Building a good Ethical theory

[Skip]

You can't draw a blueprint without a clear vision of what you hope to build, and you can't have a coherent vision without a central idea. The people who make a fresh start will need to co-operate more than western people, and particularly Americans - are currently in the habit of doing, and in order to co-operate, they'll need a core concept of what it means to be human and how the individual is related to the community.

Look at the indigenous peoples who survived for thousands of years in the harshest climates. Look at the ethical core of their belief systems. It's always about balance: the individual's responsibilities and rights, obligations and prerogatives as a member of the group. One level below that is the law: methods of resolving conflict; means of restoring balance when it's been upset; restitution, reconciliation, rehabilitation.

Teach those core values to all the children - not just through theory, but by example - and you'll have a viable community.
Don't, and you won't.

[prof]

Hello, Skip

What you say in your recent post is very wise. It shows maturity on your part.

It would be a good start to teach the kids three applied values, to start with.

They are: Responsibility - including civic responsibility. Community. And once one has a strong sense of community and responsibility then to work for Opportunity - Equal opportunity for everyone; special privilege for no-one. This could be the major policy goal; the objective.to work for. These are not new principles, but worth keeping in mind.

OPPORTUNITY. RESPONSIBILITY. COMMUNITY.

Wouldn't it be great if we could get candidates for office to commit to living those values, and promise sincerely to implement them once in office? If they promise, we then have grounds for "holding their feet to the fire" so to speak. We would have to learn what they mean by the concepts specifically, and what concrete plans they have to make things better -- all before we elect them. ...just as it explains in BASIC ETHICS, the document to which a link was given earlier..

Comments?

[Skip]

I've been following reruns of The West Wing on a religious* network. The show was very good at demonstrating how difficult it is for a politician to enact anything he believes in: it's all maneuvering, compromise, deal-making and deferring. Pretty much what we saw happen to the Obama administration from those hopeful beginnings to the disappointing, disillusioned present. The last president who remained decent and actually tried to carry out what he thought needed to be done was Jimmy Carter - and look at all the respect he got from America!

(*This is relevant because they have commentators answering viewers' Facebook questions after every break. What I find interesting is that the questions about ethics are on the intellectual level of Grade 5. People haven't a frickin' clue! And the answers are equally simplistic. Granted, the time is very limited, but you see the same thing on debates and panel discussions.)

You need to educate at least one generation of voters - - - free from the corporate influence - - - before there is any chance of electing a Kucinich (my age, size and convictions) and that's just not going to be allowed on the large scale. You'll have to do it subversively, in community schools and study groups. But you won't really have time - the system will break down before you can reform it.

The bad guys are even trying to erase public television and radio, so there can never be mass information without commercial control.

[marjoramblues]

The people who make a fresh start will need to co-operate more than western people, and particularly Americans - are currently in the habit of doing, and in order to co-operate, they'll need a core concept of what it means to be human and how the individual is related to the community.

M: Doesn't that rather depend on what resources are available. If scarce, then there will be both cooperation and conflict. This does not require any kind of a theoretical concept of what it is to be human.

Look at the indigenous peoples who survived for thousands of years in the harshest climates. Look at the ethical core of their belief systems.

M: Sorry, looking but can't find it; point me in the right direction - North, South, East, West?


It's always about balance: the individual's responsibilities and rights, obligations and prerogatives as a member of the group. One level below that is the law: methods of resolving conflict; means of restoring balance when it's been upset; restitution, reconciliation, rehabilitation.

M: Perhaps so; but eg the question of what is fair and unfair re workload, reward, care - does not require a concrete blueprint or Universal Theory of Ethics. Any final judgments might come from a tribal leader, a crazy mumblin' mad man...

Tribes against tribes; the winner takes it all? Different systems founded on different ideas of what is right...

Teach those core values to all the children - not just through theory, but by example - and you'll have a viable community.

M: 'Viable': capable of working successfully. You think that the success of a community depends on teaching core values to 'all' children? How many different communities are there in the world; how many warring factions as a result of disagreements between what is valued? What would you consider a viable family or friendship? We can share values but that does not necessarily entail 'success', whatever that means...

[marjoramblues]

from prof to me:

Your questions seem to be more about applied ethics than about the theory itself.
http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BASIC%20ETHICS.pdf
That's okay. Does that mean you have studied it, and that you like the theory?

I have reviewed some of your earlier threads on the subject, going back a couple of years now...
Seems like I did have an interest at some point...but I guess, like quite a few others, I didn't take to the theory.

[marjoramblues]

Skip: You need to educate at least one generation of voters - - - free from the corporate influence - - - before there is any chance of electing a Kucinich (my age, size and convictions) and that's just not going to be allowed on the large scale. You'll have to do it subversively, in community schools and study groups. But you won't really have time - the system will break down before you can reform it.

