You tell him, Sanjay 
By the phrase “highest quality of life” is meant: the richest life, the one richest in properties (descriptive adjectives and the physical properties they apply to). So this alludes to a nondenumerable amount of properties - so many that one ccan’t count them but must see them as a gestalt - not only for one individual but preferably for one and all. Whatever affects you directly affects me indirectly, for we are all connected. [For example, we are connected right here at this I LOVE PHILOSOPHY site, having a dialog.] What helps you - if it really helps you - helps me. We (members of the human species) rise or fall together.
I entirely agree with you that those neurologists got it wrong.
They fail to see that it a matter of value-judgment, and that a values analysis is basic to understanding the concept.
Let’s talk about the concept “temptation”, for the yielding to it is a concern of the field of Individual Ethics. Those who give in to temptation do not take the long-term view; they do not recognize long-term value. Yielding to temptation is a demand for instant gratification. Thus it is short-term thinking and is a poor value choice. When people acquire the valuegenic perspective {in contrast to the self-centric one} they tend to be mindful every moment of long-term values. Then they are likely to make wise decisions as they go through life. They make sound value-judgments which enable them better to adapt and survive.
Thank you for teaching the importance of meditation. Yes, there is nothing new under the Sun. Though the technique of asking oneself, and being mindful of, The Central Question of Life, as recommended in the Axiogenic program, and how to make it a regular habit, is rather new. I gave a link to find out more about it. Go to amindforsuccess.com to be reminded of it.
Philosophers make important distinctions. We ought to distinguish between “self-centeredness” and “selfishness.” It is the latter which violates ethics, as I argue in my papers for which links are offered below. Social injustice causes people to hurt.
When people hurt they tend to focus on themselves. When they are hurting they cannot concentrate on anything but themselves! They are, what is spoken of in the system of Axiogenics as ‘self-centric.’ [This is contrasted with ‘axiocentric’ which means: value-creating.]
Yet some who are hurting seek out solutions from a therapist, a mentor, or a coach to relieve the pain. It is a wise move to get coaching ! MINIMIZE SUFFERING is an Ethical principle in the new paradigm for Ethics. {Another related principle is: MAXIMIZE THE QUALITY OF LIFE FOR ALL.)
It is thus vital, if one cares about advancing ethics in the world, to work for social justice. Justice is an important concept for ethical theory; and I have earlier analyzed this concept here in its legal and jurisoprudential aspects. In the Unified Theory, and in the thread “The Beautiful Simplicity of Ethical Concepts” I have alluded to some elements of social justice.
We are all better off if folks know their strengths and they emphasize them: some may excel in conflict resolution, some may have a talent for sales and marketing, or they may have leadership skills, or they may excel in priorities-management, which is what “Time Management” comes down to; or they may be strong in Emotional Intelligence and empathy. A good test can bring all this out, can reveal their skills. Such a test is the HVP, mentioned in an earlier post.
I appreciate that you found this thread to be “excellent.” It speaks well of you.
Yours for Ethics, with even more love
thinkdr
Greetings, Sanjay
Did you read this paragraph in the o.p. of the thread, Steps To Value Creation, to which I gave a link in a post above? It is relevant to your question as to the concept of “Quality of Life”:
After he gains a certain wisdom he realizes that it is not really more customers that he wants – the money is secondary; it is a means to an end – what he really wants is a greater quality of life. …more leisure, friends to share it with, better relationships, more recognition, more love. He wants a more valuable life, a more-meaningful life. He wants to optimize his well-being, the quality of his life. S/he wants to make a difference. …not to have lived and died in vain. S/he wants things to make sense.; and wants some rich experiences to reflect upon.
So to speak to Jim’s concern, before you attempt to persuade, qualify the person first. Who are you addressing? If the individual is a professor, an academician, or a philosophy student, you speak with more sophistication in your vocabulary. If it is a 'person-in-the-street, say, a bum, say to him “How zit going?” If he is dressed well, say “How are you doing?” If - from the response - you think the person is able to comprehend, to engage in higher mental processes, then ask: “Have you done anything lately that makes you feel better and everyone feel better?” “Yah”. You then reply: "Tell me about it… "
If the response is “Huh??” then don’t work on “converting the heathen”; I’m not interested in doing that at all. Instead, find someone who wants to improve himself; and discuss with him or her. Say to them: " You know, I often ask myself: ‘What can I do that makes me feel better - and everyone feel better?’ It really works nice. I recommend that question for people to try it, to ask (it of) themselves." Declare enthusiastically: “I find that when I practice it, life works for me, and I feel great!!”
