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PATHWAYS TO SELF-DISCOVERY
AS A COMPONENT OF EDUCATION FOR
SYSTEMS THINKING FOR GOVERNANCE
Roger Packham
A COURSE RUN BY THE SYSTEMIC DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE (SDI)
Aim is to help Victorian State government
participants to improve the complex situations
confronting them in their everyday work
 Science searches for solutions to answerable
puzzles
 Engineers focus on solving solvable problems
 These are called “Tame Problems”

“WICKED” ISSUES (PROBLEMS)
Wicked issues include nearly all public policy
issues – such as the location of a freeway, the
adjustment of a tax rate, the modification of
school curricula, the confrontation of crime, the
development of responsible policy for Clean
Energy and Security, etc.etc.
 They appreciate and accommodate complexity,
contingency, uncertainty and contestability

These are what might be termed systemic matters
involving inter-relatedness , wholeness and
surprise, and a key aspect of the courses is to
consider what ‘systems thinking’ means
 Wicked issues do not yield to categorical certainty,
but require the capacity to articulate what we feel
to be most worthy - what constitutes a ‘better’ way
forward, an ‘improvement’ - and how this is
defined and by whom?

This is achieved by seeking pathways to self
discovery within the participants
 The courses emphasise that values are
knowingly or unknowingly always used to make
decisions
 As such Sathya Sai EHV principles are an ideal
guide when developing and presenting these
programmes.

SCIENCE, SYSTEMS AND VALUES
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Traditionally, science takes an ‘objective’ view of Truth
This view strives to be ‘value-free’ by relying on
‘evidence’, generally using statistical tests of
significance.
This approach dates back to the scientific revolution
developed from the time of Galileo onwards
“Quantities” became important and “Qualities” were
seen as secondary
Systemic thinking moves beyond this to also incorporate
a focus on quality, and to included intuition and values
as key aspects of learning
BEING SYSTEMIC
Inter-relatedness, Wholeness and Surprise
 A concern for interactions between the parts –
circular rather than linear thinking – leading to
negative feedback (balance) or positive feedback
(change)
 Looking at issues in context – not as isolated
entities as is traditional in standard science
 Systems are made up of systems, and are parts of
wider systems, and at each hierarchical level
emergence (surprise) appears that cannot be
predicted from a knowledge of the parts

Systemic acts of development
for
sustainable inclusive well-being
demand the
epistemic (intellectual + moral) development
of all of
the stakeholders
who need to be engaged in them
Epistemic Development involves the ‘maturation’ of four sets
of beliefs:
• The Nature of Nature
(Ontologies)
• The Nature of Knowledge
(Epistemologies)
• The Nature of Human Nature
(Axiologies - aesthetics and ethics)
• The Nature of Human Inquiry
(Methodologies)
The way that each of us ‘acts’ in
this world reflects the way that we
‘see’ it.
The competencies that we
express in our everyday lives
reflect the worldviews –
the epistemic assumptions
–that we hold!
‘SEEING’ = MAKING SENSE
out of our experiences
Worldviews – “Windows on the
World”
ABSTRACT CONCEPTUALIZATIONS
CONCRETE
EXPERIENCES
Competencies – “Bag of
Tricks”
‘DOING’ = TAKING ACTION
change the situation
to
Worldview Window as an Epistemic Matrix
OBJECTIVISM
CONTEXTUALISM
HOLISM
REDUCTIONISM
Epistemic Development
from Techno-centricity
to Holo-centricity
Thinking
Planning
Thinking
Planning
Experiencing
Acting
Experiencing
Acting
Learning about the
epistemic limits to
learning
Learning about learning
about the matter to
hand
Learning about the matter
to hand
Thinking
Thinking
Experiencing
Experiencing
Thinking
Experiencing
Planning
Acting
Planning
Planning
Acting
Acting
SPIRITUAL
Innate insights
CONCEPTUAL
SENSUAL
Concrete experiences
A CRITICAL LEARNING
SYSTEM
Thinking
Experiencing
EMOTIONS
Thinking
Accepting
Re-engaging
Meditating
Disengaging
Experiencing
Thinking
Experiencing
Planning
Acting
Planning
Acting
DISPOSITIONS
Planning
Acting
ETHICS AND VALUES
Often ignored in science
 These add to the model through a third
dimension
 They are critical to how we see the world, and
what we decide to do in the world
 Different ethical systems can be identified:
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 Consequentialism
(utilitarian)
 Deontological (Rights-based)
 Virtue ethics
DEONTOLOGICAL ETHICS
Sometimes referred to as duty ethics, as it
places the emphasis on following rules, or
doing one's "duty"
 Which rules to follow? is often a point of
contention
 Deontology also postulates the existence of
moral absolutes that make an action moral
 Based on the work of Immanuel Kant.
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CONSEQUENTIALISM (UTILITARIAN)
Here the morality of an action is based upon
the consequences of the outcome
 Instead of saying that one has a moral duty to
abstain from murder, a consequentialist would
say that we should abstain from murder
because it causes some undesirable effect
 The Greatest Happiness Principle of John
Stuart Mill is one of the most commonly
adopted criterion
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VIRTUE ETHICS
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While deontology focuses on following rules
And consequentialism focuses on the outcomes of
actions
Virtue ethics differs in that the focus is instead upon
being rather than doing
Virtue ethics identifies virtues as desirable
characteristics which the moral or virtuous person
embodies
Possessing these virtues are what makes one moral
A virtue is a habit or quality that allows the bearer to
succeed at his or her purpose
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Action cannot be used as a demarcation of morality,
because a virtue encompasses more than just a simple
selection of action
Instead, it is about a way of being that would cause the
person exhibiting the virtue to make a certain "virtuous"
choice consistently in each situation
There is a great deal of disagreement within virtue
ethics over what are virtues and what are not. There are
also difficulties in identifying what is the "virtuous"
action to take in all circumstances, and how does one
define a virtue?
SATHYA SAI EHV CAN INFORM VIRTUE ETHICS
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A system of virtue theory is only intelligible if it
includes an account of the purpose of human life,
the meaning of life: Swami’s teachings give us this
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He tells us that our actions should be governed by
the principles of Love, Peace, Truth, Right Action,
Non-Violence
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These are not “rules” but ideal principles for each
of us to incorporate into our ‘way of being’ to
become virtuous
CONCLUSION
From the standpoint of Sathya Sai Baba’s
teachings, I believe that the cornerstone of the
course that I have outlined encourages the
drawing out of the inherent values that are
within all the participants
 Thereby helping the participants to find
pathways to self discovery that will lead to
improvements in their lives, as well as an
improved – a better - society
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