Roger Packham. Aim is to help Victorian State government participants to improve the complex situations confronting them in their everyday work Science.

PATHWAYS TO SELF-DISCOVERY AS A COMPONENT OF EDUCATION FOR SYSTEMS THINKING FOR GOVERNANCE Roger Packham

A COURSE RUN BY THE SYSTEMIC DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE (SDI)

Aim is to help Victorian State government participants to improve the complex situations confronting them in their everyday work

Science searches for solutions to answerable puzzles

Engineers focus on solving solvable problems

These are called “Tame Problems”

“WICKED” ISSUES (PROBLEMS)

Wicked issues include nearly all public policy issues – such as the location of a freeway, the adjustment of a tax rate, the modification of school curricula, the confrontation of crime, the development of responsible policy for Clean Energy and Security, etc.etc.

They appreciate and accommodate complexity, contingency, uncertainty and contestability

These are what might be termed systemic matters involving inter-relatedness , wholeness and surprise, and a key aspect of the courses is to consider what ‘systems thinking’ means

Wicked issues do not yield to categorical certainty, but require the capacity to articulate what we feel to be most worthy - what constitutes a ‘better’ way forward, an ‘improvement’ - and how this is defined and by whom?

This is achieved by seeking pathways to self discovery within the participants

The courses emphasise that values are knowingly or unknowingly always used to make decisions

As such Sathya Sai EHV principles are an ideal guide when developing and presenting these programmes.

SCIENCE, SYSTEMS AND VALUES

Traditionally, science takes an ‘objective’ view of Truth

This view strives to be ‘value-free’ by relying on ‘evidence’, generally using statistical tests of significance.

This approach dates back to the scientific revolution developed from the time of Galileo onwards

“Quantities” became important and “Qualities” were seen as secondary

Systemic thinking moves beyond this to also incorporate a focus on quality, and to included intuition and values as key aspects of learning

BEING SYSTEMIC

Inter-relatedness, Wholeness and Surprise A concern for interactions between the parts –

circular rather than linear thinking – leading to negative feedback (balance) or positive feedback (change)

Looking at issues in context – not as isolated entities as is traditional in standard science

Systems are made up of systems, and are parts of wider systems, and at each hierarchical level emergence (surprise) appears that cannot be predicted from a knowledge of the parts

Systemic acts of development for

sustainable inclusive well-being demand the

epistemic (intellectual + moral) development

of all of the stakeholders

who need to be engaged in them

Epistemic Development involves the ‘maturation’ of four sets of beliefs:

• The Nature of Nature (Ontologies)

• The Nature of Knowledge (Epistemologies)

• The Nature of Human Nature (Axiologies - aesthetics and ethics)

• The Nature of Human Inquiry(Methodologies)

The way that each of us ‘acts’ in this world

reflects the way that we ‘see’ it.

The competencies that we express in our

everyday lives reflect the worldviews – the

epistemic assumptions –that we hold!

Competencies – “Bag of Tricks”

Worldviews – “Windows on the

World”

CONCRETE EXPERIENCES

ABSTRACT CONCEPTUALIZATIONS

‘SEEING’ = MAKING SENSE out of our experiences

‘DOING’ = TAKING ACTION to change the situation

HOLISM

REDUCTIONISM

OB

JEC

TIV

ISM

CO

NTEX

TU

ALIS

M

Worldview Window as an Epistemic Matrix

Experiencing

Planning

Thinking

Acting

Experiencing

Planning

Thinking

Acting

Epistemic Development

from Techno-centricity to Holo-centricity

Experiencing

Planning

Thinking

Acting

ExperiencingThinking

Planning Acting

Experiencing Thinking

Planning Acting

Learning about learning about the matter to

hand

Learning about the epistemic limits to

learning

Learning about the matter to hand

SPIRITUAL CONCEPTUAL SENSUAL

Concrete experiencesInnate insights

Experiencing

Planning

Thinking

Acting

ExperiencingThinking

Planning Acting

Experiencing Thinking

Planning Acting

Meditating Disengaging

Accepting Re-engaging

EMOTIONS

DISPOSITIONS

A CRITICAL LEARNING SYSTEM

ETHICS AND VALUES

Often ignored in science These add to the model through a third

dimension They are critical to how we see the world,

and what we decide to do in the world Different ethical systems can be identified:

Consequentialism (utilitarian) Deontological (Rights-based) Virtue ethics

DEONTOLOGICAL ETHICS

Sometimes referred to as duty ethics, as it places the emphasis on following rules, or doing one's "duty"

Which rules to follow? is often a point of contention

Deontology also postulates the existence of moral absolutes that make an action moral

Based on the work of Immanuel Kant.

CONSEQUENTIALISM (UTILITARIAN)

Here the morality of an action is based upon the consequences of the outcome

Instead of saying that one has a moral duty to abstain from murder, a consequentialist would say that we should abstain from murder because it causes some undesirable effect

The Greatest Happiness Principle of John Stuart Mill is one of the most commonly adopted criterion

VIRTUE ETHICS

While deontology focuses on following rules And consequentialism focuses on the outcomes of

actions Virtue ethics differs in that the focus is instead upon

being rather than doing Virtue ethics identifies virtues as desirable

characteristics which the moral or virtuous person embodies

Possessing these virtues are what makes one moral A virtue is a habit or quality that allows the bearer

to succeed at his or her purpose

Action cannot be used as a demarcation of morality, because a virtue encompasses more than just a simple selection of action

Instead, it is about a way of being that would cause the person exhibiting the virtue to make a certain "virtuous" choice consistently in each situation

There is a great deal of disagreement within virtue ethics over what are virtues and what are not. There are also difficulties in identifying what is the "virtuous" action to take in all circumstances, and how does one define a virtue?

SATHYA SAI EHV CAN INFORM VIRTUE ETHICS

A system of virtue theory is only intelligible if it includes an account of the purpose of human life, the meaning of life: Swami’s teachings give us this

He tells us that our actions should be governed by the principles of Love, Peace, Truth, Right Action, Non-Violence

These are not “rules” but ideal principles for each of us to incorporate into our ‘way of being’ to become virtuous

CONCLUSION

From the standpoint of Sathya Sai Baba’s teachings, I believe that the cornerstone of the course that I have outlined encourages the drawing out of the inherent values that are within all the participants

Thereby helping the participants to find pathways to self discovery that will lead to improvements in their lives, as well as an improved – a better - society