On the other hand, an organism may sometimes act to gain or keep things that do not serve its needs or even things that are harmful. Because they have free will and the capability of redirecting their actions toward ends other than maintaining and enhancing their lives, human beings are notoriously prone to such destructive behavior. While the fundamental end of action and values is to serve the needs of a human being or other organism, specific actions may sometimes be directed toward ends incompatible with those needs, giving rise to the other basic sense of "value." In this sense, for instance, an addict may act to gain and/or keep cocaine, even though that value is inimical to his or her life. At other times, of course, human beings direct their actions toward fulfillment of their objective life-needs, thus reconciling the "values" that they pursue in specific actions with "values" in the more fundamental sense.

The implications of this distinction can be better appreciated by introducing the concept of well-functioning, which applies not only to human beings but to functional entities (pp. 1.4:22-9) in general.