Philosophy Now Forum

Human nature, the basis of human communication, is not fixed and immutable. In the course of evolution and the growth of culture and civilization human beings, through adaptation, acquired some moral knowledge that perhaps, we speculate, primitives did not have.

What lends the thesis plausibility is that we see the recapitulation of this process in each individual as one grows and matures. We notice that human individuals - granted, with some exceptions - go through a process of development as they grow in years. Individuals develop in moral insight as their brain makes more neural connections.

We conclude from this that Nature has endowed us with the potential capacity to be aware of some specific truths: namely, an ability to discern right from wrong, an obligation to keep promises, pay back debts, tell the truth, recognize Justice, and sense injustice. Most members of the human species have this moral sense. That is the term Psychologists give it; Ethicists speak of it as our “conscience.”
Brain Neurologists inform us that we are pre-wired with the capacity.

Mencius (c. 372—289 B.C.E.) held the view that human beings share an innate goodness that either can be cultivated through education and self-discipline or squandered through neglect and negative influences, but never lost altogether.

Many people today, however, have desensitized their conscience. They have put it asleep. The job of those who care is to reawaken it. And, it should be noted, human beings have a unique capacity to create value: to upgrade, innovate, enhance, improve upon, heal, soothe, entertain, elate, appreciate, enjoy, and find common areas of agreement.

Today we know that by effective methods of education Ethics can be taught, just as gymnastics or music appreciation can be, and is being taught. Moral education – Ethics - is a field of knowledge as is Chemistry or as is Nutrition. It is a fact that Ethics, the unified theory of M. C. Katz, adds to the useful information in this world, for it spells out the basic structure of Justice, of conscience, of Integrity. It defines with some rigor the terms “morality,” “good character,” “value creation.” It provides us with a sense of priorities, and with concepts well-worth knowing!

Further details on the nature of human nature can be found on pp. 48-49 here: http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ ... ETHICS.pdf

also here on pp. 24-28: http://tinyurl.com/mfcgzfz

and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27 ... y_of_needs


Comments? Questions?

So, you're telling me, that 500 years ago in the days of the plague and crusades, people were more awake to their moral nature and "conscience"? These are "truths", you say? That's news to me. Or perhaps you meant 10,000 years ago where it was just a daily struggle to survive against Nature?

GreatandWiseTrixie wrote:So, you're telling me, that 500 years ago in the days of the plague and crusades, people were more awake to their moral nature and "conscience"? These are "truths", you say? That's news to me. ...

No, I didn't intend to tell you, or anyone else that.

500 years ago many, many folks failed to cultivate their moral sense. They squandered it through neglect and negative influences. They didn't have an educated and sensitive conscience either. In those days techniques and practices of Education were not very advanced. Today, educators - especially in Finland - have learned a lot since then. If we don't take advantage of this learning, we're suckers.

Not all truths have been discovered yet.

In the field of Ethics, as science, we still have a long way to go. It was only 55 years ago that R. S. Hartman discovered what "x is a good C" means precisely. When x stands for "This individual" and C stands for "morally conscious human being," in other words: "This party has a good character." The test developed after this breakthrough, the HVP test, now enables scientists and consultants to measure whether that proposition is true, false, or indeterminate. To have a good character is to have excellent values - to appreciate that we are all in this together - to be at peace with him/herself and with the world - to have integrity, honesty, compassion, authenticity, transparency. In other, more-technical, words, to have a well-developed capacity to Intrinsically value. (And to be aware enough to place I-value above E-value, and E-value above S-value ...while being competent in all three dimensions.)

That makes for a sensitive and educated conscience.

The science of Physics is about 400 years old. Imagine when Ethics, as science, is 400 years old. Our knowledge of how to live, how to relate with each other, will be far more exact and the technologies that apply that knowledge to daily life and society will be far more effective than any that exist now. We are foolish if we wait 400 years to get going on the project of spreading knowledge of Ethics - as rudimentary as it is today - to the inhabitants of this planet !!! Let's get the teaching of values back into the elementary and primary schools! Let's write better children's books! Let's design comic books based on Ethical insights!