When I wrote about “evil genes” I noted the fact that psychopaths make up about 3 percent of the Earth’s population. That is what the source I quoted informs us.
Work with the other 97 percent.
More to the point, how do you persuade a group of extremely insecure, ego-defensive people, also commonly known as “people who love to hate”, “presumptuous”, “hyper-critical”, “judgmental”, “blind to the real situation of themselves and others”, “misled”, “conned/tricked”,…
Or perhaps a large group of people who are extremely sensitive to anything even remotely suggestive of Christianity (ie altruism, agape, “doing good for others”); Nietzschians, Atheists, Secularists, Wiccans, Judist priests, Darwinists, “money grubbers”, “the dis-eased”, “the diseased”, “the frustrated”, “the controlled”?
Or merely those who aren’t pleased by claims of being logical when such claims actually aren’t.
You might have to more clearly define that word “psychopath”.
Greetings, James
Psychopaths lack the capacity (due to brain damage) to Intrinsically value, that is to say, to feel empathy, to get “in the flow”, to get involved; they have apathia; they seem unfeeling. They cannot show compassion - although they may be well able to fake it. Not all of them are violent. Some have never committed any (legal) offense. They can be detected as early as age 4. They are the kid in the nursery or kindergarten who grabs a toy from another kid and is totally indifferent to the tears of the kid just deprived of the toy. They also may be seen then as cruel to animals. They show no signs of caring. {Some of them put on an act as if they do care, either for defensive reasons, or to get by in society.}
As for those others you describe, do not even attempt to persuade those groups: they will conform to the prevailing cultural ethos. When the sciences of Positive Psychology, Moral Psychology, Brain Neurology, and Axiogenics receive prominence because they have reached a certain stage of maturity, having many solid replicable studies to their credit, and they are written up in the popular media sites, appear on You-tube, get mentioned often on TV, etc., then they will have an impact. They speak with authority; they become the cultural norm. They then have acquired respectability.
Then it will be the technologies, and designs, that have issued from them that result in making life simpler and easier - and that is what will sway those groups you are so worried about and focused on. For they are swayed by “authority.” And many, if not most, of them will want to take advantage of the latest technology. [Such moral technologies of the past were the printing press,the jury system, mass-production, the internet, the world-wide web, distributed programming, the mobile phone, the iphone, the X-Prize, the Tesla car, and all the other developments mentioned in Peter Diamandes book, ABUNDANCE.] See the first item listed here: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-keywords=ABUNDANCE&index=blended&link_code
Don’t be so anxious to have influence. (Put the ego in its place; have humility.) However, you can transform a person - who is willing - by mentoring, or by coaching. If you cause any change in someone, you have exerted influence. We - in the field of Ethics, and as facilitated in the Axiogenics program that was earlier recommended for you - encourage and promote Self-influence. Remember: BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE.
That means: Be a living example, set a good example. It speaks louder than words !!!
In any city you can probably find someone younger than you, from a poor family, who needs mentoring. Sign up for it. And you can transform a life.
WAYS TO BE WRONG
(with thanks to Rush Kidder)
b[/b] Violations of law.
b[/b] Departure from truth False-to-fact statements; being mistaken about empirical conditions and evidence; calling in sick when you are not. Etc.
b[/b] Deviation from honesty, justice, and responsibility. Personal corruption. Being willing to ‘put a person down.’ Intentionally inflicting harm. Cruelty, lying, abuse, being manipulative, throwing one’s weight around, deliberately hurting someone – we know that’s wrong!
Examples: I say I will meet you for lunch at noon. I do something else instead and I don’t bother to call you. Or, quoting Kidder, “a doctor urges upon a patient an expensive procedure when a less-expensive treatment would do. …A politician presents opposed and conflicting promises to different groups. These things are wrong not because they violate law or fail to comport with fact, but because they go against the moral grain. They don’t square, in other words, with the code of inner value that is so widely shared and broadly understood that it defines - at least for our place and time - the difference between right and wrong.” [size=78](Excerpted from HOW GOOD PEOPLE MAKE TOUGH CHOICES: Resolving the dilemmas of ethical living by Rushworth M. Kidder (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1955).[/size]
There are two basic assumptions that many people (including those who obstruct the implementing of good ideas in government) hold on to:
(1) “I am superior to other individuals.”
