1. Predestination/fatalism: everything we do is already known and determined by an all-knowing God, or the Laws of the Universe. There is nothing that can be done to change one's choices.
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Choice is the essence of ethics. And a science of ethics proposes that individuals do indeed make genuine choices. These are made out of their knowledge, understanding, their physical make-up, and the conditions of the moment. One's choices determine whether or not they achieve a sustainable feeling that their life has meaning; therefore, they are of great importance. However, since knowledge and understanding are always key components of choices it is essential to bring as much knowledge as possible to every choice.
It is the first priority for a wisdom group to provide all the help necessary for each member to achieve congruency and be able to make the best choices possible. Congruency does not require that all of one's ideas about the universe are correct. It does require that individuals strive to make the best choices. This includes replacing current ideas/beliefs with better ones as these are discovered. Also, making congruent choices is part of what is necessary to help each person become a wise person. In order to make the best choices our current ideas about the " I" need to be improved. New ways of looking at the "I" are needed.
In order to make the best choices it is essential to apply the ideas about the "I" to the "free will"/determinism issue. Both of these concepts have been pernicious and destructive to individuals and to society because they prevent persons from making the best choices. The foregoing occurs because of the assumptions about the "I" imbedded in the "free will"/ determinism concepts. As one moves toward better definitions of the "I" one can sidestep these negative aspects of the "free will"/ determinism concepts. When determinism has been applied to human choice it has traditionally resulted in a belief in predestination and fatalism. (Everything we do is already known and determined by an all-knowing, all-powerful God, or the Laws of the Universe. There is nothing that can be done to change one's choices.) Predestination and fatalism say one cannot actually make choices, or in any way effect what happens because everything has already been determined. This belief is truly immobilizing. Belief in predestination and fatalism leads people to make lousy choices. Early Christianity tended to support the foregoing interpretation because it was widely believed that the universe was ruled by an omniscient God and this would require such an interpretation.
Renaissance science replaced the all-knowing, all-powerful God with the inextricable, unavoidable Laws of the Universe. Scientists recognized that human beings live in a deterministic universe, i.e., everything is caused. Therefore, it seemed reasonable to them to assume that every behavior of every human being was as predictable and necessary as pre-destination/fatalism required. What got overlooked was, What does determinism actually mean as it relates to human behavior? The question could not be properly framed in earlier times because of the underlying assumptions about determinism, the universe, and human beings. Early scientists were not in a position to recognize that human beings are the ultimate reference system. Also, they hadn't yet discovered chaos theory (that the behavior of complex phenomena are not fully predictable), and fuzzy logic (which shows that the universe doesn't follow Aristotelian, "yes"/"no," logic -- law of the excluded middle.)
The primary negative aspect of "free will" as it relates to human choice is that it promotes confusion about choice and individual and societal responsibility. It is based on denial of cause and effect so functions within a realm not open to study or experimentation. When free will has been applied to human choice it has traditionally resulted in belief that an evil act = evil person = need for punishment. Because there is punishment, even capital punishment, guilt or innocence is of critical importance in a society that is not-yet-Wise. Torture was an authorized means of gaining a confession during the Middle Ages at a time when confessions suddenly became crucial. The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 had outlawed the older judicial practices of establishing guilt, such as duels, oaths, and ordeal, so that henceforth a legal conviction required either the testimony of two eyewitnesses or a confession.
The idea of confession and establishing guilt are key issues that anyone seeking to develop a wise community or become a wise person must address. I have written on this elsewhere, but feel it is worth addressing again. Once one is able to put aside the misleading focus of the "free will"/ determinism debate and look at the critical issue of choice, one has a totally different perspective on guilt and confession. It can be recognized that knowledge and understanding are key issues. To me guilt is only important in terms of what changes need to be made to ensure that people make better future choices; i.e., anti-social, hurtful behavior will not be repeated, or better yet initiated. The foregoing includes what changes need to be made in the person and what changes need to be made in society. Confession must be an essential part of the change process for improving choices. Such change must involve educational/therapeutic/ medical/social resources. It would not be a confession in a legal sense, "If you confess that you stole the money, we'll give you a reduced prison sentence." Or, a moral sense, "You did a bad thing, therefore, you are a bad person." It is a confession in a therapeutic/social sense. It explores all the steps -- beliefs, mental/physical conditions, inadequate social support, etc. -- that led to making that choice. But most important it requires the clear recognition as to why this choice was a mistake and how it formed a barrier in moving toward achieving personal power and a sustainable feeling that one's life has meaning. The individual involved must understand the ways in which it was self-destructive. And this must lead them to be "reborn" so they can avoid these mistakes in the future.
