 Hartmann also discusses the structure of the value realm that we can discern, even if we cannot map it in its entirety. Two organizing principles of the value domain are especially important: that of strength and that of height. The strength of a value is indicated by the gravity of its violation, while the height of a value is expressed in the merit deriving from its fulfillment. These two principles operate in opposite directions: the strongest values are also the lowest values, while the highest values are the least strong ones. Usually, lower values are simpler (that is, they possess less intuitable content) while higher values are more complex. The laws of strength and height have significant consequences, the two most important of which are the following: 1) violating a lower value is a more serious offense than violating a higher value; 2) fulfilling a higher value is a greater good than fulfilling a lower value. In Hartmann’s words, “sinning against lower values is ignominious, shameful, revolting, but their fulfillment only reaches the level of decency, without rising above it. Offending against higher values, by contrast, does indeed have the character of moral failure, but nothing of the directly degrading, while fulfillment of these values may have something uplifting, liberating, indeed thrilling about it” (ET2 28e). Offending against life is a grave offense, while respecting it has very little merit. But the fulfillment of spiritual goods is a merit much greater than the merit corresponding to respect for more elementary goods, such as environmental goods. If the architecture of values is based on levels of dependence, then the ethos of a person whose behavior is oriented to a higher value, but who does not simultaneously respect the values that support it, is structurally discordant. The higher values to which she refers are not sustainable. Loving with distrust or giving with cowardice are not authentically virtuous behaviors (ET2 63f). A pattern of valuation is constructed step by step from the most elementary levels upwards.