ethical dynamics
TRANSCRIPT
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Towards a More Open, Shared and Responsible Ethical World
'A Framework for Understanding and Transforming Ethical Dynamics'
By: Abraham Chiasson1
1 Abraham Chiasson is a former executive with the public service of Canada with responsibilities for executive education, corporate development, service quality along with other responsibilities for strategic planning and policy development. He can be reached at [email protected]
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Table of Contents Preface Introduction A glossary of key concepts Part 1: Ethics and our Human Potentialities, Social Structures and Dynamics
Chapter 1: Ethics and our Human Potentialities Chapter 2: Ethics and our Cognitive (Social) Structures and Potentialities Chapter 3: Ethical Dynamics and Socio-‐Political Landscapes Chapter 4: Living Systems and Ethical Dynamics
Part II: Ethics in Practice: Towards an ecology of mind and community
Chapter 5: Growing an Ecology of Mind and Community Ethics and ‘Stewardship, Governance and Management’
Chapter 6: Growing an Ecology of Mind and Community
Step 1: Social Potentialities – Institutional dimensions Chapter 7: Growing an Ecology of Mind and Community
Step 2: Social Goods – Core values / Ethical Structure
Chapter 8: Growing an Ecology of Mind and Community Step 3: Harnessing our Socio-Political Energies Towards More ‘Open, Shared and Responsible Ethical Dynamics’
Conclusion “Growing who we are by growing who we are together” Addendum: The connection with current ethical theories and ‘morality’ – Appendix 1-‐ Collective Human Psyche, Domains, Self and Human and Social Cognitive Potentialities
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Preface To provide some context for the following approach to ethical dynamics, I would like to answer, briefly, the following questions: 1) why might I have something useful or interesting to say, 2) broadly speaking, what do I have to say e.g., that would be different and possibly more relevant than what is readily available in literature such as in the classics or from academic institutions and, our contemporary ‘think tanks’ devoted to the study of ethics and governance and, 3) most importantly, why does it matter?
Where I come from
From the perspective of my professional background, much of my motivation stems from my involvement over a period of about 30 years in the management of government programs, some aimed at citizens such as those seeking employment or assistance via a variety of entitlement programs, sometimes as one who administers such programs ‘face to face’, sometimes as one setting national program policies and, at other times, as someone who develops and implements broad service principles and strategies across an organization of 25,000 people. And, at other times, as someone participating in the development of executives across the Canadian public service, advising senior executives on the development and implementation of more relevant philosophies of management, implementing corporate strategic planning approaches and, for a short time, assisting in the direction of Canada’s largest public consultation i.e., the ‘Citizens’ Forum on Canada’s Future’ which took place in the early 90’s.
What ‘turned me on’ to the world of ethics
While I view much of my involvement in the above as personally rewarding, I was always fascinated and many times challenged (not to say frustrated) by the human dynamics involved e.g., why do some relationship dynamics between people, institutions and their organizations and, also those relationship dynamics resulting from management policies and practices and, for that matter, program features and characteristics, empower and help people do great things, and why do other relationship dynamics simply cause desperation and conflict?
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Though I felt fortunate to have found many clues to the riddle in my work and was able to use them to good effect, I challenged myself upon leaving the federal public service to provide some plausible answers, those that would make sense to me and others, and be usable by as broad an audience as possible e.g., not only those in a government setting like myself. My task would then be to provide them with the tools to understand relationship dynamics in the broad sense – what I understood to be the world of ethics -‐ and, importantly, with a way to bring about those relationship characteristics which ‘empower and free them and other people to do great things’, what I would later describe succinctly as having the wherewithal to understand the ethics we have and to bring about the ethics we must have.
Some new and unaddressed ethical challenges
Indeed, I could see that our formal ethical frameworks – those dealing with broad relationship issues -‐ outlined in such documents as philosophies of management or codes of conduct, or outlined in government legislation epitomized in Canada by our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or for that matter, stemming from our religious traditions, while vital in providing broad relationship parameters i.e., core values setting the stage for relationship – ethical -‐ principles and norms, were not always as helpful in dealing with the variety of contemporary day-‐to-‐day human and social relationship issues challenging institutions, their organizations and their people. The result of this situation was that too often many relationship conflicts embedded sometimes in government policy (e.g., that dealing with our aboriginal nations in Canada) or in face to face situations (e.g., between citizens competing for public resources) were dealt with via organizational power relationships which usually hindered, or rendered quite hopeless, any possibility for ‘win-‐win situations’. I could also see that too often such approaches to relationship issues resulted in wasted and misdirected energies, and eventually destroyed much of the context’s potential for trust and, hence, useful relationship synergies. At the same time, from my experience in corporate strategic planning, I was well aware that the nature and characteristics of our traditional individual, institutional and societal relationship dynamics were also being challenged by new issues as in the case of those associated with ‘globalization’ and its new multicultural relationship dynamics, technological and demographic changes
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that broke down many of our traditional behavioral norms, and on our capacity to live ‘harmoniously’ together. Indeed, our looming economic and environmental challenges would call for extremely sophisticated relationship dynamics on a scale never before imagined. From a personal perspective, I also knew that my personal happiness and sense of empowerment like everybody else’s somehow depended on the degree of congruency or match between my ethics as an individual e.g., my relationship commitments, and those of the institutions in which I participated and, more generally, those of my society. I also knew from experience that while there would always be a ‘tension’ between my ethics and those of my institutions and society, that my sense of happiness and empowerment would be associated with my ability to participate in the growth of more effective institutional and societal ethics. Indeed, that there had to be a growing ethical synergy between the ‘world’ and myself, and that it had to be a mutual undertaking. All of which implied the need for a new and more relevant understanding of ethical dynamics, one that would:
! Guide and give new meaning to all of us in our myriad day-‐to-‐day ‘relationship commitments and relationship qualities’ – what will be described later as the ‘bottom line’ of ethical dynamics – and,
! Enable all members of society and its public and private institutions to
address relationship issues more successfully and, I would add, more holistically.
What is different with the proposed approach
Since the overall goal of the approach seeks to ‘grow’ an ethical synergy involving us all i.e., individuals, institutions and societies alike, leading broadly to greater human flourishing, and not one, as an example, dealing with the constraints that govern how we should or should not treat other people – what could be viewed as the domain of ‘morality’ -‐, I knew that I had to go beyond what was available in the literature on ethics and what was available from academic institutions and our contemporary ‘think tanks’ devoted to the study of ethics and governance. Much of their work appeared to focus on distilling or growing ethical principles and norms on the basis of a specific philosophy and its core values e.g., political liberalism, a moral theology e.g., in our case in Canada
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the one often associated with Christianity, or a secular humanism e.g., what seemed to provide for the greatest happiness or success. With this in mind, my goal would then be to develop and offer a comprehensive and highly inclusive approach to our evolving ethical issues and challenges, one that would acknowledge the importance of traditional theories and approaches described in religious traditions, philosophies, political science or management textbooks as examples, but would seek to be useful and relevant – without being simplistic or naïve as is so often the case – and be widely applicable to most if not all human situations in our ‘multicultural world’. Specifically, the approach should be capable of helping individuals and institutions alike to address the complex ethical issues inherent as an example, to the competitive world of authority and power relationships, say in corporations or in international institutions, where traditional ethical approaches often conflict with each other. In effect, it should be capable of growing the core values and related -‐ ethical -‐ principles and norms which would give relevance and meaning to more sophisticated relationship commitments and qualities, those best suited to address our evolving ethical issues be they in the home or, in the highest spheres of government or business.
Background to the approach: some elements
As someone who has always wanted to understand ‘how things worked’, I felt that a good place to start was with our underlying human and social dynamics, those which bring about our relationship commitments and qualities in response to the many issues which we must address, and which have over the course of history along with the insights of great individuals e.g., Jesus Christ, Mahomet, and Buddha, given us our ethical principles and norms, and more broadly, our core societal or civilization values say for social justice. And, since I wanted to present both a dynamic and holistic approach – nothing less would be relevant -‐ I felt that I had to first take a wide-‐ranging perspective. This led me to explore recent discoveries in the world of science e.g., the world of cognitive sciences, neuroscience and living systems theory; the many new developments in anthropology, psychology and political science; and, in the humanities and the world of religion such as the recent impact of Buddhism on Western societies.
