Human Values

Dr Awdhesh Singh, IRS (Retd.)

Director, Awdhesh Academy,
Former Commissioner, Customs & Indirect Taxes (Central Excise/GST)
Public Morality and Conflict
of Interest
Public Morality
• Public servants (politicians and bureaucrats) play important role in
the development of a country.
• They wield tremendous powers which can be used either in the
national interest or misused for personal interest.
• The actions of public servants are followed by the citizens of the
nation.
• ‘Whatever action a great man performs, common men follow. And
whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues.’
(BG 3.21)
• Only moral public servants can provide honest and good governance.
Power and Corruption
• ‘Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise
influence and not authority.’ (John Acton)
• Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s
character, give him power. (Abraham Lincoln)
York Willbern Six levels of Public Morality
• York Willbern was a director of the Bureau of Government Research
in his article entitled "Types and Levels of Public Morality,"
• He provided six levels of morality or ethics for public officials. These
are
1. Basic honesty and conformity to law;
2. Conflicts of interest;
3. Service orientation and procedural fairness;
4. The ethic of democratic responsibility;
5. The ethic of public policy determination; and
6. The ethic of compromise and social integration.
1: Basic Honesty and Conformity to Law
• Moral standards in the public life not possible unless the person is
moral in the personal life as well
• “The public servant is morally bound, just as are other persons, to tell
the truth, to keep promises, to respect the person and the property
of others, and to abide by the requirements of the law”. (York
Willbern)
• They must follow the moral codes more rigorously than the ordinary
people
2: Conflict of Interest
• A conflict of interest is a situation in which a person or organization is
involved in multiple interests and serving one interest could involve
working against another.
• In such a situation, the action of the person is perceived to be biased
as it appears that the decision-maker would choose personal gain
over duties to their employer or the organisation.
• Conflict of interest must be avoided else the actions of the individual
become unreliable.
• It is possible to discover the conflict of interest in advance and avoid it
altogether.
Actual and Potential Conflict of Interest
• An actual conflict of interest exists if the circumstances are
reasonably believed to create a risk that a decision may be unduly
influenced by others.
• Example: If a civil servant accepts a valuable gift from a person, he is likely to
take a decision in favour of the person.
• A potential conflict of interest arises where interest or obligation of a
person could conflict with official duties and responsibilities in the
future.
• Example: If a person is directly reporting to his spouse in an office, their
personal relationship has the potential to affect official duties.
Examples of Potential Workplace Conflicts of
Interest
• A relative or close friend reports to a supervisor who decides the salary and promotions.
• A male manager dates a female employee who reports to him or vice versa.
• A purchasing agent hires his brother-in-law to provide vending services to the company.
• An employee who is a member of a company employee selection team fails to disclose
that he is related to a job candidate whom the company team is considering for a
position.
• A manager provides paid consulting services on the weekend to a company customer or
supplier.
• An employee works part-time in the evening for a company that makes a product that
competes with the products of his full-time employer.
• A purchasing agent accepts trips and gifts from a vendor and then selects the vendor's
products for purchase by the company.
Some examples of Conflict of Interest
• Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren granted himself the favour of a mining
lease. The issue involved the conflict of interest and violations of
provisions of the Representation of People Act. He was disqualified as
MLA by EC.
• Chanda Kochhar faced a conflict of interest as CEO and Managing
Director of ICICI Bank, when the bank decided to lend ₹3,250 crore to
the Videocon group in 2012 because her husband Deepak Kochhar
had business ties with the Videocon promoter Venugopal Dhoot. She
was fired by ICICI Bank – a decision which was later upheld by the
Supreme Court of India.
Steps of avoid conflict of interest for public
servants
• Public servants should not invest of the companies on which they
have jurisdiction.
• They should not employ their children or close relatives in the
organizations under his control.
• They should follow transparent procedures for selection of vendors to
avoid any perception of favoritism.
• They should recuse themselves from the decision-making where their
close friend or relative is one of the affected party.
