Dear Pedro,
I think we set our sights too low and we give up too soon if the best we
can do is treat ethics as "the art of moral problem solving." The
conflict and horrors in the social orders of our species follows
directly from such ambiguity. Earlier attempts may be incomplete or
failed but the pursuit still has merit.
I think it necessary, in terms of the "highest good," to pursue a
scientific foundation of ethics. One that may eventually provide the
sound underpinning of a new global society able to navigate its
diversity by reference to natural foundations.
The arts too will benefit from and be expanded by such a foundation in
my view.
As to economics, I clearly prefer that ethics is not driven by
economics. I believe that, in any case, the reverse is true.
With respect,
Steven
Pedro Marijuan wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> If ethics relates mostly to the quest for the "good" or for the
"good
> reasons" of our social behavior, apparently it can be treated as
> another discipline --really? An initial complication is about the
> subject --good... "to whom"? It maybe one's personal interests,
or
> his/her family, business, profession, country, species, Gaia... but
> those goodnesses are usually in conflict, even in dramatic
> contraposition. It is a frequent motif of dramas, movies, poetry, etc.
> (aren't we reminded "arts as technologies of ethics"?).
>
> And then the complications about the circumstances, say the
"boundary
> conditions". Any simple economic story or commercial transaction
> (e.g., remember that ugly provincial story about "the nail found in
> Zaragoza") may involve quite a number of situational changes and
> ethical variants ---if we put scale into a whole social dimension of
> multivariated networkings... it is just mind boggling. So I really
> would not put much weigh on those hierarchical categorizations that
> only take a minimalist snapshot upon a minimalist, almost nihilist
> scenario. However, some points by Loet months ago on how complexity
> may hide-in & show up along privileged axis might deserve discussion
> at this context.
>
> Could we accept ethics just as an Art of moral problem solving? Quite
> many conceptual tools would enter therein, but the
"scientificity" of
> the whole would not be needed. Even more, such scientificty would look
> suspicious to me. A few decades ago, a "scientific" guiding of
the
> whole social evolution was taking place in a number of countries...
> apparently paving the way to a new, conflict less Era!
>
> best regards
>
> Pedro
>
>
>
> At 22:56 06/05/2006, you wrote:
>> Replying to Pedro's query below, we can have:
>>
>> {physical / chemical affordances {biological behaviors {cultural
norms
>> {social guidance {personal past learnings {{{...{continuing process
of
>> individuation}}}}...}}}}}. Some of us would place ethics somewhere
>> between
>> social guidance and personal past learnings. An interesting question
in
>> this scheme is 'where is transcendence?' The problem is that there is
>> added, with each integrative level, further constraints. At present
>> I am
>> considering that, if we allocate the same energies at each level,
>> then the
>> remaining degrees of freedom in the higher levels will benefit from
>> having
>> stronger embodiment than would have been possible in the lower
>> levels. That
>> is to say that, e.g., behaviors which could only be weakly supported
in,
>> say, the biological level, become more possible to be manifested in,
>> say,
>> the social level.
>>
>> STAN
>>
>>
>>
>> >Dear FIS colleagues,
>> >
>> >The question recently raised by Luis, but also in a different way
by
>> Karl,
>> >Stan and others, is a tough one. How do our formal
"disciplinary"
>> >approaches fare when confronting the "global" reality
of social
>> life? My
>> >point is that most of knowledge impinging on social life matters
is of
>> >informal, implicit, practical, experiential nature. How can one
gain
>> access
>> >to cognitive "stocks" of such volatile nature? Only by
living, by
>> >socializing, by a direct hands-on participation... Each new
>> generation has
>> >to find its own way, to co-create its own socialization path. No
>> moral or
>> >ethical progress then!!! (contrarily to the advancement of other
>> areas of
>> >knowledge). Obviously, learning machines or techno environments
cannot
>> >substitute for a socialization process --a side note for
"prophets"
>> of the
>> >computational.
>> >
>> >By the way, in those nice categorizations by Stan --it isn't
logically
>> >awkward that the subject tries to be both subject and observer at
>> the same
>> >time? If it is so, the categorization process goes amok with
social
>> >openness of relations and language open-endedness, I would put.
Karl's
>> >logic is very strict, provided one remains strictly within the
same
>> set of
>> >reference. Anyhow, it is a very intriguing discussion.
>> >
>> >best
>> >
>> >Pedro
>> >
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>>
>>
>>
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Received on Mon May 8 20:15:03 2006
