promethean75: this is not a genuine philosophical problem. we’d wax endlessly in philosophy if we tried to work it out. the solution is the pragmatic return to the old ways of thrasymachus…
K: actually, this might be the one genuine philosophical problem we have…
ethics or otherwise known as morality… same thing…
“ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves
systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right
and wrong conduct. the field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns
matters of VALUE, and thus comprises the branch of philosophy called
axiology……”
at this point, I will bring in a related matter…
the other day I was in Berkley CA, not very far from me…and I was
heading toward a very good bookstore there called “Moes”…
I bought a book on history… and that got me to thinking…
how does the historian engage in history and how does the
philosopher engage in philosophy and how does the scientist engage
in science? Now the question I was thinking about was this, how does
one practice their craft, say a historian, reveal about the other
crafts, say philosophy or science…so, a historian might engage
in some person, event or time period… so a historian might
engage in the Vietnam war or he might ask about the American
attitude about the Vietnam war or he might engage with
Kennedy’s or LBJ attitude to the war or he might give a history
of the war… he can isolate on one person or one time period
or one event within that war…he can go to original sources
and/or news accounts of his area of interest… he could go to
other sources say, what the French or the British thought about the war…
he engages in the past, present and the future of his area of interest…
what did the Vietnam war mean to Vietnam and what does it mean today?
that is an historical understanding of the Vietnam war…
so how does this compare to a philosopher interest… say,
one is interested in Ethics… how would one go about engaging
in ethics? you can go historical and survey ethics from an historical
perspective… the Egyptians thought of ethics as…
and the Mayans thought of ethics as…and follow the history of ethics from
a certain time period to another time period or to our time period…
the second way of understanding ethics is to engage in a study of ethics
based on various philosophers… so we can follow ethics philosophical/historically
from philosopher to philosopher, so we can follow ethics from the pre-Socrates
to Socrates to Aristotle to St. Augustine and what each person believed or thought
about ethics…and we can carry this method all the way to modern philosophers
like Nietzsche or Heidigger………Nietzsche understanding of ethics relied on
Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics”… if you don’t understand the “Nicomachean ethics”
you don’t understand Nietzsche view of ethics… that is another method of understanding
ethics… you can use the historical method or you can use the philosophical/historical
method… or you can study ethics as practice today…a sociological method
of understand ethics… using the way we practice ethics today to understand
ethics………
so how would this compare to a scientist understanding?
a scientist would see an event, say an apple dropping out of a tree…
and he would try to understand that event… first he would try to
understand if the event had a human beginning… did the apple fall
because of something a human did? then the scientist might investigate
if there was some historical understanding of the event…did anyone
else see this event and what was their conclusion of it? did the event
have some natural cause to it? and if so, what was the natural cause?
today, we have Newton to thank for our understanding of the apple, but
try to think about the apple falling down before Newton? How would
you go about investigating an apple falling out of a tree if you didn’t
have Newton to guide you?
so we have a couple of different methods of investigating
events, people or time periods……
so, once again, how would we go about investigating ethics?
we could use the historical method… follow the history
of ethics, which would mean we could either
follow the intellectual understanding of ethics,
follow what philosophers and/or religious thinkers
thought about ethics…….
which leads us to another method of investigation…
the religious method…god himself has dictated
our ethics… how are we to engage in our conduct to
other human beings and to god?
thinkers like Kierkegaard thought that the only matter at hand
was to understand our relationship to god… to be a good Christian…
as he said…if we get that right, the rest of the problem would
solve itself… what problem? the problem of our conduct to
other human beings, both individually and collectively…
I exist individually… and that is what Kierkegaard thought matter most…
not as a group, for within the group thought K. lies untruth…
I can only approach god as an individual… not as part of a group…
but the basic and most fundamental understanding of human beings
lie within one fact, we are social creatures…if we existed alone,
we would have no need for ethics, nor any need for philosophy or history,
or economics or art or government…ethics only exists because
we are social creatures… we must engage with our fellow human beings…
if we do not engage with other human beings, we develop mental problems,
such as anxiety and other mental issues that come from isolation from
human beings…that is why solitary confinement is the worst punishment
we can force upon people… it literally drives people insane…
so how do begin our engagement with ethics?
we begin by understanding the word, ethics…
the English word “ethics” is derived from the ancient Greek word,
“Ethikos” meaning “relating to one’s character” the very basis of
ethics is involving to “one’s character”… which itself come from
“ethos” meaning “character, moral nature”……
the very basic understanding of the word “ethics” begin by
understanding that ethics is about “one’s character” “one’s moral
nature”……….
some have said that “most people confuse ethics with behaving
in accordance with social conventions, religious beliefs, and the law,
and don’t treat ethics as a stand-alone concept” but how does this
notion of “ethics” involving “one’s character” have to do with
“ethics in behaving in accordance to social convention, religious belief,
and the law?” one doesn’t need character to engage in “ethics” socially
as in social convention or religious belief or the law……all that is needed
there is simple compliance… not understanding nor character, just compliance…
the very question of “ethics” stands within the Kantian question of “how should we live?”
what should my engagement with my fellow human beings be?
we have enough to begin to think about ethics…
let us think about what ethics means to me, both individually
and collectively?
Kropotkin