CHOOSING AN ETHIC

by: Bob Podolsky

Why choose an Ethic?

It's a truism that most people wants to "better themselves" - that is to better the circumstances of their lives. Philosophies and religions are all derived from this fact. When one adopts a valid ethic, this goal can be realized or "manifested". The result is a life characterized by peace, prosperity, and freedom… it feels like having a compass in one's head… important decisions become simple...work feels like play… relationships "bloom"… and the day-to-day challenges and vicissitudes of life seem much less daunting. This is the state-of-mind in which one actually "becomes the change" one wishes to see in the world.

Introduction

As a young man I believed two things about ethics – one true, and the other false:

I believed the choice of an ethic is "arbitrary" - because one can choose any ethic one likes; and

I believed therefore that the entire subject of ethics is trivial – of no real use in making behavioral decisions.

As I learned much later, statement (1) above is true; but statement (2) is false. Lets examine the concept of an ethic a little more closely, and then apply it with some logic to a few actual ethics.

Specifying an Ethic

Every ethic consists of 2 parts that must be defined in order to fully specify a particular ethic:

A Value that the ethic is intended to increase, and

A belief or belief system that tells one how to behave in order to increase the desired value.

For instance, one might choose an ethic that values prosperity and operates on the belief that prosperity can be maximized by getting a job working for 40 years for a big corporation after, many years of education. As absurd as this belief is, in combination with the value, it is, nonetheless, an ethic – by definition – albeit not a very good one. When this is true, the belief fails to support the value, and the ethic is said to be "invalid".

Ethical Validity

An invalid ethic fails to produce more of the value sought – and in many instances actually has the opposite effect, diminishing the desired value. An example would be the Soviet Ethic that sought to produce "material well-being for all". The accompanying belief was that this outcome could be achieved through the adoption of a tyrannical communist regime. The result was: almost universal poverty. The ethic was clearly invalid.

The "No Ethic" Ethic

There are those who are so enthralled by the arbitrariness of choosing an ethic, that they see no reason to consciously make such a choice. This of course is just another kind of ethic. In this case both the value and the belief are random. And since there is no discernible value sought, the random belief fails to produce a value – so the ethic can be said to be invalid. On the other hand, since the random belief does produce random values, one could describe the ethic as valid.

As I see it, the real value sought is the illusion of having little or no responsibility for the adopter's experience of his life. And adopting this ethic certainly supports and increases that illusion, so it might best be called the "lazy man's ethic" - and it is technically valid, though of no practical use.

The "Golden Rule" and "Universally Preferred Behavior"

I've lumped these two ethics together because they both suffer from the same weakness – namely, there is no "universally preferred behavior". To see this clearly, imagine you have an encounter with a sado-masochist. He is someone who prefers to have others inflict pain on him. Do you really want him to do to you what he wants you to do to him? Unless you are also a sado-masochist, the answer is "probably not".

While you might suppose that sado-masochism is too uncommon to be of real relevance, the fact is otherwise. In my 40 years experience as a psychotherapist, At least 20% of the population worldwide displays a significant leaning towards such preferences. While the degree to which such a person actually acts on such impulses varies greatly from person to person, the fact of this phenomenon's existence proves the Golden Rule and the Universally Preferred Behavior to be invalid ethics.

The "Non-Aggression Principle"

Let's now examine an ethic that is valid, but not optimal. Called the "Non-Aggression Principle", the NAP states:

any initiation of coercive action (that is, any aggressive act) is ethically wrong.

The NAP ethic embraces freedom from violence as the value; and the belief is that this can be achieved by refraining from initiating violence or the threat of violence – while retaining the freedom to use limited violence in self defense.

If everyone restrained themselves from initiating violence, violence would indeed disappear, and no one would be the victim of violence. However, many of us learn violence from our parents when we are very young – usually before the age of 5 years – and we will still encounter violence until child-rearing becomes generally improved. My experience leads me to say those who were the abused as children, are the most are the biggest abusers as adults.

A more serious weakness of this ethic is that the value chosen is something not wanted – something to be avoided. In other words the value is a negative rather than a positive. It's based on what we don't want instead of what we do want. So while the ethic is valid, it doesn't address what we must do to increase a number of other equally important values. So let's look at the best ethic I have found to date.

The Ethics of Ethics

As everyone seems to know, ethics are the means by which one decides what is "good" and how to behave...how to live one's life. What is slightly less obvious is the fact that the choice of an ethic is itself subject to an ethic-based decision. This second-level ethic might be called a "meta-ethic". In similar fashion, one can construct any number of metan ethics...i.e. meta-meta, meta-meta-meta, and so forth. So the question this fact engenders is, "where does one start, in formulating a worthwhile ethic?"

To answer this question (quick before the theologians jump in) we can simply choose what I call a "universal referent" - which is to say, an objectively observable phenomenon of obvious value everywhere and at all times. For this choice I strongly suggest the phenomenon we call "evolution"… the opposite of which is "entropy". This choice has several advantages.

The phenomenon is objectively (scientifically) observable and is certainly of great intrinsic value.

The choice of this referent directly amplifies truth, awareness, love, and creativity… and indirectly creates peace, prosperity, happiness, and freedom.

For those who prefer to involve the "god" concept in their ethics, one can simply define "god" as that toward which life evolves. Doing so is completely compatible with the valid portions of the "Christian Ethic".

So let's take a closer look at the formulation of such an ethic.

The Evolutionary Ethic

For starters, there are a number of values that are logically equivalent to one another:

Truth (scientifically verifiable) + Objective

Awareness & Personal evolution

Love

Creativity

TALC resources are logically equivalent to one another in that increasing any one of them always increases them all – AND – limiting or diminishing any one of them always limits or diminishes them all. Any of these values can be used to create a valid ethic.

Here's an example based on the value of creativity and on the following belief system:

An act is ethical if it increases creativity for at least one person (including the person acting), without limiting or diminishing creativity for anyone.

In the definition above one can substitute any of the other values in the preceding (TALC) list for the word "creativity" and still have a valid ethic.

I have yet to see or find a valid ethic that is not logically equivalent to this one. Also, it should be noted that, counter-intuitively, no one has yet created a valid ethic based on the values of:

Freedom

Happiness

Pleasure

Power

Wealth

Many attempts to do so have been made; but to my knowledge none has succeeded.

Conclusion

For a more comprehensive discussion of ethics and their effects on the human condition, you are invited to read "Ethics, Law, & Government" on the Titanians.org website. The BORG has told you all your life to obey the law and to revere the government. Is it giving you what you want? Perhaps it's time to re-examine that decision.

Bob Podolsky

cronus@titanians(dot)org