Human Values & Professional Ethics

(BAS- 11)

Dr. Abhijit Mishra

• “By their nature, all human relations and behaviours
are embedded in values.” R K Mukerji (1949)

• “Values are socially approved desires and goals that

are internalized through the process of learning or
socialization and that become subjective preferences,
standards and aspirations.” R K Mukerji (1949)

• “A value is a belief that something is good and

desirable.” M Haralambos (2000)
 VALUES: WHAT DO THEY MEAN???
Values: -

• are general principles that regulate our day-to-day

behavior and provide us the basis for all our actions.

• are ideas shared by a community of people about how

something should be ranked in terms of desirability,
worth or goodness.

• are basically broad preferences concerning appropriate

course of actions.
Values: -

• deal not so much with what is, but with what ought to
be; in other words, they express moral imperatives.

• are expressions of the ultimate goal/ purpose of social

action.

• serve as the basis of our judgments about what is

desirable, beautiful, proper, correct, important,
worthwhile, and good as well as what is undesirable,
ugly, incorrect, improper, and bad.
 FUNCTION OF VALUES
Values: -

• integrate and fulfill man’s basic impulses and desires in a stable

and consistent manner.

• influence people’s behavior and serve as criteria for evaluating the

actions of others.

• build up societies, integrate social relations.

• help in creating norms to guide day-to-day behavior.

• mould ideal dimensions of personality and range and depth

of culture.
 SOME IMPORTANT VALUES
• Integrity- Unity of character, consistency in what you feel, think
and act, consistency in public and private life, practicing what you
preach.

• Honesty- Being true in your thoughts, beliefs, and actions.

• Cooperation- Extending help to others by means of an idea,

suggestion, assistance or physical help for a good cause.

• Caring- Feeling for others, protecting others, causing least damage

to others.

• Sharing- Extending our resources to others for their good.

• Courage- Confronting dangers/risks and taking bold decisions in

even in adverse situations.
 SOME IMPORTANT VALUES
• Self-respect- Valuing oneself appropriately.

• Commitment- Strong belief in something, a promise to do something,

enthusiasm, duty/responsibility.

• Empathy- The capacity to understand and imaginatively enter another

person’s feelings.

• Loyalty- A feeling of strong support for someone or something.

• Justice- The quality of treating others in a fair and just manner.

• Equality- The quality or state of being equal; the quality or state of

having same rights, social status etc.

• Liberty- The state of being free within society from oppressive

restrictions imposed by authority on one’s behavior or political views.
 CLASSIFICATION OF VALUES
There are three major systems of classification of values: -

• Relative vs absolute values: Relative values are those

whose importance varies between people, and on a larger
scale, between people of different cultures. On the other
hand, there are values which are independent of individual
or cultural views. Such are absolute values.

• Extrinsic vs intrinsic values: The worth of extrinsic values

lie in their capacity to serve to get something that is
desirable. In contrast, intrinsic values are not important
because of their utility in gathering something desirable.
But because they are important in themselves.
 CLASSIFICATION OF VALUES

• Individual vs collective (familial/societal/universal)

values: Values related to the development of
individual personality or individual norms of
recognition and protection of the human personality
are known as individual values. Some such values are
honesty, loyalty etc. There are certain values which
are related to the development of families, societies,
and humanity itself. All such values are classified as
collective values.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VALUES, MORALS, ETHICS
• When values, morals, and ethics all provide behavioral
rules, then how do they differ?

• What separates them from each other?

• It may seem like splitting hairs, but the differences can be

important when persuading others.

• Values are basically the rules by which we make decisions

about right and wrong, good and bad.

• On the other hand, morals are defined as “the motivation

to behave in a certain way based on ideas of right and
wrong.”.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VALUES, MORALS, ETHICS
• Morals tend to differ from values primarily in two ways- (i)
morals have a greater social element as compared to values, and
(ii) morals have a broader acceptance in comparison to values.

• Ethics is another term which is often confused with values and

morals.

• Ethics is a codified formal system or set of rules which are

explicitly adopted by a group of people.

• Ethics are internally defined and adopted, whilst morals tend to

be externally imposed on other people.

• Thus, you have professional ethics but you seldom hear about
professional morals.
• Cross-cultural variations in Values
VALUE EDUCATION

Dr. Abhijit Mishra

 NEED FOR VALUE EDUCATION

• Value education may seem a vague term for

all of us.