(2) “Violence is a way to solve problems.”
Those lead to many an injustice that we face. It leads to premature death. These confused cognitive beliefs lead to the waging of war, which in turn - among other factors outlined by Arnold J.Toynbee - brings down the civilizations that engage in those wars. It leads to machine-guns employed in rapid massacres, such as at Sandy Hook Elementary School Or Mei Lai, Vietnam.
Those two self-sentences (that we repeat to ourselves until we come to believe them) rank with some others relevant to Ethics such as: “What’s in it for me? [size=85]('cause life is about getting, not giving)[/size]”;
“Why should I care (about those outside my family, my tribe); I don’t care about them”;
“Money can buy me happiness!” “Greed is good.”
“Everyone has their price …make me an offer.”
“A single feature (characteristic) can tell us a lot about a whole group who share that feature.[such as skin color or gender]”
Those are basic among the false beliefs that we tell ourselves. There are plenty of others.
What is the remedy? Education. Especially education in Ethics. Ethics explains not only how people may be wrong, but how one may be right, how to “do the right thing.” Let’s define some terms:
WAYS TO BE RIGHT
(with thanks to Lori Pierelli)
“Ethics” she writes “describes what is acceptasble conduct in society. Ethics serves as a guide to moral daily living and helps us judge whether our behavior can be justified. While ethics is a societal concern, it is of critical importance to the professions that serve society” and it is only as good as the quality of individual morality.
Mores are values “defined as the acts, customs and institutions that a group of people regard in a favorable way.
Value judgments “typically contain words [and gestures] of approval, disapproval, and obligation. However, value judgments do not have to contain specific value words. “That is a lie” does not contain a particular word of disapproval but the implication that a lie is wrong is understood.”
Integrity: “To have integrity is to be honest and sincere.”
Integrity - as Lori P. defines it - “is adhering to a moral code in daily decision-making. Integrity is one of the most important characteristics an individual can have. Put simply, when people and businesses possess integrity, it means they can be trusted.
Character: Character drives what we do when no one is looking. Each person has the ability to build, change, or even destroy his or her own character… We can build our character through the way we live – by thinking good thoughts and performing good acts.”
– quoted from BOMI’s Ethics is Good Business – Short Course.
Actually, life is more about giving than getting - as I argue in my other posts and threads.
We need to say to ourselves “We’re all in this together. What helps you helps me. I get it.” Until one has this attitude s/he is not truly educated. Once we acquire enlightened-self-interest we will see things this way.
Conclusion: A sense of ethics, living it, having a good character, and having integrity are important for building trust, and are “ways to be right.”
Do you want to be right?
Well, one can speak to it, but when the wall just isn’t listening…
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On the Internet, I find what I see as basically two kinds of Christians. There are those who state their beliefs and resolve to simply have faith. When challenged, they basically just say, “Well, what I believe is this…”. Of course what someone says they believe and what they really believe are seldom the same, but everyone has faith in something, most just don’t realize it. If I find what they are saying is not too terribly objectionable, I usually leave that type alone, perhaps offering merely a correction or two concerning what I believe to be a misunderstanding/misinterpretation, but I don’t push it.
But then there are those who profess Logic and attempt to argue. They were told not to do that, but I guess they didn’t read that part. Once they do that, they have not only stepped into my arena, but in effect, offended my “religion” (in a manner of speaking). If their version of reasoning isn’t too terribly offensive, I go easy one them. I am more in the mindset of suggesting that they think again before promoting their cause based upon their version of Logic. And in the few cases where they simply insist, I become compelled to introduce them to the Rock and the Hard-place. Logic is for humble hardcore designers and strategists, a somewhat masculine thing, not for the daily living of the common citizenry or salesmen.
As I tried to point out, this isn’t so much a site to sell theories, but more to find out what might be wrong with them, (logically invalid or simply unacceptable to some types of people with alternate attitudes or preferences). I have my own theory of ethics with which I both compare and contrast others as well as investigate for validity. So let me, if I may, investigate some details of your theory…?
There is a woman who comes to visit me on occasion. She often purchases and brings muffins, bagels, or candies of a variety of type, conveniently forgetting that I don’t eat such things. So I stockpile them for visitors. The most common visitor who indulges in them is none other than her.
