Dear Rafael and colleagues,
Just a couple of points. First, about your paragraph "ethics as a
scientific discipline is viable at all times... " I tend to agree, but only
partially. Morals in the philosophical wide sense you take (as already
stated, I prefer to restrict them only to "human nature", that instinctive
behavior in a protogroup, directly related say to the chain of successive
realms: genotype, phenotype, ecotype, sociotype) would have to contend with
quite a few scientific disciplines dealing with human behavior. At least,
we could mention: neuroethology, human ethology, ecological psychology,
social psychology, cultural anthropology... even political philosophy.
Perhaps one cannot be much optimistic about the integration of contents in
any of those disciplines (or in ethical foundations) for a central theory
of the neurosciences is still missing (Edelman, Crick, Arbib...). It does
not mean that we should stop thinking, but that we must carefully select
and analyze quite many stepping stones we have traditionally considered
firm enough. A lot of interdisciplinary practice with "consilience" may be
needed to advance towards info foundations for ethics.
Thanks for Varela's reference. I had read a couple of other editions he
made during the 90's (with Evans and others) and was left rather
unsatisfied. Apart from "bodily reactions" which I like and take home, in
the perception side of our action-perception cycles there is also very
intriguing loads. We have put socially in circulation quite a few "visions"
--utopias and other modernist and postmodernist stuff of amazingly abstract
visual nature-- that are very disturbing of any rational discourse of
ethics. If one is in commands of such high views of social order, why do
not remove those disposable micro-individuals who may be resisting (wasn't
a prelude of it that part of the Faustian story, when the great Planner
assasinates the two modest persons resisting his big scheme of social
order??). Unfortunately the story keeps repeating endlessly.
best regards
Pedro
At 18:58 07/04/2006, you wrote:
>Dear Pedro and all,
>
>ethics as a scientific discipline is viable at all times. It has been so
>for thousands of years in our tradition. I see no reason why we
>should/could stop reflecting on morals. This would mean a re-action that
>would block (or intend to block) the process of giving ourselves reasons
>for our actions. The foundation of ethics is itself not the same as the
>foundations of morals, if we compare ethics with physics (and morals with
>nature) then the foundations of ethics corresponds to the foundations of
>physics (which is not a physical but a philosophical matter).
>
>Regarding Maturana and Varela: As you probably know, Varela published a
>very remarkable book on ethics "Un know-how per l'etica" (Roma
1992) in
>which he describes how morality (!) is "enacted" in bodily
reactions, i.e.
>as bodily "know how".
>This is similar to what Aristotle says about "habits"
("hexis"). Varela's
>book is a reflection on morality, i.e. it is a book on ethics but ethics
>is not itself a foundation of moral action (at
>least not directly). The question of the sources (or "forces")
for moral
>action
>is a deep and very controversial (ethical) question not only in Western
>thought (think about the difference between Rousseau and Hobbes concerning
>human nature).
>
>kind regards
>
>Rafael
>
>Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro
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Received on Tue Apr 11 14:13:04 2006