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The task then became one of uncovering the human and social characteristics and their dynamics that could be considered critical to the creation of relationship dynamics: those that provide for the individual’s behavior and which potentially provide the individual with a sense of congruency and growth as an example, those human and social characteristics involved between individuals themselves and their institutions and organizations and, from a broader perspective, between institutions on their many socio-‐political landscapes. And, always doing this in a way that would be appropriate for a rapidly evolving and culturally pluralistic world. This brought me to examine how we bring about our ‘human’ world, as examples, the role of our core human potentialities or forces, those that in effect compel us to become who we are via, as examples, the human ‘tools’ at our disposal, what will be described as our cognitive potentialities. This approach while helping me to better understand the more traditional ethical approaches mentioned above also helped me to see many new dimensions to the world of ethical relationships, some involving our emotions and feelings along with our sense of vision and hope, others involving institutional products and services be they automobiles or government policy advice; all, in effect, being connected to and impacting on the nature and characteristics of our ‘relationship commitments and qualities’, what I considered, as I mentioned previously, to be the historical and existential source, and the essence of ethics, notwithstanding that such ‘relationship commitments and qualities’ may have been with some form of deity or mystical force as in the case of the Greeks.
Some key approach characteristics
From my experience with the development and implementation of philosophies of management -‐ comprised generally of frameworks of core values and related (ethical) principles and norms -‐ I believed that I should offer more than the traditional instrumental approaches, those seeking to describe the best relationship characteristics to fit a situation or set of issues, but rather, as I have mentioned previously, put a premium on the possibility for engaging us to be individually and collectively responsible for the world, hence the reference to ‘open, shared and responsible’ in the title given to the approach.
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To achieve this goal and to bring together my findings into a useful framework, one that would also be compatible with the goal of more open or participative socio-‐political dynamics, I eventually chose key aspects of living systems theory as the ‘living” backbone of the approach sensing that it had the potential of serving as the ‘integrator’ for much of what I wanted to say and reflected well my conviction that we live in one ‘interconnected’ universe. Living systems theory also permitted me to transcend those relationship – ethical -‐ principles and norms usually based on philosophical or moral considerations which were mentioned earlier and which aim to produce the ‘right’ results, however useful such frameworks (usually expressed in codes of conduct as an example) may have been in the past and continue to be for areas like medical care and accountancy or, for simply maintaining a form of social order. Simply put, living systems theory was capable of giving life to an ‘open’ participation framework i.e., one capable of helping us to understand and transform relationship dynamics, including those that we find in the approaches mentioned above.
Finally
My vision and hope have been to present an approach – an actionable and manageable framework of concepts -‐ that would be sufficiently comprehensive to permit us all as individuals, institutions and societies, and in all our spheres of activity to grow a world – with some ups and downs -‐ that is both respectful of our social and historical realities and, at the same time, capable of addressing our evolving and ‘pluralistic’ hopes and dreams for the future.
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Towards a More Open, Shared and Responsible Ethical World ‘A Framework for Understanding and Transforming Ethical Dynamics'
Introduction Since we will be referring to ethics principally as the expression of our ongoing human potential for creating an ever more relevant and satisfying world for all via our social qualities and social goods, it will be useful to keep in mind that ethics in this view are central to ‘everything that we are and everything that we do’, not something from ‘outside’ serving basically to keep us in line for, as an example, the greater good however useful that might have been in the past and continues to be for some in the present, as we explained in the Preface. It is in this sense that ethics will be later described as intrinsic to the development and growth of a more finely tuned ecology of mind and community by focusing on ethics metaphorically as the ‘art and science of living and growing together’. To lead us into the steps of the approach, our goal in the Introduction will be to describe more specifically: • Some contemporary ethical realities and issues;
• Recent developments that make this approach timely;
• What the proposed approach aims to achieve;
• The connection with current 'ethical' theories and ‘morality’;
• The steps in the ‘journey’; and,
• A glossary of key concepts.
Hopefully, this will spark some interest for undertaking the ‘journey’.
Some contemporary ethical realities and issues -
For many of us, we live in a world characterized by the ideals of democracy with a philosophy of political liberalism and its emphasis on individual rights and ‘equal justice and opportunity for all’ underlying its most fundamental dynamics,
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especially in Western democracies but also, sometimes more as a hope, in the world at large. More and more, we can see that in many traditional societies often characterized by authoritarian forms of governance, individuals are increasingly negotiating new freedoms to bring about a more personally congruent world while often, at the same time, growing a more satisfying collective reality. While such realities and trends open up increasing possibilities for evolving towards a world more reflective of our human and social potentialities for happiness and growth, we are often challenged by our inability to understand how to bring it about given the complexities and the ambiguities embedded in the issues of our daily lives, especially in the context of our day-‐to-‐day relationships with each other and with what we do in our institutions and their organizations. In this world, many of our social contexts from those of our communities to those of our modern corporations could too easily be characterized as a ‘dog eat dog world’ where we often have the impression that the ‘proclaimed’ ethical values e.g., the creation of a more equitable world and a safe environment, or of honesty and transparency in social relationships, are too often used to impress the ‘gallery’ or to manipulate e.g., in the world of consumerism. For many, this seems most evident with issues related to ecology where the corporate business sector the world over, notwithstanding its rhetoric, is often perceived as wanting to impose its environmental ethics (drawing on some of the core values of ‘free market’ ideology) on society and the planet at large; and, from a practical perspective, adhering to those environmentally related ethical principles and norms which best serve its corporate bottom line, or we also could say, its overall authority and power. Politically, we see that governments often struggle to transcend the corporate or private interests and ethics of powerful groups whether it be those holding the purse strings of their political parties or those holding sway over large segments of the population e.g., via well-‐articulated ‘social marketing’ strategies. We can also see such issues in the broader world of international relations where the societal ethics of ‘developing’ countries must increasingly be aligned with those of capitalistic states – especially the most powerful ones -‐ and their international institutions. Indeed, ‘developing’ countries must follow the ‘ethics’,
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in effect the core values and resultant policies, enacted in the powerful capitals of the world and in their international institutions such as the World Bank. All of this is taking place at the same time when exceptional institutions both private and public e.g., some of those working in the developing world, and individuals in all walks of life, engage in ‘ethical’ acts reflecting a profound sense of human solidarity with those in less fortunate circumstances and, in the process, enjoy a shared sense of empowerment and growth. Overall, we are often left with the impression that, for many of us and even for our most valued institutions, striving for a high degree of ethical congruency i.e., for enacting ethics that inspire and empower us as individuals and institutions, is well beyond our realm of influence, ‘propaganda’ notwithstanding.
Recent developments that make this approach timely
Though ethical or, more simply, moral considerations have always been innate to social landscapes, in the past few years they have been increasingly brought to the forefront and have given rise to numerous and varied initiatives related to ‘values and ethics'. Some of these initiatives have focused on the world of political reform e.g., more transparency and accountability in political decision-‐making, others have focused on the development of more stringent codes of conduct or philosophies of management in government and private sector institutions. As further examples, the values and overall ethics underlying the ‘planetary’ goals of sustainability, peace, and human development... formulated and promoted by many individuals and ‘social advocacy’ institutions have succeeded in changing the nature of many societal debates and many institutional realities e.g., in the form of new environmental policies and programs. In the Canadian government context, such interests have resulted in the publication of a ‘Values And Ethics Code for the Public Service’ to guide and support public servants in their professional activities along with support networks and the publication of ‘best practices’. Corporations in the private sector sometimes at the insistence of regulatory agencies, and many community groups, have also undertaken such initiatives
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and have proudly exhibited similar statements of values, ethical principles or standards of conduct. Nonetheless, while such initiatives point to a vital and felt need for a stronger degree of synergy between core values and ethical principles and norms and, preferred societal or corporate realities (what we will describe later as social qualities and social goods), the connection between such core values and ethical principles and norms, and ‘preferred realities’ is often tenuous, or easily manipulated, at least for those having to make to day-‐to-‐day decisions. As an example, an ethical principle such as all hospital patients will be treated equitably i.e., with justice, fairness and impartiality as underlying core institutional values, may often be viewed more as a wish than a reality in an overcrowded emergency room in a downtown hospital for both patients and medical staff; more so, if such principles are not associated with agreed-‐upon and funded ethical norms e.g., patients with these symptoms will be examined within 30 minutes. Indeed, the need for ethical congruency, say between rhetoric and action, while hoped for, is too often left as we will see without an implementation strategy e.g., especially one dealing with issues of institutional authority and power. Simply expressed, there are few if any ethical or managerial approaches available to connect the dynamic contribution of ethics to the goals of the institution and its organization, or to the vision and hopes of their actors and that of their partners and clients, with the result that few government and private institutions and the organizations have succeeded in giving them a 'living' existence in the conduct of their business. For these and many other reasons, official ‘values’ and ethical principles and norms or, more generally, all our efforts to shape relationship commitments and qualities from the ‘outside’ e.g., from a government agency, from senior management in a corporation or from parents in a family, must compete, often unsuccessfully, with the 'real' values and ethical principles of either the marketplace, or the political or bureaucratic realities of their institutional organizations. So, while public and private sector executives and staff, and citizens as a whole, are becoming increasingly sensitive to the effects of values and ethics in general and concerned with resultant issues, many remain somewhat confused as to
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what values and ethics are -‐ beyond the dos and don’ts and their obvious moral rationale, or the plethora of ‘core’ values often found in institutional statements -‐, especially in a dynamic sense: where they come from, how they take shape and how they evolve to bring about an ever changing world; indeed, how they affect their sense of well-‐being and, more specifically, contribute to their sense of personal identity and fulfillment.
