CHAPTER TWO -- A Arthur M. Jackson
Copyright 2002, 2003, 2006
.
THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS
DEFINING MEANING OF HUMAN LIFE
.
.
.
The outline of my system is presented initially, and then in more detail in the rest of this chapter.
.
However, to examine a briefer explanation of these ideas check here[1].
.
.
.
HERE ARE THE ASSUMPTIONS OF SCIENCE OF ETHICS
I. Ethical beliefs relate to everything concerned with maintaining and developing the human species; i.e., satisfying human nature. For individuals that means those beliefs that lead them to achieve their full positive potential.
II. Human Beings Are the Ultimate Reference System living immersed within a universe where reality is the objective reference system.
A. Human beings will never be able to discover TRUTH when it is envisioned as a Platonic ideal. However, it is a useful image to assume that we can fully understand every aspect of the universe by appropriately studying and modeling it -- as long as we keep in mind that we cannot! This process allows the achievement of Knowledge; i.e., improved ability to predict the future. Thomas Kuhn[1] questions this assumption, but pragmaticallly his approach appears to be of questionable value.
1. TRUTH is often thought to be achievable by experiencing Ultimate Reality, or Objective Reality. However, neither Objective Knowledge nor the will of God can be known because they require unmediated access to an Outside Reference System which by definition is not possible. That which is outside themselves can only be interpreted by human beings.
2. KNOWLEDGE means information, data, understanding, prediction. It permits the manipulation and use of the forces, attributes, and patterns of the natural world -- utilizing what is known.
[p. 2]
3. WISDOM is that aspect of Knowledge which when applied to one's life increases the probability that they will achieve their full positive potential.
III. Achieving one's full positive potential describes a first order approximation to the actual concept, feeling that one's life has meaning. And this condition is defined as existing when a person who is able to end their life does not do so for irrational, erroneous reasons.
A. The feeling that one's life has meaning describes an emotion-state based on beliefs.
B. The correctness of any given belief that supports a feeling that one's life has meaning depends on the degree to which it is sustainable in an Enlightened Community.
C. Only empirical study can determine whether or not an individual's beliefs that support their feeling that their life has meaning are sustainable.
D. Knowledge is not an end in itself, but has value to the degree that it helps individuals find Wisdom; i.e., set goals and make life choices that increase the likelihood of achieving a sustainable belief that their life has meaning.
1. Those beliefs and actions will most greatly aid one in achieving a sustainable belief that their life has meaning which move them out of their raw "tribal" propensities toward attaining their "wisdom" or "symbolic species" potential.
a. Below are the currently proposed WAYS OF WISDOM judged necessary to achieve a sustainable belief that one's life has meaning.
1. Recognize that human beings are the ultimate reference system.
2. Endeavor to maintain and develop the human species. Support efforts to develop Enlightened Communities.
3. Seek to understand. Pursue Wisdom.
4. Recognize that all knowledge rests on faith/beliefs and must always be open to questioning.
5. Strive to make the best choices possible.
6. Know and struggle to improve yourself; work to be physically and psychologically healthy.
7. Develop and adopt a perceptual framework in which pain does not prevent the achievement of a sustainable belief that your life has meaning. 8. Help and be helped by other people.
9. Work to increase knowledge and all creative and artistic endeavors. Adopt an inspiring life goal.
10. Support efforts to ensure that every child is provided a loving, nurturing environment and all the things necessary to become an Enlightened Person.
11. Make of your life a spiritual quest. Work to become an Enlightened Person.2. The Ways of Wisdom are attempts to specify the beliefs necessary to become an Enlightened Person and can only be fully actualized within an Enlightened Community.
a. An Enlightened Person is someone who is achieving the closest approximation currently possible of a sustainable belief that their life has meaning.
b. An Enlightened Community is one that promotes the belief and implements the idea that human beings are the source of meaning and value and that the individual person must be seen as the focus for society's ultimate concern.