M: Right now, who can be said to be free from corporate influence? Education does not have to be done subversively. Adults abound who have had major educational opportunities and could paper their wall with PPE diplomas.

What point all this knowledge and ability to analyse - without action. The educational system and teachers have been cowardly in their bowing to successive policy changes according to party idealism.

Politicians rattle on and on - and academics nod; this system is far from breaking down.

[Skip]

S: The people who make a fresh start will need to co-operate more ....
M: Doesn't that rather depend on what resources are available. If scarce, then there will be both cooperation and conflict. This does not require any kind of a theoretical concept of what it is to be human.

Scarcity pretty well goes without saying. The post-breakdown period will be very hard. That's exactly why the people will need a strong backbone of values, so that they support rather than annihilate one another. Even if co-operation prevails within communities, conflict among the communities can still result in extinction. A pre-breakdown ethical framework for human interaction and conflict resolution, shared by the majority of people, would at least give the survivors a chance at working things out.

S: Look at the indigenous peoples...
M: Sorry, looking but can't find it; point me in the right direction - North, South, East, West?

Depends on where you are. North: the Innu. South-west US: the Navajo. You could do worse than to seek out the story-tellers of whichever native population you can reach. Or read Thomas King. (Fiction v. enjoyable.) Or any of the comprehensive books on traditional cultures http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/frederick-e-hoxie or Australian or Mongolian...

S:It's always about balance: the individual's responsibilities and rights....
M: Perhaps so; but eg the question of what is fair and unfair re workload, reward, care - does not require a concrete blueprint or Universal Theory of Ethics. Any final judgments might come from a tribal leader, a crazy mumblin' mad man...

No, they are not crazy mumbling. Elders have to earn their status; in most tribes they are elected. And it's rarely up to a single individual: council hearing is more usual. But then, indigenous people are rarely bothered about unfair work-load - that's a typical industrial state problem. Where nobody skims off the surplus as profit, nobody is exploited. Mothers don't consider it an undue burden to make an effort for their children; friends don't begrudge friends a day off for a sprained ankle, and where all effort translates into immediate benefit, hardly anybody shirks - and if they do, their reputation suffers.

Clan-based groups don't need the principles spelled out. The polyglot, mosaic of western population does, exactly because they started from different base positions in the conquering nation.

Tribes against tribes; the winner takes it all? Different systems founded on different ideas of what is right...

That's two different notions. Intra- and inter-tribal relations. You need an ethical framework for each. And there are no clear takes-all winners in tribal warfare: everybody loses more or less - far better to avoid, if you have a means of resolving territorial disputes, water-rights, etc. Most aboriginal peoples do/did have some mechanism for limiting conflict with their rivals.

S:Teach those core values to all the children.... viable community.

M: 'Viable': capable of working successfully. You think that the success of a community depends on teaching core values to 'all' children?

Just your own - by which of course, I mean the pool of youngsters from all the families in the community - they are all "our own". Let the other communities take care of their children's education.

How many different communities are there in the world;

Most of them are not in direct contact with one another, so it doesn't matter how many. Only the ones right next to you need sufficient overlap in diplomatic protocol and economies to co-operate with you.

how many warring factions as a result of disagreements between what is valued?

Factions are taken up within a society - and most often because they were never integrated in the first place, as the slave population of colonial America was never an integral part of the society. But, yes, factions can arise over values, and some of these conflicts result in civil war. More commonly, a split; the dissenters form their own tribe. It would be easier to survive if we didn't build these ideological conflicts into the next civilization. Another reason to establish core concepts before the breakdown.

Whether another tribe has the same moral code doesn't much matter, unless they're out to conquer yours. It matters whether you can communicate with your immediate neighbours. No international wars result from disagreement over values. What is necessary remains constant: food, water, land, liberty. Greed and power-lust causes violent conflict between nations far more often.

*Actually, the value-shift from paleolithic farming settlement through walled city-states to rampant global imperialism would be interesting to track, if quite a large undertaking. Meantime, you might check which of your own assumption can be traced back to the nursery and which crept in from commercial culture. The shift is there, in every one of our heads.

What would you consider a viable family or friendship? We can share values but that does not necessarily entail 'success', whatever that means...

What I consider a viable family or community is one that can get through loss, friction and hard times without destroying its members or their relationships. Too complicated to describe here, but I think you can find examples in your own experience. Nothing will necessarily insure success (what it means is long-term survival), but a clearly defined and generally understood ethical framework is a prerequisite.

What-all is wrong with the education system, and the difference between a learned man and a man with a degree, are subjects too large for this space. ( Bloody site's already logged me out once.)

