I note something salient in Rafael's posting -- his insistence upon
returning to the notion of informational constraint as it relates to
"blocking development". As someone who senses that development around the
world has gotten altogether 'out of hand', I wonder why he feels that this
is so crucial. Perhaps it is just that the view from different societies
is different. My view is from a center of development -- the US, where all
values have become subsumed into exchange value by the persons who 'count'
-- that is, those who became wealthy through development, and the
government they support, mutually. In societies that are already highy
'developed' -- the 'West' -- there is only one trajectory to follow upon
further development -- the road into senescence, a situation poised for
destruction by any major perturbation. Obviouly we cannot reverse
development, but we could try to restrain it so that our cultural maturity
might last longer than it likely would once the system has become senescent.
STAN
STAN
>Dear Pedro and all,
>
>I very much agree with Pedro's views of what ethics is about. We could
also
>say that ethics is an informational science as far as it analizes morality
>i.e. the rules of society(ies) considering them under the conditions of
>their historical development and future possibilities. The key point is
then
>how far such rules block societal development which means at the same time
>that the "ideas"
>or "goals" must/can be reconsidered and
"re-imaginized." This is the deep
>connection
>between ethics with drama, poetry, music...
>At the other end there is the connection of ethics with natural sciences
as
>far as they are also
>dynamic or informational sciences that take into consideration the
"basic
>(natural) laws" behind human action.
>In this case not only arts but also natural sciences are
"technologies of
>ethics" (Lauri's dictum). Michel Foucault distinguishes between
>- technologies of producing (material) things (engineering/natural
sciences)
>- technologies of signs (semiotics and IT=cybersemiotics)
>- technologies of power (law)
>and technologies of the self (which include for instance writing, self
>analysis, meditation, etc.)
>We can analyze at the micro-level (that corresponds to the level of the
>cell) the laws/forces blocking societal development. We can also analize
as
>how for instance IT is an ex/inclusive technology i.e. how far it blocks
>development and which are the symptons (sings) of this blocking. This is a
>view that relates also technology to nature as far as the blocking
processes
>are related to the material/informational ground(s) of human (technical)
>action. It is more of the kind of a daoist ethics (and less Confucian!)
(For
>this intercultural view of information ethics see my (in German)
>http://www.capurro.de/parrhesia.html
>cheers
>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: Thursday, March 16, 2006 1:01 PM
>Subject: Re: [Fis] ON INFORMATION ETHICS
>
>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> Should we keep discussing the Prolegomena on info & ethics or
should we
>> jump into the concrete questions about the contemporary revolution of
info
>> technologies? Apologies for being focused again in the former,
hopefully
>> it will help to produce more interesting answers about the latter...
>>
>> If ethics is related to a collective dimension of an individual's
>> "fitness" (within a complex society), and if we suppose
that fitness
>> itself is amenable to formal/informational treatments (or will be in
a
>> foreseeable future), it seems difficult not to conclude on some form
of
>> informational reductionism on ethics. However, I feel in a strong
>> disagreement with that apparent reductionist conclusion derived from
my
>> own responses to the opening text. So, let me backtrack.
>>
>> In a complex society, any individual's action may be subject to
scrutiny
>> on very different grounds: say as immoral, unprofitable
(non-economic),
>> unjust, unethical... The "moral" ground is usually
understood as very
>> close to the core of human condition, related to human nature itself
(that
>> "zoe" pointed out by Rafael), and then understood slightly
different from
>> the classical view in philosophy. Religions have been the traditional
>> providers of the moral sense in almost every society: eg, the very
clear
>> ruling in the Ten Commandments of Christianity. Going to the
"economic"
>> ground, it is highly regimented and abstract, wrapped in strict
accounting
>> procedures (curiously related to the historical origins of numbers,
>> algebra, symmetry...) and purports a high level of formal
abstraction,
>> notwithstanding its apparent immediateness. Then the "legal
system"
>> appears as another grid, formally structured too, which attempts to
make a
>> procedural "map" of almost any human action, particularly
in the
>> situations amenable to conflict.
>>
>> Ethics would be different. Ethics implies the realization that none
of the
>> previous grids to map human action has fulfilled its mission
globally, in
>> achieving a "total" vision of the social behavior of the
person. Some
>> concrete actions of a person may be moral, profitable, and
legal---but
>> they may not be ethical after all. In bioethics (or in info ethics)
we
>> might point out very concrete, contemporary cases.
>>
>> Ethics means that the formal schemes of other disciplinary realms
have
>> failed (either economic, legal, or moral---well, "moral",
as least in the
>> common sense I have taken it, representing the proto-group acceptable
>> behavior for collective survival, is not necessarily formal after
all, but
>> quite often it has little to say relating a complex social setting).
>> Overall those regimentations of behavior would have failed to provide
>> sufficient convergence or "closure" on the social
interests. Actually any
>> human community becomes too complicated and variable to yield its
>> "secrets" to any bureaucratic, economic, legal, scientific,
etc.
>> formulae --am following J.C. Scott, 1998.
>>
>> Ethics, then, would explore the "irreducible" residues of
the common good
>> which have not been detected by those other formal grids. Ethics
explores
>> particularly the new phenomena, the new techs, the new problems, the
new
>> achievements, as they impinge on the social fabric... those very
events
>> that will be a matter of legislation and economic ruling in a pretty
near
>> future. But, how could ethics achieve its focus on the unfocussed
matters?
>> How would social collectives dramatize those new strange, unruled,
>> conflicting events? Drama, poetry, music... would they be a good
social
>> tool in order to feel the unknown, to visualize it, to anticipate it?
I
>> think so.
>>
>> We are lead again to that discussion on "meaning and art"
... where I
>> subscribe a good portion of Lauri's dictum weeks ago: "arts are
>> technologies of ethics". Maybe it could be said differently, but
the
>> exploration direction looks intriguing.
>>
>> best wishes
>>
>> Pedro
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>
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Received on Sat Mar 18 21:24:50 2006
