What is your life

The increasing significance of values

Within cultures, nothing characterizes human existence more than the pursuit of “values”. The aboriginal human concerns may have been – and, in large parts of the world, still are – the natural ones of survival and procreation – and the proto-ethical ones of love of family, reciprocity in friendship, and dedication to the tribe. Beyond that, people were, and always will be, driven by a desire for added security or well-being, significance or rank, and entertainment. The strong and mighty have always striven for power. Some people will always look for frontiers to explore and for fame. At our level of civilization, people can afford to look for the satisfaction resulting from mental growth, dedicate their time and resources to local or international charity and public service, and enjoy “culture” through the arts.

The concept of “values” is a modern one. In times past, one spoke of “virtues”. The ranking of virtues changed in historic times. In archaic and heroic times, courage and honor ranked high. Virtue was seen as holding the middle between the two extremes of weakness and exaggeration. Wisdom was a supreme virtue, indicating a vast understanding and knowledge of existence, often finding answers to seemingly impossible problems, often leading to the right temperance and compromise between conflicting views. How does one solve the conflict between peace and freedom, honor and reason, or any other emotion and reason? Usually, the answer lies in the right middle, often closer to reason, seldom in a ranking of principles. It is time to bring “wisdom” back to the center of our cultural attention and education!

In Christian times, Christian love (the Greek “agape”), compassion, and humility ranked high. In our times, religious and political leaders, as well as role models of society, appeal to the need for values in our private and public lives. Soundness of family life, work ethics, honesty, respect for others, charity, and public service – all are commonly cited. Our society is based on a profound respect for justice and fairness. Common to all these values is the underlying assumption that there has to be a balance between the pursuit of personal benefit, the dedication to public service, and some charitable works for the needy. The global view of our time increases the range of these values. This is what is considered “right”. The opposite is “wrong”.

Ethics

The meaning of “ethics” has changed in the course of history and, more so, the height, or strictness, of moral standards. In early cultures, ethics and morals (Greek “ethos”, Roman “mores”) meant customs – customary behavior, as in communal life, dress code, cults, ritual, or war. The personality and behavioral aspects of ethics were described by “virtues”. The discussion of virtues in Aristotle’s Athens referred not only to the “moral” sphere of “good” and “bad”, but also to courage, justice, temperance, and other qualifications of character.
Later, in the Middle Ages, the definition of what was ethical was provided by religious or church-issued commandments and rules. “Moral” matters were no longer “customs” or aspects of character, but became, instead, matters of being dogmatically “right” and “wrong”. Beginning with the Scholastic thinkers, “ethics” became an intellectual pursuit, a discipline of philosophy.
In a parallel development, another part of society, the knights and nobility, retained or revived earlier rules of “honor”. The importance of these rules continued through World War II, especially for the nobility and the military, to which “duty” became equally important.
Honor is still a significant “value” in the Muslim and less developed part of the world – while “dignity” (related to respect) is important to all of us. With the rise of the middle class and, more so, with increasing industry and commerce, “ethics in business” arose as a concern, with the emphasis on trust and fairness. (Interestingly, the Ten Commandments do not address the problems of predatory business behavior or legalistic trickery.)
Since the late 18th century, in a combination of enlightenment and romanticism, “humanistic” values became important. Still, to a certain extent, they dominate the ethical thinking of the world today.
Western democracies promote “freedom, brotherhood, and equality” – the ideals of the French Revolution and the American Bill of Rights. Democracy brought questions of “ethics in government”, with its emphasis on integrity and the condemnation of corruption or abuse of power.
The environmental movement has given ethical meaning to environmental protection. Supported by progress in the sciences, the movement presents higher animals as sensitive and deserving of ethical treatment.
Modern social concerns brought a renewed demand for social justice and the Civil Rights movement in all its forms.
Moral strictness varied in the course of history, in an oscillation between “liberal” periods of materialistic or rational lasciviousness and “fundamentalist” periods of religious or idealistic strictness, one being the reaction to the exaggeration of the other.
Modern intellectuality (rationality, scientific thinking, and liberal thought), as well as new social concerns, gave impetus to the interpretation and limits of acceptable ethical behavior. Much of what was morally unacceptable in times past is acceptable today (at least, for the time being).
Over the centuries, ethics has always related to the behavior of individuals. In our times, there is an increasing call for ethical behavior of organizations (as in business) and of nations (as in international aid, in accepting refugees, and in transborder environmental degradation).
In Summary, one can distinguish various sources of human ethical thought and behavior:

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  Genetically preprogrammed ethical behavior
  
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  Ethics developed through learning and cultural habit
  
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  Religious teaching of ethics
  
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  Ethics based on philosophical thought
  

Genetically preprogrammed proto-ethical behavior:

The discovery of the evolutionary appearance of a genetic anchoring of ethics as the foundation of social behavior of animals for the formation and maintenance of groups brought some clarity to the complex subject of ethics.
Three types of ethical behavior among humans have a genetic base and not a base in education, culture, religion, philosophy, or practical considerations (in this regard, humans are no different from many animals):

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  Caring for offspring and clan-related individuals (decreasing with genetic distance)
  
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  Reciprocity in behavior (as among animals in congregating, grooming, sharing of food, and assistance in fighting) with selected other individuals (friends) – upon abuse turning into revenge behavior.
  
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  Loyalty to, and personal sacrifice for, the clan (as in heroic deeds for the clan or the nation in general).
  

