Let’s introduce some method into ethics – into ethical theory - thus perhaps attempting to make ethics into a bit more-relevant knowledge. Let’s actually do some philosophy here. I’m enlisting your cooperation in this project: it’s an open-source endeavor. The entire history of ideas leads up to it; I make no claim to originality here.
Ethics can focus on the moral agent or on the moral situation. The moral agent is a man or woman – or an in-between; let us here refer to this as the individual.
The individual has a self-concept. Every concept has (at least) three components: a designator, a meaning, and an application. In the case of the self-concept, the designator is the person’s proper name. The meaning is the individual’s self-image (self-identity, value-structure, principles, conscience, etc.) The application is the actual physical body, the capacities, and the conduct of the individual. This is a material aspect of the ethical situation.
Morality is here defined as a match (to some degree) between the material aspects and the self-image, when the self-image (the “Self”) is an ethical one, an enlightened one …that is to say, an empathic and compassionate one.
If the individual were a computer, to use an analogy, the self-image would be the software and the material aspects would be the hardware. Both need each other to function at all. The body needs the brain, and it needs health. A healthy brain will be a normal one.
Everyone, whether they will admit it or not, cares - at least for themselves. {They may do it in a disguised way which looks exactly like heroism or self-sacrifice or martyrdom.} Once one has figured out his/her true self-interest one does not care for oneself alone: one has a degree of caring for others. [See the discussion of this in Ethical Adventures: Topics of Moral Significance, by M. C. Katz, pp. 13-14.] http://tinyurl.com/38zfrh7
Self-concern is based upon human biology. We note that even a baby cries when it wants something for itself. Later, with maturation, ethical development may take place, and occasionally we get the wunderkind, a child that has been abused or neglected, and still turns out well - the individual shows his capacity for empathy, kindness and compassion - we see Ethical principle applied. In the sense that every human individual is an expression of human biology, in that sense it is “a universal aim.” Its being universal in no way undermines an appreciation of cultural diversity, nor does it recommend a “one size fits all” ethics. In fact, the Hartman/Katz ethical theory emphasizes, and encourages the practice of, individuality, autonomy, and freedom.
Let’s briefly analyze the term “freedom” which is one of the terms of Ethics, a coherent discipline providing relevant knowledge. We shall employ the tools of Formal Axiology, including its dimensions of value, for this analysis:
Systemic freedom is the freedom to think and be moral.
Extrinsic freedom means freedom to move around, to move the limbs of the body, to have mobility, to travel, to relocate, etc.
Intrinsic freedom is freedom of conscience. This aspect of the Self was originally emphasized by the Intuitionists, such as Grotius and Pufendorf toward the end of the 16th-century. The conscience itself can be analyzed into the R-Conscience and the D-Conscience, that is, into the Reflective conscience and the Directive conscience. You will find the details about this HERE: http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/A%20UNIFIED%20THEORY%20OF%20ETHICS.pdf - pp. 7-13.
A normal individual is increasingly moral in these respects: he or she is grateful in attitude, is reliable, and is truthful, generous, and is even at times - in some sense - heroic. This is how one grows in morality.
Well, I have given you enough to chew on. I’d love to hear your upgrades and improvements, comments, and questions. Please be constructive in your observations, as the point here is to construct a better ethical theory.
