The Human Givens Institute
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Two-and-a-half thousand years earlier, Aristotle and Plato also taught that moral development is achieved by educating children to modulate their emotions, saying (as Aristotle put it) 'The moral virtues are engendered in us neither by, nor contrary to, Nature; we are constituted by Nature to receive them, but their full development is due to habit. […] So it is a matter of no little importance what sort of habits we form from the earliest age — education makes a vast difference, or rather all the difference in the world.' 1 We must remember that ethical dilemmas must be approached in a state of low emotional arousal. Knowing where to go Knowledge is not found in our conscious intellect. It is through our intellect that we refine our perceptions and come to understandings. But when we do understand something our state of knowing is unconscious. For instance, it takes conscious effort to learn a new skill, such as driving a car. Whilst learning we consciously think about every step required — the gear changes, signalling, judging distances, trying to analyse comparative speeds and so on. But there comes a moment when that conscious effort falls away. We instinctively pattern match to the required actions. Driving becomes automatic — unconscious. At that point, driving has become part of our intelligence. 'We know how to do it and might even be hard put consciously to describe all the elements involved. The knowledge only fully manifests itself when we get into a car and drive it. This kind of unconscious knowledge enables us to act objectively, unencumbered by social conditioning or inappropriate emotional responses. It is perhaps what the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead was referring to when he said, 'Civilisation advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them.' 6 It could be that consciousness evolved to help us focus more keenly on the world and question and analyse it, to help us get our needs met more efficiently and effectively. It is certainly a tool to solve problems with because it only wakes up when we realise we are ignorant about something and need an answer. If knowledge is found in the sum of the richness of the unconscious pattern-matching processes which go on in our brains, then the work of consciousness is to help the person look for more effective patterns to match to, to extend and enrich unconscious knowledge. The more successfully we do this, the more emotion serves consciousness and perception rather than controlling it. Don't trust unconscious reactions. Understanding human nature To have our best hope of acting ethically, as individuals, as members of a community or as members of a profession, we have to begin by gaining a better understanding of ourselves. We need to understand the processes of human conditioning; how ideologies restrict understanding; how the brain/mind/body system works; how to further refine perceptions; how emotional needs can be met without trespassing on the freedoms of others; and how best to use the resources given to us by Nature to do so. Quite simply, we need to study the science of human nature, and the advances in knowledge about behaviour, biology and the brain that have accumulated in the last few decades. Facing up to this may be more urgent than we realise. In the heady optimism of the mid-1960s, Idries Shah struck a sober note quite at odds with the naïve but then fashionable notion that, to resolve any conflict, 'all you need is love'. He said, 'Tolerance and trying to understand others, until recently a luxury, has today become a necessity. This is because, unless we can realise that we and others are generally behaving as we do because of inculcated biases over which we have no control, while we imagine that they are our own opinions, we might do something which will bring about the destruction of all of us.' 7 His words are just as apposite now. Therefore, study the conditioning process. Developing an internal monitor As a complex society, we will always find ourselves struggling with major ethical dilemmas, as there are multiple variables to everything. There are, however, three ethical safeguards in working from the human givens approach. First, professionalism and practice are based on the requirements of individual circumstances, rather than dogma and theory. It cannot be said too often that circumstances alter cases, and that what is appropriate in one instance may be inappropriate in another apparently similar one. Second, it focuses attention on looking largely at patterns and processes rather than content — the needs that have to be met in a situation to improve it, rather than the minute details of what maintains it. This is a mental posture which usefully helps keep us detached, vigilant, and focusing outwards, so that our own emotions do not become muddled up with those of patients, pupils, clients, colleagues or whomever we are concerned with. Thirdly, it is understood that uncertainties or vulnerabilities within us can easily be triggered, through pattern matching, by an event or emotional story we read or hear. When this happens, inevitably we are no longer impartial or objective in our responses. For instance, a counsellor who is fearful of breast cancer, because of a raised family risk, may find herself being overly reassuring or, conversely, unwilling to address the concerns of a client in a similar position. If people are unaware of this unconscious pattern-matching process, they may misinterpret the reason for their own reactions – perhaps assuming it is a legitimate response to the situation being considered, rather than the result of their own aroused emotions — and thus make avoidable errors of judgement. We have to behave ethically towards ourselves if we are to behave ethically towards others, and we are behaving unethically towards ourselves if we allow any single need to dominate at the expense of the others. For example, the development of any addictive behaviour (whether workaholism, substance abuse, gambling, shopaholism, sex, or lust after money, information, gossip, power, attention or status), cannot but interfere with our personal and professional relationships. If our own needs are out of balance, or we have so many emotional demands on us that we have little spare capacity left, we cannot reliably behave ethically towards other people or be effective therapists, managers, teachers or family members. Over the last 50 years there has been a partial breakdown in the ethical and moral systems (legal, educational and religious) that society once relied upon to maintain stability. Paradoxically, that breakdown process had to happen because reliance on rigid belief systems was making us too inflexible — and therefore too vulnerable — for survival in a more rapidly changing world. New ideas and information can only permeate a society if it does not rigidly exclude such inputs. While many people grow and flourish today, others are not adapting well to the way the world is changing. Some appear unable to take responsibility for their actions and become fodder for the cult of passive consumerism. Consequences of this include the development of the 'victim culture', where people becoming obsessed with 'targets', 'rights' and 'blame'; and a massive increase in the numbers of people suffering mental disorders and addictions. Until we reorientate ourselves away from wants to needs, starting with a sincere examination of what Nature made us, we will continue to do more harm than good to this planet and its inhabitants. References 1. Aristotle, Tr.Thompson, J A K (2004) Nichomachean Ethics (4th edn.), Penguin Books. This is an amended version of the article by Ivan Tyrrell, Principal of MindFields College, which first appeared in Volume 9, No. 2 of the 'Human Givens' Journal (2002) << Section 1 page 2 Section 2 >>
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