Present ethics-ch.6.v.3

Chapter 6
Growing an Ecology of Mind and Community
Step 1: Social Potentialities – Institutional dimensions:
“Social Qualities”
Social qualities result from our social potentialities and institutional
dimensions coming together in an institutional context to
mediate domain contributions aimed at the creation of
institutional realities.
December 2010 © Abraham Chiasson 1

Chapter 6
Step 1: Social Potentialities – Institutional Dimensions:
Core
Social
Potentialities
Social
Qualities
Core
Institutional
Dimensions
Overall –
Social qualities are the result of our social potentialities (forces) and our
institutional dimensions coming together in an institutional context.
Social qualities provide ‘direction’ - a specific social energy -,
to the mediation of our institutional (individual and societal)
domain contributions.

Chapter 6
Core social potentialities –
Core social potentialities focus on our ability as ‘social beings’ of
living and growing together. As examples,
 Our potential for sharing a sense of accountability and
destiny relative to growing our ‘collective’ sense of vision and
hope and,
 Provide the basis for ethical relationships e.g., for our ethical
aspirations / core values, ethical principles and norms, and
relationship commitments and qualities.

Chapter 6
Social
Potentialities
Empathy
/Belonging
Capacity /
Contribution
Connection
/Synergy
Accountability
/Destiny
Social potentialities… the core set of ‘relationship’
potentialities – forces - that drive and characterize our
relationship qualities.

Chapter 6
Core social potentialities…
Social potentialities exist in relation to each other and, as a whole, drive
and characterize human relationships and, in which specific
relationship ‘social’ qualities find their meaning and relevance.
As an example,
 Ethical ‘relationship qualities’ such as fairness, loyalty, and
honesty… find their relevance – as social qualities - inasmuch as
they contribute to growing our core social potentialities e.g., to
belonging, contribution or synergy.

Chapter 6
Core social potentialities…
In an institutional (individual and societal) context, social potentialities
provide:
 The ‘social’ energy - at the source of ‘institutional’ direction and
meaning – and,
 Their institutional (organizational) actors with opportunities for
growing their own core social potentialities such as for contribution
and synergy and, for effective institutional ‘ethical’ relationships.

Chapter 6
Core institutional dimensions…
Engage and foster the expression of our core social potentialities e.g.,
for empathy, belonging and accountability...and, ultimately, are
driven by such social potentialities (forces).
Permit our social potentialities to be connected to social purposes,
creating a relational institutional framework, ever growing in
complexity and sophistication.
Institutions via their institutional dimensions are in a co-creative
relationship with our core social potentialities by providing, more
specifically by being, myriad channels for their enactment and
development.

Chapter 6
Institutional
Dimensions
Family /
Community
‘Professional’ /
Production
Civil Society /
State
Nation / Planet
Institutional dimensions… the core set of institutional
characteristics that give social ‘meaning’ to our relationship
commitments.

Chapter 6
Each ‘core institutional dimension’ either as an institutional
characteristic – having the characteristics of the state as to the
social potentialities to be enacted – or, as a set of institutions e.g.,
our myriad state institutions,
Exists only in synergy – the layers of the circle in the graphic - with all
other core institutional dimensions or other landscape institutions
e.g.,
‘State’ institutions ‘make sense’ only in the context of our ‘production’ or
‘civil society’ institutions.

Chapter 6
Examples,
 ‘State’ institutions exist because there is a nation to be ‘protected’
and production institutions to be ‘coordinated’ – a synergy to be
created between the two –
 Core institutional dimensions are present to some degree in all
institutions e.g., family institutions share some of the characteristics
of the state – need to create a synergy of family related
contributions.

Chapter 6
Ethics e.g., specific ‘relationship commitments’ - find their relevance
and meaning via their contribution to specific institutional
dimensions. As examples,
‘Relationship commitments’ aimed at competitiveness find relevance
and meaning in the world of institutions (or institutional dimension)
devoted to the production of goods and services.
‘Relationship commitments’ devoted to creating – harmony, connection,
synergy – will be enacted primarily in civil society or state
institutions (or related institutional dimensions of other institutions).

Chapter 6
Core social potentialities  Core institutional dimensions
Core social potentialities and core institutional dimensions have
evolved together –
 In line with human consciousness and its 'perceived' challenges
e.g., related to the myriad emotions, perceptions, and related
feelings of frustration and opportunity with the process of living;
and,
 Each one growing the other - towards the development of
‘satisfying and effective’ social qualities (and, as we will see later,
‘social goods’): those that make it possible for us to grow our core
human potentialities.

Chapter 6
Social
Potentialities
Empathy
/Belonging
Capacity /
Contribution
Connection
/Synergy
Accountability
/Destiny
Institutional
Dimensions
Family /
Community
‘Professional’ /
Production
Civil Society /
State
Nation / Planet
In summary, evolving social potentialities and institutional
dimensions have been in synergy to bring about social qualities.
Social Qualities

Chapter 6
Core social dimensions  Core institutional dimensions
The following are examples: social potentiality / institutional dimension
and their contribution to ‘social qualities’.
Empathy – Family
The existence and growth of institutions - the ‘family’, the state or
society -, will be conditional upon their ability to express and elicit a
rational and emotional connection with current and potential
members - their ability to express and elicit empathy – via their
related social qualities e.g., openness to individual differences re
needs and aspirations, along with an ability to grow such a sense of
empathy via ‘family’ as an institutional dimension.

Chapter 6
Core social dimensions  Core institutional dimensions
Connection and synergy - Civil society and the state
Civil society institutions provide via their social qualities e.g.,
conviviality and purposefulness, the basis for individuals /
institutions to transcend their immediate interests by fostering more
socially relevant contributions i.e., broader ‘connections’.
State institutions are driven by perceptions of ‘societal’ accountability
and destiny, and the resultant need for ‘societal’ synergy in all
individual / institutional actions e.g., state institutions usually focus
on fairness, legitimacy, and the rule of law as social qualities.

