#first principle

It’s my pleasure to share another guest post!  I enjoy having different voices here, and your voice is welcome!  The following post is from Julia, who lives her values at her  job.  Thank you for making the world a better place and sharing with us Julia! ————————————————————————————————

I have the best job in the world.  I am an occupational therapist, and I get to help people all day, every day, be their best selves.  I work with people who have experienced a life changing event, such as a stroke or spinal cord injury, or a life altering diagnosis, like Parkinson's disease or Multiple Sclerosis, and help them learn to be as independent and self-sufficient as possible.  It is through my career that I have the opportunity to live out the first UU principle: “covenant and affirm to promote the inherent worth and dignity of each person.”  If I had chosen another career, I would never have gotten the chance to meet so many people, so different from me, but whose inner light shines just as brightly as mine.  Often, even the face of mind-boggling adversity, my clients express gratitude for my help, work doggedly to learn a new task, or find humor in an otherwise daunting situation.  Their inherent worth and dignity shines clearly through and I am blessed to be in their presence.  It is the best job in the world.

Except when it isn't.  People can be mean.  People can reject my help.  People can be smelly and dirty.  Sometimes, it's hard to see their inner light shining through.  In theory, I know that every client I meet has inherent worth and dignity, but recognizing it, and truly acknowledging it can be a challenge.  How do I help someone learn to use their hand again, when I know they will return to selling drugs when they do?  How do I react when a patient makes a comment like “you know all those black nurses are lazy”?  Some days, it is damn hard to believe that every single person has inherent worth and dignity.

And life is a lot like that, isn't it?  It's easy to be in the world when people are nice to us.  People can be amazing and beautiful.  Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by the goodness of people in the world.  But the real challenge is to be able to look beyond the meanness, the disrespect and the smelliness and find the worth and dignity even in those folks.  This is certainly something I still struggle with a lot, but here are two “tricks” I use to help me dig a little deeper.

-I picture the difficult person with someone they love, or someone who loves them.  It's a little  easier to recognize someone's inherent worth when you can picture them being unconditionally loved by their Mama.  There was a woman with whom I had a very difficulty relationship with, so sometimes I would picture her embracing her two children whom she loved very much.  This helped me to see her as a person of worth, not just my adversary.

-I try to figure out what that difficult person has to teach me.  Often in our lives, the folks who are toughest to deal with are the ones who can teach us the most about ourselves, as long as we are open to the lesson.  Instead of focusing on their negative qualities or how they are driving us crazy, we can appreciate how they are helping us learn about ourselves.

To tie this together, I'd like to conclude with a quick story from a day at the hospital.  One day, I was assigned to do an OT evaluation with a man who was quite ill from the many medical complications which accompany chronic alcoholism.  He was unclean, unkempt and had long fingernails.  Every medical professional who had seen him in the past 4 days had documented about his belligerence, and his refusal to accept medical advice.  He had even (verbally) thrown a few doctors and therapists out of his room.  I had little hope that I would fare any better, and truly, his hospital room was the last place I wanted to be on a Saturday morning.  Something made me pause when I entered his room.  I tried to imagine that somewhere out there, his brother or daughter loved him.  I knew that he was teaching me that I make too many judgments when I see diagnoses like 'alcoholism'.  I sat quietly beside him and smiled at him.  I helped him eat his breakfast because his hands were too shaky to feed himself.  I rubbed his neck because he couldn't sit up straight, and his neck was bent to the side.  He didn't yell or berate me, or kick me out of his room.  He thanked me and wished me a good day.  Did I “do OT” with him?  Eh...maybe.  Did I treat a man who was dirty and grumpy, and alone and scared, like he had the same inherent worth and dignity as everyone else I encountered that morning?  I hope so.

The First Principle of Business Ethics?

Should the inherent value of human life be the first principle of Business Ethics? I believe so and what is more, I believe we should teach it that way. And we should start teaching it now.