Education is a branch of Ethics. So is remedial education: Therapy. We, in the U.S.A. are quite backward in those areas compared with other advanced economies. We have grown so large and so complex that we are on the verge of breakdown. We need to reorganize.

We need to mobilize to encourage more, and wider, cooperation and creative collaboration among members of the human species. We need to identify with the human family.

prof wrote:

GreatandWiseTrixie wrote:So, you're telling me, that 500 years ago in the days of the plague and crusades, people were more awake to their moral nature and "conscience"? These are "truths", you say? That's news to me. ...

No, I didn't intend to tell you, or anyone else that.

500 years ago many, many folks failed to cultivate their moral sense. They squandered it through neglect and negative influences. They didn't have an educated and sensitive conscience either. In those days techniques and practices of Education were not very advanced. Today, educators - especially in Finland - have learned a lot since then. If we don't take advantage of this learning, we're suckers.

Not all truths have been discovered yet.

In the field of Ethics, as science, we still have a long way to go. It was only 55 years ago that R. S. Hartman discovered what "x is a good C" means precisely. When x stands for "This individual" and C stands for "morally conscious human being," in other words: "This party has a good character." The test developed after this breakthrough, the HVP test, now enables scientists and consultants to measure whether that proposition is true, false, or indeterminate. To have a good character is to have excellent values - to appreciate that we are all in this together - to be at peace with him/herself and with the world - to have integrity, honesty, compassion, authenticity, transparency. In other, more-technical, words, to have a well-developed capacity to Intrinsically value. (And to be aware enough to place I-value above E-value, and E-value above S-value ...while being competent in all three dimensions.)

That makes for a sensitive and educated conscience.

The science of Physics is about 400 years old. Imagine when Ethics, as science, is 400 years old. Our knowledge of how to live, how to relate with each other, will be far more exact and the technologies that apply that knowledge to daily life and society will be far more effective than any that exist now. We are foolish if we wait 400 years to get going on the project of spreading knowledge of Ethics - as rudimentary as it is today - to the inhabitants of this planet !!! Let's get the teaching of values back into the elementary and primary schools! Let's write better children's books! Let's design comic books based on Ethical insights!

Education is a branch of Ethics. So is remedial education: Therapy. We, in the U.S.A. are quite backward in those areas compared with other advanced economies. We have grown so large and so complex that we are on the verge of breakdown. We need to reorganize.

We need to mobilize to encourage more, and wider, cooperation and creative collaboration among members of the human species. We need to identify with the human family.

If you just teach Truth, ethics will come effortlessly. Forced ethics are not ethics at all. I do not identify with the filthy human family. Your attitude is incredibly species (human) centric, and attitude which I despise.

GreatandWiseTrixie wrote:

prof wrote: Let's get the teaching of values back into the elementary and primary schools! Let's write better children's books! Let's design comic books based on Ethical insights!

Education is a branch of Ethics. So is remedial education: Therapy. We, in the U.S.A. are quite backward in those areas compared with other advanced economies. We have grown so large and so complex that we are on the verge of breakdown. We need to reorganize.

We need to mobilize to encourage more, and wider, cooperation and creative collaboration among members of the human species. We need to identify with the human family.

I do not identify with the filthy human family. Your attitude is... attitude which I despise.

I, for one, do identify as a human.


How about the rest of you readers? Do you see merit in anything I wrote? Would you be able and willing to contribute to building - not burning? How? What are some good next steps?

prof wrote:

GreatandWiseTrixie wrote:

prof wrote: Let's get the teaching of values back into the elementary and primary schools! Let's write better children's books! Let's design comic books based on Ethical insights!

Education is a branch of Ethics. So is remedial education: Therapy. We, in the U.S.A. are quite backward in those areas compared with other advanced economies. We have grown so large and so complex that we are on the verge of breakdown. We need to reorganize.

We need to mobilize to encourage more, and wider, cooperation and creative collaboration among members of the human species. We need to identify with the human family.

I do not identify with the filthy human family. Your attitude is... attitude which I despise.

