Tuesday, 19 July 2011

Values, morals and ethics

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MORAL VALUES

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What are moral values?

Moral values are the standards of good and evil, which govern an individual’s behavior and choices. Individual’s morals may derive from society and government, religion, or self. When moral values derive from society and government they, of necessity, may change as the laws and morals of the society change. An example of the impact of changing laws on moral values may be seen in the case of marriage vs. “living together.”

In past generations, it was rare to see couples who lived together without the benefit of a legal matrimonial ceremony. In recent years, couples that set up household without marriage are nearly as plentiful as traditional married couples. But, not only are such couples more plentiful, they are also more accepted by other individuals in our society. In earlier society, the laws and morals simply came from the Roman system of law, which was largely based on the Ten Commandments. As society moved into the modern era, that earlier system of laws became more and more eroded.

Moral values also derive from within one’s own self. This is clearly demonstrated in the behavior of older infants and young toddlers. If a child has been forbidden to touch or take a certain object early on, they know enough to slowly look over their shoulder to see if they are being observed before touching said object. There is no need for this behavior to be taught; it is instinctive. Once, however, any form of discipline is applied to modify the child’s behavior, the child now gains the capacity within himself to distinguish his right behavior from his wrong behavior. Now, the child can make correct choices based on his own knowledge. The choices that are made by an individual from childhood to adulthood are between forbidden and acceptable, kind or cruel, generous or selfish. A person may, under any given set of circumstances, decide to do what is forbidden. If this individual possesses moral values, going against them usually produces guilt.

Religion is another source of moral values. Most religions have built-in lists of do’s and don’ts, a set of codes by which its adherents should live. Individuals who are followers of a particular religion will generally make a show of following that religion’s behavioral code. It is interesting to note that these codes may widely vary; a person whose religion provides for polygamy will experience no guilt at having more than one spouse while adherents to other religions feel they must remain monogamous.

Christianity goes beyond all other religions in that it is more than just a system of do’s and don’ts; it is a relationship with the living God through His Son, Jesus Christ. A Christian’s set of moral values go beyond society’s mores and selfish instincts. Christians ideally behave correctly because they love God and want to please Him. This is at once a high calling and a low position. It is a high calling because God has required that all who love Him should keep His commandments; therefore it is an act of obedience. John 14:15 says, "If you love me, you will obey what I command.” It is a low position because we must totally deny our own will to do what pleases the Lord. Christ Jesus as He lived His life on earth is our supreme example; if we pattern our behavior after Him then our lives are most valuable. John 15:10 says, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.”

Learn More About Morality!
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Morality Defined
Morality speaks of a system of behavior in regards to standards of right or wrong behavior. The word carries the concepts of: (1) moral standards, with regard to behavior; (2) moral responsibility, referring to our conscience; and (3) a moral identity, or one who is capable of right or wrong action. Common synonyms include ethics, principles, virtue, and goodness. Morality has become a complicated issue in the multi-cultural world we live in today. Let's explore what morality is, how it affects our behavior, our conscience, our society, and our ultimate destiny.
Morality and Our Behavior
Morality describes the principles that govern our behavior. Without these principles in place, societies cannot survive for long. In today's world, morality is frequently thought of as belonging to a particular religious point of view, but by definition, we see that this is not the case. Everyone adheres to a moral doctrine of some kind.

Morality as it relates to our behavior is important on three levels. Renowned thinker, scholar and author C.S. Lewis defines them as: (1) to ensure fair play and harmony between individuals; (2) to help make us good people in order to have a good society; and (3) to keep us in a good relationship with the power that created us. Based on this definition, it's clear that our beliefs are critical to our moral behavior.

On Point 1, Professor Lewis says most reasonable people agree. By Point 2, however, we begin to see problems occurring. Consider the popular philosophy "I'm not hurting anyone but myself," frequently used to excuse bad personal choices. How can we be the good people we need to be if we persist in making these choices, and how will that result not affect the rest of our society? Bad personal choices do hurt others. Point 3 is where most disagreement surfaces. While the majority of the world's population believes in God, or at least in a god, the question of Creation, as a theory of origins, is definitely hotly debated in today's society.

