CHAPTER TWO -- B
Arthur M. Jackson
Copyright 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006
PART I: ETHICS (Continued)
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All current religious institutions are based on erroneous and outmoded ideas and models of human beings and the world. As a result they mislead, confuse, and induce all who are involved in them to fritter away their lives. For some people the effects appear minor. For others it is catastrophic. However, in reality it is disastrous for everyone because instead of functioning at the highest level of one's potential almost all of us move along in low gear. Instead of achieving a sustainable belief that our lives have meaning many persons experience hopelessness, depression, deprivation, and the lowest levels of achievement. Individuals exploit each other because they have been taught that they can benefit from doing so though they may be punished later if their behavior or thoughts are discovered. Instead of adding significantly to the treasury of human progress, most persons add little; or, more likely show by example how not to live the good life.
Replacing folk religions is current society's greatest need. Alternative institutions must be developed that help real people with their real problems. These new institutions would dramatically improve the quality of each person's life. I see a Wisdom Group as the primary institution to initiate and support the vision of the Enlightened Person. These persons would then develop and work through a Center for the Practical Application of Wisdom to help each society become an Enlightened Community.
Lacking such Groups and institutions neither the U.S. nor any other society will be able to coordinate and focus its intellectual and economic resources so as to produce the necessary changes. The goal of a Science of Ethics is to encourage in every way it can the growth and development of such resources.
As indicated earlier this Science of Ethics is based on the core ideas imbedded in the confusing concept, "the meaning of human life." I have proposed that the Science of Ethics is the science concerned with definitive issues, particularly, a sustainable belief that one's life has meaning and how individuals can achieve this belief. A Science of Ethics would then provide a framework that would allow all knowledge, wisdom, and understanding to be joined together into a congruent whole.
Because all human problems or concerns relate to the issue of meaning of human life it should lie at the core of ethics. But can this key issue be tackled in a scientific way? For me the answer is: Yes! Meaning of human life can actually be used as an organizing principle or concept to create an empirical Science of Ethics. It would then provide the mechanism to tie together our observations, analysis, and synthesis. Although the specifics of meaning of human life remain to be determined, it seems to me that the first and foremost element of meaning of human life involves a feeling of being part of a social group. Another, is the area of transcendence -- looking beyond the moment to that which is of lasting value. These social needs are something all normal human beings in good mental health share. And these social needs are ones traditionally filled by religious organizations. But very importantly, looking at these aspects of meaning of life lets one see that they must not only focus on the individual, but must also focus outward onto the individual's society and then beyond that to all of humanity.
[p. 2]
When one sees people living hollow lives, they are not observing "human nature." Rather, they are seeing reflected in the lives of individuals a society's deficient institutions, erroneous social theories, and mistaken ideas about how to live. When one sees angry individuals, performing cruel and hurtful acts, they are seeing persons who lacked important nurturing and guidance in their early years, and who have not been shown ways to recover from those traumas and achieve love, tenderness, closeness. In addition they are seeing persons who lack transforming visions that inspire and direct them.
"Human nature is not something existing separately in the individual, but [is]...a relatively simple and general condition of the social mind....[Human beings] cannot acquire it except through fellowship, and it decays in isolation. [9]" Therefore, no person can be studied independently of the society and family in which they were raised.
A Science of Ethics should provide guidance to establish the agencies and resources to support individuals in their quest for meaning and a universal way to bind all people together. Specifically it must help to provide the paradigm to guide research in sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, the other sciences, as well as studies and research within Science of Ethics itself. Science of Ethics must then bring the results of all this research together and utilize it to improve the quality of human living.
At their best this is what religious institutions have always been for -- to provide ways to incorporate the wisdom and experiences of the past into the lives of current and future generations. In the process of doing this they bind all the members of the group together. Since modern thinking and understanding have shown the inadequacy of traditional religious symbols the concerned person must, therefore, grapple to find new symbols and new formulations -- better ways to tie it all together. That is the real quest of this book!
A study of the way science works indicates that one cannot determine by thought alone what behaviors, ingredients, social structures, etc. will fulfill the requirements of a sustainable belief that one's life has meaning. As Einstein has said, "Through purely logical thinking we can attain no knowledge whatsoever of the empirical world." [10] Conjecture will not allow one to decide which courses of action are absolutely necessary to achieve a sustainable belief that one's life has meaning. And which ones, though enjoyable and useful, are not absolutely necessary. Or, which ones may appear important, but turn out to be destructive or to misdirect one.
