The 24 Dispositions revisited

From time to time on this blog I’ve referred to ‘the 24 dispositions’ that were produced by an inter-faith group in Birmingham a few years ago primarily for use in religious education but also to be made available for more general use. The 24 dispositions are a set of values, attitudes and preferred behaviour and are common to all participating groups (all the major faiths) with each disposition being followed by a commentary interpreting it in the context of a particular faith. I’ve often born the dispositions in mind when considering moral and ethical matters myself. I’ve always found them to be of value and I reproduce below the twenty four dispositions together with the Sikh religious commentary.

I’ve thought for some time that it would be an interesting and valuable exercise to produce a set of personal dispositions in simplified form (combining explanation and commentary) and have recently been doing this together with one or two people with whom I am close. It is certainly instructive and equally certainly not easy to do as it gives a picture of where you stand and who you are (or who you think yourself to be) in terms of morality and social values. Any such effort is going to be a ‘dynamic document’ – a work in progress and in terms of my own dispositions I can never escape the feeling that I’m overlooking some things that are important! But because something is not explicitly included in a current list does not mean that you do not care about it – you cannot put everything down if the personal dispositions are to be useful.

In the next posting I intend to put my own personal dispositions on this blog as an illustration of the form that they might take should anyone else like to produce a list for themselves or possibly a discussion group. If you do decide to try this exercise yourself remember that these are your own dispositions so don’t feel obliged to add in something just because others may think that it ‘ought’ to be in there. It’s well worth composing your own set of dispositions, particularly if you consider yourself to be a ‘seeker’ – you may discover that you’ve already found rather more than you thought.

The 24 Dispositions

With Sikh religious commentary

Being Imaginative and Explorative

This disposition requires lateral thinking, the capacity to see things differently, together with the capacity to see the promise and potential of the world about us.

Religiously, it means giving due regard to, or seeking out, what is sacred and to explore, for example, what it may mean to be made in the image of the Creator or to investigate the idea of a promised land.

Appreciating Beauty

This disposition requires a deep sensitivity for the world about us, an awareness of the nature of human responses, and the capacity to make qualitative distinctions.

Religiously, it is an awareness that in the world there is a qualitative dimension (which is thought to be given and which is indicative of transcendence i.e. it is not wholly subjective). This dimension normally evokes the human response of respect and reverence. Religiously, the recognition of an aesthetic dimension in the world is made manifest by human beings through their own works of aesthetic creativity.

Expressing Joy

This disposition requires an awareness of human affective responses and certain expressive capacities, for example, in music, in language, in body language.

Religiously, it is an acknowledgement of, and a response of life itself to, transcendence through music, laughter etc.

Being Thankful

This disposition requires an awareness of relationships of dependence and of not being wholly self-sufficient and in control of our own well-being. It requires a willingness and expressive capacity to acknowledge the relationship of dependence and the good that flows from it.

Religiously, it is the awareness of being dependent on the transcendent and it is the response to the sense that, in the light of this relationship, all will be well no matter how things go.

Caring for Others, Animals and the Environment

This disposition requires an awareness of the needs of others (and other things) together with a feeling that these needs matter, and the will to do something about them.

Religiously, it is the sense that this caring is not a matter of self-interest but a divine duty laid upon human beings.

Sharing and Being Generous

This disposition arises out of an awareness that others may be dependent on us, the sense of wholeness that may come from our relationships with others, and the will to please others.

Religiously, it is the unity of creation in which the needs and joy of others are the needs and joy of the self. It is because the transcendent is a fecund source that humans are likewise impelled to give liberally.

Being Regardful of Suffering

This disposition arises out of the affective capacity for pity, as well as out of an attention to the situation and condition of the other and the will to help or to maintain one’s solidarity with the other.

Religiously, the sense of the unity of all things leads to an attention to pain and suffering so that what is endured by another is felt by the self. This unity is such that the pain and suffering touches the very core of the transcendent.

Being Merciful and Forgiving

This disposition presupposes the recognition that the unity and solidarity that exists between all people and all things is readily broken through aesthetic and moral offence. It also presupposes an acknowledgement of offence, the desire for unity and the will to bring it about despite the cost it may entail.

Religiously, there is the possibility of spiritual offence that goes beyond aesthetic and moral offence. Restitution of the social and universal solidarity therefore rests on a Divine mercy and responsive human mercy and forgiveness.

Being Fair and Just

This disposition depends on a recognition of the claims of equity and consistent reasoning, together with the will to restore and to maintain the state of equity.

Religiously, equity is the beginning and end of a harmonious creation. Human beings are, therefore, bound to maintain and restore equity.

Living by Rules

This disposition presupposes that the world behaves in law-like ways and that the society on which we depend requires rules for its very functioning. Whilst it is acknowledged that the rules of nature are given (heteronomous), it is supposed that: (a) The rules of society are collectively agreed and therefore binding, and (b) The rules of personal behaviour are self-imposed (autonomous). A law-abiding disposition depends on the will to live the ordered life.