3: Service Orientation and Procedural Fairness
• In a democracy, people are the supreme ruler.
• “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of
others”. (Mahatma Gandhi)
• They rule through their representative (MP/MLA) who become
ministers and head the government
• Civil servants should work with the spirit of service
• Consider your salary as honourium to serve the people
• All rules and procedures must be followed for taking decisions.
• "Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done."
4: The Ethics of Democratic Responsibility
• Act within the ambit of law guided by the will of the people.
• Must not live in ivory towers and run the administration based on
their whims and fancy.
• Closely interact with the people to understand the pulse of the
people and fulfill their hopes and aspirations.
5: The Ethics of Public Policy Determination
• Politicians make the laws, bureaucrats implement them
• Politicians often play vote bank politics and cater to their
constituency as their survival depends on their votes.
• The public officials acts as the balancing power to the politicians
• They should to be fair and just to everyone as their position is
secured.
• They must draft polices in ethical ways in the larger public interest of
the country.
6: The Ethics of Compromise and Social
Integration
• Compromise, rather than standing on principle, is moral, because
without compromise there will be discord and conflict, and
disintegration rather than integration of the society.
• The public officials should ensure that the different segment of the
society live in harmony with each other.
• All society members to grow together else they would grow apart.
• An ethical public official balances different interests of the societal
groups and not seen to favour any particular group.
Human Values
What is human values
• Human Values are important and lasting beliefs or ideals shared by
the members of a culture about what is good or bad and desirable or
undesirable.
• Human values are the virtues that incorporate human elements when
dealing with other human beings.
• Practicing human values creates bonds of humanity between people.
• Examples of human values: respect, acceptance, consideration,
appreciation, listening, openness, affection, empathy and love
towards other human beings
Ethics and Human Values
• Human values reinforces the rationale of moral values.
• They are the values that permit us to live together in harmony, and
personally contribute to peace.
• In ethics, value denotes the degree of importance of some thing or
action, with the aim of determining what actions are best to do or
what way is best to live, or to describe the significance of different
actions.
Societal test of value
• Human values are associated with the desirability of an action from
the perspective of the society.
• The actions which are ‘good’ for the society have a high value, while
the actions that are ‘bad’ for the society are of low value. Hence,
• ‘truth’ as of high value because that promotes trust and goodwill in the
society; while
• ‘lying’ as bad because it promotes distrusts and ill will in the society.
• Human values are connected with ethical value because what is of
higher human value is also of higher ethical value.
Types of Human Values
1: Universal Values
• Equality • Discipline
• Honesty • Fairness
• Truthfulness • Love
• Faithfulness • Peace
• Gratitude • Justice
• Tolerance • Compassion
• Trust
2: Local Values
• Local values evolve with the society and based on the mutual
agreements.
• They tends is to minimize the conflict resulting from the violation of
universal values.
• Examples are:
• Eating habits (Vegetarians, meat)
• Alcohol consumption
• Marriage traditions
• Bonding within a family
• Respecting elders
• Casteism
3: Situational Values
• Some values depends on the situation.
• They are opposite to sustainable values
• Examples
• A banker giving loan to a person knowing well that it won’t be returned is
following a situational value to meet his target and get bonuses etc.
• A tax officer makes a case of tax evasion against an assessee for enhancing his
performance knowing well that the case may not succeed.
• People tend to use violence or dishonesty based on the situation.
4: Personal Values
• Exist in relation to cultural values, either in agreement with or
divergence from prevailing norms.
• Provide an internal reference for what is good, beneficial, important,
useful, beautiful, desirable and constructive.
• Generate behaviour, influence and the choices made by an
individual.
• Explains why people do what they do and in what order they choose
to do them.
• Sometimes clash and create conflicts with the society and even within
the family.
5: Cultural values
• Values of a society can often be identified by examining the level of
honor and respect received by various groups and ideas.
• In America, most voters would not elect an atheist as president, suggesting
that believing in a God is a generally a shared value.
• In India people value government service highly while not so in America.