What the proposed approach aims to achieve -
Since we have described ethics as fundamentally about relationships – ultimately, with one’s self in the case of the individual -‐, much of the approach will focus on relationship commitments and qualities, ethical principles and norms, and core values, as we individually and collectively via our participation in institutions and their organizations, and society, go about enacting our world. In this connection, the overall thrust of the approach will be to:
1) Facilitate an understanding of ethics as integral to ‘all that we are and all that we do’, via what is briefly described below as an ‘analytical framework’; and,
2) Articulate an approach for their transformation – a transformational framework – focused on our human and social potentialities and their dynamics, and aimed towards a world of more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics.
An analytical framework
The approach by giving us the wherewithal for a systematic understanding of ethical dynamics – one that addresses ethical dynamics as a vital component of our overall human and social condition -‐ aims to give us insights into the development and formation of both our more informal ethics e.g., the core social values and ethical principles and norms which help guide our day to day endeavors via our relationship commitments and qualities, and society’s more formal ethics such as those codified in either religious injunctions e.g., the Ten Commandments, in law e.g., the Criminal Code, or in its many other legislated and non-‐legislated relationship policies and practices e.g., in its social welfare or cultural programs. In summary, helping us to understand the 'ethics we have'.
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A transformational framework
As a transformational framework, this approach focuses on the human and social dynamics involved in both our informal and formal ethics and how they might be modified e.g., the role played by authority and power, in shaping ethical dynamics. In summary, giving us a road map for moving towards the 'ethics we must have'. From a practical perspective, this approach to ethical dynamics is about how we, as individuals and collectively -‐ as institutions, communities and societies – in the context of myriad challenges and opportunities can manage our relationship issues in a way that permits us all to:
• Participate more effectively in creating congruent ethical synergies e.g., by giving us the wherewithal to more consciously broker the many ethical challenges of our increasingly complex world, and thereby,
• Achieve a greater sense of ethical congruency for ourselves and for our institutions and society – ‘being more of who and what we are capable of becoming’ as we go about enacting our world -‐.
Or, we could say, to make the ever-‐challenging quest for more congruent ethical synergies or, more specifically, a greater sense of ethical congruency more manageable and attainable to all of us in our daily endeavors, hence the title at the outset: “Towards a More Open, Shared and Responsible Ethical World”. In effect, giving us the tools for effective conversations.
The connection with current ethical theories and ‘morality’ -
Underlying ethics as the overall expression of what we will describe as our socio-‐political instincts for survival and growth on our many landscapes, we have what could be viewed more generally as our moral instincts, those obeying to what Marc D. Hauser in Moral Minds describes as a moral grammar2. Historically, these instincts have given rise and taken shape in a number of ‘moral’ approaches leading to specific ethical philosophies and behavioral systems e.g., frameworks of ethical principles and norms, with each of these moral approaches endeavoring to give contextual relevance to what Marc D. Hauser also mentions as a ‘universal moral grammar’.
2 Mard D. Hauser, Moral Minds, Harper Collins, 2006, Prologue, p.xvii
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Since each of these moral approaches continue to be relevant not only for specific individuals or groups e.g., to those that adhere to a particular religious doctrine as a manifestation of this phenomena, but also of our collective human effort to deal with this reality in our complex process of living, our approach to ethical dynamics will aim to be a source of explanation for their origins and specific reality and, also, an avenue for growing their overall effectiveness. Specifically, we will keep in mind in the development of our approach and address in the Addendum -‐ to keep the description of our approach as straightforward as possible -‐ the following ‘moral’ approaches and / or ethical theories associated with:
• Moral sense, moral conscience, or moral faculty – those approaches driven by our ability for perceiving -‐ more so sensing -‐ right and wrong, giving us the possibility for evaluating and directing (or approving and condemning) our behaviors, hence, for judging oneself and, by inference, the behaviors of others;
• Intuitionism or ‘common sense’ – those approaches predicated on the fact
that we are ‘moral’ beings and that we identify the moral qualities of our actions spontaneously or intuitively, without a necessary reference to their motivation or objective consequences hence their manifestation in what we usually refer to as ‘common sense’ -‐ some things feel right and others feel wrong -‐;
• Teleology and / or utilitarianism – teleological approaches, those that
focus on the ‘morality or immorality’ of an act depending on its consequences or final purposes, and utilitarianism, those that “define the right conduct as that which promotes the best consequences”3, generally what maximizes happiness to those affected by an action, and that the ‘good’ (utility) can be perceived and evaluated empirically;
• Religious doctrine or philosophy – those approaches motivated by a
definition of what it means to be human along with what constitutes a good and appropriate way of living as in the case of the teachings of a ‘creator’ or of a ‘founding’ religious figure, or philosopher embodying a system of meaning coupled with a framework of truths and theories; and,
3 - Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Routledge, 2000, Teleological Ethics, p.879.
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• Deontology – those approaches associated with professional – some
would also say ‘moral’ -‐ duties as in the case of a profession or of a specific institution where ‘deontological’ (ethical) principles and norms aim to reflect, more so, give effect to a specific set of social or societal core values and, which serve to bring about an agreed upon social or societal vision e.g., quality health care as a social good.
As a prelude to what we will discuss in the Addendum, the central thesis of our approach will be that the moral / ethical approaches mentioned above stem, as in the case of our approach to ethical dynamics, from our need to grow sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly – as individuals, institutions and societies -‐, one or many of what we will outline as our human and social potentialities; furthermore, that these potentialities get their social energy for actualization from our socio-‐political instincts for survival and growth on our many landscapes. In summary, while our approach draws on the same human (moral) instincts that have brought about these moral and ethical theories and approaches, it seeks a more universal perspective, one applicable to all human beings in their myriad social environments with the only imperative that over time we, collectively as a species, are ‘challenged’ to adapt and grow (or die), and increasingly so in our contemporary competitive, and environmentally challenged, world reality. Indeed, the proposed approach should provide us with the conceptual frameworks for better understanding the myriad ethical systems giving life and shaping human experience on the planet and, eventually, provide for the possibility of ‘growing’ our ethical systems i.e., our capacity for bringing about a ‘better’ world, together.
The steps in the ‘journey’
Overall, our premise will be that: “Ethics and related ethical dynamics are the concrete manifestation of, and the source of energy and substance for, the development and growth of our human and social potentialities.”
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To address this reality, the approach will be divided in two parts, Part I, Chapters 1 – 2 – 3 & 4, will explore the world of our human potentialities – those that compel us to become who we are capable of becoming – along with our cognitive (social4) structures and potentialities, our socio-‐political structures and dynamics: those critical to the world of ethics and, how living systems can help us understand ethical dynamics. Part II, Chapters 5 – 6 – 7 & 8, will seek to create an evolving and constructive synergy between the world of our mind i.e., that of our ‘core’ human and social potentialities, and that of our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities – those giving life to our ‘community’ via their impact on our domains of contribution – by exploring ethical dynamics in the context of our social world. Overall, this will be described as: ‘Towards an ecology of mind and community’. To do so, it will begin by describing the role of our social functions i.e., stewardship, governance and management, and subsequently the world of social qualities, social goods, and socio-‐political energies. The Conclusion will describe how the approach constitutes a framework of conceptual tools that can help us all “grow who we are by growing who we are together “. To have a sense of the whole as we proceed, the following describes briefly each of the chapters and Addendum.