[prof]

Hi, everyone !

I have to say the quality of posts in a thread I initiated has really, truly improved

Thanks to you, Skip. And good questions by majoamblues.

I get the impression that neither one of you have read the new theory offered in BASIC ETHICS. If you had, you would have noticed that I begin with the individual, not the family, nor the clan, nor the tribe, the city, the state, or the nation. When individuals straighten out, so will the group(s) they are in. Example does speak louder than words. (Sometimes 'old sayings' or cliches do speak truth.)

If each of us were to be mindful of - and have formed the habit of practicing - The Central Question of Life and Success, and thus actually knew what is truly important, we would be the core of a powerful ethical force. For goodness, when mobilized for social justice, and organized, is a powerful force.

What questioners, the discouraged, and skeptics need to understand is that the public needs to be intellectually prepared before demonstrations, picketing, marches, sit-ins, occupying, action projects, movements, etc. can have success. The Civil Rights movement - of which I was an active participant from 1950 on until the signing of the Voting Rights Act - worked because it was largely, at first, an education campaign as to what Jim Crow was actually like, and then the public was ready for some change. Nonviolent direct action is the method to use to bring about serious change.

That's where theory (a set of related concepts) comes in: it serves to intellectually prepare a large mass of people, as each one teaches two, so to speak. The circle of those who 'know their values' gets larger and larger, as the theory permeates the society ...gradually becoming the 'conventional wisdom' until eventually it is superseded by a theory even more-adapted to the times. That's how [cultural] evolution works. That's how it is. At some point movie-makers, novelists, playwrights, bloggers, You Tube, and every form of media get into the act.

For further study, see this reference, the new approach entitled Basic Ethics: http://tinyurl.com/mfcgzfz as well as the thread "Why Ethics is NECESSARY."

All comments and questions are welcome!

.

[Skip]

... I begin with the individual, not the family, nor the clan, nor the tribe, the city, the state, or the nation. When individuals straighten out, so will the group(s) they are in. Example does speak louder than words. (Sometimes 'old sayings' or cliches do speak truth.)

I get that. (Though, of course, we are all products of those group entities: they're inescapable.) Hence the subversive education I mentioned, along with example to the children. I was thinking of the kind of neighbourhood study groups the early communists and Christians used to hold, or community schools in the guise of informal daycare that you see once in a while in ghettos, in the home of an informed and civic-minded individual. The necessary hub of such an undertaking is the charismatic individual. Such an individual may, however, have ideas out of step with the majority view, and be harassed or outright persecuted. The industrial state makes damn sure that its least empowered citizens stay as ignorant as possible as long as possible.

Point taken about the recent protests. A dose of cold reality, that was! Not to mention dashed embarrassing. I'm somewhat aware how little most people know about the way things work, and how generally unconscious they are of the moral discontinuity of our societies. I truly believe the single biggest problem is the mass brainwashing of the past 30-odd years. Orwell was on the right track, but underestimated the tools that would become available to our overlords.

Reverence for your work in civil rights. That also means you know the opposition and the risks. Which is worse, having your arm broken by robocops during a protest or having your heart broken when your accomplishment is struck down by a subsequent supreme court? (I only dabbled in anti-war, anti-nuke, pro labour, fem and gay rights in Canada, which was a lot safer in those days.)

[prof]

(Though, of course, we are all products of those group entities: they're inescapable.)

On page 31 of BASIC ETHICS, Dr. Katz wrote: "The individual and the social turn out in practice to be nearly inseparable; however, for purposes of theory and method it is useful to make the distinction."

He goes on to write: "n order to clear up some possible confusion I should remind the reader: Anyone who commits crimes has a contradiction in his or her self-image. He is affirming non-harming of individuals (including himself) while at the same time denying non-harming of individuals. If the crime is violent , such as rape or assault, then even more so is the perpetrator a living contradiction who cannot fulfill his/her self-definition because it is incoherent."

The latter comments were relevant to his discussion of the concept "morality." Some critics - Voice of Time, for example - say we ought not bother to define the term "morality" - I suppose because the word has fallen into disuse lately, along with the word "virtue." I would argue, though, that currently we do at times describe the output of a person's conduct as "moral", and thus some degree of morality was present - since 'morality' is 'moral value.' We also paint certain viewpoints or actions as "immoral." We can do this without being moralists.

What say you?

[prof]

...What point all this knowledge and ability to analyse - without action. The educational system and teachers have been cowardly in their bowing to successive policy changes according to party idealism..

Hi there, marjoramblues

Granted that this is so. What can we do here and now to change this? I'm all for action - but it should be informed action. I would suggest that you and I need to be teachers that have courage, that avoid being cowardly. I ask: How will you be a better teacher? What course-content will you teach? How will you relate better to your students? How will you put people first?

