radarmark
Quaker-in-the-Making
Okay. The universe is not only composed of matter and energy, but thought and the product of thought as well (call them mental experiences or entities). Chief among these is what is usually called “Philosophy”, the reflexion on fundamental notions like reality, existence, knowledge, and values. The most fundamental form of philosophy is “first philosophy” or “speculative philosophy” or “metaphysics” (in the classical, not modern sense). As A.N. Whitehead put it "Speculative Philosophy is the endeavor to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted." I think I have established my basis (metaphysics) in the last lengthy post plus this introductory paragraph.
In philosophy (what used to be the Western Canon, but now pretty much a World-Wide Canon) the reflexion on the matter of “values” (what we should seek, what is beautiful, what is meaningful, what is just, what is right) is more properly called axiology, roughly the philosophical study or reflexion on notions of value.
In turn, ethics is the axiology of the values (or ethical properties) of “just”, “right”, “good”. I consider both meta-ethics (the reflexion on the nature of these ethical properties) and value theory (the reflexion on why individuals hold one ethical theory or another) the first two components of ethics; the other three being descriptive, normative, and applied ethics.
Of all of these five sub-categories, normative ethics (what “one should do” or how “one should behave”) is, in my opinion, the most basic. Why? Values are what we decide on or choose in normative ethics, and values are really what are basic to ethics and axiology.
Values are what drive ethical choices and actions. They are to ethics what Speculative Philosophy is to philosophy; the foundation, the root. Values denote the ethical importance (in terms of “just”, “right”, “good”) of a notion (be it how to live justly or how to do good) with the goal of determining what action or way of living is “the best” (a kind of deontology, a value of judgment of what is the most valuable way to live).
Yes, this is a very old fashioned and pre-modernist notion of what ethics is and what it should be. But for me, it is a middle way between the Scylla of subjective selfishness and self-promotion and the Charybdis of troubling tribalism and exclusivity. I do not believe that psychology or cultural studies add anything of real importance to ethics. They merely confuse the issue or muddy the waters or justify mob actions.
This is the realm of morals; the study of religious and cultural norms that substitute for ethics. A moral code has built in limitations (this set of morals apply to “primitive folk”, this moral code applies to “civilized people”, this code only applies to “the post-modern era”). No, I think that by individuals focusing on and discovering their ethics, the moral code can be uplifted. But that is a secondary, temporal link, not a sufficient cause.
In the end it is a given in my value theory, in my ethical code that behavior and action should be judged (in the deontological sense if you need to do that) by a developing, revealed, discoverable standard and not by the whims of the marketplace. Again, I am sorry if this upsets you, Jane Q.
In philosophy (what used to be the Western Canon, but now pretty much a World-Wide Canon) the reflexion on the matter of “values” (what we should seek, what is beautiful, what is meaningful, what is just, what is right) is more properly called axiology, roughly the philosophical study or reflexion on notions of value.
In turn, ethics is the axiology of the values (or ethical properties) of “just”, “right”, “good”. I consider both meta-ethics (the reflexion on the nature of these ethical properties) and value theory (the reflexion on why individuals hold one ethical theory or another) the first two components of ethics; the other three being descriptive, normative, and applied ethics.
Of all of these five sub-categories, normative ethics (what “one should do” or how “one should behave”) is, in my opinion, the most basic. Why? Values are what we decide on or choose in normative ethics, and values are really what are basic to ethics and axiology.
Values are what drive ethical choices and actions. They are to ethics what Speculative Philosophy is to philosophy; the foundation, the root. Values denote the ethical importance (in terms of “just”, “right”, “good”) of a notion (be it how to live justly or how to do good) with the goal of determining what action or way of living is “the best” (a kind of deontology, a value of judgment of what is the most valuable way to live).
Yes, this is a very old fashioned and pre-modernist notion of what ethics is and what it should be. But for me, it is a middle way between the Scylla of subjective selfishness and self-promotion and the Charybdis of troubling tribalism and exclusivity. I do not believe that psychology or cultural studies add anything of real importance to ethics. They merely confuse the issue or muddy the waters or justify mob actions.
This is the realm of morals; the study of religious and cultural norms that substitute for ethics. A moral code has built in limitations (this set of morals apply to “primitive folk”, this moral code applies to “civilized people”, this code only applies to “the post-modern era”). No, I think that by individuals focusing on and discovering their ethics, the moral code can be uplifted. But that is a secondary, temporal link, not a sufficient cause.
In the end it is a given in my value theory, in my ethical code that behavior and action should be judged (in the deontological sense if you need to do that) by a developing, revealed, discoverable standard and not by the whims of the marketplace. Again, I am sorry if this upsets you, Jane Q.
