Human values and

professional ethics
Human values
• Values: value guides the selection or evaluate policies, people and
events. That is, values same as standard or criteria.
• Human values are virtues that guide us to take into account human
element when one interacts with another human being. They are our
feelings for the human essence of others
• Its both what we expect others to do to us and what we aim to give
to other human beings. These human values give the effect of
bonding, comforting and reassuring.
Universal values naturally emerging from the right
understanding
Gratitude
Respect
Attention
Contribution
Transparency
Trust
Forgiveness
Care and concern
Compassion and empathy
Charity and generosity
Integrity
Honesty
Humility
• Responsibility
• Courage
• Simplicity (sensitivity, intelligence, freedom, happiness, clarity)
• Harmlessness
Violence in daily living
• We find violence in our daily living when we don’t treat other beings
with respect and care
• Manipulation of others with desire to control others than accepting
others
• Conspiracy cheating lying or grabbing resources or power that one
does not deserve
• Wwastage of time, energy and resources
• Ssenseless talking and gossips
• Not attending the person in present moment
• Useless elaborative talks
• Loud and rude speaking with intension to dominate or snub others
• Useless and irrelevant argumentations
• Not being sensitive to other’s needs and aspirations
• Gribbing other’s attention
• Ddiscrimination, oppression and suppression against particular
person or community on certain patterns
Causes of violence
• Ignorance
• Insensitivity
• Anger
• Hatred
• “keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your
words, keep your words positive because your words become your
behaviour, keep your behaviour positive because your behaviour
becomes your habit, keep your habits positive because your habits
become your values and keep your values positive because your
values become your dignity”
- Mahatama Gandh
Seven sins of Mahatma Gandhi
• Wealth without work
• Pleasure without conscience
• Knowledge without character
• Commerce without morality
• Science without humanity
• Worship without sacrifice
• Politics without principles
Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Arun Gandhi adds another sin to that
• Right without responsibility
Implication of value-based living
• At the level of individual
• At the level of family
• At the level of society
• At the level of nature and existence
Ethics of virtue
• Virtue is translation of ancient Greek word arete, which means any
kind of excellence. Inanimate objects could have arete, since they
were amused to have telos, that is, a purpose. Thus, arete of knife
would be its sharpness. Animals could also have arete, for example
the strength of an ox was seen as its virtue.
• Aristotle defined virtue as “ ‘a kind of second nature‘ that disposes us
not only to do the right thing rightly but also to gain pleasure from
what we do”
Virtue, science and technology
• From the point of virtue ethis, science and technology are arguably
enduring components of good life.
• Scientific discoveries and technological products also pose challenges to
understanding and embodying a virtuous life.
• How do the virtues relate to one another in real life ?
• Is there anything to the ancient unity of virtues thesis? (which on the
Aristotelian model views phronesis or practical wisdom as generating and
uniting all of the moral virues )
• It should be no surprise that radical virtue ethics have attracted fewer
followers than more moderate versions and that the critical program has
had much stronger influence on contemporary ethical theory than has the
constructive program.
Virtues include following
• Cleanliness
• Perseverance
• Contribution and charity
• Gratitude
• Responsibility
• Courage
• Discipline
Purpose of value education: integrated
personality
• The purpose of education is to alter the conditions and surroundings
of an individual and to produce integrated personality
• By studying history we find that self knowledge and self awareness is
as old as civilisation.
• In western philosophical tradition Greeks were the first thinkers to
peruse these values with Socrates well known dictum know thyself
and and Plato’s assertion “an unexamined life is not worth living”
Behaviours leading to self actualisation
• Going at things “whole hog”
• Making growth choices
• Letting the self emerge
• Taking responsibility
• Listening to one’s own slef
• Working to become first rate
• Creating conditions for peak experiences
• Having the courage to drop one’s defences
Living with the highest goal
• Michal ray – Stanford
• Exercise :
• Discover the most meaningful thing that you did during the last week
or so whatever it is, reexperience doing that activity see it in your
mind’s eye and get the feeling of what made this activity so
meaningful to me?
• Keep asking question why is it so important to me? Of every answer
you give until it comes down to one word
• Love, wisdom, energy, communication, fun, creativity, silence, peace,
joy, service etc.
• Once we commit to living with the highest goal, professor Ray recommends
the following steps to help us in our way
• Go beyond passioin and success
• Travel your own path
• Live with the highest goal
• Find true prosperity
• Turn fears in to breakthroughs
• Relate from your heart
• Experience synergy in every moment
• Become a generative leader