224 Global Ethics for Leadership
that all may be attracted to it. Values, when celebrated, catch the atten-
tion of people of all ages and cultures. Not only do people celebrate the
values in their environment, but these enable and empower the cele-
brants to embrace them joyfully and passionately.
Values are caught rather than taught. This holds true for the present-
day generation as well as for those in past generations. In today’s world,
verbal communications are being replaced by visual learning and differ-
ent teaching methodologies. Participatory methods are found more bene-
ficial in the process of teaching and learning. If the communication is
within the context of celebration, it is all the more interesting and there
is involved learning. Playful learning is picking up momentum in the
world of communication of information and in the transformation of
persons. This process or pedagogy of learning is true for young and old.
The Kindergarten system of education is typical of this pattern of learn-
ing, including values.
17.2 Virtues through Regular Practice
Virtues are acquired by people over a period of time. Any virtue is
mastered through a repeated and regular practice of it. Virtue comes
with a cost: excellence and expertise come through concerted and com-
mitted action, which presupposes a strong conviction and a concomitant
passion to acquire it. Among the Greeks, ethics meant excellence
through habit. Habit presupposes regular and repeated action. This is
why Aristotle could argue that “you are what your acts are.” And an
“act” is something that a person does knowingly and willingly. Virtue,
therefore, is the result of a good habit, which one undertakes through an
intellectual perception of the truth, goodness, and beauty inherent in the
thing itself, and by voluntary consent given to it.
In other words, value is out there independent of the onlooker, some-
thing to be beheld, whereas virtue is an acquired good habit towards