3. All the organizations of an Enlightened Community must ensure that their goals, procedures, and efforts support in whatever ways are appropriate the ability of all persons involved to become their best self.
[p. 3]
a. The Wisdom Group is seen as the initial organization to bring individuals together to help them apply the ideas of Science of Ethics.
b. When Wisdom Groups develop sufficient support they would establish a Center for the Practical Application of Wisdom to work on developing an Enlightened Community.
.
.
PART ONE: ETHICS Ethical beliefs are defined as the beliefs that relate those things concerned with maintaining and developing the human species within the framework of human nature. For individuals this means those beliefs that lead them toward achieving a sustainable belief that their life has meaning.
.
Traditionally, any interest in involving science in the area of ethics has foundered on one problem after another. Initially this was because morality was within the realm of folk religions the sole possession of meaning. More recently it has been because this didn't seem possible due to the way the various philosophers discussed it, especially the English philosopher G.E. Moore who claimed it was a "naturalistic fallacy" to think that ethical choices could be derived through science.
Bart Kosko in his writings on fuzzy logic discusses other ideas that made it seem science and ethics could not be joined together. Kosko says, "In a sense that I will explain science has disposed of ethics. We have no final argument but force against the young men who run through Dostoevsky novels and shout 'Everything is permitted!'....Up close the social contract shades into gray and frays into whatever you want it to be." [2]
However, Science of Ethics says there is an argument other than threats and punishment for those who claim, "Everything is permitted." The answer is knowledge, information, facts, opportunities, Wisdom, human nature. These consist of first, developing a unifying principle of a compelling nature: a sustainable belief that one's life has meaning boils down to having a good enough reason to live to avoid committing suicide or otherwise ending one's life for irrational or erroneous reasons. It also provides a compelling reason to avoid asocial and antisocial behavior.
There are some things that are essential for one to achieve the state described by a sustainable belief that one's life has meaning. On the other hand there are some things that prevent, or at least make more difficult, the achievement of this state. Therefore, in terms of one's most fundamental need, not all things are permitted. Discovering which things are permitted and which are not is the most important goal of one's life and the lives of all people.
Kosko writes, "Science undercuts ethics because we have made science the measure of all things. Truth means truth of science. Truth means logical truth or factual truth. Truth means math proof or data test. The truth can be a matter of degree. But that does not help ethics."(p. 256) I think a Sustainable Belief that one's Life Has Meaning provides a way around Kosko's arguments. Also, see VOLUME II, Chapter 18-B, "What Fuzzy Logic Can Teach Us About Ethics, Morality, and a Science of Ethics." [3] -- Ethics/morals then becomes an area of relevant concern.
[p. 4]
Kosko continues (p. 256), "The argument starts like this. Are ethical statements true? Are they false? Look at the ethical statement 'Murder is wrong.' Is it true?" Obviously, when Kosko considers whether or not murder is wrong, the issue boils down to what we take "wrong" to mean and our related assumptions. If we think there is some Absolute Reference System independent of humanity that we can use to determine right and wrong we are pursuing a dead end path. This ended with the death of God, or the recognition that God is a mystery, not a source of information or answers. But if we recognize that right and wrong relate to the fact that Human Beings Are the Ultimate Reference System we then have a way to evaluate such sentences. Ethical statements are expressions of opinion. They are opinions that can in principle be substantiated/ disproven. Current science is developing tools that could be helpful for the preceding effort. How does one validate an opinion? By testing it against data just like scientists test any other opinion (which they call hypotheses, theories, laws). When we say a given choice is right if it leads toward achievement of a Sustainable Belief that one's Life Has Meaning and wrong if it leads away from it, we have a criteria that can be used to evaluate choices and determine their truth value.