Perhaps, the factors that make up a sustainable belief that one's life has meaning are not the same for everyone. They may conflict and interact in complex ways. It may be that different personality styles require different behaviors in order to achieve a sustainable belief that their life has meaning. There could well be ingredients absolutely necessary to one person that would be harmful to others [11]. If the foregoing is correct, it will increase the difficulty of finding the components of a sustainable belief that one's life has meaning for any given person. However, I am convinced that it can and must be done. But it can only be done by studying actual people's lives and actual societies. Anything said here must be tested by actual research and changed as the data requires. Every culture should be expected to provide useful insights to guide the restructuring of existing societies into Enlightened Communities.
[p. 3]
If the components of a sustainable belief that one's life has meaning and the methods for achieving it can be isolated, and described, this information must be formulated in such a way that it would help anyone from any culture to move toward becoming an Enlightened Person. The Ways of Wisdom currently look suspiciously like idealizations of the present social and cultural goals of contemporary Western society. Undoubtedly, the views herein presented are overly dependent on one culture, and need more anthropological in-put.
The basic assumption of my approach is that the core need human beings have is to feel worthwhile and that their life has value. This is what I call a state of feeling that one's life has meaning. It is characterized by positive emotions such as joy, happiness, effectiveness, love, usefulness, etc. This need for a feeling that one's life has meaning can overcome all our drives at least within limits. It can cause us to deny our sexual drive and become celibate. It can cause us to spurn food, and fast even unto death. It can cause us to undergo torture and deformity. Under certain circumstances it can move anyone to sacrifice their life and in other situations to commit suicide. It is the need that is with us all the time and causes the disillusioned, lost, betrayed, unfulfilled, and/or discouraged person's feelings of hopelessness, despair, and uselessness.
For human beings the essence of the meaning of life is a feeling state -- a feeling state that depends upon the individual's beliefs. At its best this is a positive feeling that one is important and that their life has value. We can only understand its complexity and parameters by studying individuals and societies. However it seems safe to say that meaning of life at its most fundamental level means love and physical affection showered on the individual by people they love and who care for them in return. These conditions tend to exist in all hunter-gatherer tribes of the world. In a small integrated group of individuals who share common beliefs this condition exists for most members almost all the time. As a result nearly all the members of the group experience a feeling that their life has meaning. In fact they would not understand the question if they were asked whether or not their life had meaning. Existential separation can only come when one is cut off and alienated from other people; when they see no reasonable hope for the future. The foregoing begins to occur with increasing frequency as a society becomes more and more complex and loses the cultural activities that make people feel connected. This condition was rampant during and after World War II because of the disillusionment it caused about humanity's ability to attain the good life.
However, on the other side of the balance, one would find that in a pre-literate tribe the area of the transcendent is not handled very well from the perspective of a Science of Ethics. Information is not dealt with satisfactorily. There are no structures to gather, test, assimilate, correct, expand, and properly make use of information. Therefore, there is a severe limitation on how much of their positive potential each member of the group can achieve. They are totally preoccupied with the mundane -- finding and eating food, idle discourse, sexual activity, and taking care of other basic life necessities, or diversions. As indicated in Chapter One their lives are focused on their raw "tribal" propensities. Knowledge is not pursued as a goal, so ignorance reigns. The individual's "wisdom" potential opened up by the development of the language ability is barely utilized. Members of the group have vast capacities and powers that are not realized. Whether they recognize it or not, some essential elements of their needs are not stimulated by their society and, as a result, are missing from their worldview. These missing components make them very vulnerable to losing their feeling that their life has meaning. This can happen due to changes in the climate, invasions by other societies, disease, contact with new ideas, old age, etc. Therefore, a feeling that one's life has meaning is not sustainable even though it may last over a given individual's entire life. (On first exposure the preceding idea sounds like doublethink. However, it is a key idea that will be discussed in more depth elsewhere.)
[p. 4]
Current U.S. society values the pursuit of knowledge (at least in a general way), but almost always for the wrong reasons. Rarely, if ever, is it focused on the relevant aspects of the transcendent; i.e., developing one's "wisdom" potential. Modern people have lost the deep and nurturing connection with a group, clan, tribe, family, etc. And it is a core assumption of Science of Ethics that the absence of nurturing connection with other people is a major component of depression. Therefore, as indicated below, psychological depression surrounds us.
"We live in an age of depression. Compared with when our grandparents were young, depression is now ten times as widespread in the United States, and the rate is climbing. Nowadays, depression first strikes people ten years younger, on average, reaching into late childhood and early adolescence for its youngest victims. It has become the common cold of mental illness."[12]
"If we consider the worst mood these people [in the experiment] ever experienced, it appears that the dimension of depression is the most strongly represented. The words that make up this dimension are: depressed, gloomy, sad, empty, lonesome, helpless, discouraged, and hopeless. The experience of loss, separation, and mourning is apparently a more distressing experience than that of fear or worry." [13] I interpret the foregoing to support my analysis of the importance of having a feeling that one's life has meaning. States of depression I equate with moving toward the lack of a feeling that one's life has meaning. This state has been shown in the above study to be the most painful one to those persons studied, and I assume to essentially everyone else.
