Dear List,
The recent discussions on ethics are bewildering and irrationally vague.
What, for example, does "integrity" mean? Did I miss a formal
definition of it? And what, exactly, is "a much deeper knowledge" -
this distinct between integral and intellectual simply makes no sense to me.
In my view there are two senses in which the term ethics may be justly
used. And by "ethics" I mean exactly the cause of intentional
behaviors, no more.
There are "natural ethics" the sources of inevitable behavior, in which
survival and welfare are the primary motivators. Piracy, for example,
is an natural ethic - it is the inevitable product of social conditions
in which property dynamics are not in balance (where some are denied
access to available resources and others hoard). The second form is of
the kind more generally discussed, the conventions that mitigate natural
ethics.
Even though this second kind of ethics, conventions, are prescriptive in
nature, my constructive view of ethics itself is not prescriptive. One
can readily imagine a meta-ethics, a science of ethics, that formalizes
the characterization of natural ethics and mitigating conventions that
is predictive; i.e., can predict intentional behavior in groups.
Only when such a science exists can we begin to consider optimization.
With respect,
Steven
Luis Serra (by way of Pedro Marijuan <marijuan@unizar.es>) wrote:
> ...
> What is the type of information required to be integral, to reach
> individual's completeness? In my opinion, Integrity, in the sense
> referred by Michael, requires a much deeper knowledge than just
> intellectual knowledge: it requires to realize it, to deeply assume
> it. In my opinion it is not either a question of, say, "blind
belief"
> in some behavior or something doctrinal. Integrity, in the sense I
> understood to Michael, comes naturally as a result of personal
> maturity and experience. Therefore, in the context of this great
> discussion on Ethics and Information I wonder:
> - what kind or what type of information is required to reach
> individual's completeness?, and also,
> - where this information can be obtained?
>
> A second comment very much connected with the previous one.
> Somebody said (Socrates, I think) that human beings' evil does not
> exist, it is just a question of ignorance. Again, a similar question
> arises to me: What kind of information could be the "antidote"
of
> human evil? Does this question make a very special sense in our
> globalized societies?
> ...
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Received on Tue May 2 22:44:10 2006
