ethics (ethical dynamics ch.1)

TOWARDS A MORE OPEN, SHARED AND RESPONSIBLE ETHICAL WORLD

Part I

Ethics and our Human Potentialities

and Social Structures

Part I: Ethics and our Human Potentialities and Social Structures

Premise (1):

“Ethics and related ethical dynamics are:

The energy and substance for -

the development and growth of our human and social potentialities.”

September 2010 © Abraham Chiasson 2


Premise (2)

Ethics and ethical dynamics are intra-subjective phenomena aimed at fostering a high level of individual congruency - what helps me to grow

and be more of who I am (or capable of becoming).



Premise (3)

Ethics and ethical dynamics are inter-subjective phenomena aimed at dealing with this need for

congruency and growth and, for creating the necessary social conditions e.g., institutional, for an effective synergy – individual and society -.



Part I will describe the core architecture for an evolutionary perspective of ethics – one aimed at growing an ‘ecology of mind and community’ – and:

Associated with, as examples, our capacity for art, philosophy and science and, for the creation of new and sophisticated human and social realities and,

As the ultimate expression and driver of our search for ‘harmony’ within our individual self, between us and with the universe.



Part I – Chapters:

Chapter 1: Ethics and our Human Potentialities, Characteristics and Dynamics

Chapter 2: Ethics and our Human and Social Cognitive Potentialities, and Social Structures

Chapter 3: Living Systems and Ethical Dynamics

Chapter 4: Steps Towards an Analytical and Transformational Model


Chapter 1 -Ethics and our Human potentialities, characteristics and dynamics…

‘Core’ human potentialities - those forces that ‘compel us to become who we are’

Those potentialities at the heart of what it means to be ‘human’:

Consciousness and conscious will;

A sense of self and personal identity; and,

Our potential - capacity - for vision and hope.


Chapter 1 -Ethics and our Human potentialities, characteristics and dynamics…

Our human potentialities are mutually dependent, they grow or die together’ and,

They apply to us as individuals, institutions and societies.


Chapter 1 –Human potentialities… consciousness

Consciousness and the world of our emotions -

✹Human consciousness is first associated with an emotional state or a specific emotion,

Emotions and core consciousness tend to go together, by being present together or absent together, and

Emotions can be viewed as the expression of our most basic connection with life and the forces of the universe.


Chapter 1Human potentialities… - consciousness -

Consciousness - our mind -, is constantly informed by our emotions, along with their associated perceptions and feelings

“… a feeling is the perception of a certain state of the body along with the perception of a certain mode of thinking and of thoughts with certain themes.” (Antonio Damasio)


Emotions Perceptions Feelings

Consciousness

Chapter 1Human potentialities… - consciousness -

Consciousness and ethical dynamics -

Need to learn from our overall world of ‘emotions, perceptions, and feelings’, those behaviors – actions - that give us the success that we ultimately care for.

E.g., Our ability for effective ethical action is associated with what is often referred to as emotional intelligence, i.e.,

"learning how to recognize, manage, and harness their feelings; empathizing; and handling the feelings that arise in their relationships". (Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books, 1995, p.191)


Chapter 1Human potentialities… - consciousness will -

Conscious will - A ‘feeling’ of authorship –

‘I consciously did that!’ - usually accompanied by a feeling of pride or guilt - such feelings providing us with the motivation to seek new and ultimately more satisfying actions.

"To label events as our personal actions, conscious will must be an experience that is similar to an emotion. It is a feeling of doing ...

The embodied quality gives the will a kind of weight … that does not come with thoughts in general. ... associating the act with the self through feeling”… (Daniel M. Wegner, The Illusion of Conscious Will , Bedford Books, MIT Press, 2002, p.325)


Chapter 1Human potentialities… - consciousness will -

Conscious will and ethical dynamics -

"Still, will has other characteristics of emotion, including an experiential component (how it feels), a cognitive component (what it means and the thoughts it brings along), and a psychological component (how the body responds)." (Wegner p.326)

... And perhaps most important for the sake of the operation of society, the sense of conscious will also allows us to maintain the sense of responsibility for our actions that serves as the basis for morality". (Wegner p. 328)


Chapter 1Human potentialities… - conscious will -

Challenges for more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics -

Relationship commitments and qualities, along with those principles and norms and ethical aspirations that:

Serve to reflect our sense of consciousness – our understanding … of the world -; and

Concurrently enhance our ‘perceptions’ – give us more sophisticated understandings of our world –

Give us an increasing sense of conscious will – authorship – via increasingly sophisticated and congruent actions.