Susan A. Everson -- an epidemiologist at the Western Consortium for Public Health in Berkeley, California -- and her colleagues have recently published data about the relationship between depression and hopelessness."[14] Their studies suggest that the widespread notion that hopelessness represents an extreme form of depression is wrong. However, this research doesn’t change the above conclusions about depression. Everson’s work supports the idea that hopelessness; i.e., bleak expectations about oneself and the future bode ill for physical health.
My position is that depression is more likely as one's feeling that their life has meaning begins to diminish. This loss represents a failure in the society's and the individual's belief system. Although our culture tends to think of depression in terms of psychological illness and chemical imbalances in the brain -- these overlook the obvious: all primates need nurturing touch and group acceptance in order to maintain a positive, energized life. All societies have tried to ensure their members a viable feeling of worth and value, but from the perspective of Science of Ethics they have always failed in doing so. A society that is not yet an Enlightened Community cannot provide this feeling to all members of the group. The foundation upon which a feeling that one's life has meaning rests in such cases is such that it can disappear at any moment. Only an Enlightened Community can provide sufficient support to its members so they can continue to correct the Community's errors and therefore maintain necessary procedures on a sustained basis.
Many individuals have thought that they could find an objective standard transcendent to humanity by which to attain meaning. But, every step forward in knowledge and understanding has moved us in the opposite direction. The redness of a rose and the roundness of a sphere exist only in people's minds. Instead of showing the inadequacy of human beings as interpreters, the foregoing demonstrates that we must always work within the framework of human perceptions and interpretations.
Individuals can enjoy an orchid and the beauty of a musical composition not because of any inherent quality in those things, but because of the way human's brains function, and therefore interpret/experience them. A thing, therefore, becomes meaningful only as it is meaningful to human beings. A meaningful life cannot rest on any standard independent of humanity. From this perspective human beings are the source of meaning and value and the individual person is taken to stand as the focus for society's ultimate concern.
[p. 5]
As the foregoing ideas are studied it becomes obvious that meaning of human life depends upon a feeling state. These feelings are characterized by hope. In this way aspirations are nurtured which give a sense of direction and importance to each individual's life. There is no need to look for answers beyond the physical world. This book is concerned with developing a Science of Ethics which would include every dimension of reality and promote the exploration of the full complexity of the Universe.
Science of Ethics need not be able to answer every question about which one wonders. However, the questions that are not answered cannot be crucial to the issue of the meaning of human life. But they may require more knowledge and/or understanding than is currently available in order to be answered. In addition to the foregoing it is proposed that any cogent ethical system is required to fulfill at least three other requirements:
1. It must be of value to and able to be followed by all of humanity -- be universal.
2. Its premises must be independently discoverable and its conclusions capable of being falsified -- be objective.
3. It must be comprehensive in scope, clearly stated, and internally consistent.
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REQUIREMENT FOR UNIVERSALITY EXPANDED
Any cogent ethical System must be of value to and able to be followed by all of humanity.
Any ethical System to be cogent needs to be universally applicable -- for all human beings. Persons are not justified in accepting an ethical system as "The System" unless it is accepted and followed unreservedly by all people. Each person must be politically and physically free, satisfactorily educated, and accept the System not because of ignorance, but due to understanding. Furthermore, until every person accepts and is able to follow its precepts, no System can legitimately be judged as complete by its supporters. Until the foregoing state exists it cannot rightfully be proclaimed "The System."
To be able to accomplish the foregoing an ethical System must be able to help each person achieve a suitable, satisfactory level of education. These persons must also have a firm contact with reality; i.e., be in good mental health. It must be able to help any person become an Enlightened Person. No matter how prejudiced, sexist, racist, chauvinist, or otherwise self-destructive and asocial/antisocial the person, they must be helped to achieve a sustainable belief that their life has meaning, or the ethical System is imperfect. Since any irrationally harmful behavior to self or others results from ignorance, (either in the individual, or in society) such behavior must be able to be changed with sufficient knowledge.
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REQUIREMENT FOR OBJECTIVITY EXPANDED
The premises of any cogent ethical System must be based on falsifiable concepts that are independently discoverable and available to all persons.
Any ethical System to be cogent must be based on objective, not subjective events such as accident of birth. Its foundation assumptions must not be immune or shielded from questioning rather they must lead to falsifiable consequences. Like any scientific theory The System must potentially be open to anyone to find. However, since it is concerned with all knowledge, it is not easily discovered any more than was uranium, the planet Pluto, calculus, or the theory of relativity. Every path followed consistently must lead to it. One's answers must not critically depend only upon desire, blind faith, or subjective, unrepeatable experience.
[p. 6]
Only when basic concepts have testable implications and observable, experimental support can the foregoing be avoided. Only then must discrepancies be recognized and corrected. Only then can a person's agreement or disagreement with the positions presented be translated into a search for verifiable answers. For example using an illustration from the natural sciences consider the situation where the question is raised whether the earth is flat or spherical? We must ask how one might choose between these ideas. Can either assertion be translated into a test that can be demonstrated or refuted? Or, does it become obvious to a sensible, rational, knowledgeable person that either claim is irrational and/or invalid? In other words does a person's answer come out of their personal psychology, rather than external observational data?
The System must not be forced upon anyone. If it is correct it must be able to prove itself so in such a way that every person accepts it without resort to force, psychological trickery, subterfuge, group pressure, etc. In reality if a society possesses The System, individuals from other societies -- if such existed -- would be able to enter it and become completely at home there without significant misgivings, longing to return to their former society, or feelings of disillusionment. The foregoing would be true because an Enlightened Community is able to fulfill all of one's essential needs. To reiterate for the sake of clarity, fulfilling all of one's essential needs does not consist of guaranteeing complacency by perpetuating the vegetable state (like dripping pleasure hormones into their brain). The System must fulfill persons' aspirations and ensure they have aspirations. To accomplish the foregoing it must be able to replace the ideas of any parochial group, society, or folk religion, or those spontaneously generated by the seeking individual.
The System must have a better foundation than common sense. Common sense cannot be looked upon as more than a collection of preconceptions defined by the limits of one's experiences and knowledge. To say that one can determine by common sense whether a given act, idea, or System is the best one is to deny the tremendous advance science has made since scientists have given up such methods.
The idea of determining whether a procedure, concept, or construct (i.e., an ethical System) is "right" or "wrong" through logic is a smaller segment of the foregoing problem. As A.J. Ayer [15] makes clear, logic can tell us nothing necessarily true about the real world, the empirical world -- the world of "right" and "wrong" behavior. Also, it is helpful to understand that Aristotelian yes/no logic (law of the excluded middle) cannot be counted to apply in an analysis of real world behavior. In a limited application it may appear to do so, but it can introduce errors and even absurdities (such as Bell's Theorem). [16] This area of logic has been used to "prove" whatever one starts out to prove since Aristotle formalized logic in the fourth century BCE.
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REQUIREMENT FOR CONSISTENCY EXPANDED
Any cogent ethical System must be comprehensive in scope, clearly stated, and internally consistent.
The System must be concerned with everything in some way and everything must in some way be pertinent to it. Unless an ethical System is comprehensive and considers all things of which humans are aware it does not provide an adequate framework for living in the world. Therefore, no component of history, emotion, science, art, or anything else could automatically be excluded from consideration because it was perceived as being too insignificant to matter. “The System” provides the unifying vision that fits all these things together into a congruent whole to answer the question, “what is the meaning of human life?”
[p. 7]
In the first requirement the hypothesis is presented that an ethical System must be able to be followed by all persons if it is in reality "The System." If an ethical System is not clearly stated, no person can truthfully say whether or not they accept it or are following it. If it is so vague that any person can be said to be following it regardless of her or his beliefs or actions, then the ethical System has limited validity and cannot be "The System."
It must not use vague concepts that are undefinable and/or untestable such as God, soul, Heaven, the Devil, Nirvana, Karma, and similar ideas. Since these consepts are actually being used in many current ethical systems I take that as evidence of their inadequacy. An ethical System is not cogent if its key terms do not have the same meaning to all who use them. If persons interpret the basic concepts in different ways, no cogent System exists. This does not mean that everyone must believe exactly the same things and agree on every point. The foregoing is impossible since every assumption is open to questioning, and few ideas are proven beyond the shadow of a doubt. As a result just as early scientists were justified in thinking of light as either a wave, or particle phenomena since research and observation supported each view, an ethical System must consider all the explanations consistent with the evidence.
However, if the core assumptions can be used as easily to prevent persons from understanding the universe as from achieving understanding, then a cogent system does not exist. As indicated in the second requirement falsifiable concepts are essential to have a cogent System. Only if the statements and definitions of an ethical System are clearly presented like those for the other areas of science is it possible to develop valid experiments or observations to test them.
A cogent ethical System must be internally consistent. Only if the foregoing condition is met can an ethical System be in harmony with itself. If one part of it supports cause and effect and another part denies it, internal consistency is lacking. If in one place it promotes the importance of the individual human personality, and in another supports isolation and repression of individuals, internal consistency is lacking. If it works to promote human well being and ignores the well being of the planet on which all human life depends then internal consistency is lacking. If it claims to deal with all that is important in the universe and yet ignores the maintenance and development of the human species because it relies on historical mythologies, then its consistency with modern knowledge must be questioned.
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