Ethics applies primarily to human situations

[baywax]

The use of the word ethics applies primarily to human situations, actions and conditions. Ethics described:

The field of ethics, also called moral philosophy, involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Philosophers today usually divide ethical theories into three general subject areas: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Metaethics investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than expressions of our individual emotions? Metaethical answers to these questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of God, the role of reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms themselves. Normative ethics takes on a more practical task, which is to arrive at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. This may involve articulating the good habits that we should acquire, the duties that we should follow, or the consequences of our behavior on others. Finally, applied ethics involves examining specific controversial issues, such as abortion, infanticide, animal rights, environmental concerns, homosexuality, capital punishment, or nuclear war. By using the conceptual tools of metaethics and normative ethics, discussions in applied ethics try to resolve these controversial issues. The lines of distinction between metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics are often blurry. For example, the issue of abortion is an applied ethical topic since it involves a specific type of controversial behavior. But it also depends on more general normative principles, such as the right of self-rule and the right to life, which are litmus tests for determining the morality of that procedure. The issue also rests on metaethical issues such as, "where do rights come from?" and "what kind of beings have rights?"

http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/ethics.htm

Along with this explanation of the word ethics I wanted to explore whether the word also applied to mechanical systems. Can a mechanical system like a solar system or perhaps a transmission be described as ethical because of its good working order? If this were true then we could begin to answer the above question "where (do) our ethical principles come from, and what (do) they mean(?) Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than expressions of our individual emotions?

If the concept of ethics can be applied to mechanical structure as well as (or including) social, emotional and cultural structures then we can say that ethics is not just a human overlay on nature but a reflection of nature being used to help perpetuate and harmonize the human species.

What do you think?

Natural Ethics?

"Scientists and humanists should consider together the possibility that the time has come for ethics to be removed temporarily from the hands of the philosophers and bioligicized." (Wilson, E. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, l975, 562

)

A Physiological Basis for Ethics
Reviewed Work(s):
The Ethics of Hercules. A Study of Man's Body as the Sole Determinant of Ethical Values by Robert Chenault Givler
Review author: H. M. Parshley
Journal of Social Forces, Vol. 2, No. 5 (Nov., 1924), pp. 786-789

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1532-1282%28192411%292%3A5%3C786%3AAPBFE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4&size=LARGE

the 2nd link does a fair job of describing what I'm trying to point out. It is a study of the "mechanical ethics" or what is termed as the "physiological basis for Ethics" driving the ethical (or less-ethical) behavior of humans.

Since basically human ethics are solely dependent upon physical conditions that support survival there seems to be a direct link to the mechanistic universe and the mechanism of ethics. Any comments are appreciated.

While googling I found this thread with the same title on PF:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=5253

You'll find that many of the discussions touch on what I've brought up here.

 

[russ_watters]

I wouldn't call a machine ethical, but I do think you are on the right track in looking for a scientific or logical basis for ethics/morality.

 

[raolduke]

Ethics are just vices that people put on each other.

What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.

Supply an argument to my follow up.
How does "good" nature come about at all? How does "bad" nature come about?
I personally think that it was all just trial and error. We could never really rid our selves of "deconstructive" thinking because degenerate thinking patterns were always evident in any "fruitful" thinking patterns.

 

[raolduke]

Of course I could never argue this point unless someone agreed with me - The human mind is actually a flaw. It was useful for things like advancement in modern technology. But what good is that? Furthering of the human life span? mindsets? vacations?
You should never incorporate someone else's feelings into your own decision it just seems useless. You could say that faith/religion are the father of scare tactics - It was easier to deal with people if they were "good" natured rather then having them be unruly.
If you agree, religion could be the ultimate vice over freewill?

 

[raolduke]

If you were to say that a machine is ethical.. Would base your analysis of this machine by weather it worked properly or not? If the machine did exactly what it was designed to do, then you could say the machine is perfect. Its deemed perfect because it meets every standard that its expected to meet.

