 Nevertheless, an analogous relation between the transhistorical and historical prevails here as in Hartmann’s understanding of problems, and, as we will see, in his understanding of categories. There is a transhistorical content to values that is exemplified in varied cultural and historical contexts and individual actions, in the same way that there is a transhistorical problem content that is addressed by various thinkers in different places and times. In the context of the ethics, Hartmann employs the “spotlight” metaphor to account for the shifting structure of value preferences and value consciousness in different times and places, while value-contents themselves are unchanging. From the whole realm of values, value consciousness “cuts out a little circle of something seen” and this circle “wanders about” the ideal realm of values (ET1 6a; AE27e; Cadwallader 1984). Human beings have affective access to the full range of values, but their cultural ethos only presents them with a limited selection of this range. The individual capacity to “see” values also changes with age and axiological maturity. Groups and communities change by following different guiding values. This latter case shows how historical and social conditions are at work in shaping the territory of accessible values. The interplay between individuals and the groups to which they belong finds moments of stability in the mutually adjusted selection of shared values. Repeated acts of valuation tend to produce stable or fixed orders of individual and social preferences, or ethos, whose guiding values press to be realized. The current “maintenance-loss” model of language acquisition (Black et al. 1998)—which basically means “use it or lose it”—would also seem to apply in the case of cultural value preferences and patterns of valuation. New visions and corresponding behaviors can be rejected, or they may occasionally be accepted and contribute to behaviors shaped by different values.