Chapter 6
Social Potentialities / Institutional Dimensions + Institutional Domain
Contributions = “Social Qualities”
Social potentialities and institutional dimensions come to life via our
‘institutional’ domain contributions.
Social qualities result from the institutional mediation (via individual /
institutional ethics) of domain contributions.
Resulting social qualities may be in synergy or not, with our ‘ethical
aspirations’ or ‘overall institutional core values’.

Chapter 6
Institutional
Mediation
‘Ethics’
Social
Qualities
(Values)
Domain
Contribution
Institutional
Dimensions
Social
Potentialities

Chapter 6
Social qualities and Ethical dynamics…
Understanding social qualities and ethical dynamics is ‘also’
understanding how social qualities are in synergy with the following
realities. (more on this re social goods in Chapter 7)
 Core human potentialities or forces;
 Cognitive (social) structures and potentialities;
 Socio-political structures (domains, institutions...);
 The dynamics of authority and power or socio-political dynamics;
 The dynamics of ‘living systems’; and,
 The realities and dynamics of our social functions: stewardship,
governance, and management.

Chapter 6
Human potentialities or forces – examples...
 Social qualities (as in the case of ethics) are driven by our human
potentialities or forces – those forces that compel us to become ‘all
that we are capable of becoming’.
 Our quest for growing e.g., a sense of self and personal identity, via
our institutional engagements will be dependent on those social
qualities resulting from the ethical dynamics driving our domain
contributions.

Chapter 6
Cognitive (social) structures and potentialities -
 Ethical dynamics are rooted in our cognitive potentialities for faith,
beliefs and domain contribution values in the world of our cognitive
(social) structures.
 Social qualities such as ‘understanding and solidarity’ related to our
social potentialities for empathy and belonging underlie the ‘quality’ of
the ‘faith, beliefs and contribution values’ driving our cognitive (social)
structures as in the case of the self or our domain of contributions.

Chapter 6
Cognitive (social) structures and potentialities - Our collective
human psyche –
Our mind – the reality and sum of our thoughts and feelings – exists
inasmuch as it is connected to and nourished by the realities and
dynamics of our overall human universe - our human civilization or
collective human psyche. Therefore,
 Social qualities e.g., re. social potentialities for accountability and
destiny - solidarity and compassion -, can best be understood from
the perspective of the ethics that have shaped our human and
social realities as a whole - our collective human psyche -.

Chapter 6
Socio-political structures –
Domains, institutions and socio-political landscapes are driven and
have authority and power - ‘legitimacy and efficacy’ - on the basis
of their social qualities (and, as we will see in Chapter 7, social
goods).
Socio-political structures grow their social qualities via their overall
ethical aspirations (more so, ethics as a whole) e.g., in the case of
the state for fairness, justice and peace and, vice versa, grow their
ethical aspirations via the social qualities which they effectively
bring about.

Chapter 6
The dynamics of authority and power or socio-political dynamics -
Social qualities e.g., ‘competence, fairness, and legitimacy’, (re. social
potentialities for contribution and synergy) will be affected by the
‘ethical’ realities of authority and power framing - social
potentialities / institutional dimensions -. As an example,
 Is authority aimed at growing competence – making one capable of
an increasingly more relevant contribution as an ethical aspiration -
or keeping it in check?
 Does power promote fairness and a broad sense of legitimacy for
the contribution of all or does it privilege the contribution of only a
few?

Chapter 6
The dynamics of ‘living systems’ –
Social qualities such as ‘loyalty and interdependence’ will be dependent
on the ethical dynamics affecting the ‘living system’. Do they:
 Provide for a sense of congruency in the enactment of such social
qualities i.e., in the process cognition;
 Help such social qualities grow – become more effective in bringing
about relevant realities – autopoiesis;
 Help them create meaning and learning via structural coupling -;
and,
 Help them contribute to growing a more pregnant world for all as
drivers of ‘dissipative structures’ -?

Chapter 6
Social functions: stewardship, governance, and management –
Social functions create via their embedded ethical realities, the ‘necessary’
relational conditions – social potentialities / institutional dimensions - for
the creation of an ‘effective’ synergy of social qualities and social goods.
E.g., governance policies and practices framing our institutional
engagements / domain contributions provide for the ‘effective’ meshing of
our social qualities and social goods.
In turn, social qualities and social goods validate the ethical realities driving
our social functions and, are its raison d’être.

Chapter 6
Social qualities and Ethical dynamics… Stewardship,
Governance, and Management
Social
Qualities
Synergy
Social
Goods
Ethics
Stewardship / Governance / Management

Chapter 6
In summary,
Understanding ‘Social Qualities’ is the first step towards understanding
what bonds us together (for better or worse), and what gives us the
potential for growing a synergy of mind and community, ‘becoming
all that we are capable of becoming’ – individually and collectively -.
In practice, human potentialities and their related cognitive
(social) structures and potentialities, socio-political structures
and socio-political dynamics, have been in synergy with our
social potentialities and institutional dimensions / institutional
framework - via social qualities (and social goods) on the
basis our ethical dynamics.

Chapter 6
Social qualities and Ethical dynamics… Summary
Human
Potentialities
Social Qualities
(Social Goods)
Social
Potentialities
Cognitive
(Social)
Structures &
Potentialities
Socio-
Political
Structures
Socio-
Political
Dynamics
Institutional
Dimensions
/
Institutional
Framework
Ethics
Stewardship / Governance / Management

Present ethics-ch.6.v.3

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