Ethics (Ethical Dynamics Ch.1)

Part I
Ethics and our Human Potentialities
and Social Structures

Part I: Ethics and our Human Potentialities
Premise (1):
“Ethics and related ethical dynamics are:
The energy and substance for -
the development and growth of our human and social
potentialities.”
September 2010 © Abraham Chiasson 2

Premise (2)
Ethics and ethical dynamics are intra-subjective
phenomena aimed at fostering a high level of
individual congruency - what helps me to grow
and be more of who I am (or capable of
becoming).

Premise (3)
Ethics and ethical dynamics are inter-subjective
phenomena aimed at dealing with this need for
congruency and growth and, for creating the
necessary social conditions e.g., institutional, for
an effective synergy – individual and society -.

Part I will describe the core architecture for an evolutionary
perspective of ethics – one aimed at growing an ‘ecology
of mind and community’ – and:
Associated with, as examples, our capacity for art,
philosophy and science and, for the creation of new
and sophisticated human and social realities and,
As the ultimate expression and driver of our search
for ‘harmony’ within our individual self, between us
and with the universe.

Part I – Chapters:
Chapter 1: Ethics and our Human Potentialities,
Characteristics and Dynamics
Chapter 2: Ethics and our Human and Social Cognitive
Potentialities, and Social Structures
Chapter 3: Living Systems and Ethical Dynamics
Chapter 4: Steps Towards an Analytical and Transformational
Model

Chapter 1 -
Ethics and our Human potentialities, characteristics
and dynamics…
‘Core’ human potentialities - those forces that ‘compel us
to become who we are’
Those potentialities at the heart of what it means to be
‘human’:
Consciousness and conscious will;
A sense of self and personal identity; and,
Our potential - capacity - for vision and hope.

Chapter 1 -
Ethics and our Human potentialities, characteristics
and dynamics…
Our human potentialities are mutually dependent, they grow
or die together’ and,
They apply to us as individuals, institutions and societies.
Human
Potentialities
Vision /
Hope
Personal
Identity
Consciousness
/
Conscious Will
Sense of
Self

Chapter 1 –
Human potentialities… consciousness
Consciousness and the world of our emotions -
✹Human consciousness is first associated with an
emotional state or a specific emotion,
 Emotions and core consciousness tend to go
together, by being present together or absent
together, and
 Emotions can be viewed as the expression of our
most basic connection with life and the forces of
the universe.

Chapter 1
Human potentialities… - consciousness -
Consciousness - our mind -, is constantly informed by our
emotions, along with their associated perceptions and
feelings
 “… a feeling is the perception of a certain state of the body
along with the perception of a certain mode of thinking and
of thoughts with certain themes.” (Antonio Damasio)
Emotions Perceptions Feelings
Consciousness

Chapter 1
Human potentialities… - consciousness -
Consciousness and ethical dynamics -
 Need to learn from our overall world of ‘emotions,
perceptions, and feelings’, those behaviors – actions -
that give us the success that we ultimately care for.
 E.g., Our ability for effective ethical action is associated
with what is often referred to as emotional intelligence,
i.e.,
 "learning how to recognize, manage, and harness their
feelings; empathizing; and handling the feelings that arise
in their relationships". (Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books, 1995,
p.191)

Chapter 1
Human potentialities… - consciousness will -
Conscious will - A ‘feeling’ of authorship –
 ‘I consciously did that!’ - usually accompanied by a feeling of
pride or guilt - such feelings providing us with the motivation
to seek new and ultimately more satisfying actions.
 "To label events as our personal actions, conscious will must
be an experience that is similar to an emotion. It is a feeling
of doing ...
 The embodied quality gives the will a kind of weight … that
does not come with thoughts in general. ... associating the
act with the self through feeling”… (Daniel M. Wegner, The Illusion of
Conscious Will , Bedford Books, MIT Press, 2002, p.325)

Chapter 1
Human potentialities… - consciousness will -
Conscious will and ethical dynamics -
 "Still, will has other characteristics of emotion, including
an experiential component (how it feels), a cognitive
component (what it means and the thoughts it brings
along), and a psychological component (how the body
responds)." (Wegner p.326)
 ... And perhaps most important for the sake of the
operation of society, the sense of conscious will also
allows us to maintain the sense of responsibility for our
actions that serves as the basis for morality". (Wegner
p. 328)

Chapter 1
Human potentialities… - conscious will -
Challenges for more open, shared and responsible ethical
dynamics -
Relationship commitments and qualities, along with those
principles and norms and ethical aspirations that:
 Serve to reflect our sense of consciousness – our
understanding … of the world -; and
 Concurrently enhance our ‘perceptions’ – give us more
sophisticated understandings of our world –
Give us an increasing sense of conscious will – authorship – via
increasingly sophisticated and congruent actions.