• Aimed at sensitizing with fundamental

issues which are important for all- issues
which directly relate to our happiness,
welfare, aspirations, goals and success in
life.
 NEED FOR VALUE EDUCATION
• Value education deals with: -
(i) what is valuable to all of us, and
(ii) what is conducive to our individual and
collective happiness and prosperity in a
sustainable way.

• Value education enables us to be in harmony

with ourselves, with other fellow human
beings and with the rest of the nature.
 NEED FOR VALUE EDUCATION

• Understanding the need for values and

value education is vital for successful
conduct of our profession.

• Let us specifically investigate how value

education helps us.
 NEED FOR VALUE EDUCATION
1. Correct identification of our aspirations:

• We all aspire to become something (engineer,

corporate professionals).

• We have various plans for our future, be it

immediate or long-term.

• Such planning may include our personal lives, our

families, our professions, and our social lives.
 NEED FOR VALUE EDUCATION
• But before we invest our time and energies to
actualize our plans, it is important to realize what
we basically aspire for.

• In other words, we need to identify our basic

aspirations.

• Values help us to correctly identify our aspirations.

Based on the correct identification of our
aspirations, we can frame our plans and work for
it.
 NEED FOR VALUE EDUCATION
2. Deciding appropriate methods/ways to fulfil our
aspirations:

• Merely identifying our aspirations correctly is not

enough. We also need to know how to fulfil our
aspirations, how to go about actualizing our goals.

• Generally, we tend to pursue our goals in a variety

of ways as per our appraisal and beliefs. We keep
on experimenting, learning from these and
improving our understanding.
 NEED FOR VALUE EDUCATION
• Complete understanding of human values
guides us in choosing/deciding the ways in
which we could fulfil our aspirations.

• Basically, values form the basis for all our

thoughts, behaviour, and actions. Once we have
known what is valuable to us, these values
become the basis of, the anchor for our actions.
 NEED FOR VALUE EDUCATION
• We know what we are doing is right and will
lead to the fulfilment of our basic aspirations.
Without an appropriate value framework, we
will not be able to decide whether a chosen
action is desirable/undesirable, right, or wrong.

• Hence, there is a prime need for correct

understanding of the value domain. Value
education is the input necessary to fulfil this
need.
 NEED FOR VALUE EDUCATION
3. Complementarity of values and skills:

• To fulfil our aspirations, two things are

essential- (i) knowing what really is conducive
to human happiness i.e. to set the right goals
and to proceed in the right direction, and (ii) to
learn skills to actualize this goal.

• Therefore, there is an essential

complementarity between values and skills for
the success of any human endeavour.
 NEED FOR VALUE EDUCATION
• Suppose we realize that health is the basic
requirement for a human being. Then, we
learn skill to judge what food would be healthy,
what physical practices will keep the body
functioning properly etc.

• All these fall under the domain of skills. Thus,

both (values and skills) are important and
these are complementary.
 NEED FOR VALUE EDUCATION
4. Evaluation of our beliefs:

• We all hold beliefs about certain things and these

beliefs are formed based on the information, be it
right or wrong, we get from various sources.

• In fact, there is a whole body of beliefs which

together constitute our worldview.

• Beliefs are not same for everybody. What we may

believe may not be important for you and vice
versa.
 NEED FOR VALUE EDUCATION
• In that case, when we interact, it may lead to
conflicts and unhappiness. We face this problem
because the values we hold are based on
contradictory, conflicting, unstable, and
incorrect beliefs about reality.

• In absence of correct understanding of universal

human values, we are driven by such ad-hoc
beliefs which cannot ensure happiness for all of
us.
 GUIDELINES FOR VALUE EDUCATION

• Let us have a look on certain effective and

widely acceptable principles which should
guide the process of value education in our
system.
 GUIDELINES FOR VALUE EDUCATION
1.Universal:

• Whatever is taught as value education

must be universally applicable to all
human beings and be true at all times and
places.

• Such content need not restrict itself to a

certain sect, creed, gender, or nationality.
 GUIDELINES FOR VALUE EDUCATION
2. Rational: -

• Value education should not be based on

stereotypes, blind beliefs etc.

• Value education should be amenable to

reasoning and should be based on a set of
sermons or Do’s and Don’ts.
 GUIDELINES FOR VALUE EDUCATION
3. Natural & Verifiable: -

• Values being taught should be close to the

fundamental nature of human beings so that they are
easier to adapt.

• Being natural means, it is acceptable in a natural

manner to all human beings.