I, for one, do identify as a human.


How about the rest of you readers? Do you see merit in anything I wrote? Would you be able and willing to contribute to building - not burning? How? What are some good next steps?

Oh no, not burning. We require the use of your planet in the foreseeable future. Although, I am not confident in your ability to ensure it's success.

You wish to rebuild the infrastructure, buildings, bridges, and institutions...
But that is not the most important infrastructure in need of dire repair...

You think too much like a human...and not like a god...

Well, if a god says we humans are filthy, then we better clean up our act.

What do the rest of you (members of the human species) think?

Your opinions on the nature of human nature?

prof wrote:Human nature, the basis of human communication, is not fixed and immutable.

I have quoted the bits that I somewhat agreed with.

I have a question.

If human nature is not a given, if essence does not precede existence, what are you doing proposing, let alone promulgating an a priori ethics?

Breath

Breath wrote: I have a question.

If human nature is not a given, if essence does not precede existence, what are you doing proposing, let alone promulgating an a priori ethics?
Breath

Hi, Breath

See pages 7-14 here: http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ ... ONS%20.pdf

There I have written in anticipation of your question some observations about the changeability of human nature and also about the issue of whether essence precedes existence, or existence precedes essence - and how can these words be interpreted so that they make sense.

Let us know if you enjoyed reading those pages, and if they spoke to your specific concern. Okay?

My Ethics springs from a Synthetic a priori, in the sense of Kant's book, LOGIK, where the term was first introduced. I say that because the Axiom of Value, which defines the term good, in context, is partly empirical and partly theoretical, both at once. That fertile axiom generates formal value theory, and the latter serves as the metalanguage for my Ethics by defining some key value terms.

Furthermore, the Axiom for Ethics, when stated in declarative form, is also a synthetic a priori,. That Axiom reads: Ethical individuals want to make things morally better and are encouraged when others do the same.

I encourage you and all other readers and members to make the proposed new paradigm for ethics even better. We need an Ethics for the 21st Century, one that folks will find to be not only fitting but largely adequate for the task at hand.

prof wrote:

Breath wrote: I have a question.

If human nature is not a given, if essence does not precede existence, what are you doing proposing, let alone promulgating an a priori ethics?
Breath

Hi, Breath

See pages 7-14 here: http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ ... ONS%20.pdf

There I have written in anticipation of your question some observations about the changeability of human nature and also about the issue of whether essence precedes existence, or existence precedes essence - and how can these words be interpreted so that they make sense.

Let us know if you enjoyed reading those pages, and if they spoke to your specific concern. Okay?

My Ethics springs from a Synthetic a priori, in the sense of Kant's book, LOGIK, where the term was first introduced. I say that because the Axiom of Value, which defines the term good, in context, is partly empirical and partly theoretical, both at once. That fertile axiom generates formal value theory, and the latter serves as the metalanguage for my Ethics by defining some key value terms.

Furthermore, the Axiom for Ethics, when stated in declarative form, is also a synthetic a priori,. That Axiom reads: Ethical individuals want to make things morally better and are encouraged when others do the same.

I encourage you and all other readers and members to make the proposed new paradigm for ethics even better. We need an Ethics for the 21st Century, one that folks will find to be not only fitting but largely adequate for the task at hand.

I didn't make myself very clear. I accept that existence precedes essence, which of course implies that there is no given human nature. Of course, that also implies that there is not some given human "good". In answering my post, you now even go even further than suggesting there is a common ethics, which is what I initially meant to question, now you even suggest there is a common task, which sounds very teleological to me.

You are referring to Kant; is it on Kant's authority that this ethics and teleology should be apparent to all? Can you do no better than issuing a categorical imperative?

Breath

Breath wrote:

prof wrote:

Breath wrote: ....
Hi, Breath

See pages 7-14 here: http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ ... ONS%20.pdf

There I have written ... about the issue of whether essence precedes existence, or existence precedes essence - and how can these words be interpreted so that they make sense.

Let us know if you enjoyed reading those pages, and if they spoke to your specific concern. Okay?