Chapter 1
Human potentialities…
- a sense of self and personal identity -
We will examine:
 An autobiographical sense of self – what has made us
who we are -;
 Identity as a constructed phenomena resulting from
what we do;
 Ethical identity – as resulting from our ‘enacted’ ethics -;
and,
 Personal identity – the one associated with our overall
participation in a social context –.

Chapter 1
Human potentialities… - a sense of self --
Where does a sense of self come from, what it is, and how does it
contribute to bring about the world of ethics - (a)
Damasio in The Feeling of What Happens (p. 125-126):
(1) "That we are the owners of the thought process, that we can act
on the contents of the thought process" - and that - "the object
becomes salient as part of the relationship...”
… ‘As owners of the thought process’, the world as a whole
becomes more 'salient', increasingly capable of bringing growth
to the self - motivating the self's engagements with the world.

Chapter 1
Human potentialities… - a sense of self -
Where does a sense of self come from, what it is, and how
does it contribute to bring about the world of ethics - (b)
Damasio in The Feeling of What Happens (p. 224):
(2) "The idea each of us constructs of our self, the image we
gradually build of who we are physically and mentally, of
where we fit socially, is based on autobiographical
memory over years of experience and is constantly
subject to remodeling”.

Chapter 1
Human potentialities… - a sense of self -
Where does a sense of self come from, what it is, and how does it
contribute to bring about the world of ethics – (c)
(3) Our autobiographical sense of self provides our overall human
‘reality e.g., our conscious and unconscious understandings of
the world and how we fit in - the world of our ethical
relationships.
(4) Appropriation of vital social realities and their (ethical) dynamics
is predicated on: A rich 'autobiographical' sense of who we are
and who we hope to become.

Chapter 1
Human potentialities… - personal identity -
Where does a sense of personal identity come from and how is
it both a reflection of and contribution to, our world of ethical
relationships - (a)
Wegner in The Illusion of Conscious Will (p. 265-266):
"The memories that are related to identity are different from
other kinds of memory. Identity-relevant memories involve
the agent, a perspective from which the memory item was
experienced, … Having memories with who, where, and
when attached to them allows us to remember not only what.
Memory for episodes brings along the self, kind of
piggyback, and so allows us to make distinctions between
selves we remember being and selves we do not."

Chapter 1
Where does a sense of personal identity come from and
how is it both a reflection of and contribution to, our
world of ethical relationships - (b)
Specifically, our sense of personal identity:
1) Originates in a sense of self and in a rich
autobiographical self (consciously and
unconsciously constructed),
1) Is an action related phenomena (above
quotation), drawing from the characteristics of
our actions (with whom, where, when, what),

Chapter 1
Where does a sense of personal identity come from and how
is it both a reflection of and contribution to, our world of
ethical relationships - (c)
Specifically, our sense of personal identity…:
3) Is driven by the various roles in which we engage to
bring about our world e.g., sons or daughters, parent,
doctor, and citizen and,
3) By our ongoing relationship commitments and
qualities along with their related principles and norms
and ethical aspirations (our ethical identity).

Chapter 1
Where does a sense of personal identity come from
and how is it both a reflection of and contribution to,
our world of ethical relationships – (d)
In summary, our sense of personal identity:
Self
Autobiographical
Self
Ethical
Identity
Social
Landscape
Social Roles
Personal
Identity

Chapter 1
What would be some of the resulting ‘ethical’ challenges i.e.,
towards growing a sense of personal identity?
‘My’ personal identity –
 Must be in synergy with the growth of the personal identities of
those with whom it engages. “We cannot grow our personal
identities alone”;
 Will grow inasmuch as it contributes via its ethical identity, to
the social identities of its vital social landscapes and vice versa
-: their social identities cannot grow without contributing to the
growth of my ‘social’ identity; and,

Chapter 1
What would be some of the resulting ‘ethical’ challenges i.e.,
towards growing a sense of self and personal identity?
In summary, the growth of ‘my’ personal identity -
 Is dependent on the capacity of my ethical identity to be
in synergy with the ethical identities of my ‘vital’ social
landscapes e.g., the corporation, its partners, and their
actors.