• The values being taught should be verifiable i.e. we

should assume something just because it is being
taught in textbooks, rather each of us will want to
verify these to find out whether they are true for us.
 GUIDELINES FOR VALUE EDUCATION
4. Leading to Harmony: -

• Finally, value education must enable us to be in

harmony within and in harmony with others.

• Hence, when we live on the basis of these

values, we start understanding that it will lead
to harmony in us, and harmony in our
interaction with other humans and the rest of
nature.
 SCOPE OF VALUE EDUCATION
• Any course on value education must include (i) all dimensions-
thoughts, feelings and actions; and (ii) all levels of human
existence- individual, family, society, nature/existence of
human living.

• Accordingly, the content of value education should enable us

to understand: -
i. ourselves,
ii. our aspirations,
iii. our happiness,
iv. the goal of human life,
v. other entities in nature,
vi. the innate interconnectedness of various species, and
vii. the role of human being in this nature/existence.
 SCOPE OF VALUE EDUCATION

• Hence, it must encompass understanding of

harmony at various levels, namely, individual,
family, society, nature and existence, and finally,
learning to live in accordance with this
understanding by being vigilant to one’s
thought, behaviour and work.
UNDERSTANDING BASIC HUMAN
ASPIRATIONS: HAPPINESS &
PROSPERITY

Dr. Abhijit Mishra

 OUR ASPIRATIONS
• In order to understand about our basic aspirations,
just make a list of all that you want in your life.

• You may want :-

1. to become a successful engineer/IAS/govt. officer
2. to join the corporate sector
3. to get the highest grade
4. to be the first ranker in the examination
5. to be the smartest guy in the crowd
6. to earn enormous wealth
7. to be the master of all trades

and so on……………
• Now for each of these desires on the list, just ask a
few basic questions like: -

1. Why do you want this (your desire)?

2. What would you get if those desires are fulfilled?
3. Is there a more basic desire?

• If you ask these questions, you will find that there are
few basic aspirations which encircle (cover) all your
desires.

• These are your basic aspirations.

• You will also find that there are two basic aspirations:
happiness and prosperity.
• These basic aspirations are intrinsic to us that is, they
are quite natural and inborn to us.

• We all are continuously working for our basic

aspirations in different ways as per our
understanding.

• Sometimes we succeed, many times we don’t. How

successful we are today in achieving this is a matter
of series exploration.

• But one thing is clear, happiness and prosperity are

two basic human aspirations and if we want to
ensure these, we need to have a clear and correct
understanding of both.
 HAPPINESS
• Happiness may be defined as “being in harmony/synergy in
the state/ situation that I live in”.

• Happiness :-
1. is a state of liking;
2. is a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment,
love, satisfaction, pleasure or joy;
3. consists of positive emotions and positive activities;
4. is of three kinds: pleasure, engagement, and meaning;
5. freedom from want and distress;
6. awareness of right order of things;
7. assurance of one's place in the universe or society;
8. a state of inner peace; and
9. a state where we feel good in most of the walk of life
 HAPPINESS: ACCORDING TO BUDDHA

• The path to happiness starts from an

understanding of the root causes of suffering.

• Buddha believed that suffering (dukkha)

ultimately arose from ignorance and false
knowledge.

• Buddha proposed the Eightfold Path for

elimination of suffering (dukkha).
BUDDHA’s EIGHTFOLD PATH
 HAPPINESS: ACCORDING TO SOCRATES

• Socrates had the following ideas about happiness:

1. All human beings naturally desire happiness.

2. Happiness is obtainable and teachable through human

effort.

3. Happiness is directive rather than additive: it depends

not on external goods, but how we use these external
goods (whether wisely or unwisely).
 HAPPINESS: ACCORDING TO SOCRATES
4. Happiness depends on the “education of desire” whereby the
soul learns how to harmonize its desires, redirecting its gaze
away from physical pleasures to the love of knowledge and
virtue.

5. Virtue and Happiness are inextricably linked, such that it

would be impossible to have one without the other.

6. The pleasures that result from pursuing virtue and

knowledge are of a higher quality than the pleasures
resulting from satisfying mere animal desires. Pleasure
is not the goal of existence, however, but rather an integral
aspect of the exercise of virtue in a fully human life.
 HAPPINESS ACCORDING TO CURRENT RESEARCH
• In the recent years, there has been a dramatic upsurge in
scientific studies on the science of happiness or to put it simply,
discovering what makes happy people happy.

• Fortunately, many of these studies point to specific ways of

thinking and acting that can strongly impact our sense of
happiness and peace of mind.

