Dear Pedro and all,
I very much agree with Pedro's views of what ethics is about. We could also
say that ethics is an informational science as far as it analizes morality
i.e. the rules of society(ies) considering them under the conditions of
their historical development and future possibilities. The key point is then
how far such rules block societal development which means at the same time
that the "ideas"
or "goals" must/can be reconsidered and "re-imaginized." This is the deep
connection
between ethics with drama, poetry, music...
At the other end there is the connection of ethics with natural sciences as
far as they are also
dynamic or informational sciences that take into consideration the "basic
(natural) laws" behind human action.
In this case not only arts but also natural sciences are "technologies of
ethics" (Lauri's dictum). Michel Foucault distinguishes between
- technologies of producing (material) things (engineering/natural sciences)
- technologies of signs (semiotics and IT=cybersemiotics)
- technologies of power (law)
and technologies of the self (which include for instance writing, self
analysis, meditation, etc.)
We can analyze at the micro-level (that corresponds to the level of the
cell) the laws/forces blocking societal development. We can also analize as
how for instance IT is an ex/inclusive technology i.e. how far it blocks
development and which are the symptons (sings) of this blocking. This is a
view that relates also technology to nature as far as the blocking processes
are related to the material/informational ground(s) of human (technical)
action. It is more of the kind of a daoist ethics (and less Confucian!) (For
this intercultural view of information ethics see my (in German)
http://www.capurro.de/parrhesia.html
cheers
Rafael
Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro
Hochschule der Medien (HdM) University of Applied Sciences, Wolframstr. 32,
70191 Stuttgart, Germany
Private: Redtenbacherstr. 9, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
E-Mail: rafael@capurro.de; capurro@hdm-stuttgart.de
Voice Stuttgart: + 49 - 711 - 25706 - 182
Voice private: + 49 - 721 - 98 22 9 - 22 (Fax: -21)
Homepage: www.capurro.de
Homepage ICIE: http://icie.zkm.de
Homepage IRIE: http://www.i-r-i-e.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pedro Marijuan" <marijuan@unizar.es>
To: <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 1:01 PM
Subject: Re: [Fis] ON INFORMATION ETHICS
> Dear All,
>
> Should we keep discussing the Prolegomena on info & ethics or should
we
> jump into the concrete questions about the contemporary revolution of
info
> technologies? Apologies for being focused again in the former, hopefully
> it will help to produce more interesting answers about the latter...
>
> If ethics is related to a collective dimension of an individual's
> "fitness" (within a complex society), and if we suppose that
fitness
> itself is amenable to formal/informational treatments (or will be in a
> foreseeable future), it seems difficult not to conclude on some form of
> informational reductionism on ethics. However, I feel in a strong
> disagreement with that apparent reductionist conclusion derived from my
> own responses to the opening text. So, let me backtrack.
>
> In a complex society, any individual's action may be subject to scrutiny
> on very different grounds: say as immoral, unprofitable (non-economic),
> unjust, unethical... The "moral" ground is usually understood
as very
> close to the core of human condition, related to human nature itself
(that
> "zoe" pointed out by Rafael), and then understood slightly
different from
> the classical view in philosophy. Religions have been the traditional
> providers of the moral sense in almost every society: eg, the very clear
> ruling in the Ten Commandments of Christianity. Going to the
"economic"
> ground, it is highly regimented and abstract, wrapped in strict
accounting
> procedures (curiously related to the historical origins of numbers,
> algebra, symmetry...) and purports a high level of formal abstraction,
> notwithstanding its apparent immediateness. Then the "legal
system"
> appears as another grid, formally structured too, which attempts to make
a
> procedural "map" of almost any human action, particularly in
the
> situations amenable to conflict.
>
> Ethics would be different. Ethics implies the realization that none of
the
> previous grids to map human action has fulfilled its mission globally, in
> achieving a "total" vision of the social behavior of the
person. Some
> concrete actions of a person may be moral, profitable, and legal---but
> they may not be ethical after all. In bioethics (or in info ethics) we
> might point out very concrete, contemporary cases.
>
> Ethics means that the formal schemes of other disciplinary realms have
> failed (either economic, legal, or moral---well, "moral", as
least in the
> common sense I have taken it, representing the proto-group acceptable
> behavior for collective survival, is not necessarily formal after all,
but
> quite often it has little to say relating a complex social setting).
> Overall those regimentations of behavior would have failed to provide
> sufficient convergence or "closure" on the social interests.
Actually any
> human community becomes too complicated and variable to yield its
> "secrets" to any bureaucratic, economic, legal, scientific,
etc.
> formulae --am following J.C. Scott, 1998.
>
> Ethics, then, would explore the "irreducible" residues of the
common good
> which have not been detected by those other formal grids. Ethics explores
> particularly the new phenomena, the new techs, the new problems, the new
> achievements, as they impinge on the social fabric... those very events
> that will be a matter of legislation and economic ruling in a pretty near
> future. But, how could ethics achieve its focus on the unfocussed
matters?
> How would social collectives dramatize those new strange, unruled,
> conflicting events? Drama, poetry, music... would they be a good social
> tool in order to feel the unknown, to visualize it, to anticipate it? I
> think so.
>
> We are lead again to that discussion on "meaning and art" ...
where I
> subscribe a good portion of Lauri's dictum weeks ago: "arts are
> technologies of ethics". Maybe it could be said differently, but the
> exploration direction looks intriguing.
>
> best wishes
>
> Pedro
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Received on Sat Mar 18 11:18:14 2006
