Ethical values are beliefs about right and wrong. These yardsticks for ethical behavior draw on feeling and thinking. Sentiment and reason combine into predispositions or inclinations to act. But not all values are the same; neither are they necessarily associated with ethical behavior. Some are virtues—the habits of ethical action embedded in moral character that underlie ethical behavior and translate abstract, ethical values into customary, observable behavior. Many ancient traditions stress personal virtue, and Plato wrote of four: courage, wisdom, justice, and moderation.
In Buddhist teachings, “Good men and bad men differ from each other in their natures. . . . Wise men are sensitive to right and wrong” (Bukkyo Dendo, Kyokai, 1987, p. 264). In Exodus 18:21, when Moses sets about forming his administrative hierarchy for the tribes of Israel newly liberated from slavery, his father-in-law, Jethro, advises him to “provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hat- ing covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers.”