• Researchers have identified at least seven habits of happy

people:-

1. Express your heart. People who have one or more close

friendships are happier. Try to develop the ability to express
genuine interest in what people say, and respond in encouraging
ways. It is a powerful way to enrich relationships and cultivate
positive emotions.
 HAPPINESS ACCORDING TO CURRENT RESEARCH

2. Cultivate kindness. People who volunteer or simply care for

others on a consistent basis seem to be happier and less
depressed.

3. Regular physical activity. Regular exercise has been

associated with improved mental well-being and a lower
incidence of depression.

4. Find your flow. If we are deeply involved in trying to reach a

goal, or an activity that is challenging but well suited to our
skills, we experience a joyful state called "flow." Many kinds
of activities, such as sports, playing an instrument, or
teaching, can produce the experience of flow.
 HAPPINESS ACCORDING TO CURRENT RESEARCH
5. Discovering Meaning. Studies demonstrate a close link
between spiritual and religious practice and happiness.
Spirituality is closely related to the discovery of greater
meaning in our lives.

6. Discover and use your strengths. Happiest people are those

that have discovered their unique strengths (such as
persistence and critical thinking) and virtues (such as
humanity) and use those strengths and virtues for a purpose
that is greater than their own personal goals.

7. Show gratitude. Grateful people have been shown to have

greater positive emotion, a greater sense of belonging, and
lower incidence of depression and stress.
 PROSPERITY
• The feeling of having or making available more than
required physical facilities is prosperity.

• Almost all of us feel that wealth alone means prosperity

and try to explain this phenomenon on this nonexistent or
half fact.

• We are trying to achieve happiness and prosperity by

maximizing accumulation and consumption of physical
facilities.

• It is becoming anti-ecological and anti-people, and

threatening the human survival itself.
 PROSPERITY
• For prosperity, two things are required-

1. Identification of the required quantity of physical facilities.

2. Ensuring availability / production of more than required
physical facilities.

• We can be prosperous only if there is a limit to the need for

physical facilities. If there is no limit what so ever be the
availability the feeling of prosperity cannot be assured.

• Secondly, just assessing the need is not enough. We need to

be able to produce or make available more than the perceived
need.
 PROSPERITY & WEALTH: THE DIFFERENCE
• Prosperity is a feeling of having more than required physical
facilities, it is not just physical facilities.

• Wealth is a physical thing. It means having money, or having a lot

of physical facilities or both. Wealth is a part of prosperity.

• We mostly fail to make this distinction today. We keep working for

wealth, without realizing that the basic desire is for the feeling of
prosperity, to have a feeling of having enough.

• A person has lot of money, but does not want to share even a bit of
it. The person 'has wealth' but feels 'deprived'. If one felt
prosperous he/she would have shared what one has, since there is
lot more than enough wealth anyway.
PROBLEMS OF WRONG UNDERSTANDING OF HAPPINESS
& PROSPERITY

1. At the level of individual - rising problems of depression,

psychological disorders, suicides, stress, insecurity, etc.

2. At the level of family - breaking of joint families, mistrust, and

conflict between older and younger generations, insecurity in
relationships, divorce, dowry tortures, etc.

3. At the level of society - growing incidence of terrorism and

naxalism, rising communalism, spreading casteism, racial and
ethnic struggle, wars between nations, etc.

4. At the level of nature - global warming, water, air, soil, noise etc.
pollution, resource depletion of minerals and mineral oils, etc.
 WHY ONLY PHYSICAL FACILITIES ARE NOT ENOUGH?

• Physical facilities are necessary and complete for animals, while

they are necessary but not complete for humans.

• Animals need physical things to survive, mainly to take care of

their body. As long as animals have physical things, they are
largely fine. They don't desire other things like knowledge or a
peaceful animal society or getting a good MBA.

• Human beings are social and emotional beings. We do not have

only material requirements. We have social and emotional
requirements which cannot fulfilled merely by wealth or physical
things.

• Therefore, for humans ‘Physical facilities are necessary but not

enough’.
 FULFILLING BASIC HUMAN ASPIRATIONS

• Our basic aspirations are happiness and prosperity. Happiness is ensured

by the relationships with other human beings and prosperity is ensured
by working on physical facilities.

• We need to ensure the following things to fulfill basic human aspirations:

-
1. Right Understanding: This refers to higher order human skills - the need
to learn and utilize our intelligence most effectively.

2. Good Relationships: This refers to the interpersonal relationships that a

person builds in his or her life - at home, at the workplace and in society.