When we focus on a Sustainable Belief that one's Life Has Meaning then we have a criteria that permits direct empirical study. Does murdering (or for that matter does lying, cheating, stealing, intimidating, abusing, mistreating, striving for power over others, etc.) lead one toward or away from achieving a Sustainable Belief that one's Life Has Meaning?
I'm sure everyone has opinions on these things, but the point is this issue like any other can be studied to remove the more subjective aspects of opinions. Data can be accumulated, analyzed, and compelling conclusions drawn. Like any conclusion in science these are not final answers that cannot change, but they are answers to be used. When properly used these answers can help people make better choices in their lives.
But to put ethical/moral matters into the proper perspective, we need to understand the following quote. "An ethics of daily practice...would need to employ almost a novelist's eye in order to uncover the implications of acts and choices so small that we rarely stop to observe them. It would take as its goal an examination of behavior that we automatically consider free from ethical content: what we read, what we wear, how we talk to our children, the furnishings we choose, even perhaps the daydream that passes unnoticed as we round a familiar corner."[4]
What seems essential to me is to focus more broadly and also very specifically on the area of choice. What are the rules for making the best choices possible? What is society's role in teaching these rules and then providing assistance to help individuals and groups actually make good choices and avoid bad choices?
Every choice is a "cause set in motion." It is essential that we monitor all choices even if sporadically to ensure that our choices are moving us in the direction we want to go. The foregoing is especially important if we have accepted the goal of helping to create an Enlightened Community and to become an Enlightened Person.
[p. 5]
Making good choices is what the Ways of Wisdom are about, especially the Fifth Way. [5] The Ways of Wisdom provide a method to organize all knowledge. Persons will thereby be able to assess the value of any given data, fact, or assumption. The aim is to help individuals use the experiences and best thinking of all people to make every choice in their life. Each choice should help the person move toward achieving a Sustainable Belief that their Life Has Meaning.
Kosko goes on (p. 262), "Reason ends in doubt. Science disposes of ethics. It strips moral claims of logic and fact and reduces them to feeling in words." Up to the current time Kosko is right. Reason does end in doubt. This is not just the doubt of realizing that TRUTH cannot be attained, but the doubt of not knowing what is the proper way to live a life. What is it about human life and human living that is important? How should we be living our life? What is the goal of life? How can we achieve that goal?
Western society has been guided by the current concepts and models of philosophy (the joy of free speculation), folk religions (transcendence through God), and science (the satisfaction of having Truth about the universe) to their obvious limits/ conclusions. We have found that these concepts and models lead into an abyss. We can stand at the edge of this abyss and wail and moan or we can start over.
I want to start over. For me starting over means utilizing the best thinking and experience from all of humanity to get clearly in mind the most fundamental issues. I think that "the meaning of human life," provides a way to usefully deal with these definitive questions. When we properly define and utilize "the meaning of human life" concept we see that the path leads not to doubt, but to clarity -- to clarity in choices, life goals, behavior, and how to achieve satisfaction, joy, excitement, creativity, enthusiasm, transcendence: the Enlightened Community made up of Enlightened Persons.
But to achieve the foregoing requires changes at the most fundamental level that clarifies what the quality of human life means. We must re-define science and understand ethics in a new way. Science instead of being only the search for knowledge, truth, and understanding, must include the application of whatever knowledge and understanding we achieve to the improvement of the quality of human living. The best place to start is by defining science as the search for congruency. The goal of ethics must be clarified in terms of the meaning of human life. It must be recognized as the area of science that deals with everything relevant to human living. It takes as the goal of human life to achieve a Sustainable Belief that one's Life Has Meaning. And it studies beliefs to clarify which ones lead the person toward achieving a Sustainable Belief that their Life Has Meaning and which ones do not. It would encourage the development of organizations to help persons to achieve a Sustainable Belief that their Life Has Meaning. Empiricism provides the feedback to a science-based ethical system to guide each person to become an Enlightened Person.
