0.2.4 Introduction to Values: Action

Version 1.2 November 2016                                        Previous Version

6. Personal Practice

Personal practice covers what we do as individuals, how we face up to ourselves, each other, and the world.  The choices we make are based on the core values we adopt in our philosophical analyses and the derived, effecting and ancillary values we choose from our science and history.

We look at how these values can be applied to our selves, our physical health, our friends and sexual relationships, our families, our communities and our (so called) spiritual lives.

In developing personal guidelines in a social context, we confirm our commitment to shared values, sometimes restating them in alternative ways, as derived values.  For instance:

integrity, foresight, respect, duty, considerateness, reflection,

as well as honesty, non-violence, and personal property.

It takes effort to apply all these guidelines, even to understand them.  We value commitment, discipline and struggle, the ancillary values, to the extent that they help us to find the wherewithal to live according to our core values.

But the core value we most associate with personal practice is Responsibility: choosing to expect others and ourselves to make decisions to be part of the struggle for the good.  more

7. Politics

Politics is the art of resolving conflicts between groups as peacefully as possible. 

Our political actions determine whether humanity flourishes, and whether it even survives. 

If we can't work out, and largely agree, on our core values, then humanity as a whole is at risk, from over population, pollution, climate change, infectious disease, and global war.  For humanity this is a relatively new position that has arisen in the last few generations. 

The political decisions we make are based on our core philosophical values and the derived and effecting values we have adopted from science, history, religion, culture and personal practice. 

We look at how these values are justified and can be applied in economics and business; social organisations; area governments; the environment, global justice, and education.

●   We value private property and prosperity, but only to the extent that they promote personal fulfilment based on all our core values, so they are effecting values. 

●   Fairness and human rights are derived from the core values of love and equality. 

●   Our notion of justice comes from the core values of responsibility, truth and equality. 

●   We learn from history that freedom and democracy are effecting values that promote our core values of truth, diversity, life, love, equality and hope. 

●   We value learning because it promotes prosperity and empowers us to obtain justice.

●   We laud ancillary values, such as courage, loyalty and honour, in the those such as the military, police and emergency services who risk themselves to make society safer.

But the core value we most associate with politics is Equality: choosing to treat others as deserving the same opportunities for personal fulfilment as we do.  more