Chapter 1
Chapter 1 proposes a model for understanding our more general or ‘core’ human potentialities, those potentialities at the centre of what it means to be ‘human’ and that, in a sense, ‘compel us to become who we are’, hence the reference in the text to ‘forces’. These potentialities will be examined as they serve to bring about and shape ethical behavior on one hand and on the other, how they are generally affected by ethical dynamics. Specifically, we will examine: • Consciousness and conscious will;
4- Cognitive structures will also be viewed in the following as in tandem with our social structures since one and the other constitute the basis for our existence as social beings.
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• A sense of self and personal identity; and, • Our potential -‐ capacity -‐ for vision and hope.
We will focus on the emergence and manifestation of these potentialities – forces -‐ mainly in the context of the individual. Nonetheless, as we will describe, these potentialities are also applicable to our other core social structures as living systems i.e., our institutions and their organizations and, more generally, to societies as whole, what we often experience in our institutional encounters as institutional ‘consciousness’ or sense of ‘vision’. The overall task will be to describe how such potentialities and their characteristics bring about ethics per se and, in turn, to demonstrate how ethics serve to grow such potentialities and their characteristics, as has often been the case with the ethical structures of the world’s major religions e.g., the emphasis on ‘love’ in Christian religions and on ‘compassion’ in Buddhism.
Chapter 2
From an evolutionary perspective, Chapter 2 will describe how our core human potentialities have been in synergy with our cognitive structures and potentialities. To do so, it will examine the nature and characteristics of this synergy and describe as an example, how our cognitive structures and potentialities shape our ethical relationships and, vice versa, how ethics – as a cognitive potentiality -‐ also serve to shape our cognitive structures and potentialities. In summary, Chapter 2 will address our ‘cognitive (social) structures and potentialities’ – those associated with –
• Our human nature -‐ and being possessed by all who share in our human nature – and those associated with the ‘self’;
• Our domains of enterprise e.g., doctor, plumber or mother and, those associated ‘broadly’ with institutions (and, as we will see, individuals and societies alike), those structures which give domain contributions social and political relevance e.g., the state, the hospital and the family; and,
• Our ‘collective human psyche’ or the reality of our collective human experience as it serves to bring about our world and to give it human – historical – meaning via our culture or, more broadly our civilization.
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Chapter 3
This Chapter examines ethical dynamics and socio-‐political landscapes – our social 'playing field’ -‐ where domain contributions come together to create evolving and potentially relevant landscape realities. Specifically, it addresses our socio-‐political structures:
• Domains – Structures that give social relevance to our cognitive potentialities – an ‘intentionality’;
• Institutions (Individuals and Societies) – Our core socio-‐political ‘relational’ structures; and,
• Socio-‐political landscapes – Our ‘playing field’ for the creation of ‘landscape realities’.
We will also describe how ethical dynamics are dependent on the dynamics of authority and power, those dynamics that reflect our socio-‐political instincts for survival and growth on our many socio-‐political landscapes. In summary, ethics will be viewed as a competitive phenomenon where the ethics of the individual as an example, are mediated on an ongoing basis via the individual’s institutional participation, and similarly for institutions between themselves and, on a broader stage, for our different societies via as an example, international institutions.
Chapter 4
Chapter 4 describes briefly how our human potentialities, cognitive structures and, socio-‐political structures and dynamics, find their life source and potential for synergy in some of the characteristics of living systems, especially those characteristics that give life to our biological and human universe. Specifically, it examines these characteristics to see how they might be useful for understanding and transforming ethical dynamics. In doing so, it acknowledges that ‘mind and body’ are and act together and, that the characteristics of the dynamics that have given rise to the ‘human’ body as a component of the biological sphere find both a general resonance with that of the mind but, more importantly, can be used to understand some of the characteristics and dynamics of our specifically human world.
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To do so, the Chapter describes the following characteristics of the world of living systems along with their implications for ethical dynamics:
• ‘Cognition’ is described not as a representation of an independently existing world as we have often been told, but rather as a continual bringing forth of a world through the process of living;
• Living will be viewed as a network of production processes in which the function of each component e.g., each individual, institution and eventually, every society, is to participate in the production or transformation of other components in the network, for the maintenance of what could be described as its own (structural) integrity as a living system, what will be viewed as ‘autopoiesis’ in the world of living systems;
• In the context of autopoiesis, living systems will be described as interacting with one another and, more generally, with their environments via ‘structural coupling’; and
• Life in all its complexities and sophistication will be viewed as the result of living in a world of ‘dissipative structures’ ourselves included, where we must “shift our perception from stability to instability, from order to disorder, from equilibrium to non-‐equilibrium, from being to becoming”5.
Specifically, we will venture to say at this point, and hopefully demonstrate, that ‘ethics’ are a vital component of the manifestation of this synergy in our human world and, the ultimate expression and driver of our search for ‘harmony’ within our individual self, between us and with the universe.
Chapter 5
Chapter 5 brings ethics into our social world by describing how ethics and ethical dynamics do not ‘stand alone’ but rather are embedded in – give life to – and, are in a synergistic relationship with our core social functions, what will be described as ‘stewardship, governance, and management’; more so, we will seek to point out that ethics ‘live’ through these core social functions, and, that to understand and transform ethical dynamics we must also understand and transform the nature and characteristics of these core social functions. Indeed, if we are to move towards more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics, each of these three social functions must increasingly be driven by an ‘open’ synergy of their ethical dimensions.
5- - Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life, Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1996, p.180.
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Chapter 6
Chapter 6 describes that as in the case of our core human potentialities or forces, we are also driven by a combination of our ‘social potentialities or forces’ e.g., for empathy, belonging, and accountability, those which give a specific direction and substance to our relationships – a set of social qualities – via their enactment in what will be described as our core institutional dimensions i.e., those key institutional characteristics belonging to all institutions, individuals and societies alike. In doing so, resultant social qualities will be viewed as the specific social energy underpinning individual, institutional and societal mediation of domain contributions.
Chapter 7
Chapter 7 examines the nature of social goods, their embedded characteristics and, the challenges to creating a relevant synergy between ethics and the world of our both social qualities – social goods, for individuals, institutions and society (and, we could also say, for the world as a whole); and, describes how social qualities and social goods provide on one hand the substance of ethics – what ethics aim to achieve – and on the other hand, the springboard – the necessary realities – for the enactment of ever more sophisticated ethical manifestations.
Chapter 8
Chapter 8 focuses on harnessing our socio-‐political energies towards more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics as they apply to an individual, institution or society, broadly their ability to bring about those realities – social qualities and social goods -‐ that will grow their human potentialities say, for individuals, their degree of consciousness, personal identity and sense of hope and, their social potentialities e.g., for contribution. Specifically, it will address the conditions for: 1) an ecology of social qualities and social goods, 2) the nature and characteristics of socio-‐political energies leading to an ecology of mind and community and, 3) how we can mediate / negotiate – create a synergy between -‐ our need for growth with the need for
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growth of others or, create strategies for more open, shared and responsible ethical energies.
Conclusion
The Conclusion will describe how the approach constitutes a framework of conceptual tools that can help us all “grow who we are by growing who we are together”, emphasizing that we are ‘together’ the actors in this ‘unfolding’ universe however willing or unwilling we may be at any point in time.
Addendum
The Addendum will address the relationship between a number of ‘moral’ approaches leading to specific ethical philosophies and behavioral systems e.g., frameworks of ethical principles and norms, and our approach to ethical dynamics.
In summary
The following chapters will aim to provide a framework of conceptual tools – a theoretical framework -‐, summarized in the graphic below, that can be applied to shed light on issues embedded in the world of ethics while at the same time offering avenues for their successful resolution, more so help us grow via more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics, an increasing ecology of mind and community: ‘living and growing together’, as the ultimate goal. We could also say that these conceptual tools will seek to provide us with an ‘articulated’ ethical sensitivity, one that not only helps us feel that something is ‘not right’ but that also gives us a roadmap for making it ‘feel right’; and, as we will see in the following chapters, ethical issues may originate in each one of the dimensions of our conceptual framework.