A recent report in Psychology Today concluded: "The most significant predictor of a person's moral behavior may be religious commitment. People who consider themselves very religious were least likely to report deceiving their friends, having extramarital affairs, cheating on their expenses accounts, or even parking illegally." Based on this finding, what we believe about Creation has a decided effect on our moral thinking and our behavior. Without belief in a Creator, the only option that seems to be left is to adhere to moral standards we make up for ourselves. Unless we live in a dictatorial society, we are free to choose our own personal moral code. But where does that freedom come from? The view of many who do not adhere to Creation is that morality is a creation of humanity, designed to meet the need of stable societies. All kinds of life are in a process of deciding between life and death, choosing what to do with power and/or authority. This ultimately leads to a system of virtues and values. The question is: what happens when our choices conflict with each other? What if something I believe I need in order for my life to continue results in death for you? If we do not have an absolute standard of truth, chaos and conflict will result as we are all left to our own devices and desires.
Morality and Our Conscience
Morality impacts our everyday decisions, and those choices are directed by our conscience. Again, we must decide for ourselves where the conscience originates. Many people hold to the idea that the conscience is a matter of our hearts, that concepts of right, wrong, and fairness are "programmed" in each of us. This is in keeping with the writings of Paul the Apostle, who points out that even those who do not believe in God frequently obey God's laws as given in the Ten Commandments: "for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them" (Romans 2:14-15 (NKJV)). Again, those who do not believe in God are left with the only possible conclusion they can come to - that our decisions are based solely on our need to survive. What we call our conscience, then, would be based on learned behavior, rather than part of a Divine design.
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Thursday, 14 July 2011

CHARACTER DEVELOPEMENT

When a person is said to have character, it usually implies they have distinguishing moral qualities, moral virtues, and moral reasoning abilities. Less frequently used terms include morality, virtue, and ethics. A moral person understands right and wrong and willfully chooses what is right; a virtuous person engages in good behavior intentionally, predictably, and habitually; an ethical person figures out what is right or good when this is not obvious. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, there appears to be a desire to reconsider earlier goals of American education by taking character building more seriously. Most people share the view that schools should be formally and strategically involved in building moral character, virtues, and ethical behavior and should work in concert with parents and the community.

Looking Back

From the beginning of written history, the importance of building moral character has been recognized by parents, educators, and concerned citizens in every culture and society. Between 1640 and 1940, educators in the United States were as concerned about moral education as academic education. Throughout this 300-year period, the dominant pedagogical method was inculcation (repetitive direct instruction combined with reinforced practice), and the goals were inspiration, commitment, and habituation. During the early 1900s the American philosopher, psychologist, and educator John Dewey and other progressive educators expanded those goals to include critical thinking and reflection about values and morals; they stressed the value of experiential learning for building character. In 1951 the National Education Association (NEA) recommended combining these traditional and progressive approaches. This was not accomplished because concerns about academic competence and teaching specific values caused character education to be put aside as a formal undertaking. Public schools abandoned the dual focus on moral character and academic success and adopted a singular focus on academics. Character education continued informally through the hidden curriculum of Western democratic values and the independent efforts of teachers.
Between 1940 and 1970 cognitive-develop-mental psychologists generated some renewed interest in character by identifying levels of moral reasoning and trying to accelerate moral development. The more widely adopted values clarification movement was a response to the nation's preoccupation with individual freedom and self-improvement and the nationalistic push for better science and mathematics education. A third influence was built on the work of Erik Erikson and Robert James Havighurst, who identified processes and stages of socioemotional development. Affective-developmental psychologists and moral philosophers concerned with conscience and emotion began to expand the understanding of affective moral development.
Public concern about a moral decline in society and the disintegration of families and communities led to the reemergence of character education in the 1980s. By 1995 it had become a social movement with thousands of schools and communities involved. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, proponents of traditional and progressive approaches engaged in a friendly dialogue, which energized the movement and accelerated the synthesis of ideas. Schools drew strategies from both approaches with little regard for the theoretical foundation for this synthesis. They taught and trained students using stories, moral exemplars, reinforcement, and lists of virtues as recommended by traditionalists; they provided active student experiences within caring communities through class meetings, cooperative learning, and service learning as recommended by progressives.
Many important contributions to character education occurred during the final two decades of the twentieth century. In 1992 representatives from many organizations devoted to building the civic virtue and moral character of students formed the Character Education Partnership (CEP). According to CEP's eleven principles, effective character education schools:
  1. promote core ethical values as the basis of good character;
  2. define character comprehensively to include thinking, feeling, and behavior;
  3. promote core values intentionally and proactively through all parts of school life;
  4. are caring communities;
  5. give students opportunities for moral action;
  6. have meaningful and challenging academic curriculums that respect learners;
  7. develop students' intrinsic motivation;
  8. have professionals who exemplify core values and maintain a moral community;
  9. require moral leadership from educators and students;
  10. recruit parents and community members as full partners;
  11. evaluate school character, student character, and adults as character educators.