I can easily see that she really shouldn’t be eating them either, but she hasn’t much to do in her life that she can actually do and finds the tempting things far too tempting to resist. Preoccupation is prerequisite to prevention (ref; Rational Metaphysics: Affectance Ontology). Of course if I had the means to keep her preoccupied with healthier activities, to offer that would be the obvious “good behavior” on my part. But unfortunately such resources are very limited.
So the question is, according to your theory, am I being more good or more bad by such a response to her?
The topic of this thread is recent innovations in Ethics, so I am kind of baffled as to why we are discussing types of Christians. The Unified Theory of Ethics is a secular theory. It offers technical definitions of concepts such as “integrity” (in terms of the mathematics of fractals) and of “morality” (in terms of class-membership and the correspondence relation). It is a grand synthesis of moral philosophies from all the great historical traditions including the Tao and Shinto and Mencius. For contributors to ethical thought see the partial listing HERE: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=183911
Also see the sections on ethics in each part of W.T. Jones, A HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY amazon.com/s/175-6446854-690 … nded&link_
You ask:"…if I had the means to keep her preoccupied with healthier activities, to offer that would be the obvious “good behavior” on my part. But unfortunately such resources are very limited.
So the question is, according to your theory, am I being more good or more bad by such a response to her?"
Why not refer her to Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s presentation on P.B.S.and let him do the persuading? See drfuhrman.com/
Or refer her to this internet site for her study and consideration healthscience.org/
Suggest to her that she might check it out, see what new knowledge they have to offer her, and give it a try – just “for the heck of it…” If she does, she’ll be thanking you for the rest of your life ! For she then will experience far less aches and pains, sicknesses and annoyances, than anyone else she knows, and for as long as she lives, and keeps up with it.
The idea is for her (or anyone else) not to get tempted [-in her case, by the bagels and muffins -] in the first place 
This means one needs to think long-range, and holistically about a cluster of values at once, with general over-all vibrant, sparkling health being prioritized, as being highly valued. With that as her philosophy of life she won’t go wrong and the other details will fall into place. If she really gets the message of those sites, and practices what she learns every cell of her body will be rejuvenated and glowing health will be her legacy, as it is for me.
I do not intend to turn this thread into one about eating nor about religion …but you brought it up. So let others contribute and we get back to the topic at hand, which is the new paradigm for Ethics outlined in the selections below. How can it be upgraded and improved?
Neither Christianity nor that particular woman were raised as subjects to discuss. They were raised as examples of MY particular reasoning (aka “philosophy”) and behavior as it relates to YOUR theory of ethical behavior.
And it appears that your theory of the most ethical behavior is to say to everyone, “Greetings, you need to stop doing what you are doing and go read this book/website…”. And perhaps also have a few fliers handy?
[size=150]A word to the wise is sufficient.[/size]
"A wise individual learns more by reading a citation offered by a fool, than a fool ever learns by following up on a citation given to him.
[size=50][As an 83-year-old retired professor of Philosophy it just might be possible that what I have to teach may have some value - for those with the eyes to see and the ears to hear.][/size]
Many times in posts here I have emphasized that the ethical theory derived in the papers linked to below is tentative, subject to revision; and actually has been upgraded and improved over the years. It is not a dogma.
Note that in “Ethical Explorations” - which is Part III of the Unified Theory of Ethics - on pp. 39-42, there is a chapter on the topic: What criteria should a theory of ethics fulfill? About a dozen criteria are listed for your consideration. Does any alternative theory offer such? Are these a reasonable set? Does any other theory fulfill most of them as does this one? Does any other theory define key terms, such as ‘hypocrisy’, ‘conscience’, ‘morality’, ‘integrity’ , ‘justice’, ‘honesty’, ‘war’, ‘bad’, ‘mediocre’, etc.? …I don’t think so.
If anyone shows me a better theory of ethics, I will immediately move to that one; and likely attempt to integrate it with the Unified Theory, thereby achieving a higher (an even-more valuable) synthesis.
Such are the claims.
.
[size=150]Go for the GOOD! Live your best! Love your life![/size]
For those who accuse me of not being philosophical enough, check out the first 20 pages of this text: hartmaninstitute.org/wp-cont … course.pdf Whereas Ethics As Science was written in 2005, this e-book, ETHICS: A College Course, was written later, in 2007.
Since then, I have learned a lot, and have included updates in my posts here.
Update your inner operating system ! Set a good example. Be the change you want to see.