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The Journey – A Summary
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A glossary of key concepts
The following glossary of terms / concepts which are sometimes given in the text a specific – approach related – definition is provided for ease of reference. Ethics (in general): will refer to relationship commitments and qualities, to their associated principles and norms, and to what will be described below as an ethical structure comprised of a hierarchy of core values e.g., of compassion, solidarity, or competitiveness -‐, resulting from and / or guiding the enactment of relationship behaviors by individuals, institutions, socio-‐political landscapes, and / or societies. Ethic (an ethic): will refer to an overarching social quality e.g., love, compassion, or justice, or social good e.g., sustainability or prosperity, – often referred to as a ‘core value’ in contemporary literature – as it is mediated and given life as an example in individual / institutional relationships via ethical principles and norms and resultant relationship commitments and qualities, and bringing about a specific individual or institutional – context specific -‐ ethical aspiration e.g., what compassion ‘means’ for the individual or the institution in their networks of relationships. Ethical structure: in the context of institutional interactions (this would also apply to an individual in the context of his / her institutional interactions), a specific institutional ethic, say of social justice in the case of a state institution, is usually a component of a mediated ethical structure – more specifically of a hierarchy of ethical aspirations -‐ for the institution in its network of institutional relationships, with each component of the ethical structure serving to contribute to the growth both of the institution and to its network of institutional relationships as a whole in what the institution does i.e., in its ethical principles and norms and, relationship commitments and qualities, but also to contribute, in the best of circumstances, to the growth of the society’s overall hierarchy of ethical aspirations – its hierarchy of core values -‐. Ethical framework: will refer to a specific ethical context – an individual, an institution and its organization, an institutional landscape or a society as a whole -‐, and to its specific ethical structure i.e., ethical aspirations (or, core values), along with related principles and norms, and relationship commitments and qualities.
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Ethical principles: behavioral / action principles capable of reflecting or bringing about a specific set or framework of relationship commitments and qualities and, more comprehensively, capable of creating in the best of scenarios a constructive synergy of individual, institutional, landscape or societal relationship commitments and qualities i.e., growing a relevant individual, institutional or societal ethic or, an ethical structure. Ethical norms: specific and formalized individual, institutional, landscape or societal expectations regarding the application of ethical principles to related relationship commitments and qualities e.g., applicable to questions such as: to who, when, where, how... Ethical: will be used generally to refer to the world of ethics: their overarching social qualities and social goods – core values -‐, their principles and norms and, more generally, to relationship commitments and qualities e.g., ethical relationships being in the world of relationship commitments and qualities and, when used in the normative sense, will refer to ethical dynamics that are open, shared and responsible. Ethical dynamics: will refer to the synergy, or lack thereof, of relationship commitments and qualities per se or with their associated ethical principles and norms, or with their overarching core values or ethical aspirations, especially as they serve to bring about social qualities and social goods.
Part I: Ethics and our Human Potentialities, Social Structures and Dynamics Part I will describe briefly what will be viewed as the main architecture and building blocks both human and social, for understanding and transforming ‘who we are and what we do’, and by doing so, move us into the world of ethical dynamics. (Later, in Part II, we will complete this description by referring to our social potentialities and to their manifestation in our institutional relationships.) In this context, ethics and ethical dynamics will be viewed as both:
• 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) – and,
• Inter-‐subjective phenomena comprised of interrelated relationship commitments and qualities, principles and norms and of ethical aspirations or core values, all aimed at dealing with this need for congruency and growth in both the more narrow individual sense mentioned above and, in the broader societal sense of creating the social conditions e.g., institutional and their organizational dynamics, for an effective synergy – individual and community or society -‐.
In summary, while for many ethics have often been perceived as static – written in stone – and as offering direction for all of life’s challenges, Part I will lay the groundwork for a broader and more inclusive evolutionary perspective and, for viewing ethics as intimately associated with as examples, our capacity for art, philosophy and science and for the creation of sophisticated institutions and realities. All of this in the context of together enacting or bringing forth a 'world', not in isolation from each other but as components of a living system where ethics will be viewed as the ultimate expression and driver of our search for ‘harmony’ within our individual self, between us and with the universe.
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Chapter 1: Ethics and our Human Potentialities Chapter 1 will describe our more general or ‘core’ human potentialities, those potentialities at the heart of what it means to be ‘human’ and that in a sense ‘compel us to become who we are’, hence the reference to ‘forces’. In effect, we could also say those potentialities leading to what could be described as our core human qualities. The following will examine the characteristics and dynamics of these potentialities as they serve to bring about and shape ethical behavior on one hand and on the other, how they are generally affected by ethical dynamics. Specifically, we will examine:
• Consciousness and conscious will;
• A sense of self and personal identity; and,
• Our potential -‐ capacity -‐ for vision and hope.
As the graphic below aims to describe, these core human potentialities – forces – are always in synergy and behave as a whole: As we proceed, we will focus on the emergence and manifestation of these potentialities – forces -‐ mainly in the context of the individual. Nonetheless, as we will see later, these potentialities are also applicable to our social structures as living systems e.g., our institutions and their organizations, and to our socio-‐political landscapes small and large as examples, what we often experience in our institutional encounters as institutional ‘consciousness’ or sense of ‘vision’ or, when we travel, what could also be applied to societies as a whole.
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Since we will be examining ethical dynamics as associated with the characteristics of living systems as much as with the characteristics of socio-‐political realities, the following will focus more as an example, on our biological, neurological, and psychological makeup, as a point of departure in each case. This should serve us well as we address ethical dynamics not in a specific religious or cultural context but in a pluralistic one.
Consciousness and conscious will
Without our potential and need for consciousness e.g., knowing that we know, and some capacity for a sense of conscious will, albeit the latter sometimes being very much an illusion6, it would be irrelevant to discuss the matter of open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics. Relationships would be driven by a ‘natural’ and more strictly functional sense of ‘consciousness’ such as the one that we find in both the vegetative and animal world7. For us then, in the context of ethics and ethical relationships, the questions that must be addressed are:
• Where does our human consciousness come from, what is its nature and characteristics, and how is it associated with the world of ethics;
• What is conscious will and how is it associated with ethics and, more generally, with ethical dynamics; and,
• What would be some of the resulting challenges for more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics?
Where does our human consciousness come from, what is its nature and characteristics, and how is it associated with the world of ethics -
At the outset, it is useful to observe that human consciousness overall is first associated with an emotional state or a specific emotion. In his book, The Feeling of What Happens, Antonio Damasio describes the connection from a clinical perspective as follows:
"...I venture that absence of emotion is a reliable correlate of defective core consciousness, perhaps as much as the presence of some degree of continuous emoting is virtually always associated with the conscious state. ... Emotions and core consciousness tend to go
6- For an analysis of conscious will as an illusion see The Illusion of Conscious Will by Daniel M. Wegner, Bradford Books, MIT Press, 2002. 7 - And though one could argue that both plants and animals are subject to the creation and maintenance of a natural ethical order, the paper will address the subject strictly from a human point of view.
