Dear Pedro,
very shortly. I very much agree with your evolutionary views.
The only point of disagreement concerns the use of the word "bios" instead
of "zoe" in the case of "proto-groups," if we agree that "zoe" is
related to
the biological (!) level. This is probably the reason for the
misunderstanding. Biology is the wrong word for "zoology." I do not know who
created these words and why the original concept of "bios" was "zoologized"!
Second remark: at the moment when a human population starts making (oral)
reflections on who has the power to disseminate (accept, deny...) messages
we have to do with a human (information) society. I do not know if this is
strictly speaking "a moment" in the history of mankind and I do not know how
this informational 'effect' came about. What we call (moral) information
rules started then. Ethics came (probably) later, and much later, of course,
if we conceive it as "science of morals."
kind regards
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: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 2:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Fis] ON INFORMATION ETHICS
> Dear Rafael & Michael,
>
> Thanks for the thoughtful opening text. Given that apparently ethics is
> far away from an informational perspective (and that they can only be
> reproached through the contraption "info ethics"), perhaps a
preliminary
> discussion on the evolution of social complexity might be in order. Let
me
> try with a few basic ideas.
>
> If we go to the most primitive human societies, e.g., following Jared
> Diamond, to those proto-groups (hunter-gatherer "bands") of 60
to 100
> people, there we find the enactment of your "bios" (see below
in R & M
> text), and only that. Behaving into that close-knit group goes mostly as
a
> direct gift from our genome, supposing that a regular epigenesis and a
> regular social group are embracing the individual. In this
"natural"
> setting, the morality is pretty strict. No ethics needed.
>
> With husbandry, agriculture, villages, etc. (artificial ecosystems), we
> have a different and far more complex social environment ---not readily
> accessible like the previous one. Some social inventions are needed,
> including norms of behavior regarding people not directly connected
> (conflicts, extended parenthood), plus the forging of a collective
> identity, ceremonies, counting, calendars, etc. Indeed this has to be
made
> coherently, more or less rationally, and overall this appears as the
> social creation of the "ethos" (see below) terribly dependent
on the
> concrete artificial ecosystems which support social life.
>
> In a common view of both bios & ethos, one could emphasize that
crossing a
> critical threshold of complexity in the social network is at stake.
Beyond
> that, our evolutionary genotype-phenotype--"sociotype" cannot
provide
> anymore the behavioral guidance. From the instinctive "moral"
we need
> additional "ethics" (as Rafael implies, the latter often
putting into
> question big portions of the former). Given that any stage in social
> evolution, social complexity is tantamount to the overlap of dynamic
> social networks (or networks of social "bonds"), which are
built,
> maintained, dissolved, etc., by information exchange ---one arrives with
> some relative easiness to the notion that indeed there is deep connection
> between information and ethics.
>
> Let me boldly argue that ethics means but the conditions for
"collective
> closure" of a viable, complex society. So, previous
"informational
> revolutions" in societies have always needed to put in a different
light
> the ethical dimension, irrespective of the concrete "doctrine"
which has
> torn asunder the preexisting fabric. And nowadays it is the turn for the
> genuine "information society (as questions Q2 -- Q5 clearly imply).
>
> best regards
>
> Pedro
>
> PS. I have just received Karl's and cannot include comments on it.
>
>
> At 14:05 03/03/2006, you wrote:
>
>>Ethics is, like any other field of scientific and philosophic
research,
>>not only controversial concerning its methodology and goals but also
>>concerning its very nature. Philosophers have been developing ethical
>>theories for thousands of years in different cultures. One starting
point
>>for our discussions could be the difference between "life"
in a biological
>>sense and "life" or "human existence". This
difference was basic in Greek
>>philosophy. The ancient Greek used two different words for life,
namely
>>"zoe" and "bios". Ethics is basically about
"bios," i.e., about the
>>'design' of human existence or of the place where we live
("ethos"). This
>>presupposes that we do not only live within open possibilities (this
is
>>the case of other living beings too), but that we are aware of them.
In
>>classic terms, this is the question of freedom in the sense not only
of
>>freedom "from" but of freedom "for". But things
are of course more
>>complex, since we are not only living beings in the sense of
"bios" but
>>also of "zoe" so that our options for "good life"
are intertwined with the
>>possibilities given by nature as well as with the ones we artificially
>>create by ourselves.
>>......
>
>
>>We usually make a difference between ethics and morality, where ethics
(or
>>"techne ethik�") is the science of morals
("ethos"), morals being the
>>phenomenon we study. This is an important difference because in normal
>>life people use both words (and even both concepts!) as synonyms. It
is
>>also important to grasp ethics as the place where morality can be
>>(theoretically) questioned. In other words, an ethical discussion
arises
>>when given moral laws governing our behavior are not any more obvious.
>>
>>As you know, Kant suggested that moral laws should be conceived in
analogy
>>to natural laws from a formal standpoint. Kant also made a strong
>>difference between human beings as far as they belong to nature and as
far
>>as they are "ends in themselves." These (and other) Kantian
are part of
>>our Western culture, including our legal norms. They were Kant's
answer to
>>Newton, i.e., to a universe conceived as deterministic in which there
was
>>no place for freedom. We have not a similar fundamental philosophic
answer
>>to modern science (evolution, quantum physics, molecular biology
etc.).
>>So, our suggestion is to start discussing this matter.
>>
>
>
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Received on Tue Mar 7 19:55:14 2006