We seem to be closer in agreement that a teacher needs some good ideas to pass on to the learner. That is the "intellectual understanding" that I spoke of in my previous post, the one just preceding this one. Do you know what I mean?

[Skip]

(Though, of course, we are all products of those group entities: they're inescapable.)

On page 31 of BASIC ETHICS, Dr. Katz wrote: "The individual and the social turn out in practice to be nearly inseparable; however, for purposes of theory and method it is useful to make the distinction."

Yes, and we always do. In the most dysfunctional societies, the individual is pushed farthest apart from the group identity and commonweal: disproportionately expected to make his own unaided way (capitalist libertarianism) and disproportionately blamed for failures and transgressions (xtian fundamentalism) ((which is why those two political forces march so well together toward their nation's doom)).

... Anyone who commits crimes has a contradiction in his or her self-image. He is affirming non-harming of individuals (including himself) while at the same time denying non-harming of individuals. If the crime is violent , such as rape or assault, then even more so is the perpetrator a living contradiction who cannot fulfill his/her self-definition because it is incoherent."

Is that fundamentally different from the Beautyway?

To Walk in Beauty means not only walking physically. It also, and primarily in fact, means being in harmony with all things and all people, with all objects, all the animals, all the feelings, the plants, the weather and all the events in your life. It means being at peace, serene in the knowledge that all around you is well and that you are well with everything in your life. You accept and are accepted, there is nothing that pulls you in one direction or the other, the polarities are neutralized, you are one with everything. You are ready to walk in Beauty.

or the harmony, connectedness and rootedness expressed in different ways by so many ancient, godless religions?

I suspect this break, the potentially fatal discontinuity, comes into play from the moment we externalize the source of morality: when the god is named.
But that's another topic. My problem with the essay - the insurmountable obstacle, if you will - was algebra. Never liked it as its own sweet impenetrable self, and can't deal with it applied to concepts that can perfectly well be couched in language. Philosophy doesn't need to dress in science clothing; ideas need to be formulated, not formulized. That's just my personal shortcoming and prejudice.

The latter comments were relevant to his discussion of the concept "morality." Some critics - Voice of Time, for example - say we ought not bother to define the term "morality" - I suppose because the word has fallen into disuse lately, along with the word "virtue."

I have watched in fascination as our vocabulary was deliberately and methodically suborned. Babel rising taller and taller.

I would argue, though, that currently we do at times describe the output of a person's conduct as "moral", and thus some degree of morality was present - since 'morality' is 'moral value.' We also paint certain viewpoints or actions as "immoral." We can do this without being moralists.

No - we are always moralists. We can't help it. We do become confused as to the basis of our values, the source of our approval and disapproval and the hierarchy of our priorities, but we never stop judging. We never stop choosing, either, between the lesser evil and the least evil - even while protesting that we don't believe in evil.
For these reasons, I think it would be useful to teach a comprehensive ethical theory, just as I believe it would be useful to teach rigorous grammar and critical thinking.

I've tried to teach both, for short periods, to adults. It's not easy; even teaching ceramics to a mixed group of adolescents was less exhausting. I was serious about that question, btw. What hurts more - building something or watching it torn down by the next generation? For me, no contest. I sometimes feel like the second-last Neanderthal: What's the point?

[prof]

Methinks it's time for folks to re-read "Why Ethics is Necessary." - viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12194
or "Steps to Value Creation."
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=9561&hilit=

[Skip]

Not engaging in banter until we've sat through the lecture, eh? I'll take it under advisement.

[prof]

What the quote you offered, Skip, calls "the Beauty way" is what R. S. Hartman called: Cosmic optimism and a high Value Quotient in the Excellence range (on the HVP test.).

Yes, a result to someone who knows his/her Ethics thoroughly, and lives it, is that he or she would have serenity, and be in balance - and thus would 'walk with beauty.'

In that pamphlet, BASIC ETHICS, where is the algebra?? I included only one formula in it. The line between Philosophy and Science is very thin. Newton called himself a Natural Philosopher, and Einstein would call himself a Philosopher/Scientist. See the new Sam Harris blog on this subject: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/our- ... of-science

As I understand it, Philosophy is the womb of science. Every recognized science was first philosophy, in that its terms were vague and ambiguous ...before they were sharpened up and made exact. Working together we can do the same thing for ethics. We can usher it into Scientific Ethics, whereupon it would eventually - if not sooner - gain in respectability - which is a condition it certainly does not have now (with the possible exception of Business Ethics, and some Professional Ethics, such as Bio-Ethics.) Medical Ethics today is a joke !! It teaches physicians how not to get sued by having patients fill our disclaimer forms.