The Ethical Decalogue
Freedom must be deserved before any freedom is possible.
The Main Ethical Values:
1. Honesty: is an aspect of moral character that connotes positive and virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness and frankness of conduct, along with the absence of lying, deception or theft. Honesty also implies being trustworthy, loyal, fair and sincere. It indicates acting and communicating in accordance with moral principles that are considered universally valid, avoiding reprehensible actions towards one's neighbour.
2. Moral/Personal integrity: observe a phenomenon and report what has been observed. Our knowledge about that phenomenon is only given by observation of it and no external variable should alter our knowledge.
3. Help each others: helping others to find (or re-find) happiness. Here are some of the reasons why it is important to help others:
- elping others fosters a sense of community and solidarity,
- Offering support can improve emotional and mental well-being,
- Your help can make a difference in someone's life,
- Helping others can provide a sense of personal gratification.
4. Respect: is to realise that every person has the right to choose to be as he or she really is, with his or her own way of thinking, expressing his or her opinion, feeling, acting and even choosing his or her tastes and preferences in life.
5. Being proud of what you do: is a fundamental aspect of enjoying mental and emotional health. We live in individualistic and competitive societies that seemingly promote self-empowerment, but the reality is quite different, as we are loaded with external expectations that prevent us from genuinely accepting and valuing ourselves. For this reason, it is up to each person to rediscover the priceless unconditional love for oneself and persevere to become who one truly wants to be.
6. Rationality: making decisions based on a logical and informed understanding of situations. This involves assessing circumstances with a critical and systemic approach, seeking to understand cause and effect rather than reacting impulsively.
7. Reason: wanting to seriously seek the truth of things, one should not choose a particular science. Rather, one must think only of increasing the natural enlightenment of reason, not in order to solve this or that scholastic difficulty, but so that in every circumstance of life, the intellect may indicate to the will what to choose.
8. Ideal: to be able to build a new world, one must be endowed with ideals and visualise the path to be followed to reach the goal. We must all share the ideal of change, because being a single entity we are endowed with a higher power that is able to change events.
9. Self-determinism: the ability to regulate and take responsibility for one's own considerations; motivation by the person rather than the environment.
10. Honour: be endowed with strong moral principles and behave according to a code of conduct. The samurai were famous for their code of honour. Being a person of honour means: not betraying trust, keeping a promise and being true to one's word.
11. Sincerity: never being afraid to hurt another for a just cause is the expression of a person who is frank and direct in saying what he thinks and observes.
12. Do not wish to be liked or admired: to be admired or receive gratification from others is a genuine need of human nature, this need is directly proportional to the degree of maturity of the person: the greater the maturity, the less dependence on this need; the less maturity, the greater the need to impress others.
13. Determination: is the ability to relentlessly and motivatedly pursue a long-term goal that is dearer to us than anything else. Being determined therefore means:
- Do not give up at the first signs of difficulty,
- Get back up, not once, not twice, but countless times if necessary,
- Accepting the discomfort of change,
- Remain focused even when results are not immediate,
- Silencing the voices of those who do not believe in us (especially if one of these voices is our own),
- Being adamant about the final goal, but flexible in the choice of how to achieve it,
- Acting despite our level of motivation.