A Digression on Some Fundamental Values in Portugal -- A humble economist's perspective

Abstract

For a long time, the (scientific) study of certain subjects was hampered by the lack of data. Paradoxically, nowadays, in certain matters, the existence of data does not trigger the production of studies of that nature, even though those matters are demonstrably relevant, at various levels. In our case, these matters correspond to the fundamental values of a society, namely, altruism, care, compassion, equity, fairness, forgiveness, humanity, justice, respect, trust, etc. As far as we know, in fact, there are 3 (credible) sources of data on some of those, and other, values, which include the case of Portugal, namely the European Social Survey, the European Values Study, and the World Values Survey. The objective is, therefore, to analyse (some of) the data that these sources present about Portugal, thus contributing to a better characterization of Portuguese society, in terms of its fundamental values.