In response to Michael Nagenborg.
We surely have nothing to fear from knowing how ethics work in the world
and applying that knowledge can only help us all. Any effort to
establish a science of ethics can only be done without prejudice and by
following wherever it leads. We cannot expect it to concur with our
existing conventions or support existing prejudices. As to "morality"
this seems to me to be a term applied to notions that have no foundation
except precedence. There can be no room for such precedence in an
honest effort of this kind.
As observed earlier, for me natural ethics are the cause of inevitable
behaviors. These behaviors are mitigated by conventions. One can
readily see these behaviors are tractable to good logic and are thus
likely to be predictable. Conventions are only useful in so far as they
mitigate for the optimization of the goals by individuals. Arbitrary
conventions, by which good sense is vastly outnumbered today, is the
cause of chaos and enslaves us.
Michael does not mind considering ethics and medical science an art form
- I object on both counts :-) since this seems to me a most
unsatisfactory state of affairs. In this context "art form" simply
means hand-waving and appeals to mystery - it does not mean "Art."
Further, it seems futile to me to attempt to wrest sense from "moral
facts" - this is as futile as any other deconstruction. A science of
ethics demands we rebuild the world on natural foundations.
With respect,
Steven
M. Nagenborg wrote:
Dear Pedro,
dear all,
when it comes to "ethics as science" we should be distinguish between
the scientific research on morality (or the "good") and the attempt to
use the scientific nature of ethics to establish a certain form of
morality or a set of rules called "ethics" within a society.
Scientist working in the field of ethics may be considered experts in
moral questions, but they should not be considered as a form of
preacher who tells people exactly what to do. (You may not even become
more ethical by doing research on ethics.)
From my own understanding, I consider ethics as a way to describe and
reflect on morality. The results of this may even be used by some
people to reflect on their own morality, but I do not believe (or
hope) that Plato's idea that a philosopher should become king is still
alive. What ethics may be good for is to work as a tool to remind us
of alternatives in what we are doing.
So, as good as it seems to consider "ethics as an Art of problem
solving" this is a little bit unsatisfying, because if we really
believe that "morality" can not become the object of scientific
research, we should at least be able to make clear, why we think so.
For example we should explain what makes the difference between moral
and non-moral facts - and, voilà, we are doing ethics again! And I
think we should at least try to clear this kinds of question in a
scientific manner, which should help us to make the discussion
rational in the sense, that we can communicate and justify our views
on morality.
I do not mind considering ethics as a form of art, by the way, just
like I would consider medicine as an art. But - like in the example of
medicine - there is plenty of space left for scientific reasoning
within the field of an art. Thus, I would not make a strong
distinction between art and science, in the sense that something that
is considered "art" can not include elements of scientific reasoning.
With best regards,
Michael Nagenborg
Pedro Marijuan schrieb:
Dear colleagues,
If ethics relates mostly to the quest for the "good" or for the "good
reasons" of our social behavior, apparently it can be treated as
another discipline --really? An initial complication is about the
subject --good... "to whom"? It maybe one's personal interests, or
his/her family, business, profession, country, species, Gaia... but
those goodnesses are usually in conflict, even in dramatic
contraposition. It is a frequent motif of dramas, movies, poetry,
etc. (aren't we reminded "arts as technologies of ethics"?).
And then the complications about the circumstances, say the "boundary
conditions". Any simple economic story or commercial transaction
(e.g., remember that ugly provincial story about "the nail found in
Zaragoza") may involve quite a number of situational changes and
ethical variants ---if we put scale into a whole social dimension of
multivariated networkings... it is just mind boggling. So I really
would not put much weigh on those hierarchical categorizations that
only take a minimalist snapshot upon a minimalist, almost nihilist
scenario. However, some points by Loet months ago on how complexity
may hide-in & show up along privileged axis might deserve discussion
at this context.
Could we accept ethics just as an Art of moral problem solving? Quite
many conceptual tools would enter therein, but the "scientificity" of
the whole would not be needed. Even more, such scientificty would
look suspicious to me. A few decades ago, a "scientific" guiding of
the whole social evolution was taking place in a number of
countries... apparently paving the way to a new, conflict less Era!
best regards
Pedro
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