Values can be held either individually or corporately. To be sure, there are public implications which follow from individual values. If an individual places a high value on cannibalism, she or he may find tensions with neighbors. But the value of cannibalism will, despite its communal effects, remain an individual value.
The effects of corporately-held values on individuals is stronger than the effects of individually-held values on the community.
Because of this asymmetry, corporate values constitute limiting factors on the range of values which an individual may pursue. The communal values do not limit the values which an individual may hold, in the sense that private thoughts and valuations, qua private, elude detection and control by the community.
But the communal values can limit concrete actions, and thereby frustrate the values which motivate such actions. The cannibal, e.g., may find his efforts to act on his values frustrated by his neighbors, even though he is free to privately hold such values.
Most, or perhaps all, values are therefore more effective when held communally instead of individually.
There exists, then, a difference in the levels of significance which a value has, depending on whether it is privately or corporately held. This difference, however, may vary among values.
One value may be only slightly more efficacious when held corporately than when held privately, while another value may be much more impactful when communally held than when privately held.
To be sure, there is the question of how one might observe, measure, or quantify the efficaciousness of a value.
The values of liberty and freedom, in particular, would seem to be values which have a much greater impact when corporately held than when privately held.
In order for an individual to act on her or his values, in any non-trivial sense, there must be, with logical and temporal priority, a corporately-held value of liberty and freedom.
In a society which perceived no value whatsoever in freedom or liberty, the individual could act on her or his values only in the trivial case in which the individual’s values were identical with the community’s.
The community’s ability to police and enforce its values would determine the extent to which it would be possible for the individual to act upon her or his personally-held values. A community, e.g., which saw no value in freedom or liberty, but which was very bad at policing and enforcing its values, might unintentionally allow individuals to pursue their own personal values.
In any non-trivial case, however, communities have some ability to police and enforce. In many cases, communities have significant abilities to police and enforce.
In order to allow individuals have a maximal range of personal values, it is necessary for a society to place a high value on freedom and liberty.
A society which values regulation and intervention will therefore limit the range of personal values on which individuals may act.