If you agree with that you could compare a machine to a human being (the human race) -
1. A human being has no specific plan.
I could go down the list of what I think is wrong with the world but the religion idea is sufficient. If we have no idea what we are working for why are we working? Since there is no way to explain that.. all ethics seem void.

 

[baywax]

If you were to say that a machine is ethical.. Would base your analysis of this machine by weather it worked properly or not? If the machine did exactly what it was designed to do, then you could say the machine is perfect. Its deemed perfect because it meets every standard that its expected to meet.

If you agree with that you could compare a machine to a human being (the human race) -
1. A human being has no specific plan.
I could go down the list of what I think is wrong with the world but the religion idea is sufficient. If we have no idea what we are working for why are we working? Since there is no way to explain that.. all ethics seem void.

Of course humans and their societies can be compared to machinery. Each person provides a component of society. Each component is necessary in the workings of a society. Without people there is no society. Without the components of a machine there is no machine.

When one or more people perform anti-social actions, society as a whole is challenged and progress is somewhat diverted. When a component of a machine is misaligned or faulty, the whole machine is challenged and its progress or the nature of its work is diverted and often halted.

Ethics, in the human sense of the term, provide guidelines for the individual that help that individual avoid reprisals and the general break down of relationships with in a group of individuals.

In the case of mechanical relationships the same is true. I'm not using a metaphore when I apply the term "ethics" to biological and physical structures. I'm only stating the obvious which is to say that ethics has everything to do with relationships. It may be the relationships between gravity, the sun and asteroids and it may be the relationships between commanders, followers and Dissenters. We see ethics as a set of rules imposed upon society by authority when it is the other way around. Ethics, in this sense, is a manifestation of the laws of nature that is impossible to escape.

 

[raolduke]

What is the human race doing for the rest of nature? There are far more creatures on the planet than human beings. They really don't have a say in anything we do. The only "benefit" that they could receive from a human is if a human took the creature's needs or welfare into consideration. At the same time you will never know if they want our help or not.
I believe that the human race are parasites. The reason why we burn fossil fuels - why not burn them? If you don't agree, give a list of the things that we did for the Earth that made it more liveable for every creature.

 

[baywax]

What is the human race doing for the rest of nature? There are far more creatures on the planet than human beings. They really don't have a say in anything we do. The only "benefit" that they could receive from a human is if a human took the creature's needs or welfare into consideration. At the same time you will never know if they want our help or not.
I believe that the human race are parasites. The reason why we burn fossil fuels - why not burn them? If you don't agree, give a list of the things that we did for the Earth that made it more liveable for every creature.

Before the agri-cultures and the domestication of animals, humans and animals had a fairly ethical relationship. Humans only took what they needed because they somehow understood that dicking with natural order would come back to haunt them later on. Today that sensitivity has been lost and we act more like parasites as you say.

But, you could ask the same question of Grizzly bears. What have Grizzly's done to make the Earth more livable? What have mosquitos done to make things better? What have Elks done or even Bald Eagles? Nothing.

By your standards all creatures of the Earth are parasites. I'd say that singles you out as having an unethical psychological attitude toward most living things. If you believe you are a parasite, better get out the Calamine Lotion.

 

[baywax]

Since ethics is a study of relationships we see that the term is being used today to describe the relationship between humans and the environment. There are ethical methods of farming, mining, power generation to name a few. This tends to underscore what I'm saying about the objective use of the idea of ethics rather than the purely anthropocentric, emotional and sometimes religious overtones involved with the use of the term.

The environmental use of the term ethics led me to believe that ethics is more of a mechanical term than a strictly humanistic idea. For example, if it is ethical to avoid the contamination of a stream during a mining procedure because it spares the destruction of a habitat for field mice, then this sort of the use of the term highlights my point. Ethics here is used to describe the quality of our mechanical actions with the rest of our environment. It doesn't necessarily involve relationships between people. It involves the relationship of our actions with the environment and everything that entails, including a community of field mice, bladder warts and the quality of non-living things like water.

But, one could argue that the use of ethical methods of production etc, ultimately spares human lives in that the environment is preserved for further human generations.