3. Physical Facilities: This includes the physiological needs of individuals

and indicates the necessities as well as the comforts of life. It means the
feeling of having or being able to have more physical facilities than is
needed.
 FULFILLING BASIC HUMAN ASPIRATIONS

• In order to resolve the issues in human relationships, we need

to understand them first, and this would come from 'right
understanding of relationship’.

• Similarly in order to be prosperous and to enrich nature, we

need to have the 'right understanding’.

• The 'right understanding' will enable us to work out our

requirements for physical facilities and hence correctly
distinguish the difference between wealth and prosperity.

• With nature as well, we need to understand the harmony in

nature, and how we can complement this harmony.
SELF EXPLORATION AND NATURAL
ACCEPTANCE

Dr. Abhijit Mishra

 WHAT IS SELF EXPLORATION?
• Self exploration is a process of investigating and
judging within ourselves :-
i. what is valuable to us?
ii. what is right for us?
iii. what is true for us?

• We get the value of ourselves through self

exploration.

• It is a process of focusing attention on ourselves, our

present beliefs and aspirations vis-à-vis what we
really want to be.
 WHAT IS SELF EXPLORATION?
• If there is no difference between what we are and what
we want to be, then there is no problem.

• But if there is a difference, it implies we are living with a

contradiction (of not being what we really want to be)
which we need to resolve.

• In short, self exploration is a process of discovering the

innateness and universality between all human beings.

• Self exploration enables us to look at the contradictions

within us and resolve them by becoming aware of our
natural acceptance.
 WHAT IS SELF EXPLORATION?
• Content of self exploration is finding answers to the
following fundamental questions of all human beings:

i. The Desire/Goal: What is my (human) Desire/ Goal? What

do I really want in life, or what is the goal of human life?

ii. Program: What is my (human) program for fulfilling the

desire? How to fulfil it? What is the program to actualize
the above?

• The two questions above cover the whole domain of human

aspirations and human endeavour. Thus, they form the
content of self- exploration.
 WHAT IS SELF EXPLORATION?
• Self exploration requires two aspects :-

i. Natural acceptance: unconditional and total

acceptance of the self, people and environment;
absence of any exception from others.

ii. Experiential validation: a process that infuses direct

experience with the learning environment and content;
as a philosophy and methodology in which the direct
experience and focused reflection of the individual helps
to increase knowledge, develop skills and clarifies
values.
 PURPOSE OF SELF EXPLORATION?
• Self exploration helps in :-

i. creating a dialogue between what we are and

what we want to be.

ii. self evolution by self investigation.

iii. knowing the entire existence through knowing

oneself.

iv. recognizing one’s relationship with other units

of existence and fulfilling it.
 PURPOSE OF SELF EXPLORATION?

• Self exploration helps in :-

v. knowing human conduct, human character and

living accordingly.

vi. being in harmony in oneself and in harmony

with entire existence.

vii. identifying our innateness and moving towards

self organization and self expression.
 WHAT IS NATURAL ACCEPTANCE?
• Natural acceptance implies unconditional and total
acceptance of the self, people and environment.

• It also refers to the absence of any exception from

others.

• It is way to accept the good things naturally.

• Learn everything that is good from others, but bring

it in, and in our own way absorb it; do not become
others.
 WHAT IS NATURAL ACCEPTANCE?
• Characteristics of natural acceptance are :-

i. Does not change with time. It remains invariant

with time. For example our natural acceptance
for trust and respect does not change with age.

ii. Does not depend on the place. Whatever we

have accepted, in our life, at any time of our
age, does not change, even if we move from one
place to another one.
 WHAT IS NATURAL ACCEPTANCE?
iii. Does not depend on our beliefs or past
conditionings. No matter how deep our belief or
past conditioning, as long as we ask ourselves
the question sincerely, as long as we refer deep
within ourselves, the answer will always be the
same.

iv. Is 'constantly there', something we can refer to.

Natural acceptance is always there. Whatever
we do, this natural acceptance is within us, it is
telling us what is right.
 WHAT IS NATURAL ACCEPTANCE?
v. Natural acceptance is the same for all of us: it is
part and parcel of every human being, it is part of
humanness. Though each one of us, may have
different likes and dislikes and means to live and to
react etc. but if we go deep in our mind the purpose
of our work, behaviour, efforts etc. are based on
common goals like need to be happy, need to be
respected, need to get prosperity. So our basic
acceptance remains the same.