As was shown in Section 4, a person's values are measured in ordinal terms, by reference to the choices that that individual makes in his or her actions (pp. 4.4:19-20). In the ordinary course of events, rational people can avoid situations in which they must contemplate actions that would entail the loss of a loved one. Such dilemmas may be thrust upon them, however, by dire social and political conditions, such as in the film Sophie's Choice (based on a novel by William Styron), in which a mother is compelled by a Nazi régime to choose between the lives of her two children. Fortunately, such dilemmas are rare, yet their unfamiliarity should not cause us to forget that all of our values (both objective and subjective)—including not only financial values, but even the presence in our lives of a loved one—are things that we must act (i. e., choose) to gain and/or keep. We may rightly feel indignant at the very idea of such a choice, choosing the life of a loved one over any amount of money without hesitation, simply because the values involved differ vastly in magnitude for us. The fact that we make the choice at all, however, shows that in that respect these two values are similar in kind, belonging to a common scale of measurement.

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