Ken,
Thanks for your great respons. We are building here, not breaking and that's what I
like. Let's see if I can take it one step further. I think we are in understanding of
eachothers viewpoints, but we differ in what it means for human beings as Moral-beings.
Ken writes:
> First let me say that I agree with you that looked at in your way (just
> as correct) the universe is still a moral universe by virtue of Quality. If
> we are not going to view humanity as something we would like to save then
> everything you say is true and the morality of the universe has not been
> affected.
Walter says:
Precisely, now of course we can still disagree on IF humanity could be saved
and if so HOW humanity can be saved.
Ken writes:
> Either evolution would proceed normally, possibly wipe out humanity, and
> produce another group having a more advanced sentient level. Without
> interference this process would repeat itself until Quality produced a
> level of sentience that could cope with the problem, or this process would
> continue until conditions changed in the universe so that no question
> remained.
Walter says:
Precisely my point.
Ken writes:
> The other path open would be if humanity became aware of the problem and
> devoted our smidgen of sentience toward making us compatible with the
> operation of the universe and the biosphere.
[...]
> According to my view the universe has been presented with sentience and I
> believe that this imposes a responsibility on humanity [...]
Walter says:
I agree with this too as long as this responsability on humanity is for humanity
itself and (therefore also for) it's environment or habitat. Not for Quality.
In the next piece it gets interesting, because we begin to disagree on what this
means for humanity.
Ken writes:
> We have agreed that your way of looking at Evolutionary Quality is as
> correct as any other and, according to your viewpoint, the universe is
> still a moral universe. It seems to me that this view absolves humanity
> from taking any thought or responsibility for sentience.
Walter says:
It's important that we make a distinction between universal (or evolutionary)
morality and human morality or ethics. Pre-sentient (as in pre-human) there
was no ethics, because there was no intellectual level in the evolution.
Morality or value remained confined to the inorganic, biological and social level.
Sentience brought up a whole new chapter in Morality and I agree with you
and David B. that the two are related and not independent.
Therefore 'my view' does not "absolve humanity from taking any thought or
responsibility for sentience".
But WHO is this 'humanity' that is responsible?
This seems a rather strange question perhaps, but it goes to the core of what
I mean. In the end ethics is about human behaviour. I want to bring human
morality back to the individual who has to make choices and act, in stead of
talking about a vague entity as 'humanity' that no one can hold responsible
for it's actions.
The question for this individual remains 'what is Good behaviour?' or
'What is a Good choice to make?'. One of the anwers that passed on this thread
was Pirsig's
> "In general, given a choice of two courses to follow and all other
> things being equal, that choice which is more dynamic, that is, at a
> higher level of evolution is more moral."
What intrigues me in the above quote is the 'all other things being equal'. Isn't this
precisely how the human brain works when making a choice. To make a decision you
take into account a set of data or inputs that you think matter in your decision, or
on which you think your decision will have an effect. The rest of the data you regard
as 'being equal'.
This way decisions and choices made are directly related to the level of awareness
of a person. The higher the level of awareness, the more (higher order) data you take
into account. What we call immoral behaviour is always behaviour out of a
lower level of awareness, judged by a higher level of awareness. It's easy to see that
when you have a bottom-up perspective on Morality, immoral behaviour does not exist
anymore, only good and better actions.
This builts a bridge to the answer of the question how ethics or sentient Morality is
related to the underlying evolutionary or pre-sentient Morality.
Just like it's good for an atom to colide into another atom and for an acorn to grow into
an oak-tree, it is moral that in a human being the level of awareness expands. Note that
I write this last sentence in a passive form to avoid that it is seen as if expanding is
only the consequence of actions. Humans do have an active role in this, but for a very
big part it's a path every human-being follows. Between humans there are huge differences
though in where development stops or where humans stop development.
I wrote about this before to you and Glove. I don't know if you remember:
This development of awareness goes in steps of increase of consciousness. These steps are
also steps of increasing morality: i.e. moral stages. A child growing up to an adult, follows
different moral stages. I know that psych. Kohlberg has done some reseach about these
moral stages. It is know that a big part of the people only pass through a few moral stages
and cease development at an early point in there lifes. (From a moral point of view we could
question if we can call these people adults).
Now link the above with a quote from the Norwegian philosopher and deep-ecologist Arne Naess
in Capra's 'Web of life'!!! (sorry for the translation):
"Care comes automatic as the 'Self' broadens and deepens, so that protection of the free Nature
is felt and seen as protection of ourself ... One cares for oneself without moral pressure to do so.
Just like you don't need morality to keep on breathing ...you don't need any moral encouragement
to care for an other being, if your 'Self' encloses or comprises this other being. If reality is
like the ecological self is aware of it, our behaviour follows naturaly and in a splendid way the norms
of a strict environmental ethics".
I'm very tired, but I wanted to get this done.
Hope to have made some sense.
Dtchgtngs
Walter
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:14 BST