Letâs 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 education, therapy, and opportunity freely available. Every ethical society will. 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. Here is a link: http://tinyurl.com/crz6xea
Insist on your right to vote, and to take advantage of that right by actually voting. Civic responsibility is implied. It does teach that if - say, in the everyday situation of going to a webpage such as this one at a forum - you are to have, and keep, your peace of mind, your serenity. Hence, you would not get too excited, would not lose your cool, would enjoy being peaceful.
In sum, I have made several predictions which can be experimentally tested, and replicated. This is good scientific procedure.
An individual ignores science at his peril !!!
Q. A critic may object as follows:
â No new approach to ethics is necessary unless it describes some âeveryday problems and explains how to handle them.â
A. Giving moral principles to live by - no matter what problems come up â doesnât that have value? Note that Rush Kidder of the Institute for Global Ethics gave many illustrations of the kind you are requesting in his marvelous book, How Good People Make Tough Choices (NY, Simon & Schuster Fireside Books, 1966). [This book, still highly-relevant today, is available via Amazon.]
Q. âAre you proposing that every individual human read and be aware of that extended body of knowledge you linked to? âŚdo you think that an individual in order to live and act in harmony with the ethical and moral principles that should guide us as a society MUST read that in order to be able to make good ethical decisions?â
A. No, it is not necessary that every individual on Earth know the intricacies of the Science of Ethics any more than they need to know the same for the Science of Physics. They do learn how to throw a light switch, and how to run a washing machine, how to dial a phone, how to use a remote control in the physical realm, and they likely will learn how to enjoy the ethical technologies that I see resulting from the new science of Ethics.
The theory need only be learned by students who have a deep interest in the theoretical branch of moral philosophy - in contrast with those who are more interested in Aesthetics or Literary Interpretation. Such students, with a bent for theory, a knowledge of Math or of Logic, and a curiosity about ethics, could likely be the pioneers pf this new field of research. The project is to construct a system that is ready to transition into a real science. Even now, while the field is very young, we already have technologies emerging.
In other posts and threads I have listed some of the many existing ethical technologies, such as, for a few examples: song lyrics - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cEZjSp0ZSQ%20- ;
X-Prizes, - http://www.xprize.org/ ;
the proliferation of coaching and motivation websites on the internet; the Kahn Academy giving free lessons on You Tube, the jury system,
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/busin ⌠R0w11yL4TQthe business-school promise - [/url] ;
the video conference - mobileoffice.about.com/od/confer ⌠-tools.htm - ;
Axiogenics - amindforsuccess.com/?page_id=6009 - ; etc