attempting a definition, and if still unclear attempt
conceptual
analysis. Cross off any values that you are not able to defend.
4) Try to clarify the
relative importance
and structure of values.
Ask the following
questions
a) Do some values
appear more important than others? Answer this by comparing values, two
at a
time asking "Would I choose a life adopting ultimate value A or B".
b) Do your values
depend on each other in any way (do some values tend to be in conflict
or are
they mutually reinforcing?)
c) Do any values
exhibit diminishing returns (e.g. you might need a certain number of
close
friends, but beyond that you don't need any more).
d) Which of the
values are purely personal (i.e. apply just to you) and which are more
universal in that they apply to most people. Is it human nature, the
human condition or
your own personal nature that
makes this a value? For example, you might argue that
friendship is a fairly universal value because humans are
social
creatures, but intellectual curiosity is more personal because it's just your nature to be
intellectually
curious.
5) Write down
associated virtues and goals
You now have a set
of enlightened values - all you need to do now is make sure that your
life
satisfies them! To help you do this, you might like to think of virtues
which
will help you be the sort of person who fulfils the values, and goals
which
will help you focus on satisfying the values and monitor whether you
are doing
so. A virtue is a habit which
generally leads to the fulfilment of particular values (e.g. loyalty
helps
friendships). Kekes (1992) thinks
that
there are also a number of general virtues we need if we are to lead
worthwhile
lives, including self-knowledge, self-control, self-direction, and
wisdom. He
says "We need self-knowledge to develop a realistic view of ourselves
...
We need wisdom to understand our limitations and possibilities and to
conduct
ourselves accordingly. We need self-control to change ourselves from
what we
are to what our ideals prescribe we ought to be."
Virtue | Associated
value (if any) |
| |
| |
A goal
is a specific, concrete aim which
brings about the fulfilment of a goal (e.g. a goal associated with
friendship
might be to see one's
close friends at
least once a month). Fill in the table below. Write a list of goals for
the
next year, five years and lifetime. For each goal, ask yourself your
underlying
reason for wanting to achieve this goal. For example, you might write
down
"I want to be retired by the time I'm 50". The associated values
might include not
having to work,
being able to more time with my family and having less worries. To help
you do
this, you might want to look again at your original values (from step
1) and
the sources of values and areas of value listed
in 2a).
Period | Goals | Value(s) |
This
year |
| |
| | |
Next
five years |
| |
| | |
Lifetime | | |
| | |
http://www.timlebon.com/rsvp.htm
©Tim LeBon 2006
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