 

[<daleader>]

Let me put it this way. Ethics is simply the scinece of trying to know what is the right way that people ought to behave and should behave. THAT is obtain usually by trying to see what is best for the main stream population however some in some extreme case such as nagel, we should not try to do so since we can't allow us to help 500 and allow 2 to suffer!

 

[raolduke]

But have all of these grizzley bears and misquitos fired up their machines and culitvated the lands of fossil fuels? I am not going to argue that animals have pretty much done nothing for the earth. But that's the point I think you already agree..? Human beings have done something for the Earth and its only been harmful.

 

[raolduke]

You can't justify anything you do ethically.. You can justify your actions in the eyes of some. Claming your noble doesn't mean you are noble. If a group of people agree that you are noble and respect you as a noble then you could be given the title "nobleman". But that nobleman title only applies to that group of people that refer to you as that. The only thing that exists is opinion. If you arent aware that ethics are only opinion - goodjob its something that I wish I couldn't see.

 

[russ_watters]

But have all of these grizzley bears and misquitos fired up their machines and culitvated the lands of fossil fuels? I am not going to argue that animals have pretty much done nothing for the earth. But that's the point I think you already agree..? Human beings have done something for the Earth and its only been harmful.

Animals do nothing for/to the earth? Animals eat and crap, don't they...?

The way I see the environmentalist logic, if it is applied evenly, all animals only do negative things to the earth. It appears to me, though, that environmentalists view actions by animals as neutral and the same actions by humans as negatives.

 

[baywax]

You can't justify anything you do ethically.. You can justify your actions in the eyes of some. Claming your noble doesn't mean you are noble. If a group of people agree that you are noble and respect you as a noble then you could be given the title "nobleman". But that nobleman title only applies to that group of people that refer to you as that. The only thing that exists is opinion. If you arent aware that ethics are only opinion - goodjob its something that I wish I couldn't see.

Consider ethics as a human way of describing balance between relationships and consequences. In nature balance is a given. If a rock leans to far off balance, it falls. If a grizzly eats all the fish in one season, it starves during the next or starts eating livestock. Humans are a natural occurance and so we are governed by the same need for balance in the natural order of things. Ethics is our way of mimicing the natural order. We have placed values on ways of balancing our actions within our societies. We have observed the consequences of irrational acts, over fishing, pollution and many other "off" balance activities. When we try to regulate these actions it gets called ethical treatment of the environment. But what it really is is an ethical treatment of ourselves because we are directly effected by the actions we take that effect the environment.

You may be correct to say that many people don't see the connection between our actions and the failing quality of drinking water, air, food, living conditions, animal habitats, oceans, soil and everything. But, ultimately we are experiencing the consequence of ignoring the need for a balanced approach to living within the limits of our ecosphere.

People also appear mystified by how the lack of ethics in human relationships winds up breeding dissenters, insurgents and others who simply tend to mimic the violent role models they see every day on the street or on the television.

 

[russ_watters]

Consider ethics as a human way of describing balance between relationships and consequences. In nature balance is a given. If a rock leans to far off balance, it falls. If a grizzly eats all the fish in one season, it starves during the next or starts eating livestock. Humans are a natural occurance and so we are governed by the same need for balance in the natural order of things.

I'm with you up to this point...

Ethics is our way of mimicing the natural order.

When it comes to environmentalism, I see ethics as superceding the natural order. A bear does what it wants without considering ethics and accepts the consequences. Why can't we do the same thing?

We have placed values on ways of balancing our actions within our societies. We have observed the consequences of irrational acts, over fishing, pollution and many other "off" balance activities. When we try to regulate these actions it gets called ethical treatment of the environment.

Well, maybe we do agree - it gets called ethical treatment, but it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with ethics. If we restrict fishing for the sake of ensuring we have fish to catch next year, that's pragmatism. If we do it so we don't cause them to go extinct, that's ethics.

In reality, people are not much more pragmatic than bears when it comes to planning ahead - fishing restrictions get a mixed response even though we know for certain that the seas are overfished right now.