All three of these behavior types, among animals as well as humans, are focused and augmented by learning and, in the case of humans, by own thought.

In cases of conflict between different ethical motivations, it appears as if the sequence of priority follows the above sequence, with caring for offspring (or relatives) being the strongest bond and loyalty to the clan at large the lowest-ranking bond, being abandoned first in conflict situations. Such conflicts provide powerful themes for the writing of tragedies. Yet, the historic development of formulated rules of ethics followed the opposite sequence:

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  Loyalty to, and personal sacrifice for, the clan, as in hero ethos, appear as the oldest glorification of ethical behavior.
  
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  Reciprocity with other individuals became formalized as the size of social groups grew and society became more complex (beginning with the Sumerian and Egyptian laws and, later, in the Ten Commandments).
  
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  Finally, the concepts of ethical caring and compassion were defined by the rising cultures, beginning with Urukagina, also called Uru’inimgina, king of Lagash in Mesopotamia. He provided rights to the poor and presented himself as the protector of the weak (the widows and orphans), approximately 2380 bc. This was newly emphasized by Isaiah (about 750 BC), then mainly expanded through Jesus’ teachings, and, lately, expressed in humanistic ideals. In our times, we see such ethical caring as the ultimate blessing of human culture.
  

With this genetic base of ethics in mind, one can structure a list of ethical concerns:

Caring and Compassion:

Family values

Compassionate assistance to the needy, charity, and other humanistic values

Social justice and civil rights

Reciprocity:

The Golden Rule

Concerns of criminality (see the Ten Commandments) and civil law

Fairness and trust (beyond the law) in inter-human relations

Ethics in the professions (beyond the law): in business, medicine, law, etc.

Loyalty to the group:

National heroism, patriotism, military honor

Service to the community, civic duty

Ethics in government (sense of duty and integrity versus corruption or abuse

of power)

Interestingly, there are two important and typically human concerns that cannot be seen as equal to the three genetic ethical categories:

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  Reverence for the divine (as in religious behavior, Christian saintliness, or Jewish righteousness)
  
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  Sexual behavior, taboos, and morally valued dress codes or “modesty/chastity” issues
  

However, these “taboo”-related issues have taken center stage in much of religious activism and the concerns of church leaders, whether Christian or Muslim – somewhat to the detriment of truly “ethical” concerns of caring for those in need.
The genetic base of ethics is the only possible common ground for a globally valid ethical code.
Anything beyond this common base would have to be based on a common religious or philosophical view of existence or on utilitarian considerations, would have to be “educated” into the minds of all people, and would have to be maintained by a legal and policing system.
Ethics Developed through Learning and Cultural Habit:

Even the proto-ethical behavior of animals in the three genetic categories indicated above is already subject to some learning (for example, the pairing and bonding between specific parents and their own offspring, and the acceptance and bonding of a pack member to the pack).

Among humans, learning allowed bonding and loyalty to be extended to ever larger sub-groups of society, from family to clan, to tribe, to nation, and, most recently, to international human cohesion. Christ taught the acceptance of a brother or sister in every human being (but was not concerned with higher animals).
It is still common to feel strong ethical bonds to one’s own clan members while being ethically unconcerned or showing ruthlessness and cruelty to outsiders. The Balkans and the Middle East are glaring examples. Countries with ethnic or religious diversity experience this society-disrupting problem. Racial differences tend to perpetuate the ethical differentiation between insiders and outsiders, often supported by the different groups’ different skills and professions, by selective observation, and inflamed by struggle about social standing, limited resources, or land.
Most human ethical behavior results not from conviction or deliberate individual decision-making, but from socially conditioned habit. An example is the conditioning of society in classical China through Confucian teachings – and the opposite formation appears to occur in some Muslim communities. In this context, it is important to note that different cultures still have widely different rules of ethics (see the brutal ethnic egoism, prevalent corruption, social indifference, and accepted tyranny in large parts of the world).
What does the future hold, if clan or ethnic egoism, racism, and cultural ethical differences are not resolved, even get out of hand?
Religious Teaching of Ethics

The thought that ethical behavior was mandated and rewarded by the gods (or God) and un-ethical behavior condemned and punished, occurred in various civilizations early in the course of their history. Thereby, in the Judeo-Christian and Muslim traditions, religious scriptures and priests became the voice of ethics, whereby the priests often assumed the role of interpreters of divine will in ethical matters and, consequently, assumed the role of judges – and gained power.

Considering that they are presented as God’s ethical rules for mankind, the Ten Commandments are surprisingly limited to reciprocity in a practical world, establishing practical order within a coherent pre-urban group of people. “Fairness” (at least the prohibition of trickery) and “compassion”, the essence of caring humanistic ethics, are not mentioned in the Ten Commandments (nor are personal sacrifice, duty, or heroism for the common good). It is equally surprising that King Uru’inimgina (Urukagina) of Lagash in Sumeria, in approximately 2380 BC, already had proclaimed himself the caring protector of the weak. Thus far, historians have not covered the subject of the evolution of caring ethical thought in our or other cultures.
Thinkers during the time of Christ awoke to the human ethical needs beyond the Law, with Christ, as the “son of God”, teaching most clearly the ethics of brotherly love based on the father-image of God. Later teachers, unfortunately, deflected much of that spirit. They emphasized the personal benefit in pursuing a behavior of good deeds for the purpose of obtaining personal salvation into Heaven. It took repeated efforts by great religious personalities through the centuries to keep the ethics of genuine Christian love alive, from St. Francis to Mother Theresa.