meembo

Of course universal ethics exists! Defining them can a bitch, but I can't see how a society of thinking people can even begin to build (think caveman) without some ethical structure to support our innate social nature. Ethics in general dictate how we act socially as thinking creatures. Morals, on the other hand, work primarily from the inside out, and account for differences in cultures and religions. I think ethics exist throughout humanity, and different moral cultures exert influence on the ethical structure.

The assumption of our social nature as a species is one that I think assumes that our interacting lives depend on some level of mutual cooperation and understanding. In our species there exists a minority of people who choose not to cooperate and contribute to the larger social body of the population, but their abberant behavior doesn't disprove that the majority of people choose to "live and let live" to a degree that allows everyone to generally exist.

I think some people make the mistake of thinking of ethics in terms of religion, that ethics exist out there somewhere outside of us and governs us from above. I believe ethics exist from inside of us and among us. As sentient creatures who feel attractions and affections for one another, we are just smart enough as a species to be able to generalize these principals (of protecting the existence we enjoy) into a broader set of ethics.

I think the story of the Catholic man and coitus interruptus is a good illustration of how religion and ethics are easily confused. It was personal morality, not ethics, that drove the man not to want to break the rules of the institution of the church, to which he subscribed enough to dictate his sexual behavior. I think morality and religion are close cousins, both of which exert force on a human ethical structure of thought and behavior, and that ethics is something wholly different from them altogether.

Art was talking about the relationship between whatever ethics might be and legislation. To me legislation is that very imperfect beast that deliberately tries to combine ethics and morality (and in some societies, religious beliefs). The US Constitution is a great example of this -- soaring platitudes of freedoms, mixed in with a more specific set of rights that changes with social mores over time. And in the US religion is always in the mix. It's no surprise to me that there is such a close relationship in the US between legislation on any level and religious freedom of expression. The moral structures of religion exist to exert influence on ethical structures (our laws, ultimately constitutional law in a constitutional democracy). The death penalty, slavery, abortion, woman's sufferage, Prohibition -- they are all subjects which at times seem to blow in the changing winds of our legislative seasons. What these debates have in common ethically is the degree of moral force our societal leaders exerted on our freedoms which we would choose for ourselves.

Contrast this with ethical/religious socities such as the Taliban in Afghanistan. Ethics and morals there were virtually indistinguishable. For some people, that kind of existence is simpler, less complicated, but of course is much more restrictive, and the antithesis of a free society like the United States.

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less I say, smarter I am