People sometimes think of PETA when it comes to ethics in environmentalism due to the name, but PETA's view of ethics holds that the value of an animal life is exactly equal to a human life. This view is clearly not self-consistent since humans are unique if for nothing else than having the capability to examine the question!

 

[baywax]

I'm with you up to this point... When it comes to environmentalism, I see ethics as superceding the natural order. A bear does what it wants without considering ethics and accepts the consequences. Why can't we do the same thing? Well, maybe we do agree - it gets called ethical treatment, but it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with ethics. If we restrict fishing for the sake of ensuring we have fish to catch next year, that's pragmatism. If we do it so we don't cause them to go extinct, that's ethics.

In reality, people are not much more pragmatic than bears when it comes to planning ahead - fishing restrictions get a mixed response even though we know for certain that the seas are overfished right now.

People sometimes think of PETA when it comes to ethics in environmentalism due to the name, but PETA's view of ethics holds that the value of an animal life is exactly equal to a human life. This view is clearly not self-consistent since humans are unique if for nothing else than having the capability to examine the question!

This is what interests me about ethics as it has evolved today. Ethics used to be all about humans and human interactions. It was synonymous with morals and human relationships. Today it is leaning more toward the respect for all life.

The ultimate end product is that we cover our a** and it doesn't get bitten somewhere down the road because we were stupid enough to wipe out a species (which, unbeknownst to us was part of our life support system).

You're completely right to say that as an intellectually fueled conscientious species we are unique in that (some of us) give a damn about our actions (beyond how much immediate profit comes out of them).

As far as grizzlys go, I don't know if their sense of "ethics" is innate or if the very fact that if they or their food source gets out of balance they are either shot by us or are naturally relegated to extinction. And, apparently, grizzly's are not the only species open to this sort of consequence.

 

[russ_watters]

Here's a question: since animals are not ethical (that bear has absolutely no respect for the life of that fish), does that justify punishing them all with death...?

 

[baywax]

Here's a question: since animals are not ethical (that bear has absolutely no respect for the life of that fish), does that justify punishing them all with death...?

Let me answer your question in a round about fashion (like a philosopher!).

The bear has no respect and no regard for the life or even the species of fish it eats. Let's say they are salmon.

Lets say the bear's population grows to a large number because they apparently have lost control and are gorging like "bears gone wild".

Now the size of the population and the disregard for the lives of the specific species of salmon completely wipes out that fish population. And to top it all off, there is nothing else to eat.

All the bears die of starvation.

Is that punishment?

Or is that consequence?

I'm not positive about this but:

Ethics really has nothing to do with punishment. It has to do with relationships, actions and consequences.

 

[russ_watters]

Ethics is doing what is right because it is right. That's the definition of the word. Consequences are just action-reaction. Drop a rock and it falls to the ground. That isn't ethics, it's gravity. If you do something because of consequences to you (or don't do something out of fear of punishment), that isn't ethics. Your last sentence there is self-contradictory on that point because punishment is a consequence.

that branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ethics

I think this may be why you are wrongly associating ethics with machinery. It doesn't have anything to do with action-reaction. It is all about right and wrong. Otherwise, I could shoot you and say it was ethical because the gun fuctioned exactly as designed!

 

[russ_watters]

As far as grizzlys go, I don't know if their sense of "ethics" is innate or if the very fact that if they or their food source gets out of balance they are either shot by us or are naturally relegated to extinction. And, apparently, grizzly's are not the only species open to this sort of consequence.

Bears do not have a sense of ethics, innat or otherwise. They do not selectively hunt or breed to avoid starvation. They simply do what they do and some bears do starve or die in turf fights over food and breeding. That's the downward pressure on population that forces the equilibirum.

 

[baywax]

Bears do not have a sense of ethics, innat or otherwise. They do not selectively hunt or breed to avoid starvation. They simply do what they do and some bears do starve or die in turf fights over food and breeding. That's the downward pressure on population that forces the equilibirum.

This appears to be true according to the dictionary. But the dictionary doesn't mention ethical treatment of animals or ethical mining/farming/etc.
According to the dictionary the right actions and the wrong actions are defined by how much the action supports or detracts from human activity.