In current society choice and guilt are tied together. Guilt is important in order to ensure that the person deserves the punishment assigned to them. Confession is important to guarantee that they are guilty. Western tradition has demanded punishment when individuals are disobedient. As a result, numerous problems have been introduced in the process of dealing with choices those in power don't like. The importance of knowledge/ignorance in effecting choices has been misunderstood, and more specifically society's responsibility for the knowledge/ignorance of its citizens has not been understood. As a result, anti-social/asocial choices have been dealt with in ways that are counterproductive to society and to the individuals involved. The foregoing issues combined with current adversarial theory -- in which the individual and society are seen as inherently in conflict -- work together to help produce today's serious problems.
The combination of utilizing the social practice of punishment and the model of adversarial relationships has produced a situation that is very difficult to improve. The person arrested usually feels obligated to do anything they can -- lie, bribe, flee, intimidate witnesses, behave violently, etc. -- to avoid being found guilty. Everyone has been exposed to the idea that they can personally benefit from doing things that harm others. It is widely believed that there is nothing wrong with making such choices if one can be sure they won't get caught. The more alienated the individual is from society and/or functioning out of their dominance/submission propensity the more they are likely to succumb to such behavior.
Since one of the prime assumptions of science of ethics is that there is no conflict between a Wise Person and a Wise Community, I take a totally different approach toward handling undesirable choices. This approach involves two steps. First, the person would be helped to realize why the choice was self-destructive, and exactly how it harmed others. Second, sufficient social support would be provided to show the individual how to change or avoid such choices - while learning how to fulfill their needs and help others at the same time.
The individual's guilt would only be important in terms of achieving complete understanding of society's and the individual's responsibilities for the choices and what would be necessary to avoid similar choices in the future. Death, or any punishment for that matter, could never be the sentence for a "guilty" individual. Any pain inflicted on the individual could only be the incidental pain that growth and change might require.
The "free will" concept makes choice and responsibility somewhat mystical. Choices just sort of happen. At the same time responsibility has no intellectually meaningful definition. However, the definition of responsibility that comes out of Western moral theory about the nature of human beings tend to equate choices that harm others with being bad/evil. In addition it equates the necessity of being punished with being bad/evil. The foregoing theoretical considerations provide the foundation upon which all of our basic societal institutions rest. The theory is nonsense. However, it has practical effects that are detrimental to both individuals and society. This theory leads to the assumption that persons are responsible for their choices some of the time; but not all of the time. It considers society to be responsible for the individual's choices none of the time. When the individual is considered to be responsible for choices that harm others, they are thought to deserve death, punishment, prison, etc. It is this moral theory that provides the mechanism used to hide society's side of the responsibility for its citizen's choices.
It is also the "free will" moral theory that spawned the adversarial system. In a science of ethics the adversarial system is seen as a fatally flawed concept. It incorporates the idea that the individual and society are inherently in conflict. It encourages belief in the idea of the individual against society, and society against the individual.
Our genetic heritage makes it possible to believe that there is an adversarial relationship between the individual and society. This is because of our dominance/submission propensity which can promote a feeling of conflict with others. However, our species is in the process of remaking itself by altering behaviors that once had value, but now get in the way of achieving a sustainable feeling that one's life has meaning. This is true of the genetic propensities that support adversarial relationships. Instead of being adversaries, science of ethics sees the needs of the wise community and the wise person as being totally congruent. Human beings are social animals. To be their best self they need love and the acceptance of other people. Individuals will sacrifice up to and including their life for the good of their community. The goal of a science of ethics is to build societies such that what is good for the individual is good for the community, and what is good for the community is good for the individual. The foregoing is the definition of a wise person and a wise community.
When there is a problem such that a choice does not achieve the foregoing effect my claim is that this results from ignorance. The solution requires knowledge. Finding the proper knowledge is the joint responsibility of the individual and the community. Evil act = ignorance = need for knowledge (for society and for the individual). Current moral theory allows society to avoid any accountability. Because society's responsibility is not recognized there are limited mechanisms for correcting societal errors and improving social and individual choices.
