Asian Values and the Human Rights Basis of Professional Ethics

摘要

Engineering programs in Sri Lanka, like others that were long ago modelled on the British system, are analysis-intensive and weak on liberal studies components such as ethics, although Britain herself has now adopted broader educational goals for engineering education. This paper describes our attempts to include professional ethics in the engineering curriculum in Sri Lanka. We make the case that 'Asian values' in the narrow technical sense in which the term is defined in the literature for Southeast Asia is equally applicable to South Asia. In particular, two of these common Asian values militate against the ethical norms frequently encountered in a Western class. First, there is really little support in Sri Lankan or South Asian culture for keeping religion out of public life. The religious ethos where multiculturalism is understood to be polytheistic favors a Hindul Buddhist celebration of religion involving all gods at public functions which is then passed off as multiculturalism. Second, there is strong loyalty to the family and clan and obedience to elders that works against administrative impartiality. We therefore use in our teaching a legislatively and democratically evolved and socially accepted system of international human rights law as the proper basis for justifying ethics. Though human rights exhibits some cultural conflicts with Asian values, it is neutral with respect to the parties to the civil war in Sri Lanka.