If contemporary society is to make a "breakthrough" and achieve something fundamentally new -- a paradigm for achieving the potential made possible when our species evolved the "language ability" (See Chapter One [6].) -- it must learn how to properly use knowledge. The foregoing can only be accomplished by establishing an Enlightened Community where necessary changes can be introduced as needed.
However, only persons who have achieved a Sustainable Belief that their Life Has Meaning can set up and sustain an Enlightened Community. Therefore, the need is great to produce Enlightened Persons. But, since no model currently exists, How do we learn what must be done in order to become an Enlightened Person? The answer to the foregoing question is not clear. Are the ideas included in the current Ways of Wisdom on the right track, or are they distractions, totally misfocused? It seems important for a Wisdom Group to move carefully and honor any resistance by the individuals involved.
[p. 6]
Clearly, it is necessary that all persons decide for themselves whether they have found a Sustainable Belief that their Life Has Meaning. Society may help the individual in every practical way to make their search as easy, direct, and fruitful as possible, but it cannot make fundamental decisions for them. The foregoing defines the essence of an Enlightened Community. Certainly, no one can find a Sustainable Belief that their Life Has Meaning without help. But, neither can it be found by accepting ideas that wear like robes that cover, but hide individuality. A Science of Ethics is based on the core assumption that the fundamental goals are the same for all people. But at the same time each person is unique. And a Wisdom Group must honor and promote these differences. It is also the uniqueness of the individual that is the strength of Modern Humans. It must be encouraged and developed if we are to endure in a chaotic universe.
However, since the state of having a sustainable belief that one's life has meaning must also be determined by outside observers this is the evaluation used by Wisdom Groups and related persons. There is the potential for a difference of opinion on this evaluation so it is important that standards, procedures, behaviors, etc. be as clear as current knowledge permits.
The goal of a Wisdom Group must be to stimulate in each person a thirst for knowledge and an ability to distinguish between positive and negative answers and values. All teaching must be aimed at helping students ask better questions rather than expecting to obtain final answers. Care must be taken to ensure that the content of education is proven to the degree claimed. And it must always be made clear that all "facts" rest on unproven assumptions. (See VOLUME II, Chapter 10, "Science and the Search for Truth."[7])
It should be obvious that a Sustainable Belief that one's Life Has Meaning can only be achieved with knowledge. Just as certainly individuals will labor in a vacuum as long as knowledge is not used to help them attain a Sustainable Belief that their Life Has Meaning. For all persons to achieve a Sustainable Belief that their Life Has Meaning, it is necessary to recognize that the focus must be not on what humanity achieves, but on what each individual achieves.
A.J. Ayer[8] was right on the mark when he said, "There is no field of experience which cannot, in principle, be brought under some form of scientific law, and no type of speculative knowledge about the world which it is, in principle, beyond the power of science to give."
[p. 7]
A Science of Ethics presents a new paradigm and a Center for the Practical Application of Wisdom would build on it. All of a society's assumptions must be carefully examined to see how well they hold up. And, all parts of this process depend on the methods of science which has allowed humanity to make giant strides forward in understanding the world due to the ever increasing power of its tools and knowledge base.
Although science has increased our knowledge and mastery of the forces of nature, it has rejected that which is most important: the area of meaning of human life. By ignoring ethics which deals with meaning, or by accepting the validity of ethical systems based on untestable assumptions, scientists have been among those leaders who have missed the opportunity to help our species master our greatest hurdle. Humanity is in the process of creating itself and needs guidance on how to do that. Such a breakthrough is what a Science of Ethics is about.
This breakthrough would create a utopia leading to developing organizations to produce Enlightened Persons and Enlightened Communities. These structures would allow individuals to live the best lives possible totally bonded to their society yet totally developed as individuals. Nowhere has the necessary congruency between the individual and society yet been achieved. On the one hand the U.S. has been a pioneer in developing a model that is crucial in humanity's effort to create themselves in a way congruent with their "wisdom" potential. This is the model of the individual as being of the highest value and their right to make the choices about the things that effect their life -- what they read, their education, employment, religious affiliation, life style, etc.
