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:
“The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for, not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given control of the property interests of the country.”
—George Baer (1842–1914)
“Nothing is so threatening to conventional values as a man who does not want to work or does not want to work at a challenging job, and most people are disturbed if a man in a well- paying job indicates ambivalence or dislike toward it.”
—Alice S. Rossi (b. 1922)