Dear Colleagues,
Jim asked how I related my view of
ethics in terms of integrity (completeness)
to the History Ethic defined in my book
Symmetry, Causality, Mind.
The relation is this:
I view it all as part of a theory of health.
The word "health" comes from the same
root in language as the word "wholeness".
Psychological health comes from integration,
and an essential part of this is the
process of remembering, i.e., bringing
the memory objects into an integrated structure
of mind. Thus one can regard the process of
gaining psychological health as an
example of the History Ethic.
A memory object belongs to a person,
whether they acknowledge it or refuse
to acknowledge it. The basis of unethical
behavior is the individual who refuses to
acknowledge their own memory objects.
An example is the fascist, who lives a dissociated
life in which, to maintain this dissociation, they
must control all others.
The very processes of destructive behavior
to their own memory objects become the
same processes by which they try to destroy
others.
So it is by refusing to remember, that the
non-integrated person, i.e., the person without integrity,
becomes an unethical person.
best
Michael Leyton
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Received on Thu May 11 18:00:33 2006