Is ethical treatment of animals a new concept?

How does handling a crayfish with care and dignity help or hinder human activity? I'm sure it does help us live better lives in someway but I can't put my finger on how.

My apparently misguided impression was that if we go about our mining and farming unethically, the consequences (what could be have been thought of as punishment) could quite possibly be the spread of ecoli by tainted lettuce or a town caving into the ground because of a poorly engineered mine.

Both of these scenarios involve mechanical requirements that have not been met. In the case of the unethical farmer, he didn't pay his workers well or on time and he treated them poorly (so they retaliated in an unsanitary way on his crop). The unethical farmer ends up loosing profit and possibly loosing the farm. Just because he couldn't muster the intellectual and organizational strength to treat his workers ethically.

In the case of the unethical mine, proper engineering was required to meet an ethical standard that - in as far as the town folk were concerned - was not. This resulted in a very unethical treatment of the citizens and properties of the township. And again, the consequence could range from money lost to repairing the township to the loss of the mining company entirely.

 

[baywax]

Ethics is doing what is right because it is right. That's the definition of the word. Consequences are just action-reaction. Drop a rock and it falls to the ground. That isn't ethics, it's gravity. If you do something because of consequences to you (or don't do something out of fear of punishment), that isn't ethics. Your last sentence there is self-contradictory on that point because punishment is a consequence.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ethics

I think this may be why you are wrongly associating ethics with machinery. It doesn't have anything to do with action-reaction. It is all about right and wrong. Otherwise, I could shoot you and say it was ethical because the gun fuctioned exactly as designed!

Your gun would be working ethically but how you used it would go against the ethical and orderly, co-operative and rather mechanical functions of society. The punishing consequences wouldn't be pleasant.

I think what I'm looking for is a reason that we humans have been able to come up with ethics in the first place. We must have observed either in our nature or in nature itself the "right" and the "wrong" way to act and the consequences of both.

Another definition of ethics from Britannica Concise Encyclopedia.

http://www.answers.com/topic/ethics-legal-term

ethics
Branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of ultimate value and the standards by which human actions can be judged right or wrong. The term is also applied to any system or theory of moral values or principles. Ethics is traditionally subdivided into normative ethics, metaethics, and applied ethics. Normative ethics seeks to establish norms or standards of conduct; a crucial question in this field is whether actions are to be judged right or wrong based on their consequences or based on their conformity to some moral rule, such as "Do not tell a lie." Theories that adopt the former basis of judgment are called consequentialist (see consequentialism); those that adopt the latter are known as deontological (see deontological ethics). Metaethics is concerned with the nature of ethical judgments and theories. Since the beginning of the 20th century, much work in metaethics has focused on the logical and semantic aspects of moral language. Some major metaethical theories are naturalism (see naturalistic fallacy), intuitionism, emotivism, and prescriptivism. Applied ethics, as the name implies, consists of the application of normative ethical theories to practical moral problems (e.g., abortion). Among the major fields of applied ethics are bioethics, business ethics, legal ethics, and medical ethics.

Maybe what I'm talking about here is a form of metaethics.

 

[raolduke]

ethics equals opinion, opinion equals human concept, human concept exists because humans exist

 

[baywax]

Ethics is complete opinion. You could say in the past men and women might have been considered more ethical only because of religious vice. A bear can't even be considered ethical because ethics only applies to human beings. I see ethics as principles or certain standards.. Its not a code of conduct that is imposed on you. Its your way of justifying weather things are right or not. If you disagree (I am not sure your current opinion) give me an example of an action or event where any individual would be plagued with the same morale grief.

My current opinion is undecided at this time. I am prejudicially leaning toward "ethics" as being a human description of "natural balance" or "natural law".

You say ethics is "...your way of justifying weather things are right or not."

Does this include when we judge whether the weather is "right" for sailing?

Does an ethical judgment include when we tighten a bolt "right" or "wrong"?

These judgements are made with the well being of humans in mind but, how can we separate any action whatsoever that we make from any other action?

Judging from the nature of our environment, including space, any action we make has the potential of upsetting a balance that we depend on to survive.