• Cultural values are not static and they keep changing with time
• Most people in a society accept the cultural values even if they don’t
agree since they don’t want to be isolated in the society.
6: Positive and negative values
• The positive values represents the actions that must be pursued or
maximized while the negative ethic value are something that must be
avoided or minimized.
• Examples of positive values: Truth, honesty, faithfulness.
• Examples of negative values: Lying, corruption and unfaithfulness.
7: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Value
• The intrinsic value of something is said to be the value that that thing
has “in itself,” or “for its own sake,” or “as such,” or “in its own right.”
• It means that the good values are itself the source of joy and not a
means to an end.
• Extrinsic values are the values that is not intrinsic, though they may
not mutually exclusive.
• Example: Helping others in time of need is thought to be extrinsic value, but
such an act also provide you joy and happiness
8: Absolute and relative ethical values
• There is one universal moral code which is final and applies equally to
all men of all ages, and that changing situations or changing views
make no difference whatsoever to this absolute moral code.
• Observance of value is absolute.
• Relative or relativistic ethics holds that the moral standard varies with
different circumstances.
• Observance of values can be only relative.
Q. Truth is considered to be of high value because

A. It is prescribed in all religions

B. Truth is God
C. Truth promotes trust and goodwill in the society
D. Truthful people are quite few in numbers.
Q. A banker giving loan to a person knowing well
that it won’t be returned is an example of,
A. Universal Value
B. Local Value
C. Situational Value
D. Sustainable Value
Q. The intrinsic value means
A. Good values are itself the source of joy.
B. Good values come from God.
C. Good values bring success.
D. Good values are appreciated by the world.
Role of Family in shaping
human values
1: Inspiration
• Children learn most values by observing their parents and elders.
• Parents should act as the role model for their children
• They should not lie or fight with each other before them.
2: Appreciation
• Many parents are good at criticism, but poor at appreciation.
• They must appreciate their children whenever they do good work.
• Appreciation help a child develop positive self-image.
• Once a child develops a positive self-image, he would like to maintain
this by doing good work all the time.
Thomas Edison's story
• One day Thomas Edison came home and gave a paper to his mother.
• His mother’s eyes were tearful as she read the letter out loud to her child:
“Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn’t have
enough good teachers for training him. Please teach him yourself”.
• After many years Edison’s mother died.
• Once he was looking through old family things when he saw a folded paper
• On the paper was written: “Your son is addled [mentally ill]. We won’t let
him come to school any more”.
• Edison cried for hours and then he wrote in his diary: “Thomas Alva Edison
was an addled child that, by a hero mother, became the genius of the
century.”
3: Punishment
• A child should know the difference between right and wrong since
the early age.
• The younger is a child, easier it is to mould the child to the right
values.
• Punishment for the wrong deeds of the child is necessary to inculcate
good values in children.
Story of a Young Thief
• A young man had been caught in a daring act of theft and had been
condemned to be executed for it.
• He expressed his desire to speak with her.
• When his Mother came to him he said: “I want to whisper to you.”
• When she brought her ear near him, he nearly bit it off.
• All the bystanders were horrified, and asked him what he could mean by
such brutal and inhuman conduct.
• “It is to punish her,” he said. “When I was young I began with stealing little
things, and brought them home to mother, instead of rebuking and
punishing me, she laughed and said: ‘It will not be noticed.’ It is because of
her that I am here today.”
4: Love
• Love in extremely power to inculcate the right values.
• Love creates a bond of trust between the parents and children.
• When there is trust, it is easy to plant the seeds of the right values in
children.
• ‘Love is not only something you feel, it is something you do’. (David
Wilkerson, an American Christian evangelist)
5: Understanding
• Every child is unique with his own unique quality and ability.
• Don’t compare them with others.
• Don’t try to make them like you.
• Understand them and work for their best interest.
6: Support
• When children perform poorly, parents often reprimand them in
public and humiliate them.
• Instead provide unconditional help and support to children at the
time of their need.