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together, in the literal sense, by being present together or absent together.8"
And, while consciousness is broader and encompasses more than the strict world of our emotions e.g., the world of our thoughts, emotions can be viewed as the expression of our most basic connection with life and the forces of the universe. Indeed, emotions have always been present and at the forefront of our evolution and survival e.g., the important role that fear has always played in our lives and in the evolution of our species, not only regarding threats from more powerful species but also for the development of our symbolic universe as in the case of our needs to appease the ‘gods’. (And, one could add, as a concrete expression of our close relatedness with the animal world.) As actors on many different social landscapes, our consciousness or, more broadly our mind, is constantly informed by our emotions and, as described below, along with their associated perceptions and feelings. More specifically, emotions provide us with our most fundamental psychological relationship to these landscapes and, ultimately, give us our core potential – energy -‐ for conscious and intentional action. And, as we will see later, contribute significantly in themselves to what are or should be our conscious and intentional actions – commitments -‐ and to our relationship qualities. On a day-‐to-‐day basis, emotions via the world of our perceptions, usually express themselves as feelings. As a way of understanding the origins of feelings in this context, Damasio, in a more recent book: Looking for Spinoza -‐Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain -‐, further describes their origins and reality:
"My hypothesis, then, presented in the form of a provisional definition, is that 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. Feelings emerge when the sheer accumulation of mapped details reaches a certain stage. Coming from a different perspective, the philosopher Suzanne Langer captured the nature of that moment of emergence by saying that when the activity of some part of the nervous system reaches a "critical pitch' the process is felt. Feeling is a consequence of the ongoing homeostatic process, the next step in the chain.”9
As Damasio points out, feelings emerge from “the accumulation of mapped details”, what will be described as our overall perceptions, or more simply
8- Antonio R. Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens, Harcourt Brace, 1999, p.100 9- Antonio Damasio, Looking for Spinoza -Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain -, Harcourt Inc, 2003, p.86
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referred to as “perceptions”. In this case, perceptions being the result of – stemming from -‐ our human cognitive potentialities i.e., those related to symbols, behaviors, explanations, invention, faith, reason, and technique. (These cognitive potentialities will be described in Chapter 2). Cognitive potentialities which serve among other functions to move us from our ‘instinctual’ emotional reactions to our world of feelings, those that we can associate as an example, with the realities – good or bad -‐ of our relationship commitments and qualities. In effect, ‘emotions, perceptions, and feelings’ acting as our core human nucleus give us the vital – and, we could say the evolutionary -‐ clues we need to engage in the most appropriate actions. This is most evident in our sexual relationships where the other person may bring about (or not) emotions causing arousal while our overall individual and landscape perceptions may bring about feelings associated with empowerment, caution, or shame. In such contexts, we could say that our ability for effective ethical action is associated with what is often referred to as emotional intelligence which Daniel Goleman describes for people as: "learning how to recognize, manage, and harness their feelings; empathizing; and handling the feelings that arise in their relationships"10. In effect, learning from our overall world of emotions, perceptions, and feelings, those behaviors – actions -‐ most apt to give us the success that we ultimately care for. At its most fundamental level, we could then have the following equation:
In summary, emotions, perceptions and feelings, and their synergistic interactions, give us the basic human ‘ingredients’ for aiming for, and eventually achieving, a superior state of equilibrium – ethics -‐ in our relationships with the world, the homeostatic process mentioned in the reference above.
10- Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books, 1995, p.191. (for an approach to the definition and classification of emotions and feelings, see Goleman, pages 289-290)
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What is conscious will and how is it associated with ethics and, more generally, with ethical dynamics
While recognizing that emotions in their primary state, fear as an example, often cause us to respond before conscious will or more rational thinking can come into play, at other times we have the feeling that ‘I consciously did that!’ And, for many of us, such an observation has often been accompanied by a feeling of pride. Such feelings and sometimes others like guilt providing us with the motivation – energy – to seek new and ultimately more satisfying understandings and accomplishments along with their related feelings, all generally associated with a sense of conscious will, or what will also be described as a feeling of authorship. In analyzing such phenomena, Daniel M. Wegner in The Illusion of Conscious Will further describes conscious will as an 'authorship emotion':
"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 or bottom that does not come with thoughts in general. ... the will reminds us that we are doing something. Will, then, makes the action our own far more intensely than could a thought alone. Unlike simply saying, 'this act is mine', the occurrence of conscious will brands the act deeply, associating the act with the self through feeling, and so renders the act one's own in a personal and memorable way. Will is a kind of authorship emotion." 11
For the world of ethics, especially in the sense of taking on responsibility for the relationship commitments and qualities most appropriate for as an example, the enactment of a more human world, Wegner makes another useful observation:
"Conscious will is particularly useful, then, as a guide to ourselves. It tells us what events around us seem to be attributable to our authorship. This allows us to develop a sense of who we are and who we are not (a sense of self and personal identity as described below) ... 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."12
11 Daniel M. Wegner, The Illusion of Conscious Will, Bedford Books, MIT Press, 2002, p.325 12 Ibid, p. 326
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From the perspective of 'responsible' ethics, Damasio also gives us some helpful hints:
"Emotions are inseparable from the idea of reward or punishment, of pleasure or pain, of approach or withdrawal, of personal advantage and disadvantage. Inevitably, emotions are inseparable from the idea of good and evil." 13
Flowing from these observation, we could say that ethics – those that would be associated with more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics -‐ would get their energy from the pursuit of individual and, we would add, collective relationship commitments and qualities, along with their associated principles and norms and overarching ethical aspirations, most apt to bring about those ‘emotions, perceptions and feelings’ which we, individually and collectively associate with the 'good'. Nonetheless, keeping in mind that in a highly pluralistic and competitive world such ‘good’ has vastly different meanings. As we move on to describe other key human potentialities and social structures and some of their landscape dynamics and later, the emergence and role of ethics per se, it will be useful to keep in mind the importance of the feeling of conscious will on what could be described as overall system dynamics. As Wegner's points out:
"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, as we have all readily observed in its absence, the feeling of conscious will remains the core issue for our sense of appropriation of those relationship commitments and qualities most apt to bring about those emotions, perceptions and feelings which we associate with the good and, overall, a sense of individual and collective empowerment. Since much of the following will be predicated on the complementary dynamics of emotions and ‘reason’ (or, the world of our cognitive potentialities), it is interesting to note Joseph Ledoux's thought in The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life:
"I conclude with the hypothesis, based on trends in brain evolution, that the struggle between thought and emotion may ultimately be resolved,
13- Damasio (1999) p.55, see also - p.55 - Levels of Life Regulation
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not simply by the dominance of neocortical cognition over emotional systems, but by a more harmonious integration of reason and passion in the brain, a development that will allow future humans to better know their true feelings and to use them more effectively in daily life."14
What would be some of the resulting challenges for more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics?
Ethical dynamics by aiming ultimately to grow a sense of consciousness and conscious will have their origins in our individual and collective quest for those feelings most likely to give us a sense of empowerment: where our emotions and feelings via what we described as perceptions, grow both our sense of consciousness and conscious will. Simply put, the goal of more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics could be viewed at the outset as to grow an increasing synergy of consciousness and conscious will. This would mean that our relationship commitments and qualities, along with those principles and norms and ethical aspirations that provide them with social relevance would aim for the following characteristics:
• Serve to reflect our sense of consciousness – our understanding of the world -‐;
• Ultimately enhance our ‘perceptions’ – give us more sophisticated understandings of our world –; and,
• Give us an increasing sense of conscious will – authorship – via increasingly sophisticated and congruent actions.
While for many if not for most landscapes this may seem idealistic to say the least e.g., many individuals and institutions have made it their mission to control our perceptions via their control over important symbols, behaviours and stories, ultimately seeking to control our feelings and our sense of conscious will, the proposed approach to ethical dynamics could be viewed as aiming to bring such ambitions to the forefront and to give us the conceptual tools – the wherewithal -‐ to transform them in line with the characteristics outlined above. More positively, we have all been in situations where an institution’s overarching ethical structure and related ethical principles and norms, sometimes those associated with our family, our church or educational institution, have both fostered a sophisticated and effective understanding of the world and have given us the wherewithal to make increasingly meaningful commitments. Indeed, for 14- Joseph Ledoux, The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life, Simon & Schuster 1998, p.21
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Christians one could say that historically the Bible probably expresses one of man’s most vital endeavors in this quest. With this goal in mind, we now turn to those human potentialities – forces -‐ that provide for the embodiment of consciousness and the sense of conscious will in the enactment of our world.
From a sense of self to personal identity
Consciousness and a feeling of conscious will or authorship can also be viewed as the underpinnings – as dimensions of our embedded ‘human’ forces -‐ for the development of both a sense of self and, eventually, for personal identity and, since all these forces are in synergy, we must also say that the growth of consciousness and conscious will be dependent on the growth of a sense of self and personal identity. With this caveat in mind and for illustrative purposes, a sense of self will be linked at the outset to an increasing degree of consciousness, and personal identity to an increasing feeling of conscious will or to a sense of agency / authorship in a social context. In doing so and in line with what we mentioned at the outset of Chapter 1 i.e., that a sense of self and personal identity are components of the overall forces that compel us to become who we are capable of becoming -‐ a do or die challenge for all of us – we will examine such matters as:
• 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 –. Specifically, the following questions will be addressed:
• Where does a sense of self come from, what it is, and how does it contribute to bring about the world of ethics;
• 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; and,
• What would be some of the resulting challenges for more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics i.e., towards growing a sense of self and personal identity?