The Eclectic Ideal

Research and practice suggest that the most effective character education schools combine direct instruction, modeling, reinforcement, and various community-building strategies (class meetings, service learning, cooperative learning, intercultural exchange, social-skills training, and caring interpersonal support) to promote the development of moral virtues, moral reasoning, and other assets that make the will and ability to do what is right and good probable. They are concerned with all aspects of development, including social, emotional, moral, intellectual, and academic. They are child-need-centered without abandoning the responsibility to transmit core ethical values to youth. They endorse Robert D. Heslep's view that character education includes civic education (learning about laws, government, and citizenship), social education (learning social roles, responsibilities, and skills), prudential education (learning how to take care of oneself), cultural education (becoming historically and culturally literate), and moral education–the latter providing a context of principles that guide civic, social, prudential, and cultural education.
Good character educators are aware of the over-lapping and interconnected parts of the moral person: knowledge, understanding, reasoning, autonomy, values, beliefs, standards, principles, perspective taking, conscience, empathy, emotion, virtues, intentions, will, commitment, motivation, duty, behavior, and habits. Marvin Berkowitz's 1995 model of the complete moral person includes moral values (beliefs and attitudes with an affective component), moral behavior (intentional moral acts), moral emotion (energizing feelings), moral character (a personality characteristic), moral identity (being or trying to be moral), and meta-moral characteristics such as self-discipline. Thomas Lickona's moral feeling, thinking, and action, and Kevin Ryan's knowing, loving, and doing the good are perhaps easier to remember and use. William G. Huitt's 2000 model treats moral will or volition as a part distinguishable from moral emotion, moral thought, and moral behavior.
Thomas F. Green (1999) connects the thinking and feeling parts of the moral person by describing five voices of conscience (craft, membership, responsibility, memory, and imagination). Jerome Kagan explains how several specific moral emotions compel adherence to standards of right and wrong beginning in early childhood. Many define moral behavior in terms of specific virtues or habits of conduct from which inner parts of the moral person can be inferred. Gordon G. Vessels distinguishes between primary virtues that reflect personal integrity (e.g., kindness, courage, ability, and effort) and primary virtues that reflect social integrity (e.g., friendship, teamwork, and citizenship). He incorporates elaborations of these virtues and theoretical propositions about moral-developmental processes into behavioral objectives for various age groups.

Early Twenty-First Century

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the time devoted to character education in many schools is decreasing due to the popular focus on academic standards, accountability, standardized testing, and whole-school reform. The well-researched whole-school reform models that include character education are not among the most popular: Basic Schools, Child Development Project (CDP), Modern Red Schoolhouse, Positive Action, Responsive Classroom, School Development Program, and Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound. In general, American society may not be ready to think in terms of preventing social problems and improving schools by implementing a curriculum that balances character education and academic instruction, and the addition of nontraditional assessment measures that document products and processes reflecting good character and character growth such as Huitt's (2001) proposed use of cumulative electronic portfolios with scanned pictures and video clips.
Trends and concerns suggest that in order for character education to become a highly valued and fully integrated feature of education once again, character educators will have to focus on reducing societal problems and address concerns about the effectiveness of academic instruction in the schools. Barring a major shift in priorities, the future of character education appears to hinge on the evaluation of its potential for reducing school violence, drug use, teen pregnancy, disrespect, and prejudice; and improving school climate, student discipline, school safety, intercultural understanding, and academic achievement. Models for this type of program evaluation research are available. Leaders in education are not likely to change course unless research results show that academic goals are achievable using a curriculum that addresses all aspects of development, thereby integrating academic and character goals, objectives, and methods.


Read more: Character Development - Looking Back, The Eclectic Ideal, Early Twenty-First Century - Moral, Education, Schools, School, Social, and Academic http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1820/Character-Development.html#ixzz1S55Eib7R
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DETERMINING MORAL PRINCIPLES WITHOUT RELIGION

How to Determine Moral Principles Without Religion

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Determine Moral Principles Without Religion
Ethics is the branch of philosophy which encompasses the analysis and proposition of moral principles and the conduct of a just life. Many theists argue that a higher power is the only possible source for moral principles. Modern ethicists categorically deny that this is the case. This, however, does not discount the role of religious writings as sources for moral ideas. If the ideas proposed by a religious text are good, they are good independent of the speaker. Morals derive from logic. Thus, a logical person with sound moral reasoning who abides his or her reasoning is inherently moral.

