Today, most academics rely chiefly on Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethica as the guide for the modern world. We need a 21st-century Ethics, wouldn’t you agree? That’s how I feel anyway. So I propose that we, cooperatively, and in an open source manner, construct a science of Ethics. How? By sharpening up the key terms we find in ethical philosophy, making them clearer and more exact. Now let’s get to some history of ideas in moral philosophy.
Let us begin this brief glimpse of the history of ethics with Augustine (354-430), who contributed the concept that it is up to man to perfect his own creation, to bring good from evil. Love is what helps us to do this.
The Stoics, such as Epictetus, were important too. They are very worth studying.
Later, Montaigne, in 1588, recommends that the best course for an individual is to listen to his inner voice. If we follow our conscience, he advised, it will guide us.
Spinoza, as wise as he was - and that’s very, very wise, was a Rationalist,(as well as was Descartes) who believed that an ethical system should be coherent and logical; and its terms ought to be defined. This is most commendable. However, the Rationalist believed that just working out a theory of ethics that held together - he thought it was as strict as Geometry - would necessarily say something about the concrete world. Hartman did not follow them in their belief that they are demonstrating the truth of their principles. Instead he knew it would be better to follow the example of Galileo, who founded the science of Mechanics, the earliest branch of Physics, by interpreting the aristotelean idea of “change” or “movement” as something new; namely “motion” (rate of change) defined by a formula, containing variables: [Distance covered, when divided by units of time has an exact relationship - namely equivalence - to ‘rate of speed’]. This connects with the empirical world of sense perception …and that’s what we need in Ethics.
Spinoza’s Ethics is very systematic, full of precision and subtlety. Both Spinoza and Hartman saw clearly [as Hartman was later to demonstrate in his defining exactly - for the first time in history - a “good” x - and showed how it differed from a “yellow” x - although they both may describe the specific x in question] that value judgments are modes of thinking and depend upon who the judge happens to be. Spinoza wrote: “One and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For instance, music is good for him that is melancholy, bad for him that mourns ; for him who is deaf, it is neither good nor bad.” {When he wrote “…bad for him that mourns” the New Orleans up-tempo gospel-hymn traditions did not occur to him then.}
And Hugo Grotius, in 1624, though he agreed with that counsel, wanted to work out ways that people could get along with each other sociably. He spelled out some empirically-based directions for avoiding quarrels that mediators still use today.
In 1625 Edward of Cherbourg developed some of Grotius’ ideas and further claimed that humans have an intuitive grasp of moral truths which give us a knowledge of natural law. Today that view, as modified, is known as Intuitionism. About the same time, both Pufendorf and Hobbes were advancing the concept of ‘a social contract.’
Ralph Cudworth and Samuel Clarke, writing in the early 1700s taught that there are universal moral principles that our intuitions can reflect and that moral knowledge can make us self-governing. Joseph Butler, and Thomas Reid, in 1788, endorsed the Intuitionist point-of-view also.
Both Schopenhauer (1788-1860) and Albert Schweitzer (1875-1966) emphasized the will-to-live. The former stressed the role of ‘sympathy’ and conscience. [Today we speak of empathy and ground it in brain-neurology.] This philosopher recommended that we not give in to every desire we may have, and instead give our attention to art and to science.
Schweitzer also had a theory of man’s will. In his life he claimed he managed to see the natural pattern of the whole of phenomena - today we speak of the web-of-life - which led him to conclude that this directs us to accept responsibility for others – even for animals with a spinal chord who are capable of suffering pain. He taught: Do not live for yourself alone and your life will then be richer, more beautiful, and happier. Have reverence for life. This is critical.
Bertrand Russell ((1872-1970) in his ethical writings, stressed personal development: happiness for human beings, he concluded, is only possible to those who develop their god-like potentialities to the utmost. He counseled: Make your desires compatible with those of others, and thus reduce conflict.
Three hundred years after Spinoza wrote that “one and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent…” by substituting different constants (arguments, specifications) for the variable C, in the matrix, “x is good C”, Hartman showed that x can be good as “wedding music” yet bad as “funeral music” when x is a really-lively tune. {Alert: this is only an illustration, and not something to ‘get hung up’ over.]
The Unified Theory of Ethics indicates that we each work out our own ideas, as we commit ourselves to being decent human beings, who aim to be as moral as we can be; yet it may be helpful to know the history of ideas and what we can learn from earlier thinkers who may have had a glimpse of wisdom, a grain of insight, insights that eventually would be confirmed by scientific findings and careful research.
I hope this has been helpful.
Comments? Questions?