On Synthetic Ethics

 I thought I would write something about ethical systems and the way one might combine four or five different ethical systems to aggregate a useful way of viewing the social world. I happened upon ethics while reviewing my contemporary philosophical fields of interest.

After reading classical Eastern and Western philosophy from Socrates, Sakyamuni and Confucius through to 20th century philosophers like Sartre, Wittgenstein, Russell, Husserl, Heidegger etc., I realized after reading Hegel and formal logical systems such as Quine, Strawson and Kripke described, along with epistemology, empiricism and French rationalism that much of philosophy is comprised of reasoning tools and methods for viewing the experience of life. Venerable philosophical explanations of or accounts of the Universe such as Hegel and even Marx and Pierre Telhard D’jardin provided seemed continuations of the way pre-Socratic philosophers such as Thales, Anaximenes, Parmenides and Heraclitus viewed the Universe. Modern physical cosmology continues along those lines of examining all of the Universe of experience, how and why it exists.

Philosophical cosmology differs somewhat from physical cosmology somewhat. It isn’t so technically rigorous and may consider massive quantitative relations between elements and structures theoretically. One may also involve God as part of those reflections if one is theologically inclined.

There is another field of philosophical interest- that of classical wisdom concerning experience, aging and meaning of life and death that may at least provide meat for writing verse on those topics. One thus has ethics, cosmology, wisdom and formal logic as of live philosophical interest, resting on the background of readings in Western and Eastern philosophy in the past. When philosophy is a support for reasoning rather than a provider of ultimate answers it welcomes theological speculation and respect for God and Jesus Christ.

Christian ethics are part of the synthetic ethical aggregation I mentioned. The others are classical ethics aka aretaic ethics, pragmatism and act and rule based utilitarianism. Yet utilitarianism rather than being a how to system for objectively quantifying and impersonalizing particular social relations might be better used as a mechanics with variables for good and bad effects in addition to objectives as variables too (such as greatest good for the greatest number one might use the greatest bad for the greatest number). One might also consider with Socrates the matter of what the good is in-itself.

Utilitarian as a way for abstract equations for addressing mass social quantification can be a useful tool within a synthetic ethical approach, yet a purely objective ethical system that need be completely impersonal runes the real risk of being unethical and inhuman. The ten commandments to love God first, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself are required elements in beginning a human ethical system to filter the inhuman element out of various utilitarian forms. Perhaps ethical synthesis is comparable to sailing and dead reckoning navigation points with pragmatism required in order not to miss the mark.

Most individuals haven’t much occasion to apply utilitarian criteria on a large scale. Plainly one might assume that politicians could possibly have occasion to use neo-utilitarian mechanics, though for a large number without either the ethics of virtue or Christian ethics as elements. Perhaps many feel that politicians have poor ethics and simply make decisions on what would bring them votes for election victories.

Perhaps ethical values are sublimated over time after research and help individuals better evaluate conduct of mass social behavior.