Introduction to human values and professional ethics

At the end of this course we come to exposition and evaluation of Jeevan Vidya (JV) varyingly called value education. The main reason behind discussing Jeevan Vidya in this course is that this has claimed to provide a complete framework for value education and professional ethics, particularly in the context of technical education. During the last one decade there has been a value education movement in the name of Jeevan Vidya, which is claimed to be a complete program of individual happiness and social perfectibility. Beginning with IIIT Hyderabad, several institutions of technology and management in the country have introduced a compulsory course of Jeevan Vidya at the undergraduate level and organized informal sessions for other students, staff and faculty members. These institutions include IITs and IIITs, UP Technical University and Punjab Technical University. Now a few books are also available on Jeevan Vidya (promoted as human values and professional education). This and the next three lectures expose you to Jeevan Vidya which is taught as a full semester course in the institutes and universities, and in a seven day (about 50 hours of involved discussion) camp for others. We will first introduce the basic philosophy of Jeevan Vidya. Then we will go deeper into some core concepts of it. Finally, we will examine the strengths and weaknesses of Jeevan Vidya. We will also look into what can be done to make the movement more effective. For teachers and students of technical institutions, Jeevan Vidya is interpreted by Gaur, Sangal and Bagaria (2010) who are all connected with leading science and technology institutions in India and who are all the initiators of the value education movement. Prof. Gaur has served as professor of mechanical engineering in IIT Delhi, Prof. Sangal is professor of computer science and is the director of IIIT Hyderabad, and Prof. Bagaria has served as professor of electrical engineering in HBTI Kanpur. This first expository lecture on Jeevan Vidya explores the connection between professional ethics and Jeevan Vidya. To the proponents of Jeevan Vidya you cannot have effective professional ethics if it is not based on the foundation of humanism as the source of individual and collective value. As a matter of fact, JV goes beyond this assertion and claims that a process of self exploration and right understanding always lead us to discover that co-existence is the principle of humanism. It is the self evident, naturally acceptable truth.