• Stand with children in their weaker times and help them to overcome
the problems.
• Create a bond of trust with children and they would learn to support
and trust others.
Q. The thief bit the ear of his mother because,

A. She torched him during his childhood,

B. She punished him for small matters.
C. She never punished him.
D. None of the above.
Role of Society in Shaping
Human Values
Role of Society
• Life is often referred as an ‘Anubhav Dhara’ or a ‘series of
experiences’
• An experience is a unit of life, just as a brick is a unit of a building.
• Our experiences constitute our life:
• If they are good, we are happy.
• If they are bad, we are unhappy.
• The source of our experiences is family, friends, organization and the
society.
The positive values from society
• Sanctity of marriage
• Family traditions
• Respect to elders
• Charity
• Service
• Honesty
• Excellence
• Ethics and moral
Negative values from the society
• Casteism, Communalism, Racism
• Crime & Corruption
• Disparity
• Mediocrity
• Individualism
• Violence
• Smoking and alcoholism
• Immoral practices
How society can contribute to human values?
• Honouring the honest and law abiding people
• Boycotting and punishing the corrupt and criminals
• Promoting excellence
• Nurturing humanity
• Condemning violence
• Developing tolerance
• Imbibing good values from all cultures and traditions
• Celebrating festivals jointly like a family
Role of Education Institution
in Inculcating Values
Importance of educational institutions
• Most children join school at the age of 3/4 years and spend almost
two decades in different educational institutions.
• They imbibe many of their values from schools and colleges from
their colleagues and teachers.
• If teachers are not moral, students can’t learn good values from them.
Story of Mahatma Gandhi
• An Inspector of Schools, Mr. Giles, came to Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi’s
school.
• He read out five English words to the class and asked the boys to write them
down.
• He wrote four words correctly, but he could not spell the fifth word 'Kettle'.
• His teacher made a sign behind the Inspector's back that he should copy the
word from his neighbour's slate.
• Gandhi ignored his signs.
• All other boys wrote all the five words correctly; Mohan wrote only four.
• After the Inspector left, the teacher scolded him. "I told you to copy from your
neighbour. Couldn't you even do that correctly?"
• Everyone laughed at him.
Type of Values Education Institution must
Inculcate in Children
• Accountability: Be accountable to your actions. Don’t blame others or find
scapegoat.
• Character and Integrity: Teachers must be truthful, sincere, punctual and
professional and a role model. They must focus on building character.
• Cooperation: Help each other, instead of trying to pull down each other.
Teach the value of cooperation and team work through stories, games and
group exercises.
• Appreciation : Appreciate good work and develop in students the habit of
appreciating good work and good qualities.
• Discipline: Immoral actions provide instant gratification while moral
actions takes long time to fructify. Cultivate the habit of discipline,
punctuality, keep silence and maintain decorum in the class.
Marshmallow experiment
• Conducted by Stanford psychologist Walter
Mischel and his colleagues in 1990.
• The 4-5 year old children were offered a deal.
• If they could hold off gobbling down one
marshmallow until the experimenter returned,
they would get two marshmallows.
• Some kids resisted the temptation; others
couldn’t wait that long.
Follow up study
• Years later, the psychologists followed up with
the children as adolescents, and found
evidence that the kids who had held out for
the second marshmallow tended to be
• more well-adjusted,
• do better on the SATs, and
• have a lower body mass index (BMI),
• Conclusion
• A child who was able to practice delayed
gratification was likely to reap a range of benefits
down the line.
Classroom Teaching of Moral Values
• Experience sharing with good moral stories
• Case studies involving difficult situations to tackle moral dilemmas
• Games to inculcate the values of fair play, honesty, courage & cooperation
• Develop the spirit of rational enquiry and self-discovery.
• Focus attention to listen actively in class
• Promote reflective learning and good interpersonal skills.
• Inspire students with your conduct and behaviour
• Encourage healthy discussions and appreciation of different point of views
• Respect others and avoid criticizing others.
• Encourage students to introspect and work on their own selves.