Protected values are values that people are unwilling to trade off no matter what the benefits of doing so may be. For example, some people may be unwilling to kill another person, even if it means saving many others individuals. Protected values tend to be overgeneralizations, and most people can in fact imagine a scenario when trading off their most precious values would be necessary.
From the perspective of utilitarianism, protected values are biases when they prevent utility from being maximized across individuals.
Read more about Protected Values: Protected Values As Deontological Rules
Famous quotes containing the words protected and/or values:
“Free competition exists inside shelters of law, custom, insurance, political approval, and carefully protected status.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“During our twenties...we act toward the new adulthood the way sociologists tell us new waves of immigrants acted on becoming Americans: we adopt the host culture’s values in an exaggerated and rigid fashion until we can rethink them and make them our own. Our idea of what adults are and what we’re supposed to be is composed of outdated childhood concepts brought forward.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)