20 Personal Dispositions

Following my last posting’s return visit to the 24 dispositions, I thought it would be a revealing exercise to produce a set of personal dispositions with accompanying explanation and commentary (which turns out to be at least as hard to formulate as the dispositions themselves). The hardest part of all of course is living up to them! The list gives a picture of where you stand and who you see yourself as in terms of morality and social values. It doesn’t have to have 24 parts but my scheme of lettering (for ease of reference and not indicative of priority) restricts it to 26 – a useful maximum.

Any such compilation will always be a work in progress and imperfectly expressed. I cannot escape the feeling that I have overlooked important elements, but these could be included at the next iteration. Also, because something isn’t included in a current list doesn’t mean that you don’t care about it – it’s quite hard to make explicit what you value and you can’t put absolutely everything down if the list is to be useful. If you decide to try this exercise yourself remember that these will be your own personal dispositions so you shouldn’t feel obliged to add in something because others might think that it ‘ought’ to be in there.

I think that this is all well worth a try, particularly if you consider yourself to be a ‘seeker’ – it may turn out that you have already found rather more than you thought. Good luck.

Here are my personal dispositions.

20 Personal Dispositions (With Commentary)

(a) Valuing the individual and safeguarding their inalienable rights.

(Humanity consists, in the overwhelming majority, of people who are worthy of respect and who are entitled to personal freedom, security and a measure of happiness.)

(b) Valuing family and community.

(Those closest to us deserve our greatest, but not our exclusive, love and attention.)

(c) Being true to oneself and thinking for oneself.

(If you are not true to yourself it is hard to be true to others. Nature gave all of us the capacity for thought, but did not empower or appoint natural 'authorities'. What a waste it would be if seven billion people declined to use their powers of thought.)

(d) Having an open and enquiring mind, and valuing knowledge.

(Our comprehension of the world is always provisional. New knowledge or a more developed understanding may call for new views. No-one is in a privileged position in respect of truth. Reliable knowledge and sure understanding are hard won.)

(e) Being considerate to other people and the environment.

(Do as you would be done by. Disregarding the environment means disregarding future generations.)

(f) Being active in the community, volunteering, supporting good causes and seeking to enhance the common good.

(We should try to secure 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number' within our reach, beginning with those who have least.)

(g) Being regardful of injustice and suffering and seeking to alleviate them.

(Human beings are the means by which justice can be served, diseases cured, injuries healed, innocence protected and suffering lessened.)

(h) Seeking to comprehend people more fully and thinking carefully about their different situations.

(Imagine walking in another's shoes – mile after mile. 'Understand and judge not'.)

(i) Being fair and forgiving.

(Who would wish to be on the receiving end of unfairness? Vindictiveness is a corrosive emotion. Forgiveness heals both parties.)

(j) Listening to others, being tolerant of other points of view and being prepared to admit that one's own views might need to change.

(Wisdom does not belong to an exclusive few. Even where we think that wisdom is lacking, we should suffer 'fools' gladly, because it is right and because we may find ourselves amongst them.)

(k) Willingness to accept light from whatever quarter it may come.

(Some of the deepest insights come from the most unexpected sources – external and internal. Rule out no possible origins as possible providers of meaning.)

(l) Living by the rules of society and valuing democracy, its institutions and procedures.

(If the rules seem unfair or wrong, free societies have processes for change. The most valuable 'institution' we have is democracy itself. If there is a lack of respect for it and it is undermined, so is society and so, ultimately, are all of us as individuals.)

(m) Being accountable and living with integrity.

(Integrity can be seen as honest accountability to oneself. More widely, accountability is to the whole of society not just particular groups.)

(n) Being polite, temperate and modest.

(Who would wish other people to be disrespectful to them? There are too many displays of petulant anger and far too much infantile boasting. We all have good reason to be modest, most evidently if we could see ourselves as others see us.)

(o) Helping to create harmony and cultivating inclusion.

(A harmonious common life is the core of a unified society. Exclusion diminishes those who do the excluding as much as those who are excluded.)

(p) Recognising the value of stewardship.

(Stewardship can contribute more to the common good than most 'leadership' and can take the form of leadership by example.)

(q) Being truthful and reflective.

(Truthfulness is something that we can all contribute to society and there is much to reflect upon both within society and within ourselves.)

(r) Attaching a high value to reason and evidence.

(Against the pitiless background of evolution we've developed as the predominant species not least because of our abilities to reason and to evaluate evidence. So if it stands against reason, it's probably wrong. If the evidence lines up against it, it's also probably wrong.)

(s) Being courageous and visionary.

(Having the courage of ones own convictions is good, but it often takes more courage to change ones convictions on the basis of what we have learnt. We should form our own picture of a desirable future, one that recognises the freedom of others and seeks to enhance the common good.)

(t) Cultivating a sense for the profound and the magnificence of the Cosmos.

(Stillness and reflection in quiet places help in gathering the self, contemplating that which is beyond the self and in seeking personal meaning. Above our heads on a clear night we can look out in wonder on half of everything.)