Surely, there is enough intellectual thrust in the idea of human life as a value that we can teach it to our students. Not teaching it is wrong. It is a base…

Here's an article by Harshala Chavan where she compares 2 ways of thinking processes - 'first principles' with 'analogy'

Here's an excerpt from the post-.."Here's me comparing both these methods and trying to figure out where they get applied, why none of them are superior to each other, and how knowing when to use what method is what determines your problem solving skills."

Check out the complete discussion and read the full article:

https://merrative.com/tagged_read_posts/the-act-of-thinking-clearly-is-not-easy-then-i-came-across-these-words---1596371333165x697413306011877400

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“This is for my people, tryna to stay alive and just be peaceful.” -Joey Bada$$, For My People

One of the hard questions we must ask ourselves is the question of why we put our trust in the Seven Principles. Most often, I’m asked about the First Principle. What faith can we have that every person has inherent worth and dignity? Is that an assumption that we make purely out of idealism—a declaration that we simply take for granted as a springboard for the rest of our faith?

Perhaps there is no way to argue rationally for any given system of ethics. As Reddit user /u/rooktakesqueen opined, “At some level, it is always going to be based on some arbitrary set of values taken as self-evident.” The axiom of the first principle is something that we accept, and then try to fit into our worldview. But as the Buddha taught, to walk a spiritual path, we must come to an understanding of its teachings ourselves, by individual and critical thought. The meaning that we draw, then, is supremely subjective. With this in mind, here’s my understanding of the First Principle.

I turn to Immanuel Kant to start out. Here was a philosopher who dealt with morality in a very rational way, as well as one who believed in the intrinsic worth of people. In Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, he says that nothing in this world can be regarded as good without qualification, or inherently good, except good will itself. What we tend to regard as admirable characteristics that people inherit and nurture—intelligence, reason, and perseverance, to name a few—are as much weapons as they are instruments of the good. In the absence of a good will, these qualities are dangerous and harmful. The same holds true for the physical values that we hold dear—money, power, and even health.

What we can take from this idea is that a good will is necessary to turn neutral qualities into beneficial ones. Moreover, it takes conscious effort to stick to this good will. Harmful qualities and possessions tend to corrupt unless we correct their influence using our good will. It follows that there can be no quality inherent to goodness apart from our own conscience.

So, we accept that goodness comes from qualities and values used in the name of good will. We look to the sources of our faith to connect worth and dignity to goodness. Those sources teach us that justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love are what allow us to overcome evil. Exemplars of these values use them in the name of goodness, with conscious good will. The respect that they deserve because of this—for goodness is, I believe, inherently respectable—speaks to their worth and dignity. It follows that those who put forth effort in the name of good will are inherently worthy and dignified.

If anything, then, what we must accept as an axiom is that everybody has the potential to act out of good will. We can make a logical argument for this too, however. The malleability of intelligence and personality is apparent through scientific studies as well as centuries of human history. A part of being human is the ability to adapt, develop, and evolve, and the marvel of humanity lies in our species’ ability to reform and feel remorse. I argue that this ability, genetically intrinsic to every person, means that no matter our upbringing, past actions, or dogma, we each have the potential to act out of good will.

Finally, it is this potential that defines the inherent worth and dignity of every person. It is common to ask how people can be despicable, dictatorial, oppressive, if they are inherently worthy and dignified. My response is that not everybody exemplifies their inherent worth and dignity all the time—actually, as imperfect beings, none of us do. It is when people call upon their good will, which is inherent to every person, and use it for critical thought, compassion, and love as best they are able, that we can say they are displaying the First Principle.

So, inherent worth and dignity is the potential that we all possess to act out of good will. How do we put this into action? What does it mean for Unitarian Universalists to affirm and promote this idea?

The answer to that is even more subjective. It’s my belief that even if we suspect ulterior motives to a person’s actions, and even if their views disagree with our own, we must default to a position of non-judgment. We must treat opposing viewpoints critically but respectfully. Those with which we disagree are quite capable of acting with good will, and to show disrespect when they arrive at different conclusions does not display worth or dignity.