Chapter 1Human potentialities… - a sense of self and personal identity -

We will examine:

An autobiographical sense of self – what has made us who we are -;

Identity as a constructed phenomena resulting from what we do;

Ethical identity – as resulting from our ‘enacted’ ethics -; and,

Personal identity – the one associated with our overall participation in a social context –.


Chapter 1Human potentialities… - a sense of self --

Where does a sense of self come from, what it is, and how does it contribute to bring about the world of ethics - (a)

Damasio in The Feeling of What Happens (p. 125-126):

(1) "That we are the owners of the thought process, that we can act on the contents of the thought process" - and that - "the object becomes salient as part of the relationship...”

… ‘As owners of the thought process’, the world as a whole becomes more 'salient', increasingly capable of bringing growth to the self - motivating the self's engagements with the world.


Chapter 1Human potentialities… - a sense of self -

Where does a sense of self come from, what it is, and how does it contribute to bring about the world of ethics - (b)

Damasio in The Feeling of What Happens (p. 224):

(2) "The idea each of us constructs of our self, the image we gradually build of who we are physically and mentally, of where we fit socially, is based on autobiographical memory over years of experience and is constantly subject to remodeling”.


Chapter 1Human potentialities… - a sense of self -

Where does a sense of self come from, what it is, and how does it contribute to bring about the world of ethics – (c)

(3) Our autobiographical sense of self provides our overall human ‘reality e.g., our conscious and unconscious understandings of the world and how we fit in - the world of our ethical relationships.

(4) Appropriation of vital social realities and their (ethical) dynamics is predicated on: A rich 'autobiographical' sense of who we are and who we hope to become.


Chapter 1Human potentialities… - personal identity -

Where does a sense of personal identity come from and how is it both a reflection of and contribution to, our world of ethical relationships - (a)

Wegner in The Illusion of Conscious Will (p. 265-266):

"The memories that are related to identity are different from other kinds of memory. Identity-relevant memories involve the agent, a perspective from which the memory item was experienced, … Having memories with who, where, and when attached to them allows us to remember not only what. Memory for episodes brings along the self, kind of piggyback, and so allows us to make distinctions between selves we remember being and selves we do not."



Where does a sense of personal identity come from and how is it both a reflection of and contribution to, our world of ethical relationships - (b)

Specifically, our sense of personal identity:

1) Originates in a sense of self and in a rich autobiographical self (consciously and unconsciously constructed),

2) Is an action related phenomena (above quotation), drawing from the characteristics of our actions (with whom, where, when, what),



Where does a sense of personal identity come from and how is it both a reflection of and contribution to, our world of ethical relationships - (c)

Specifically, our sense of personal identity…:

3) Is driven by the various roles in which we engage to bring about our world e.g., sons or daughters, parent, doctor, and citizen and,

4) By our ongoing relationship commitments and qualities along with their related principles and norms and ethical aspirations (our ethical identity).



Where does a sense of personal identity come from and how is it both a reflection of and contribution to, our world of ethical relationships – (d)

In summary, our sense of personal identity:


SelfAutobiographica

lSelf

Ethical Identity

SocialLandscape

Social Roles

PersonalIdentity


What would be some of the resulting ‘ethical’ challenges i.e., towards growing a sense of personal identity?

‘My’ personal identity –

Must be in synergy with the growth of the personal identities of those with whom it engages. “We cannot grow our personal identities alone”;

Will grow inasmuch as it contributes via its ethical identity, to the social identities of its vital social landscapes and vice versa -: their social identities cannot grow without contributing to the growth of my ‘social’ identity; and,



What would be some of the resulting ‘ethical’ challenges i.e., towards growing a sense of self and personal identity?

