An implicit and important goal of the Bridge is the cultivation of a higher level of ethical understanding and behavior by human beings. This is achieved anthropologically by the systematic demonstration of the relativity and ethnocentrism of culturally shared values, of the range of variation and possibility of alternation of value systems, of the fundamental arbitrariness of such values and attitudes, and the negative consequences that strong ethnocentric bias and prejudice entails for acceptance and tolerance of differences in society.

It is to be recognized that all people are capable of both good and evil, and therefore nothing human is without contradiction. It becomes our responsibility learn to develop through discipline and application our creative capacity for good in the world . To learn to deal well with contradiction is an important breakthrough in achieving normative independence.

While it is important to recognize the relativity of values between different people, it is also important to recognize the value of the transcendence of this relativity to embrace a meta-ethcial value system based on shared, pan-human universals of value.

Normative independence entails that the individual can learn to think and behave separately from the implicit norms and values of the group, in a manner that is congruent with a higher frame of reference that ultimately embraces a universal appreciation all life on earth.

The cultivation of normative independence entails fostering systematically creativity and self expression, self-esteem and achievement, both a competitive and a cooperative spirit of social and group relation, rational decision-making and goal-directed problem solving. It also entails a need to overcome deep-seated unconscious fixations that serve to limit and ultimately frustrate the individual's characteriological adjustment and development.

In general, it is the case that the source of evil in human nature is not aggression or frustration, but the limitation of the individual's possible development by means of a fundamental sense of selfishness, or strong attachment to a sense of ego, that precludes an altruistic or unselfish relation with others. This basic orientation of personality often seeks external symbolism in society upon which it can attach itself in a dependent manner. It therefore often tends to become reinforced socially and cultural in institutions and normative patterns of a society. Many social institutions and cultural conventions reinforce subjective attitudes and orientations that are in the final analysis biased and normatively over-restrictive or wrong, especially in a context of out-groups.

It is critical to understand that cultural value systems do not come in a segmented, piece-meal manner. They form a dynamic symbol system of belief, and behavior that control social relation and function that serve the interests of a community and its adaptation to a larger world. One system cannot be simply replaced by another, especially if the substitute system is seen in some way as fundamentally alien or synthetic to one's own basic sense of being in the world.

Education for normative independence does not necessarily entail a didactic or prescriptive approach to teaching values. It can be relatively descriptive and non-didactic, and also empirically objective in its description of alternative attitudes and values. Its aim is to encourage a nurturing environment for creative self expression and exploration of alternative attitudes, relations and behaviors by which an individual can discover for themselves their own social and individual capacities.