Religiously, the rules that truly matter are neither heteronomous nor autonomous. They are the order and sense of our own nature and that of our world, being in effect ‘God-given’.

Being Accountable and Living with Integrity

This disposition is the capacity and willingness to be answerable for one’s actions, formally and informally, to others and to oneself. Integrity presupposes that one would always act in such a responsible way even if one could or would not be held publicly to account.

Religiously, the answerability of human beings is given a more radical turn since from the perspective of transcendence, everything is transparent and no motives are hidden.

Being Temperate, Exercising Self-Discipline and Cultivating Serene Contentment

This disposition requires a good deal of self-knowledge and a mastery of the affections to ensure these affections are proportionate and subject to reason.

Religiously, the unity of creation demands a deep sympathy for others and for other things, but before God, a selflessness permits an acceptance of all things no matter how things go.

Being Modest and Listening to Others

This disposition presupposes self-knowledge and an understanding of others together with a capacity to evaluate what each one can contribute to cultural life. As such, it avoids false modesty on the one hand, and boastfulness on the other.

Religiously, by developing the skill of attentiveness and by decentring from the self, it is possible to relate to the divine and to enter into a proper relationship with others.

Cultivating Inclusion, Identity and Belonging

This disposition recognises that human beings are never isolated selves but exist and can thrive only in relation to others. This relationship ranges from the intimate relation of two people to the relationships that constitute families, groups, communities, nations and world. Deliberate exclusion prevents others from developing relationships through which they can thrive.

Religiously, a relationship to the transcendent prevents the creation of artificial barriers since God is the God of all. Instead it promotes the vision of the interrelationship and interdependence of all people and all things.

Creating Unity and Harmony

This disposition recognises that different people/creatures have different interests, needs and capacities, and as such they can also frustrate one another and cause aesthetic, moral and religious offence. The disposition also requires the desire and skill to restore relationships.

Religiously, the restoration is achieved through taking thought and through processes of repentance, forgiveness and redemption.

Participating and Willing to Lead

This disposition presupposes a self-knowledge and an appreciation of what one can contribute to collective life, together with a willingness to be proactive.

Religiously, being a single individual before God, that is to say, being responsible to the Creator of all, implies a relationship and responsibility for the well-being of all.

Remembering Roots

This disposition recognises how the past can shape the present and the future through its promise and obligations. It notes what the possibilities of human life are and hence what defines human life.

Religiously, from the perspective of eternity all human beings become contemporaries and belong together to a single community.

Being Loyal and Steadfast

This disposition presupposes an understanding of the needs of others and a willingness to offer them support in the face of opposition and destructive powers.

Religiously, it is a shared resistance to the wickedness that subverts the unity of community and the world.

Being Hopeful and Visionary

This disposition might reasonably be linked to being imaginative and explorative. The attitudes of expectation and anticipation are fundamental to some forms of religious life and contrasts sharply with the mood of despair. The disposition of being hopeful should be distinguished from being fatalistic in which everything is determined and from a reliance on ‘luck’ in which people depend on chance.

Religiously, hope is based on the promise offered by transcendence and the power of providence to transform realities.

Being Courageous and Confident

This disposition should be contrasted with foolhardiness on the one hand and with cowardice on the other. It requires a good understanding of situations, coupled with selflessness and a commitment to the well being of others.

Religiously, it is a confidence in the transcendent in which the good person understands that s/he can come to no harm no matter what happens to her / him.

Being Curious and Valuing Knowledge

This disposition arises out of a fundamental human interest in which knowledge is valued for its own sake. Affectively, it involves a love for others and other things, just as they are, and in all their complexity. This should be linked to a determined will to discover this strange complexity.

Religiously, to love and come to understand creation is to love and understand the Creator. These are ends in themselves.

Being Open, Honest and Truthful

This disposition presupposes an understanding of others as ends in themselves and therefore not to be manipulated or used without their agreement. An affection for the truth and for the well-being of others underwrites the integrity of any communication and the clarity of its meaning.

Religiously, one can relate to the transcendent only through being utterly truthful and transparent. Just as deception hides the truth from others, so deception obscures any sense of the transcendent.

Being Reflective and Self-Critical

This disposition presupposes an awareness of the confusions of motives and the comforts of fictions. It requires a will to eschew such comforts as false consolations and a determination to be clear about what is the case and to evaluate rightly.

Religiously, to exist before God is to anticipate the purity of understanding and the transparency of motives.

Being Silent and Attentive to, and Cultivating a Sense for, the Sacred and Transcendence

This disposition understands that through language and concepts, human beings impose their own structures on the realities that confront them. This imposition secularises the realities and renders them amenable to human domination. Attentive silence is enabling the realities to ‘speak’ for themselves.

Religiously, silence is a traditional method of allowing the transcendent and sacred to present itself.