If you are reading this it is safe to assume you are alive. If the question came up, “Do you want to continue living?” under normal circumstances many, if not most, would answer: “Yes, I want to live, and I want to live well.” An empirical survey would find that most normal people want to be healthy, and they want to be content. They would like to have some leisure time to enjoy, and they want to be able to freely pursue a freely-chosen project, a game, a sport, or a hobby. If given a choice, most want harmonious human relationships.
For that Ethics is necessary. It shows how to achieve those goals, how to get ‘into the flow’, how to use one’s capacities, how to express ‘the inner artist.’ It teaches you how to be fully yourself. You, I, and everyone – we all need Ethics. This means we all need to know our SEIs as well as we know our ABCs. Study Ethics and you will understand what SEI means. Here is a link to the new, (written in 2014) free-of-charge, paper entitled BASIC ETHICS: a systematic approach. It offers a coherent, logical theory: myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BASIC%20ETHICS.pdf - [size=85] {It proceeds from Meta-Philosophy to Moral Philosophy to meta-ethics to ethics.}
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“Science” – according to its root, scientia in Latin – can be taken to mean: a field of study with practical, empirical implications. In this sense, Ethics may be said to be a ‘science,’ since it is designed to be a body of useful information that helps us function better. Also, if you haven’t yet read them, or need to review them, see also – here at the I Love Philosophy Forum - the earlier threads: “Ethics in a Nutshell,” “The Natural-Logical Law of Conduct,” and “The Beautiful Simplicity of Ethical Concepts.”
As will become rather clear as one delves further into the basics of the new paradigm, since the principles of Ethics are in the self-interest of every individual, it would not be rational to ignore them. [A list of many of them is found on the closing pages of Aspects of Ethics: views through a new lens See the links in the signature below for access to this special document.
Experience shows that it would be irrational to violate your own self-interest. This is just common sense. At this point a couple of definitions would be helpful. First, the principles of Ethics as a group comprise what we will designate as “the Moral Law.” That is what will in this context be meant by that phrase. Next, “obligation” equals by definition “our duty to follow the Moral Law.” We are obliged to comply with it. Of course people may violate their obligation, and many likely will try to, but just like attempts to violate the Law of Gravity there are consequences. The Law of Gravity is a law of nature; the Moral Law is a set of derived conclusions that are laws of human nature – both sorts of ‘law’ are subject to revision and upgrading as better insight is gained. Physical law has often been modified - or relegated to a subset of the big picture - as new models are employed that better account for the data. The same will happen in Ethics.
Human beings, by nature, are valuing beings: we make value judgments all day long. A value judgment is part cognitive and part feeling. Some emotion is invested in virtually every valuation. Gravity is constantly operative, and just as reliable is the fact that humans are constantly creating values …every time they judge, whether explicitly or tacitly. We differentiate, we assume, we conclude – all forms of value-judgment.
If the ethical question is: “How shall I live?” – and according to Virtue Ethics that is the chief question to ponder - the Ethical answer is for each of us to truthfully be able to say: “ I should be a good person, one who cares about Social Justice, one who seeks to maximize well-being (quality of life) for one and all. I seek moral outcomes. I want to be one who reasons well, who has control of my emotions, and who has found inner peace. Then I will be that kind of person who ‘gets it right’ most of the time.” There is more to it, of course, but it helps if one knows his Ethics, understands the HOV, which stands for Hierarchy of Value - explained in the pamphlet BASIC ETHICS) - tinyurl.com/crz6xea - and aims in the Intrinsic direction.
It is a testable hypothesis that those who form the habit of valuing Intrinsically are likely to design better systems and norms that enable us to do more with less time, energy, and resources; and are likely to engage in effective action. Effective action i s action done with the aim of providing a quality life for all concerned. The latter is ‘the ultimate purpose’ of this ethical system. Let’s turn now to social ethics.
Any society that restricts the opportunity for its citizens, or its group members, to get education is unethical. If the society subjugates its citizens it is unethical. If it denies the opportunity for its members to get therapy it is unethical too. Every society ought to make it freely available. To hamper the right to vote is sufficient cause to label the society that does that as unethical. Social Justice is a part of Justice in general, and justice is a part of ethics. This is explained and analyzed in the first portion of A Unified Theory of Ethics, which is written in dialog form. You will find a link to it in the signature below.
In sum, I have made several predictions which can be experimentally tested, and replicated. This is good scientific procedure.
[size=150]An individual ignores science at his peril.[/size]
Questions? Comments?