Values of the Five Major World Religions After studying Module 3: Lecture Materials & Resources, discuss the following: Look at your values from Discussion 2 and pick 5 that can be found in all 5

Bacuylima 3

The Power of Values in All That We Do

Jennifer Bacuylima

St. Thomas University

May 29, 2025

The Power of Values in All That We Do

Values are not just abstract ideas or philosophical concepts. They shape our decisions, guide our actions towards other people, and help us determine what’s significant in our lives. After covering Module 2 contents, we can see that values play a big role in both personal identity and the human experience we all share. My reading of The Human Experience: From Human Being to Human Doing by Claire Adams and the TEDx talk “The Value of Values” by Daniel Aronson has led me to list the following top ten values related to humans:

1. Empathy – Understanding others’ experiences helps better understand humanity and act ethically.

2. Integrity– According to Aronson, integrity matters most because ethics, like honesty, lead to clear advantages.

3. Justice– Examined how diversity, difference, and outdated systems affect society.

4. Compassion – It is a feeling that brings people together despite their culture or what they have gone through.

5. Respect– For individual identity, culture, and historical context, as emphasized throughout the text.

6. Responsibility– We all have an individual and social responsibility to impact how humans live.

7. Equality – Brought up repeatedly in conversations about race, gender, and how society treats people unfairly.

8. Self-awareness– This concept helps us to recognize and understand who we are and others are.

9. Courage– To challenge ways of thinking, challenge systems, and help change the world (Reform & Revolution).

10. Purpose– Living according to your principles and considering what being human involves are covered in the closing sections.

Encouraging empathy and respect for others was a main point when diversity and differences were discussed. Adams argues in her book that “we humans look at the world through a lens, one shaped by personal interests, family and peers, religion (or lack thereof), and other factors” (Adams 4). Noticing this lens involves empathy and self-awareness, which gives us a way to value opinions that are not the same as ours. The textbook also reinforces that “our reaction to information...is informed by our value systems,” underscoring how central values are to every decision we make (Adams, 12).

In his TEDx talk, Daniel Aronson explains how values such as integrity, compassion, and responsibility create palpable power. For example, he tells how a European company was having problems defending the ROI of sustainability until they realized that many of the benefits safer work conditions, reduced operating costs stemmed from their value-satisfaction (Aronson 3:40). This example only demonstrates that values do not only represent an idealistic perspective of ethics but they are also used as a strategic catalyst that has great ramifications in our terrestrial world.

Work Cited

Adams, Claire. The Human Experience: From Human Being to Human Doing. OpenSLCC, 2020, https://www.oercommons.org/courses/the-human-experience-from-human-being-to-human-doing/view.

Aronson, Daniel. “The Value of Values.” TEDxLenoxVillage, YouTube, 6 Dec. 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXdGCnVLsRk