Posted by juan meridalva (207.55.102.52) on June 25, 2003 at 17:37:18:
Thanks Creativity Cafe for permiting me to participate.
What follows is a part of a discution on Ethics on the web site of "Science of Ethics"
I think a true debate in ethics should produce not necessarily only one model but various, that compliment one another and dont' have internal contradictions, dont' contradict each other, and don't contradict experience.
Yes, I agree with you that is tragic that being moral is often equated with "altruism.
Self interest is the same as the interest of the species, if it wasn't we would not be here. The task is to find ways that our fears don't distort our sense of self interest.
meridalva.
Here is a model of "Creative Ethics", That utilizes a concept of
sapience that seeks to refer to "our totality" qua "sapient species"
and the totality of an individual, as well as to our most universaly
held concepts of Ideal realization on a human. The sum of the proper elements of humanity.
Proper elements: The elements that trough Creativity, take us to expand as individuals and as species to ever more dimensions of reality,(or the total environment)
SAPIENCE: The synergistic effect of the dynamic interaction
of: WISDOM
MORALITY
LOVE
CREATIVITY.
The ethics of Sapience, or "Creative Ethics" Propose that:
The goal that consciouslty or subconsciously has taken humanity to
the point it is now, in spite of other goals, is, and has been so
since the beggining: "The maximization of Sapience".
That:
Accepting that the best one can do for oneself and for humanity is
to:
"seek to maximize our and everybody's Sapience without diminishing anybody's
Sapience," is the only necessary and sufficient element to develop
viable personal, social ethics.
Ethics that are not relative.(Meaning that
the ethics do not depend on particular cultures but are applicable in
any society, primitive or highly advanced.)
That:
Only the maximization of Sapience can give us the best chance to
continue evolving for ever.
That:
Maximizing Sapience would give us the means to approximate maximally
an ever higher state of happiness and sustain it, by also showing us where and
when we are going wrong about happiness.
That:
Humanity it is a creative species. Humanity in an ever rising curve, creates itself. To optimize that we have morality.
That:
Increasing other person's sapience increases our own.
Definitions:
Wisdom: Knowledge of management of knowledge (this latter:true
information)
Morality: Optimal behavior.
Love: Feeling of identification and good will towards, self, others,
humanity, the whole of creation.
Creativity: The re-arrangement of patterns into new
patterns that enables to predict
and Manage more and more aspects
of the total environment: physical,
Biological, psycho-social.( Including
ourselves)(Including the aspect of our happiness".
Creativity is taken as any activity that capacitates more and more to
a life of growth. for the individual, for others, and the species as
a whole.(Educational activities, Fitness activities, Explorations,
inventions, Arts, The creation and participation in forums like this
one are all taken to be Creative.)
Creativity is the most amenable of the elements above to the application of
the scientific method in it deployment and valoration, or at least, to verification by experience.
Principally in the form of objective creativity.
When those four concepts are nested into one,(sapience) then the
relativity of
conception of each one separate, by different persons, cultures,
primitive or advanced , will be minimized. Because creativity is the same for every human, and it gives us a way of determining by it's increase if we are being really Wise, Moral, Loving persons.
So:
If Sapience,(the totality) is to be maximized, then there should
be "creative
Wisdom" and " Creative Morality",as different from non-testable, or
authority based, or just so assumed wisdom and morality.
If Sapience is to be maximized there should be Wise, Moral, Creative
Love, as different from possessive, dependency, jealousy producing,
etc. Love.
If Sapience is to be maximized then there should be wise
creativity, Moral creativity, as different from irresponsible
creativity.
Creative "something" means also that the result of applying it would
be to
some degree or another, observable,
We would know that an act
increases sapience when creative actions by us or others are the
result of such act.
Creativity, then, makes our ethics experimental, auto-correcting.
Creativity validates ethics for everyone: Non-relative ethics.
By the same process, in an iterating way, in an asymptotic curve we
would become better and better at evaluating creativity in it's
longest term consequences.
.
No system guarantees the certainty that we are behaving optimally,
but this one is a feedback loops system. By iteration as it
develops, "optimizes" the methodology and the concepts it is based
on.
The Model of "Ethics of sapience= Creative ethics", seeks to motivate
the person or society applying it, to utilize scientific methodology
more and more as the application expands.
The basic Ethic, "creative Ethic" is not new to this world, it is
what in spite of so many obstructing elements in the physical and
psycosocial environment has taken us to be what we are now at our
best. The reason it has not been more succesfull is because it has
never been applied consistently (we do have other mores) and also
because it has allways been given in the shadows of some other
ethics, or has allways had to acomodate one Ideology or another.
When, who knows what ape or apes, took the first free steps
(nongenetically determined) toward learning something not know to anybody before, the Ethic was being
applied.
When parents send the kids to school, too.
When goverments (perhaps reluctantly) Institute educacional systems
they are apllying the Ethic.
When we choose to minimize pollution in our dayly activities we too
apply it.Pollution by diminishing health, diminishes capacity for
sapience.
Exercise by improving health, increases sapience.
Racial discrimination diminishes peoples sapience,=Unethical
Violents acts against non-agressors, for the same reason=unethical.
So too:
Rapes, frauds,lies, disrespect, thievery,etc.
The only reason to diminish anybody's sapience is if that person is
deliberately destroying some one else's sapience.
For the above
ethic to work it has to be accepted in complete freedom and, not because some body says it should, but on/ for
it's own merits, That is if it works, if it capacitates people more and more.
I have tried to be short in this, but I appreciate if somebody wants
to trouble shoot the model with me, any questions on apllication are
wellcome.
You increase my sapience, I increase yours, into infinity.
Thanks.
Juan Meridalva.