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  1. 1
    Understand that this life is the only one we have. Morality should not prescribe how we live in this life in order that we obtain better position in a possible afterlife. Instead, morality should maximize utility in this life, while we are alive and after we are gone (should these be the goals of our moral code). One can imagine a moral code with different goals, but it remains that this life is the only one we have.
  2. 2
    Notice that morality does not come from religion. Morality comes from a variety of sources, but a supernatural god is not one of those sources. If a modern human were to stone to death an adolescent for not honoring his/her father and mother, we would certainly think him/her amoral. Yet, these are the prescribed punishments for such acts, according to Abrahamic texts. Since modern humans do not follow their religious texts to the letter, they must have some method for determining which prescriptions to follow and which to discard. The reasoning behind this sieve is the same reasoning from which morals come. Aside from this intuitive denial of a divine moral source, contemporary ethicists tend to point to Plato's Euthrypo for an excellent problem that all divine command theorists find difficult to overcome. In this dialogue, we are encouraged to question whether something is good because God tells us it is OR is it good regardless of God's commands. If you answer with the latter, then religion is irrelevant to morality and if you answer with the former, then morality is arbitrary (i.e., if God commanded that everyone be serial killers, this killing would be moral) and that seems wrong.
  3. 3
    Understand the biological motivation for ethics. Populations change as preexisting variation allows specimens with certain favorable characteristics to produce more offspring than those with less favorable characteristics. This makes the favorable characteristics more common in the population and tends to eliminate unfavorable characteristics. Throughout most of human evolution, people lived in small bands where the members were closely related and likely to remain in contact with each other throughout their lives. Being altruistic to other members of the band strengthened the community, allowing its members to produce more offspring. The closeness of the community also put other members in a position to reciprocate, which directly aids the altruist. A cursory examination of the idea would suggest that members maximize their offspring potential by selfishly acquiring as much resources as possible. In fact, members actually maximize their offspring potential by sharing their resources within a limited community. This is called a non-zero sum game, that is the net benefit of all persons involved in the exchange is greater than the benefits of either person alone in the absence of the exchange. Colloquially, one might call this a win-win situation. Evolutionary biology literature is rife with further details and more thorough explanations.
  4. 4
    Consider the most certain principles of your ethic (a term for a complete set of moral principles), that is principles that you never violate. What are these principles and why are they important? For most people, aggressive violence falls into this category. All cultures and peoples have this moral, regardless of the influence of any religion on their society.
  5. 5
    Consider the existence of amoral (according to your ethic) persons. If evolution favors the altruistic, then why are there violent people or those that purport ideas and actions that do not maximize value in the world? The answer to this is two-fold.