I suppose this is why ethics is applied to areas like bio-ethics, ethical-stocks, ethical treatment of the Earth and of its inhabitants.

Generally I think that if humans learn to treat all life ethically, they are less likely to damage the environment they require for survival and are more likely to treat each other ethically.

At first it may appear that ethics was invented soley to serve humans. If you look closer, its serves to maintain a balance that was established long ago and that has been disturbed by us.

By the standards of some bio-ethics it would be ethical for humans to either become completely harmonized and self sufficient with the environment or for humans to be exterminated before they completely compromise all forms of life on planet Earth and, possibly, beyond.

 

[baywax]

If my interpretation of ethics (being that it describes the rules of relationships) is correct, it can be applied to any relationship.

Let's return to Russ's gun for a moment. There are working individual components inside a gun. Each of the individual components of the gun work in relationship to each other to make the gun work "right".

A chamber holds ammunition. A barrel delivers the ammunition and has to withstand pressures up to 50,000 pounds per sq in. The barrel and associated components also have to withstand temperatures up to 3500 F during a thousandth of a second. A firing pin causes an explosion in the ammunition and a trigger releases the firing pin to strike the ammunition. Etc.

I'm using this general and inaccurate way of describing the components of a gun and how they work together to give an example of how many relationships exist within a mechanical system. If there is one of the components that is set "wrongly" or isn't "right" there can be one or many dire consequences. And this, to me, can be construed as mechanical ethics since it is really a study of relationships and there are right and wrong results which depend on the conduct and efficiency of anyone component.

 

[raolduke]

Excuse me.
2nd. rofl
look above for proper explaining

 

[raolduke]

I applaud your effort at an insult. I am not an advocate of alcohol or strange chemicals but they work for me.

I see the point you are trying to make but I think it brings up a different topic. In my opinion, you arent able to apply the term "ethical" to any type of structure unless you determine wether ethics exist.

 

[baywax]

I applaud your effort at an insult. I am not an advocate of alcohol or strange chemicals but they work for me.

I see the point you are trying to make but I think it brings up a different topic. In my opinion, you arent able to apply the term "ethical" to any type of structure unless you determine wether ethics exist.

I meant no insult by anything I've written

Is there a method of determining whether or not ethics (or, for that matter, anything) exists other than by opinion and point of view?

You may see a weigh scale show the weight of the watermelon you're buying but it is only the opinion you form by way of your sensory experience that determines if the weight, the melon or the scale exist. Whether your sensory experience exists is a matter of one's opinion as well.

My experience has been that if a concept like ethics didn't exist we would not be discussing it.

 

[russ_watters]

This appears to be true according to the dictionary. But the dictionary doesn't mention ethical treatment of animals or ethical mining/farming/etc.

Yes.

According to the dictionary the right actions and the wrong actions are defined by how much the action supports or detracts from human activity.

That seems a strange way to say it. Ethics is just right and wrong. People have different criteria though, so you can't necessarily say how that affects human activity. (Btw, I'm a moral absolutist and though I think relativism is wrong, it is still part of the study of ethics).

Is ethical treatment of animals a new concept?

Yes. And philosophically, it does not fit with the definiton/concept of ethics due to the contradictions I mentioned.

How does handling a crayfish with care and dignity help or hinder human activity? I'm sure it does help us live better lives in someway but I can't put my finger on how.

Since PETA equates humans and animals, you are asking the question incorrectly according to their way of thinking (the use of the word "human" is too specific). A crayfish should be handled with care/dignity because all animal life (not just human life) is worthy of care/dignity.

Now if you were to use the more traditional definition of ethics, the way the handing of a crayfish affects us is simply a matter of how that makes you feel. People don't like to watch animals suffer because it makes us uncomfortable. Now that may be a little cold, but hey - I eat meat and I've never been to a slaughterhouse. Out of sight, out of mind, right...? And yet if someone mistreats a pet cat or pet dog, they go to jail. That contradiction is all due to the difference in how the two situations make us feel.