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Where does a sense of self come from, what it is, and how does it contribute to bring about the world of ethics -
For a perspective on the development of a sense of self on the basis of its 'conscious connections' to the world, it is useful to turn back to Damasio in The Feeling of What Happens:
"...I also suggested that core consciousness includes an inner sense based on images. I also suggested that the particular images are those of a feeling. That inner sense conveys a powerful nonverbal message regarding the relationship between the organism and the object: that there is an individual subject in the relationship, a transiently constructed entity... Implicit in the message is the idea that the images of any given object that are now being processed are formed in our individual perspective, that we are the owners of the thought process, that we can act on the contents of the thought process. The tail end of the core consciousness process included the enhancement of the object that initiated it, so that the object becomes salient as part of the relationship it holds with the knower organism..."15
Our ‘conscious’ relationships with the world around us and even with our own being are predicated on a sense of self -‐ "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...” Such characteristics being the source – the potential -‐ for what could be described as the process of growth of the self on its various landscapes i.e., that the world as a whole becomes more 'salient', increasingly capable of bringing growth to the self; indeed, this saliency providing the motivation for the self's engagements with the world. However, in a world populated and driven by inter-‐subjective relationships – basically ethical relationships -‐, sharing in the appropriation of vital social realities and their dynamics must also be predicated on another closely related reality: our potential for a rich 'autobiographical' sense of who we are and who we hope to become; such a reality giving us the capacity for engagement with the autobiographical sense of others and for ethical relationships. Turning back to Damasio in the same book for a clinical perspective on a sense of autobiographical self, he goes on to describe it as follows: 15 Damasio in The Feeling of What Happens, p.125-126.
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"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. I believe that much of the building occurs nonconsciously and that so does the remodeling. ... The autobiographical self we display in our minds, at this moment, is the end product not just of our innate biases and actual life experiences, but of the reworking of memories of those experiences under the influence of those factors."16
Much of our autobiographical sense of self, and beginning with childhood, could be viewed as Damasio points out as a nonconscious construction resulting from our participation with others in what will be described later as our collective reality or collective mind or psyche. As an example, one simply has to consider the influence of television and the media in general in its construction. From the perspective of the world of ethics, our autobiographical sense of self could be viewed as providing the – our -‐ overall human ‘reality e.g., our conscious and unconscious understandings of the world and how we fit in, to the world of our ethical relationships. (Later, from an institutional and societal perspective, the phenomenon of an ‘autobiographical sense of self’ will also be described as the institution or society’s ‘social and historical reality’.) As we move towards a more 'pro-‐active' sense of self i.e., reflective of our ethical aspirations, or the self exercising conscious will as we saw above, another reality: a sense of identity and eventually of personal identity i.e., of who we are in our vast dynamic web of inter-‐subjective relationships, is essential.
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
To begin, let us consider what Wegner in The Illusion of Conscious Will has to say about the development of an initial sense of identity:
"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. Endel Tulving (1972) distinguished such episodic memories from the more general class of semantic memories. Recalling that you ate fish for
16 Ibid, p. 224
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dinner last night would be an episodic memory, for example, whereas remembering that fish swim in water is source-‐free, without a conscious agent that experienced and recorded it, and such memory could easily be something that animals and babies have available in various degrees. Tulving (1985; 1999) suspects that episodic memory, however, is uniquely a characteristic of conscious human adults because of its special identity-‐relevance. 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."17
From this perspective, we can see that while our sense of identity has its origins in a sense of self and in a rich autobiographical self (consciously and unconsciously constructed), that it – our sense of identity -‐ is more of an action related phenomena, drawing from the characteristics of our actions e.g., with whom, where, when, and what, giving life to our world. Like our various social or professional identities i.e., those tied to the many roles that we play and the source for a rich autobiographical sense of self, our ethical identities could be viewed as tied to the overall characteristics and patterns of the relationship commitments and qualities along with the related principles and norms and ethical aspirations of the various roles in which we engage to bring about our world. As examples, our ethical identities stemming from our ethics as sons or daughters, parent, citizen… More broadly, our personal identity – the one that gives us a sense of who we are as a social being and, similarly to others in our web of inter-‐subjective relationships -‐ could be viewed as the expression of what was described as the self, our autobiographical self including the realities of our many social roles and, importantly, our ethical identity as enacted in our overall ‘social landscape’ relationships. In summary, it could be presented as follows: From a practical perspective, we can see as an example that deontology – what is right or wrong behavior in the case of a specific profession – must also be capable of reflecting or embedding a set of relationship commitments and qualities capable of enriching our autobiographical self (and sense of self) while at the same time helping us to grow our personal identity, one capable of both congruent and effective social action; more on this below.
17 Wegner, The Illusion of Conscious Will, (p.265-266)
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The following graphic aims to pull together the different components of our personal identity for easy reference.
From the perspective of the social landscape, either as a single institution and its organization or for society as a whole, we could also say that their institutional or societal identity is the result, as we will see later, of similar dynamics from a ‘collective’ perspective.
What would be some of the resulting challenges for more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics i.e., towards growing a sense of self and personal identity?
Since the goal of more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics ultimately aims to grow who we are as individuals and collectively as societies i.e., in this case growing our sense of self, our autobiographical self and our ethical identity, and their overall manifestation in our personal identity on our social landscapes (and, similarly for our institutions and society as a whole), the following describes some of the related challenges for our ethical relationships. First, to help us understand the importance of the following challenges, it is useful to keep in mind some of the reflections of Charles Taylor on a related subject in his recent book on the Sources of The Self where he states:
"One is a self only among other selves. A self can never be described without reference to those who surround it. ... So I can learn what anger, love, anxiety, the aspiration to wholeness, etc., are through my and others' experience of these being objects for us, in some kind of common space. ... A self exists only within what I call 'webs of interlocution"18
18- Charles Taylor, Sources of The Self - The Making of Modern Identity, Harvard University Press, 1989, p. 35 - 36.
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With this in mind, growing our overall personal identities and the other human potentialities that bring them about and provide for their development (keeping in mind that all our human potentialities – forces – are always in some form of synergistic relationship) is about how do I and how do we, succeed in sharing in the appropriation of vital social realities and dynamics -‐ in the broad sense of all those which involve us in 'interlocution' -‐ in order that the sharing of those realities and dynamics may create the potential for, as examples:
• A rich synergy of constructive and sustainable emotions, perceptions and feelings – consciousness -‐ for all those involved in the 'web of interlocution', a synergy capable of creating a rich sense of self and autobiographical self for all; and,
• A constructive synergy of relationship commitments and qualities along with their related principles and norms and ethical aspirations i.e., those capable of growing sense of conscious will or authorship, and capable of growing the ethical identities of all those involved in ‘interlocution’.
In the context of our personal identity as inter-‐subjective phenomena, we can see that its ability to grow will be dependent on the growth of both its own ethical identity and, as we mentioned previously, the richness of its autobiographical self and sense of self, but also on the growth of the personal identities of those with whom it engages. Importantly, we cannot grow our personal identity alone. Specifically, the ability to grow our personal identity e.g., that related to being a business executive, via a more effective ethical identity i.e., the one related to our relationship commitments and qualities along with their governing ethical principles and norms and ethical aspirations, will be dependent on the capacity of our ethical identity to be in synergy with the ethical identities of our ‘vital’ social landscapes i.e., the corporation, its partners, and their actors – business associates and clients -‐. As a criterion for effective ethical dynamics, we could therefore conclude that our personal identity will grow inasmuch as it contributes via its ethical identity, to the social and personal identities of our vital social landscapes: those of their institutions and their actors. Obviously, the same would apply for the social landscapes and their actors vis-‐à-‐vis our own personal identity: their identities cannot grow without contributing to the growth of our personal identity.
Vision and hope
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At the beginning of Chapter 1, we began by describing the phenomena of human consciousness and conscious will and, in doing so, began our journey towards describing those human forces that help us grow in the direction of eventually creating:
• A rich sense of who we are, both as a human being – a sense of self – and, collectively, as a social person – a personal identity -‐; and,
• A capacity for increasingly sophisticated and rewarding action i.e., of bringing about a world in synergy with our ‘hopes and dreams’.
