Re: morals and ethics

Aloha,

> I don't like the use of the word "morality" (due to it's
> over use and abuse by the Christian right wing)....in my mind, I've
> substituted it with the word "ethics".....as I usually do in
> non-Christian contexts.

It's not semantics if it helps change how we act.

The working definitons I've found most useful come from Heinz Von Foester (one
of the grandfathers of modern systems theory and cybernetics and a very keen
observer of human behavior).

He says basically that ethics are the rules and boundaries we each choose and
use (consciously or unconsciosly of course) to live our lives by, and morals
are 'ethics' that one person tries to force on another.

In other words, ethics are individual (though possibly very congruent amongst
individuals in some group or other) and morals are the attempts by one to make
another follow *their* ethics.

"Moralizing" is clubbing (or at least attempting to club) others over the head
with one's own ethics.

Prout sounds like another person who somehow imagines that the right set of
rules ("principles") will somehow change lots and lots of peoples' behavior
all of a sudden...the rules are great, but how do they get started from the
current cultural base?


John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
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