Chapter 1
Human potentialities… - vision and hope -
Vision or “What the world should be - make sense –
have personal or collective meaning -”
Hope or “what pulls us along on our human journey”

Chapter 1
Overall, we will examine:
○ Where does vision – personal or collective - come
from and, how is it in synergy with our ethical
world;
○ The vital importance of faith and hope as the
ultimate source of our human and social energy;
and,
○ What would be some of the resulting challenges
for a world of more open, shared and responsible
ethical dynamics?

Chapter 1
Human potentialities… - vision -
Where does vision – personal or collective - come from
and how is it in synergy with our ethical world – a)
Damasio in The Feeling of What Happens (p. 125-126):
“Personal maturity means that memories of the future we
anticipate for the time that may lie ahead carry a large
weight in the autobiographical self of each moment.
The memories of the scenarios that we conceive as
desires, wishes, goals, and obligations exert a pull on
the self of each moment.”

Chapter 1
and how is it in synergy with our ethical world – b)
Extracted from: Thomas Kuhn in “The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions”, (p.155-156)
‘A personal vision would seem to stem from and take the
form of an aesthetic appeal, an inner sense of beauty
spurring us to explore and bring about more
sophisticated paradigms e.g., there is no place for
‘ugly’ science.’

Chapter 1
Where does vision – personal or collective - come from and
how is it in synergy with our ethical world – c)
From the above, we could say that we:
 Are guided, indeed drawn, by our inner sense of beauty
as bringing together our desires and goals...;
 Have some degree of ability – individually and collectively
- to affect and shape what a personal or societal vision is;
and,
 As social beings, we will be affected individually and
collectively by its impact; indeed, will be ‘caught up’ in its
own ‘web of forces’.

Chapter 1
and how is it in synergy with our ethical world – d)
From an ethical perspective:
The pregnancy of our – individual, institutional and
societal - ethical dynamics will be dependent on
the ability of our ethics, to be in synergy with our
personal… vision.
Ethics - core values, principles and norms… - aim
to create a congruent action framework i.e., create
a synergy between our ‘actual’ relationship
commitments and qualities, and a personal or
societal vision. …

Chapter 1
… Also, if our ethics are not in line with our sense of beauty and
vision, the world stops to make sense – it stops to have
‘effective’ meaning for the individual, the institution, or society.
Beauty
Individual / Institutional /
Societal
Vision
Meaning
Ethics

Chapter 1
Human potentialities… - hope -
‘Faith and hope – our ultimate source of human and social
energy for bringing about our world –’
Faith is that force that engages us with the world through our
potential for ‘transcendent relationships’ e.g., ‘God’
 Via a set of related beliefs that express the nature of
‘our’ transcendent relationships and,
 Bring forth and are expressed in an ethical structure
of ethical aspirations (core values), and related
principles and norms and, relationship commitments
and qualities…

Chapter 1
Ethics grow our faith and, the beliefs giving life to our transcendent
relationships, via the growth of ‘beauty, vision and meaning’.
Beauty
Societal
Vision
Meaning
Ethics
Faith
Transcendetal
Relationship
Beliefs

Chapter 1
Faith and hope as the ultimate source of our human and
social energy for bringing about our world –
How do we do this –
For religion and ideologies, we appropriate their sense
of ‘beauty, vision and framework of meaning’ by
enacting their set of beliefs via our ’ethics’
In state or business institutions, we appropriate their
sense of ‘beauty, vision and framework of meaning’
by enacting via our ethics, their beliefs in the world
e.g., the importance of social justice or automobiles.

Chapter 1
When ethics create a synergy between a vision and a transcendental
relationship they lead us to the emotion of hope and to its
manifestations e.g., in our feelings of love and awe.
Beauty
Societal
Vision
Meaning
Ethics
Faith
Transcendetal
Relationship
Beliefs
Hope

Chapter 1
What would be some of the resulting challenges for a world of
more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics – As
examples:
 Does the institutional vision create an effective sense of
beauty and framework of meaning for those who must
carry out its tasks?
 Does the institutiona give people the opportunity to be
connected to a broader purpose i.e., transcendental
relationship?
 Overall - can people enact related and congruent
beliefs via a shared ethical reality e.g., respect for all
patients, along with related ethical principles and
norms?

Ethics (Ethical Dynamics Ch.1)

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