In summary, the growth of ‘my’ personal identity -

Is dependent on the capacity of my ethical identity to be in synergy with the ethical identities of my ‘vital’ social landscapes e.g., the corporation, its partners, and their actors.


Chapter 1Human potentialities… - vision and hope -

Vision or “What the world should be - make sense – have personal or collective meaning -”

Hope or “what pulls us along on our human journey”



Overall, we will examine:

○ Where does vision – personal or collective - come from and, how is it in synergy with our ethical world;

○ The vital importance of faith and hope as the ultimate source of our human and social energy; and,

○ What would be some of the resulting challenges for a world of more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics?


Chapter 1Human potentialities… - vision -

Where does vision – personal or collective - come from and how is it in synergy with our ethical world – a)

Damasio in The Feeling of What Happens (p. 125-126):

“Personal maturity means that memories of the future we anticipate for the time that may lie ahead carry a large weight in the autobiographical self of each moment. The memories of the scenarios that we conceive as desires, wishes, goals, and obligations exert a pull on the self of each moment.”



Where does vision – personal or collective - come from and how is it in synergy with our ethical world – b)

Extracted from: Thomas Kuhn in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, (p.155-156)

‘A personal vision would seem to stem from and take the form of an aesthetic appeal, an inner sense of beauty spurring us to explore and bring about more sophisticated paradigms e.g., there is no place for ‘ugly’ science.’



Where does vision – personal or collective - come from and how is it in synergy with our ethical world – c)

From the above, we could say that we:

Are guided, indeed drawn, by our inner sense of beauty as bringing together our desires and goals...;

Have some degree of ability – individually and collectively - to affect and shape what a personal or societal vision is; and,

As social beings, we will be affected individually and collectively by its impact; indeed, will be ‘caught up’ in its own ‘web of forces’.



Where does vision – personal or collective - come from and how is it in synergy with our ethical world – d)

From an ethical perspective:

The pregnancy of our – individual, institutional and societal - ethical dynamics will be dependent on the ability of our ethics, to be in synergy with our personal… vision.

Ethics - core values, principles and norms… - aim to create a congruent action framework i.e., create a synergy between our ‘actual’ relationship commitments and qualities, and a personal or societal vision. …



… Also, if our ethics are not in line with our sense of beauty and vision, the world stops to make sense – it stops to have ‘effective’ meaning for the individual, the institution, or society.


Beauty

Individual / Institutional /SocietalVision

Meaning

Ethics

Chapter 1Human potentialities… - hope -

‘Faith and hope – our ultimate source of human and social energy for bringing about our world –’

Faith is that force that engages us with the world through our potential for ‘transcendent relationships’ e.g., ‘God’

· Via a set of related beliefs that express the nature of ‘our’ transcendent relationships and,

· Bring forth and are expressed in an ethical structure of ethical aspirations (core values), and related principles and norms and, relationship commitments and qualities…



Ethics grow our faith and, the beliefs giving life to our transcendent relationships, via the growth of ‘beauty, vision and meaning’.


Beauty


Meaning

Ethics

Faith

TranscendetalRelationship

Beliefs


Faith and hope as the ultimate source of our human and social energy for bringing about our world –

How do we do this –

For religion and ideologies, we appropriate their sense of ‘beauty, vision and framework of meaning’ by enacting their set of beliefs via our ’ethics’

In state or business institutions, we appropriate their sense of ‘beauty, vision and framework of meaning’ by enacting via our ethics, their beliefs in the world e.g., the importance of social justice or automobiles.



When ethics create a synergy between a vision and a transcendental relationship they lead us to the emotion of hope and to its manifestations e.g., in our feelings of love and awe.


Beauty


Meaning

Ethics

Faith

TranscendetalRelationship

Beliefs

Hope


What would be some of the resulting challenges for a world of more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics – As examples:

Does the institutional vision create an effective sense of beauty and framework of meaning for those who must carry out its tasks?

Does the institutiona give people the opportunity to be connected to a broader purpose i.e., transcendental relationship?

Overall - can people enact related and congruent beliefs via a shared ethical reality e.g., respect for all patients, along with related ethical principles and norms?


ethics (ethical dynamics ch.1)

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