Necromancer wrote:Can objective ethics be part of modern day survival?
Some kind of ethical system, based on common values, has always been essential to the survival of humans in social groups.
I'm only saying it, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show!
What?
Is there a place for the ethical life anywhere on the planet?
Where would you look for it? In monasteries and families, villages and neighbourhoods, sports arenas and schools, union halls and operating rooms? It does exist in all those places. Yes, there is an erosion of both generally upheld ethics and privately held conviction regarding the stated values of nations and international organizations - any establishments that deal in wealth and power on a large scale. Of course: look at the leadership! Nor is this a great change from previous times; it's just part of the cycle. There are always long periods of decline that terminate when the corruption becomes too pervasive and draining for the organization to carry - like a critical point in any disease process. When that point is reached, there is either a great purge and reform or the institution ceases to function; the empire falls; the patient dies. We are approaching one of those critical moments in history.
On the other hand, underneath the rot and deadwood, there is always new growth. Individuals become disillusioned and angry; they reject the old rules and discover ethical responses that work better for them. They hold onto their cultural core values that are true, even if their leadership has abandoned those values; they become concerned about matters that are new and timely, even as they cast off irrelevant ideologies; they form new alliances and loyalties - which will eventually become the establishment that makes rules in the next cycle.
Can even the Pope be believed when he says he lives the saintly life?
No prelate could
ever be believed on
any subject.
Life is difficult and one tries hard to come to agreement with all strifes of criminal life that exists. What is one supposed to do? Not murder the neighbour, even an old one?
That'd make a good start.
When the corrupt police turns the corners and ask what you have done lately, one must surely spit out a dirty answer?
I have no idea what this means.
What say you? Do you find the ethical life promising despite all crime in the World?
Not at the moment. I think human civilization has spread and joined into one all-inclusive global disease; that there may be no more cycles, no more organizations such as we have known. Whatever happens next won't be about values and rules; it'll be about brute survival - and most of the inhabitants of this planet won't.
Objective ethics hold that rule-following, including duties, permit a Utopian World where all life finds ethical grounding or so. Supply more if you want to.
That's too big a question. It
might be possible to frame an objective ethical system, but you wouldn't get the majority of humans to even read it and think about it, because they're already committed to one of the old belief systems. If the reformers faced the reactionaries in armed combat, that war would create a whole different framework for whatever system won in the end. If the reactionaries won, they would "crack down" and carry out such massive reprisals that no ethical could be built on the poisoned ground for a century thereafter. If the reformers won, their vanguard would have to recuse itself from leadership because of the moral taint they necessarily carried. (They
would do so, if their ethical system were truly objective and they were truly committed - and that might set a good enough example to allow the new system to stand.)
Anyway, it wouldn't be just a matter of rule-following. You can't hold convictions deeply unless you understand the principles and concur with the underlying values. You can't uphold a law effectively, unless you know and agree with the purpose for each rule and know how your compliance contributes to the health of your society. It only works with participation; if see how living in a healthy, cooperative society benefits them. Certainly, we could approach - if not attain - a utopian social system, that offers the most possible well-being to the greatest possible number -
if we had a sane, willing and informed citizenry.
But you can't get there from here.