My Ethics springs from a Synthetic a priori, in the sense of Kant's book, LOGIK, where the term was first introduced. I say that because the Axiom of Value, which defines the term good, in context, is partly empirical and partly theoretical, both at once. ...
Furthermore, the Axiom for Ethics, when stated in declarative form, is also a synthetic a priori,. That Axiom reads: Ethical individuals want to make things morally better and are encouraged when others do the same.

I encourage you and all other readers and members to make the proposed new paradigm for ethics even better. We need an Ethics for the 21st Century, one that folks will find to be not only fitting but largely adequate for the task at hand.

I didn't make myself very clear. I accept that existence precedes essence, which of course implies that there is no given human nature. Of course, that also implies that there is not some given human "good". In answering my post, you now even go even further than suggesting there is a common ethics, which is what I initially meant to question, now you even suggest there is a common task, which sounds very teleological to me.

You are referring to Kant; is it on Kant's authority that this ethics and teleology should be apparent to all? Can you do no better than issuing a categorical imperative?

It sounds as if you stopped reading the booklet when you got to page 14. While there is no fixed human good, we would be better off if we all had adequate food, clothing and shelter along with liberty and autonomy, as well as harmonious human relationships. Do you not agree that if we put an end to war and violence we would do better? And if every member of the species had an opportunity for advancement if they so chose, a chance to improve their lot, wouldn't we live in a better world?

I am suggesting a common ethic; I'm even proposing one. A Science of Ethics would be for the whole world just as a Science of Geology is, or a Science of Medicine. Its findings all are tentative and falsifiable (not based on superstition nor on idle speculation.) In order to be ready for science, ethics needs first to have more of its crucial terms well-defined and coherently related to one another. {Analogously, in (the history of) Chemistry they first had to discover that air was a mixture of several gasses, not just one gas, before they could make further progress.}

I might casually suggest that a look at some of the other threads here by prof wouldn't hurt ...to give one the background as to how it would all work.

prof wrote: I might casually suggest that a look at some of the other threads here by prof wouldn't hurt ...to give one the background as to how it would all work.

I don't why everyone else on these boards doesn't take your ethics seriously, but as for me, your human centricity sickens me. You never give any other species the slightest emphatic concern. It's human this, human that. What about other animals feelings? What about mutants? What about digital humans? What about AI's? What about unknowns, or possible contact with extraterrestrial lifeforms? What if trees or small organisms had feelings? It seems you offer a very limited mindset. In addition, something about your ethic plans seems sketch, and cheap plastic in nature.

If animals, mutants, digital humans, AIs, unknowns, extraterrestrials, trees and small organisms have 'feelings', and wish to have those 'feelings' considered, then each and every one need only step up and plead his, her, or its, case.

Till then: I will eat animals, exterminate mutants, use Norton antivirus to obliterate digital humans, unplug AIs, shoot ET, cut down and use trees, and Lysol away bacteria and germs.

"But why, Henry, why?!"

It's my nature.

*shrug*

henry quirk wrote:If animals, mutants, digital humans, AIs, unknowns, extraterrestrials, trees and small organisms have 'feelings', and wish to have those 'feelings' considered, then each and every one need only step up and plead his, her, or its, case.

Till then: I will eat animals, exterminate mutants, use Norton antivirus to obliterate digital humans, unplug AIs, shoot ET, cut down and use trees, and Lysol away bacteria and germs.

"But why, Henry, why?!"

It's my nature.

*shrug*

So if someone who can't speak English, you will kill them as well? I mean, according to you, their inability to communicate their case is grounds enough for their poor treatment.

Actually, it's 'their' inability to communicate at all (and -- for some -- their fictional nature) that has them on my 'to hit' list'.

If Gertie Bovine can communicate (with voice, sign language, a letter board, telepathy, etc.) I'll be glad to hear her out (may still, in the end, eat her, however).

So: no, it's the not the differently languaged, but the un-languaged, the language incapable, who (potentially) get 'poor treatment' (from me).

Got to be honest, though: not so impressed with most languaged folks I run across, so...