Re: Social Information (reply to Capurro)

Greg,

Maybe this quotation can make things more clear. It is from Bertrand Russel
in his_Outline of Philosophy_ (Chapter 22, p. 180):
"As a provisional definition, we may take ethics to consist of general
principles which help to determine rules of conduct (...)
It is not the business of ethics to arrive at actual rules of conduct, such
as: 'Thou shalt not steal'. This is the province of morals. Ethics is
expected to provide a basis from which such rules can be deduced. The rules
of morals differ according to the age, the race (sic!), and the creed of the
community concerned, to an extent that is hardly realised by those who have
neither travelled nor studied anthropology (...)
Those who question this moral rule (of headhunters!RC) are held to be
encouraging licence and lowering the standard of manliness. Nevertheless, we
should not demand of an ethic that it should justify the moral rules of
head-hunters."
I hope this quotation makes you (also) laugh!

In the German tradition (German Idealism) we have the distinction between
Morality (_Moralitaet_) and _Sittlichkeit_. Kant is a representative of the
Moralitaet-tradition which gives primacy to universal rules, disregarding
their _Sitz im Leben_. Hegel argues against this _abstract_ view of morality
by stressing the necessary incarnation of morality in a concrete community
(something we call today _solidarity_). Morality is different from law (=
norms politically sanctioned and instantiated through _power_). (See. Hegel:
Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts)
_Sittlichkeit_ corresponds to what I called _morals_ which indeed goes back,
as you say, to Greek _ethos_
There is a famous quotation from Aristotle _Nichomachean Ethics_ (1103a
14-18) where he states:
"The _arete_ (virtue) is of two kinds, _dianoethical_ and _ethical_
_dianoethical_ virtue arises and grows mainly by means of instruction, it
needs therefore experience and time
_ethical_ virtue comes into being through customs (_ex ethous_), its name is
derived from there, as the word _ethical_ is just very similar to _custom_"

The similarity of the two words is based on Greek short _e_ (epsilon) and
long _e_ (etha): _ethical_ virtue is written with ethca whereaa customs is
written with epsilon. This means, that an _ethical_ character (in a personal
or social meaning) is produced by habits.
The word _ethos_ (with etha) means, as you correctly remark, the living
customs (Latin: mores) or the place where human being _live_, which is also
the primary meaning of this word.
Aristotles writes an _ethics_ i.e. he is reflecting on the _ethos_ (in two
ways: the things we learn through intellectual teaching (dianoethical
virtues: _dianoia_ means _intellect_ or _reason_: _dia-nous) (such as
_techne_ (the knowledge of how to produce (material) things), _episteme_
(knowledge about the _causes_, _phronesis_ which is the kind of knowledge we
apply when we think _ethically_ i.e. when we try to act according to general
rules but (!) in a specific situation, _sophia_ (the highest kind of
theoretical knowledge)
With regard to the _ethical_ virtues there is the classic tradition of:
- thoughtfulness (German: Besonnenheit), G. _sophrosyne_
- justice (_dikaiosyne_)
- courage (_andreia_)
- generosity (_eleutheriotes_)
and others
This _virtues_ are mainly _man_oriented, as they were grounded in the Greek
_ethos_...

Aristotle distinguished theoretical from practical philosophy (which were
_identified_ in some way by Plato: to know the good is _the same_ (or
implies necessarily?) to do it) and by doing so he detaches practical
philosophy from the _absolute_ norms derived from _eternal being_ (the _sky_
as well as the _prime mover_). He lookes for what is good to a being that
changes and whose actions (_praxis_) are not just the ones of producing
material things (_poiesis_). According to these there is a difference
between _episteme_ as the knowledge of permanent things (later: natural
laws), and of changing things (these can be: to know hat to produce material
thinks:_teche_, or how to be oneself a _better_ human being by acting in
specific situations, this kind of _practical_ knowledge is called
_phronesis_). So we have:
praxis - phronesis
poiesis - techne
episteme (sophia)
Finally Aristotle includes in his Practical Philosophy not only _Ethics_
(relating this term to the _individual_) but also _Economy_ (from Greek:
_oikos_ the house: the rules of leading or managing the house/family) and
_Politics_