The science of ethics model of choice assumes that everyone is always, all the time, under every circumstance responsible for every choice they make or fail to make. At the same time the community is always, under every circumstance responsible for every choice of every member of the community. The community provides the environment in which the individual grows from helpless embryo to mature adult. This environment plays a critical role in who the person becomes. The community provides the wisdom and the information that forms the individual's initial world-view and other basic perspectives. The community establishes priorities for research and expanding knowledge. When the society recognizes no responsibility for its choices and how these choices relate to the choices of its members it has no means to evaluate what it is doing and determine when and what changes are needed. In the science of ethics model there is a totally different moral theory. For science of ethics all choices are based on knowledge/ignorance. Harmful choices, erroneous choices, etc. come out of ignorance. Science of ethics assumes that a mentally healthy, socially connected person will, normally, learn from their mistakes and improve their behavior.
However, there are genetic propensities that complicate the foregoing. Part of what generates conflict between the individual and society is the alpha male drive to seek power. This issue requires maximum study and thought. This drive often produces pressures that pit what is best for the individual against what is most desirable for the group. This phenomenon will be a key problem to overcome in helping some persons become Wise Persons and in producing a wise community where all persons work together in a cooperative manner.
For the alpha male the short answer would seem to be that such drives must be surrounded by feed-back mechanisms to ensure that the person does not act against their own long term self interest by destroying their support group. And of course this requires that the members of the support group are feeling their own personal power and not only glorying in the achievements of their leader's power. Nevertheless, this is just one of the problems a wise community must overcome if it is to help all its members become wise persons. In all these cases when an individual is not able to self-correct to avoid making bad choices then the society must work to bring about the necessary changes.
Since ignorance is the problem, knowledge must be the solution. Unless the " I" is more fully understood, it is not possible to develop a meaningful/ useful definition of choice and responsibility -- as discussed before. Such an understanding of the "I" opens the way for finding solutions to each specific problem. This use of the "I" concept is probably one of its greatest potential values.
Traditionally when the statement, "I make choices" has been examined the focus was on the "choices" rather than the "I." Mostly this was because everyone thought they knew what they were talking about when they say, "I." The error of this assumption is demonstrated by the fact that most members of every society still think that people have an immortal soul (that the "I" is unitary and eternal). If they had even a glimmer of understanding of what the "I" is they could not possibly be led to this error.
If the "I" concept discussed here is adopted by society it seems clear that the "free will" concept would be discarded and the interpretation of determinism applied to human choice would be corrected. Then the harm produced by past usage of "free will"/determinism can be corrected. It would be recognized that human behavior is caused, and at the same time understood that individuals make choices. These two ideas are not in conflict. Furthermore, it can be seen that it is absurd to consider that any given behavior is predestined. Neither the Laws of the Universe, nor the God hypothesis provide the Ultimate Reference System necessary to make fatalism and predestination meaningful concepts. Human beings turn out to be the Ultimate Reference System and predictability does not exist as predestination/ fatalism would require. Human behavior is not predictable for several reasons, one of which is that every choice is made by a different "I." As a result each choice is a unique event and science can't predict unique events. Also, it is ridiculous to think one is not responsible for any individual choice. Lack of responsibility -- because of drunkeness, insanity, lack of capacity, past trauma, etc. -- would mean severing choices from the laws of cause and effect. There would then be no way to utilize evaluation in order to improve the situation.
However, being responsible for one's choices does not mean being punished for those choices. Rather it requires the person to change so as not to be a threat to others. If the matter is analyzed from the foregoing perspective it seems to me that a better way is provided in dealing with the major concerns of society. A clearer understanding of what is involved in making choices will provide new answers in the areas of: laws, courts, jails/prisons, punishment, and the human behavior related to the foregoing, as well as religion, child rearing, schools, government, economics, employment, corporations, entertainment, news media, war, culture, philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, psychology; i.e. in all areas of human endeavor.
