Human Values and Professional Ethics: A Critical Appraisal

Abstract

Everything that we see belongs to one of the four `orders' i.e. Material Order, Plant/Bio Order, Animal Order, Human (Knowledge) Order. Material order is the most abundant in nature and exists in the form of all the soil mixtures, metal and compounds, various gases, water and other liquids etc., Plant/Bio order exists as the smallest seeds to the plentiful grass, the various plants and trees and the all the vegetarian in the ocean. There are several cyclical processes that we can see in nature. The quantity of water on the surface of earth remains conserved by itself, no need for human intervention. Breeds of plants and animals are similarly self-regulated in their environment. This phenomenon is termed as selfregulation. These two characteristics namely, cyclical nature and self regulation provide us with some clues of harmony that is in nature. When we consider humans and animals, we can understand that they are as a coexistence of the Self (`I') and the Body. If we look at the body, we find that in its fundamental unit, there is a cell. The cell belongs to the plant/Bio order. As humans, each one of us also has desires that we pursue an ability to think and the ability to make choices. In this Desire, Thought and Selection, we exhibit more activities than any unit
in the animal order. As a result, humans are in a separate order than animals. Thus, in human beings, `I' has the activities of Desiring, Thinking, and Selecting/ Tasting, with a possibility or need for Understanding and Realization. Only humans have the need to know and that is why it is called the Knowledge Order. This Knowledge, this right understanding is what we have been the process of self-verification in us, we have to start becoming more aware, and start exploring into the proposals at all four levels of our living.