Ethics and values

We at the St. Paul House have often talked of the importance of enacting our values in all sectors of our lives. This integration is a key component of social change. For us, it is an enormous privilege to have internships that are meaningful often align with our values. There may be times where we will have to find a paycheck just to survive, but we will keep our values and our passions close, finding venues to express them. 

For Steph, she’s found Ashoka to be an organization where everyone is all in. Each staff and fellow values the importance of systems change toward positive and sustainable structures. People are motivated by these values to do their everyday work. For Sudip, the researchers he works with at the U care deeply about the advancement of knowledge and extending research to communities as soon as possible. It can take years for scientific findings to circulate, especially to crowds of non-scientists and policy makers, a frustrating reality to the work of many researchers. At Transit for Livable Communities, equity is one of their main values. It is easy for transportation to cater to upper-class people who want to get in shape—but transportation can be a force for social mobility. The stand of the organization is a positive movement for active transportation, not a negative movement against cars. The value for equity challenges and guides the organization as they advocate for active transportation.

After identifying our values, we face the reality of conflicting values—how do we mediate and prioritize values for harder decisions? If buying local or organic food for the sake of one's environmental ethic becomes an economic burden, how do you live out those underlying ethics in different ways? How do you deal with the guilt that comes from necessary choices that are against your values? How do react and change when we find out that the expression of our values have a false basis? Often, our values can be lived in better or worse ways, not simply black-and-white, right-or-wrong. Acknowledging the ways in which we sometimes have to compromise one value for the sake of another is an important part of making ethical decisions.

Our values underlie our conversations, hopes, dreams and challenges. We find it essential that we allow the different spheres of our lives to influence each other in positive ways, and that we seek to live with an ethic or vision that informs and motivates all aspects of life.