My apparently misguided impression was that if we go about our mining and farming unethically, the consequences (what could be have been thought of as punishment) could quite possibly be the spread of ecoli by tainted lettuce or a town caving into the ground because of a poorly engineered mine.

Yeah, you are correct about the consequences being real, but the word "ethics" simply doesn't apply there.

Both of these scenarios involve mechanical requirements that have not been met. In the case of the unethical farmer, he didn't pay his workers well or on time and he treated them poorly (so they retaliated in an unsanitary way on his crop). The unethical farmer ends up loosing profit and possibly loosing the farm. Just because he couldn't muster the intellectual and organizational strength to treat his workers ethically.

Well, that's back to treatment of humans, so it is a matter of ethics.

In the case of the unethical mine, proper engineering was required to meet an ethical standard that - in as far as the town folk were concerned - was not. This resulted in a very unethical treatment of the citizens and properties of the township. And again, the consequence could range from money lost to repairing the township to the loss of the mining company entirely.

Again, if the requirements are set out by humans, there is an ethical issue. But the ethical issue is only in if the laws are followed, not in the construct of the laws themselves. Such laws were written for practical reasons, not ethical reasons.

An engineer who purposely flouts laws and codes is a liar - signing your name to a document carries with it a promise of compliance.

 

[russ_watters]

Your gun would be working ethically but how you used it would go against the ethical and orderly, co-operative and rather mechanical functions of society. The punishing consequences wouldn't be pleasant.

I think what I'm looking for is a reason that we humans have been able to come up with ethics in the first place. We must have observed either in our nature or in nature itself the "right" and the "wrong" way to act and the consequences of both.

Another definition of ethics from Britannica Concise Encyclopedia.

http://www.answers.com/topic/ethics-legal-term

Maybe what I'm talking about here is a form of metaethics.

Like I said in my first post, I think you are on the right track in looking for a logical construct of ethics. The idea that the ethical principles we should live by fell out of the sky on a couple of stone tablets 6,000 years ago seems a little arbitrary...

But just because some things are logical/mathematical, doesn't mean everything is logical/mathematical in the same way. Perhaps the way to bridge this gap is by thinking about machines that think. Robots. Are they capable of ethics? If ethics is about doing what is right because it is right, but a non-sentient robot does things because it is programmed to do them, or fits situations into pre-programmed criteria for determining right and wrong, it isn't ethics. But if they are sentient and can understand the concepts of right and wrong, maybe they are ethical. But then, if ethics is logical, then aren't we just trying to find pre-programmed criteria that we can use to make our own determinations of right and wrong? That is were the problem becomes circular (both the definition of ethics and the definition of sentient)...

 

[baywax]

Like I said in my first post, I think you are on the right track in looking for a logical construct of ethics. The idea that the ethical principles we should live by fell out of the sky on a couple of stone tablets 6,000 years ago seems a little arbitrary...

But just because some things are logical/mathematical, doesn't mean everything is logical/mathematical in the same way. Perhaps the way to bridge this gap is by thinking about machines that think. Robots. Are they capable of ethics? If ethics is about doing what is right because it is right, but a non-sentient robot does things because it is programmed to do them, or fits situations into pre-programmed criteria for determining right and wrong, it isn't ethics. But if they are sentient and can understand the concepts of right and wrong, maybe they are ethical. But then, if ethics is logical, then aren't we just trying to find pre-programmed criteria that we can use to make our own determinations of right and wrong? That is were the problem becomes circular (both the definition of ethics and the definition of sentient)...

I'm getting your drift here. My use of the word ethics has been too general and that is a dangerous thing to do with a word with respect to clarity, conciseness and focus.

Also I can use your definition(s) of the word to begin to separate the origin of the concept (ethics) from its present day form.

I will, however, maintain my position that suggests how ethics could quite possibly have been derived by humans from their observations of natural laws and how these observations convinced humans to adapt an understanding of the mechanisms of cause and effect in nature to the formation of an ethical society. Thank you Russ

 

[raolduke]

I know it was not an insult but I would really enjoy it if you did, I deserved it.