On the other hand because the U.S. has placed an unbalanced attention on the individual, it has greater incongruency between the individual and society (between independence and interdependence) than almost anywhere else on earth. In urban areas in the U.S. harmony between individuals and society is almost totally missing. It seems clear to me that the U.S. has reached a point where its citizens are in a position to see that a new approach is needed. We must learn how to maintain the sacredness of the individual while at the same time allowing them to achieve total integration into society. In spite of our tremendous knowledge this synthesis is almost totally missing from modern life. Many modern persons would ask whether or not it's even possible for modern human beings to achieve the same level of congruency with the natural world and each other that existed prior to the evolution of the language ability, and yet maintain current levels of personal freedom and individual self fulfillment. Can we find a way to achieve congruency of life that maximizes growth and development of the individual, and of the community at the same time?
First we must recognize that these two goals need not be in conflict. That is one of the most important messages of Science of Ethics. Of course this conflicts with some 200 years of thinking by those persons in Western society most acclaimed by our culture. So making this transition will not be a cakewalk. The key to this congruency must be to develop organizations based on a Science of Ethics.
But how can a Science of Ethics be developed? To develop a Science of Ethics one merely needs to provide a unifying principle that ties all relevant behavior and experience together in such a way that the associated hypotheses can be tested empirically. Darwin's approach -- that changed biology from a descriptive to an empirical science -- might provide a useful model.
[p. 8]
Unfortunately, my organizing principle for a Science of Ethics -- meaning of human life -- is not supported with the overwhelming mass of carefully assembled evidence such as that Darwin presented in ORIGIN OF SPECIES. However, I do elaborate on the ideas presented here with the material assembled in VOLUME II[8.b]. Nevertheless, my efforts are probably more comparable to the evolution writings of Jean Baptiste Lamarck, or Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin's work. As a result my model very possibly includes assumptions as erroneous as those that Lamarck based his theory of evolution on (that changes in offspring were caused by parental behavior as they struggled to fulfill an inner urge -- an innate tendency toward perfection -- to fit their niche).
Regardless of how the foregoing turns out the establishment of a Science of Ethics seems to me to be the most pressing need of humanity. I propose that every major problem in the world today is due to the lack of a Science of Ethics. Current ethical systems based on non-empirically testable ideas do provide a storehouse of data to be analyzed and sifted for relevance. But developing an alternative system will be a mammoth undertaking. However, as indicated in my introduction, it is my fondest hope that after reading this book many members of local churches, synagogues, mosques, etc. might more clearly understand their mission and want to become part of a Wisdom network. Although folk religions in general are like folk medicine prior to the introduction of science there is tremendous variation within local groups. Some of them only need the vision of a Science of Ethics in order to move in that direction. However, speaking generally, folk religions can do some things very well based on folk remedies, and cultural wisdom. Other things are a disaster. One area of crisis/tragedy/calamity in the modern world is the inability of folk religions to apply the tools of science to their assumptions and conclusions. As a result this has led to their enmeshment in erroneous ideas about how the universe works. Individuals who are attempting to rise above the subjective, error-filled assumptions of their culture's folk religion have no source of common wisdom to look to. There is no universally applicable foundation upon which to ground their life.
One reason for the foregoing situation is a lack of understanding by scientists and modern thinkers in general of the possibility and importance of a Science of Ethics. Because the true function of ethics in a society has been overlooked by social scientists and almost all other seminal thinkers up to this point, we have built social structures without foundations. Ethical systems when they function properly are a bonding force in society, binding the individual to their society, and to all of humanity. They provide the symbols and concepts used for assessing and valuing everything else. They provide individuals a sense of well being and focus for their life. It is the failure to develop a Science of Ethics that has magnified all our other failures.
.
.
.
.