It is understood that all the factors that go into anyone's choices can rarely if ever be known. But it is also known that the choices people make can be influenced in a positive direction in numerous ways. A wise community would have institutions available to all its citizens to help them in making the best choices possible. First, everyone would be taught so as to recognize and experience his or her personal power. They would not be taught that they are helpless entities controlled by forces beyond their influence. At the same time persons obsessed to seek power over others by their alpha male/alpha female propensity would be helped to find ways to free themselves from the destructive elements of this drive. This ability to learn and change is the key factor for a science of ethics. A wise community does not use blame, guilt, punishment, etc. Its prime concern is helping as many individuals as possible achieve a sustainable feeling that their life has meaning.
Now, returning to what it means to say, "I make choices." A choice is made based on the relevant components of the "I" and the universe at the moment of decision. Some of these components relate to the actual nature of the physical body making up the "I," some to knowledge (or ignorance), some to understanding (processing), some to immediate outside influences, some to how well the organism is functioning (has it been traumatized in some way that interferes with processing information, therefore, increasing bad choices).
From the foregoing analysis it seems clear that persons can only make the choices they make. But, what does this mean? At one level the statement is a truism. One point that is essential in understanding this issue is the realization that an "I" is a construct made up of myriads of parts as previously indicated. All these separate parts interact in complex ways, with feedback loops, etc. to keep the system functioning and to make choices. This complexity provides the "I" a potential that goes beyond the visions of even the most imaginative mystic. Current science, philosophy, and religion don't have a clue how decisions actually are made. Information theory and computer science provide some tantalizing hints. Current brain study points out some amazing suggestions. Philosophy provides some useful speculations. Nevertheless, understanding of this issue is just beginning, particularly in a practical way that can help people make better choices. However, now it can be seen that this is an area that can be fruitfully studied and that demands greater attention by all parts of society.
Therefore, even though the key mechanisms involved in choice are not known, the key facts are understood. It is clear that people can make better choices by learning how to examine issues in more depth, living congruent with reality, focusing on the most important matters, avoiding being influenced unduly by irrelevant issues, leaving time to integrate major factors before making the final decision, getting the help of others who are good problem solvers, etc.
On the one hand it can be seen that persons are responsible for their decisions in a way "free will"/determinism never realized. But the most important point to understand is that the "I" can change and be changed. And a better "I" makes better choices. There is hope for anyone. Also, it is clear that society bears responsibilities that have not been acknowledged. Whenever there are mechanisms in society for judging people and their behavior, and then rewarding or punishing them, more care must be taken to ensure that the judgments and societal actions are congruent with the real world. Societal decisions must be constantly monitored to ensure that changes are made when incongruencies between goals and results are discovered. It becomes clear that there is a societal responsibility to help persons change their "I" so as to achieve a sustainable feeling that their life has meaning. The foregoing will benefit all of society because the more wise persons there are the more everyone will be helped to become more loving, more productive, more fulfilled.
But the essence of making the best choices possible is knowledge. First, there is knowledge of the choice process and the essential steps to follow. Second, there is knowledge about how the universe works and therefore the best way to achieve the outcome one desires. As part of the latter process it is important to have social structures. The help of these groups is most needed when particularly important choices are being made that may exceed the abilities of the individual concerned.
In making choices, as in all human behavior, it is essential to understand that there are no perfect choices -- ever! "There are no unmixed blessings." "Every cloud has a silver lining." All choices produce both positive and negative results, and it may not be obvious which is which for decades, if ever. Our goal is to maximize the benefits and minimize the disadvantages. The foregoing indicates that George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's philosophy of "dialectics" is a simplification of what really happens. There is not just thesis, antithesis, followed by synthesis. Rather, any cause produces multiple effects. And every effect has multiple causes. From a human perspective some of these effects are beneficial (positive) and some are harmful (negative). The more knowledge we have about the circumstances involved and the more control we have over it, the more positive can be the outcome. However, there is no way that any cause can produce only positive (or, only negative) effects. Because in a multidimensional universe some aspects are to a given person's advantage and some are in opposition to it. But of even more importance we never know the long-term effects of any event. So, if we try only to make choices that have positive effects, we'll end up only making forced choices, and spending most of our life in limbo, and our choices will be worse, not better. Therefore, it is essential that we make our best effort and then pay attention so we can apply corrections as we progress in order to steer around negative spots as they become visible. Unless we realize that these hazards must appear we will not be alert to recognize them as early as possible -- when we are most likely to be able to have success with corrective action.
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