I will, however, maintain my position that suggests how ethics could quite possibly have been derived by humans from their observations of natural laws and how these observations convinced humans to adapt an understanding of the mechanisms of cause and effect in nature to the formation of an ethical society. Thank you Russ

To say man kind created a system of moral law based on observations of natural law makes sense, in a sense. If you put it that way human beings seem more pathetic. Ethics are not pathetic and I agree that they exist but you can't argue that they are absolute.

 

[Moridin]

There seems to be two rival classification of the system of ethics and morals. Since the are vastly connected, I will touch upon them both in the following text.

Before getting to that, I would like to form at least some definition(s) of ethics and morals as well as state how they differ from each other, strictly on a linguistic basis. The phrase 'ethical individuals knows it is wrong to cheat, while moral individuals do not cheat' is a quite good distinction with ethics being a set of principles or values and morals being modes of conduct that are taught and accepted as embodying principles of right and good.

One common connection with the above definitions of ethics and morals is that an authoritative institution, whether it be religious or materialistic, somehow teaches the difference between their definitions of 'right' and 'wrong' and that such definitions of 'right' and 'wrong' are widely accepted in the majority of the cases with an intent to pass on a set of behavioral methods of interaction to future generations. This includes a sense of ethics and morals as we know it limited only to humans.

On the other hand, there is an increasingly amount of evidence from evolutionary biology in favor of it being more than just an arbitrary and subjective definition by an authoritative body of what a specific culture defines as 'right' and 'wrong'. The vampire bat, for instance, demonstrates clear reciprocal altruism by regurgitating blood for others with less temporary luck in hunting. For this system to work, bats that have received blood must return the favor when the roles are reversed^1,2. Similar altruistic behavior connected to ethics and morals can be seen in a number of other animals³.

Assume an initial genetic variation of behavioral traits. Over time, less productive behavior will be selected against provided that the same genes do not control other productive behavior. Therefore, individuals with traits for productive behavior will increase. It is clearly shown by the documentary Nice Guys Finish First (see references) and the concept of Prisoners Dilemma in Game Theory that selfish behavior is not always the most successful behavior when it comes to survival and reproduction.

Moreover, it would seem logical to assume that even though there are a massive amount of different religious or materialistic authorities, the most fundamental ethics and morals are just about the same, no matter where you look. Random acts of killing is frowned upon in many cultures and species. This could be an example of convergent evolution.

Then of course, we have the issue with religious institutions historically being a source of 'eithics' and 'morals', as they have defined it.

To sum up, I would say that it is logical to assume that morals have been selected over time and that the word moral is just a description of this process and certain behavioral traits. Ethics on the other hand, that is, rules of consensus could very well be a traditional phenomena, enforcing the already existing phenomenas that the word 'morals' describe.

¹ http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/articles/personalityandindividuality/morals.shtml
² Laurent Excoffier Why can't people be more like bats? Nature 399, 322 - 322
³ Dawkins, Richard The Virus of Faith; Dawkins, Richard Nice Guys Finish First[21:53 to 24:40] (Both available on Google Video and YouTube)

 

[baywax]

you can't argue that they (ethics) are absolute.

Since we agree that ethics is an "artificial" rendition of natural laws that are rendered by humans in the form of written and unwritten laws I really can't argue from that standpoint that they are absolute. This is because there exists some kind of barrier that prevents us from approaching the area of "absolutes" in our attempts to replicate nature.

"It can be shown from the laws of thermodynamics that absolute zero can never be achieved artificially, though it is possible to reach temperatures arbitrarily close to it through the use of cryocoolers. This is the same principle that ensures no machine can be 100% efficient." From Wicpedia.

What is absolutely true is that without ethics there would be a lot of traffic accidents and dead pedestrians. What's even weirder is that there would be much less of a population of humans in general and this would probably have an "ethical" effect for the rest of life on earth.

So it appears that either we become 99% efficient in our attempts at ethics or there will be some kind of dramatic reduction in our population according to what Russ has termed the "downward pressure" of environmental elements.

 

[raolduke]

Without ethics then couldn't you say that Darwins theory would show its true colors?