This Aristotelian distinctions were basic for hundreds (!) of years in the
Western tradition.
Modernity brought basic changes introducing the idea of liberty (or freedom)
and _subjectivity_
Kant made a sharp distinction between the Ought of morality (obligation,
_Pflicht_) considering all other aspects of human endavour (particularly the
ones related to the pursue of the _good_ or of _happiness_ which are so
basic for the Empiricist and Anglo-Amercan tradition and which go back to
the Greek tradition of looking for the _good_ in a manner according to a
finite being (Aristotle: _ta anthropina_) as non pertaining to _Morality_.
This Kantian _rigorism_ had a great influence on our Western _morality_ (or
_ethos_) and was questionned by existential philosophers such as Nietzsche
or in our century by Sartre, Heidegger, Foucault etc.
To look as what is good (for me/us) in a particular situation as a _value_
is a modern _economic_ perspective as far as it relates the _being_ of
things to the _calculating_ (or _utilitaristic_ ) view of man. The excess of
this view is a catastrophic _anthropocentrism_ which values everything
according to his/her interests. Ecologic ethics as well as ethical thinking
related to the _rights_ of (other) animals/living beings was the answer to
this onesidedness.

Well, all this is very academic!
cheers
Rafael

-----Urspr|ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: by way of marijuan@posta.unizar.es (Pedro C. Marijuan)
<fis@listas.unizar.es>
An: Multiple recipients of list <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Datum: Dienstag, 29. September 1998 10:45
Betreff: Social Information (reply to Capurro)

>
>Rafael--
>
>I agree these are very "tricky formulations for designing very different
>things." It was ian attempt, admiteddly bound to fail, to capture these
>differences that I used all three terms. I had spent some time asking
>Anglo-American philosophers if there were a difference between "ethics" and
>"morals" and was told Morals relates to sex and Ethics relates to the rest.
>That disappointed me so totally I decided to make up my own meanings. The
>result is not exactly what you said.
>
>However, Aristotle's use of the root word "ethos" suggests that customs and
>mores was at work in his formulation. Also, I wanted to get at some of
>what Durkheim said about religion. Finally, there is a nice academic
>cottage industry in America (see MacIntyre, e.g.) which describes ethics as
>the form of knowledge for determing what is moral. The older tradition
>which ranks Morals as primary and Ethics as legalistic and secondary was
>less appealing to me.
>
>Anyway, I would make the following distinctions:
>"morals" = the symbolic representation of end-states;
>"ethics" = the rules for achieving these end-states; and
>"values" = the relative positive or negative weightings attached to
>end-states. (The latter comes close to the Homeric notion of dividing
>spoils properly, which was also in Aristotle's mind.)
>
>Morals sanction organizational structures; ethics teach people how to act
>so those sanctioned structures can be reached; and values are the emotional
>triggers motivating action. So, if people "know" where they ought to be,
>have a sense of how to get there, and are excited about the prospects, then
>my supposition is they will be inclined to pick certain behavioral options
>rather than others and a social system will endure.
>
>What I was, in any case, trying to get at is the totality of elements that
>must be involved to influence human choices and actions in ways that could
>account for the otherwise miraculous fact that societies endure over time.
>I thought there was more to it than any one of those terms in isolation
>would imply, so I put them all together.
>
>Of course, any thing like a social system will replicate because of what
>the information stored in it MEANS, which is why I also tried to link the
>problem of social information to an environmental context. Thus, some
>moral statement like "Thou shalt not ..." generally speaking does not
>actually prohibit the behavior it specifies, for there are rules for
>defining the .... which apply in various ways in multiple situations with
>diverse results. This makes for problems, of course, but it also is what
>makes social systems, unlike crystals, dynamic, evolving, self-trasnforming
>systems.
>
>I am wondering if something like a value-free definition of value, which is
>part of what I am after, implies our societies have relaxed their
>constraints to the point where evolution is virtually continuoius, because
>individuals are always able to fluctuate social structures by choosing
>something unexpected or new. Are we at "the edge of chaos" and, if so, can
>we handle the stress?
>
>Once again, Rafael, your contributions to these discussions prove really
>valuable. Thanks for taking the time.
>
>Bob Artigiani
>
>
>
Received on Tue Sep 29 11:20:37 1998