    • Evolution favors only the ability to produce offspring. In some cases violence increases the amount of offspring that one produces. For example, over 16 million living males share Genghis Kahn's Y chromosome. His power enabled him to father many children, who went on to bear their own children, making his genetic material common in the population. The main reason for fathering a larger number of children was his power, and, hence, his ability to choose mates. However, he came to power through violence. Not to imply that those descended from Genghis Kahn are violent, such people also descend from a large number of other, probably much less violent people. They simply share a lineage through their fathers that eventually leads to Genghis Kahn. For this reason, one can consider Genghis Kahn evolutionarily successful. On the other hand, other violent people, such as Adolf Hitler, have no living descendants and should be considered evolutionary failures. These are large scale examples which people can relate to. They do not give much evidence by themselves. However, there are many examples throughout history where a violent male (usually) could produce many offspring, thus increasing the potential for violence in his offspring. The question is, should a person construct his or her moral principles such that violence is encouraged? Logical persons might see the risk of living a violent lifestyle as too great (prison, reciprocate violence, lack of acceptance in a community), and, thus, conclude that in order to maximize their life-value, one should live life without violence.
    • If a behavior or characteristic does not prevent an organism from producing offspring, natural selection may not act strongly enough upon it to remove it from the population with the speed at which favorable characteristics spread throughout the population. In addition, there will always be variability within a population. Consider the human appendix. Its only function appears to be to become inflamed in the event of infection, with the potential for causing death or sterility (which eliminates the organism from participation in the evolutionary "game"). This is a selective pressure against the appendix, but the original author still has his appendix, as do many others. The small loss of life due to the appendix is insignificant compared to the total population. A behavior like stealing is an example of this type. Though the metaphor is incomplete, stealing is not strongly selected against, like violence can be, and in fact can be beneficial (like the phrase "stealing bread to feed one's family") for the individual. In addition, personal ownership may be a uniquely human construct and is relatively new. Thus, natural selection has had little time to act upon it.
  6. 6
    Consider moral principles that you do not always follow. Most people would argue that stealing is wrong, but is stealing wrong if it is necessary to feed your family? Why do you hold moral principles that you do not follow in all instances? Consider lying. When is it wrong to lie? If someone asks, "Does this make me look fat?", and it does make them look fat, is it morally wrong to lie to them? Would you be doing them a disservice (by insulting them and possibly damaging your relationship) or a service (by helping them appear better to other members of the community).
  7. 7
    Read and consider the moral writings of philosophers and religious thinkers. While the reader may consider many parts of religious (and philosophical) texts amoral and lack a belief in any deity, that does not discount the positive ideas of those writers. The writers of such texts were definitely human (alleged divine inspiration aside), and their ideas can be valid outside of the context of religion.
  8. 8
    Examine the overlap of ideas between cultures. In a scientific sense, an ethical goal could be to determine an absolute set of rules, of which no other set of rules is superior, which maximize the happiness in a society while minimizing the suffering (Utilitarianism). Independent cultural overlap suggests the validity of a moral principle. For example, the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you") is not uniquely Christian and is, indeed, echoed throughout ethical philosophy. The Golden Rule could be an aphoristic method for maximizing utility. Most scholars would argue that this a very sound moral principle.
  9. 9
    Consider modern ethical ideas, such as the prevention of cruelty to other forms of life, vegetarianism, and human euthanasia. Such ideas are novel in human society, and there are not yet any obvious guiding principles for their consistent application. Modern medicine is not yet able to cure all disease. However, it is able, with almost 100% accuracy, to determine the course of certain diseases which will end only with suffering and death (known as terminal illnesses). Physicians know that there is little that they can do to prevent the subject's death due to these illnesses. In fact, there may even be little that they can do to alleviate the suffering of these individuals. In such instances, is it acceptable to withdraw life prolonging treatment, or even to provide treatment which encourages death? The answer is not as apparent as the previous questions posed in this article. With respect to cruelty to animals, the original author enjoys keeping fish in his aquarium. Some of his fish are predators. In their natural environment, such animals would solely eat other living creatures and providing only dead food could be considered a form of cruelty to these animals, as this is not in their nature. If one chooses to remove an animal from its natural environment (which some also consider a form of cruelty), one may have the obligation to replicate the animals natural environment as closely as possible, including providing live foods. Vegetarianism could be a method for both preventing cruelty to animals and maximizing utility in the world (by consuming fewer resources), but consider the anecdotal example of a vegan who imposes his or her veganism on a domesticated cat. Cats, unlike humans, are obligate carnivores and lack the ability to extract the necessary nutrients from plant foods. In effect, although their intentions are pure, such individuals are torturing their animal companions to a slow, painful death by malnutrition.
  10. 10
    Attempt to construct your ethic in such a way that it is consistent. That is, thorough examination of its statutes does not allow for examples that are suggested by some principles and discouraged by others. This is a continuing task and one's moral principles must be updated as society progresses and new ideas and situations are discovered.
  11. 11
    Do not live in ignorance of your moral code. Think about your morals and follow them, whatever they may be. It doesn't make sense to have a set of moral principles which one does not abide by. Likewise, despite the authors assertions above, it makes little sense to say someone is amoral. Such an individual simply has a different moral code (which may or may not be superior to your own). In order to maximize one's own happiness, and, if part of one's code, that of others, we should all construct a moral code by which we abide. We should remain aware of this code and its rationale.
  12. 12
    Understand that the human intellect is the greatest tool that we yet know and that your rationale is important. Understand that the presence or absence of a higher power has no effect on your moral code, unless he or she were to provide a code that is superior to one that you can deduce on your own. In this case, a moral and logical atheist would accept such a code without question. However, despite its godly origin, such an atheist would still recognize the value in questioning this divine moral code in order to potentially obtain even greater moral right. If such as divine code is perfect, then questioning it only serves to support its greatness. As such, one should never fear questioning any moral code.
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Monday, 11 July 2011

 Geometry
 Algebra
 Trigonometry
 Modern Mathematics
 General Mathematics
 Mathematics Exams
 Statistics
 Graph Theory
 Higher Algebra
 Abstract Algebra
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 Geometry
 Algebra
 Trigonometry
 Modern Mathematics
 General Mathematics
 Mathematics Exams
 Statistics
 Graph Theory
 Higher Algebra
 Abstract Algebra
 Geometry
 Algebra
 Trigonometry
 Modern Mathematics
 General Mathematics
 Mathematics Exams
 Statistics
 Graph Theory
 Higher Algebra
 Abstract Algebra
 Geometry
 Algebra
 Trigonometry
 Modern Mathematics
 General Mathematics
 Mathematics Exams
 Statistics
 Graph Theory
 Higher Algebra
 Abstract Algebra
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