In the following, we will describe how growing our sense of consciousness and conscious will, and our sense of self and personal identity, both contribute to and are further predicated on two other related phenomena, indeed, similar human forces: our human potential for vision or “what the world should be and, what would make sense – have personal or collective meaning -‐” and for hope or “what pulls us along on our human journey”. For this purpose, the following points will be addressed:
• 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 for bringing about our world; and, in both cases,
• What would be some of the resulting challenges for a world of more open,
shared and responsible ethical dynamics? In doing so, we should keep in mind that what is described below mainly for the individual is also applicable collectively (as mentioned for our other human potentialities) to institutions and to societies as a whole e.g., an individual’s personal vision taking the form of institutional vision and, similarly, for societal vision and sense of hope. These could also be described as core ‘institutional or societal’ potentialities. In this context, the following will explore the human and social dynamics leading to vision and hope as we have done in the context of consciousness and conscious will, and a sense of self and personal identity, and describe how both vision and hope are in synergy with the world of ethics, our own and those of our vital social landscapes and their actors. Nonetheless, before doing so, let us take a brief look at what has taken place historically.
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At the outset, we can see that the embedded human forces driving us as individuals towards the expression of a personal vision and, that also provide us with the basis for meaning and lead us to the possibility for hope, have been present in the realities of all religions as an example, sometimes associated with a benevolent or vengeful God overlooking and taking care of those who have faith in him and, bringing wrath on all others, the infidels. Indeed, religions once established provided our ancestors and continue to do so for many, with both a vision of the world or of life per se and a related architecture or hierarchy of meaning for all of life’s experiences and, as many of us have experienced, religions have also addressed our need and potential for hope e.g., heaven for Christians. And, from a practical perspective, religions also provided an ethical framework for all aspects of human behavior. Indeed, ‘vision -‐ religion – meaning – ethics -‐ hope’ have always been in synergy with each other, both for the individual and the ‘relevant’ institution, and often for the ‘religious’ institution and society as a whole e.g., in the Middle Ages, but also in many contemporary societies to a lesser or greater extent. Simply put, all religions could be viewed as resulting from and addressing our potential for ‘vision -‐ meaning – ethics -‐ hope’ and, in turn, when successful, all religions continue to be nourished by our potential for vision and a sense of hope. On the other hand, these two human forces for vision and hope and, their resulting phenomena e.g., religion, meaning, and ethics, increasingly take place for many outside the realm of ‘institutionalized’ religion. Specifically, we see such phenomena occurring in all aspects of our lives; especially with our participation as citizens in society and with the various roles we play as individuals in our secular institutions. In this case, society and its secular institutions e.g., those associated with the state, media and corporations, are increasingly the source of our ‘vision, ‘religion’, meaning, ethics and hope’. With this as a backdrop, let us now turn to the questions mentioned at the outset of this section.
Where does vision – personal or collective - come from and how is it in synergy with our ethical world –
In recognition of the universal nature of this human phenomena i.e., for a vision giving life and direction to our personal identity, and more broadly, to our actions as an individual, we will once again endeavor to understand this
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phenomena from the perspective of both living systems i.e., the perspective we described as being associated with as examples, our biological, neurological and psychological makeup and, a more philosophical one. In doing so, we will focus on our potential for vision i.e., the one associated with the self as also a social actor and describe how it is both related to our capacity for anticipating the future and to our sense of beauty. To do so, we will turn back initially to Damasio for a clinical perspective and begin with our need to grow our autobiographical self. In “The Feeling of What Happens”, he describes these initial forces as:
"The changes which occur in the autobiographical self over an individual lifetime are not due only to the remodeling of the lived past that takes place consciously and unconsciously, but also to the laying down and remodeling of the anticipated future. I believe that a key aspect of self-‐ evolution concerns the balance of two influences: the lived past and anticipated future. 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. (Damasio, page 224-‐225)"
As Damasio describes, what could be viewed subsequently for the individual as a personal vision or, ultimately, for the institution or society as an institutional or societal vision e.g., ‘the scenarios that we conceive as desires’ individually or collectively, is fundamentally a constructed phenomenon arising from both our lived experiences but also from our embedded propensity – force – for visualizing (anticipating) or building a more amenable future. Importantly, it will be viewed here and in the following as the result of the process of living as opposed to something which could be viewed as ‘god given’ and eternal, notwithstanding the influence that some religions and their institutions may have in its formation. From a practical viewpoint, this means that:
• We 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, we will be ‘caught up’ in its own ‘web of forces’.
In this context, we could say initially that our ethical aspirations (core values) and their related ethical principles and norms aim to create a congruent action
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framework i.e., one expressing and creating a synergy between our relationship commitments and qualities, and a privileged personal, institutional, or societal vision, however challenging this may be in a world often characterized by competing ‘visions’. For others, such as Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, an individual’s ‘vision’ would often 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:
"All the arguments for a new paradigm discussed so far have been based upon the competitors' comparative ability to solve problems. To scientists those arguments are ordinarily the most significant and persuasive. ... But for reasons to which we shall shortly revert, they are neither individually nor collectively compelling. Fortunately, there is also another sort of consideration that can lead scientists to reject an old paradigm in favor of a new. There are the arguments, rarely made entirely explicit, that appeal to the individual's sense of the appropriate or the aesthetic -‐ the new theory is said to be 'neater,' 'more suitable', or 'simpler' than the old. ... the importance of aesthetic considerations can sometimes be decisive. Though they often attract only a few scientists to a new theory, it is upon those few that its ultimate triumph may depend."19
Also, Keith Devlin in the Language of Mathematics more generally describes this sense of aesthetic appeal:
“Still, that does not excuse those of us who do seem to have been blessed with an ability to appreciate that inner beauty from trying to communicate to others some sense of what it is we experience -‐ some sense of the simplicity, the precision, the purity, and the elegance that give the patterns of mathematics their aesthetic value. ... In his 1940 book A Mathematician's Apology, the accomplished English mathematician G.H. Hardy wrote: 'The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's, must be beautiful, the ideas, like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test; there is no place in the world for ugly mathematics..." ”20
19- Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (3r edition), The University of Chicago Press, 1996, p.155-156. 20- Keith Devlin, The Language of Mathematics, Making the invisible visible, W.H. Freeman and Company, New York, 2000 (Paperback), p. 8-9.
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In our quest for articulating and ‘living’ a rewarding personal vision as an individual or, for that matter, an effective institutional or societal vision, one capable of creating a world of effective meaning, we are guided, indeed drawn, by our inner sense of beauty as bringing together our desires, goals, and obligations... And, although Devlin above describes the phenomena for mathematics, others could describe it for religion with its poetry, music, rituals, architecture ... In effect, one could also say that there is 'no place in the world for an ugly religion'; our faith in a religion being very much dependent on the sense of awe which it can inspire e.g., in the case of the ‘beauty’ of heaven for Christian religions. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find a domain of human endeavor or institution not motivated and guided by its specific expression or sense of beauty, and with its own approach for bringing about an effective personal, institutional, or societal vision whether we are describing photography or cooking. From an ethical perspective, we can now add that the synergy we mentioned above – relationship commitments and qualities and a personal, institutional or societal vision -‐ will be driven by the sense of beauty (or lack thereof) embedded in our ethical aspirations and their related principles and norms, the one driving our individual or collective actions. With regards to meaning, the hierarchy of meaning given to specific realities as drivers of our actions will be shaped by their relevance to – and synergy with -‐ our sense of beauty and vision. Indeed, the world of ‘beauty and vision’ opens up the world of meaning for the self. ‘People and things’ have meaning either as contributors to our sense of beauty and vision or as impediments to their enactment. In the case of ethical dynamics, we can add that their degree of pregnancy – meaning -‐ will be dependent on the ability of our ethics, in practice our ongoing relationship commitments and qualities, to be congruent with our related sense of beauty and vision. Simply put, 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 either for the individual, the institution, or society. As an example, many peoples have struggled to create their own state as a way of expressing their need for such congruency of beauty, vision, and meaning via congruent and synergistic ethics. In effect seeking to give themselves the collective political instruments for fostering such congruent and synergistic ethics within a geographic space and with the geographic spaces around them.
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Pulling these forces together, the following graphic seeks to summarize these realities and their associated dynamics for the world of ethics. From the perspective of the previous realities and forces described in this Chapter, we could add that: • the above dynamics and realities ultimately serve to grow – give form to -‐
our sense of consciousness, via their appropriation by our potential for conscious will, a sense of self and of personal identity.
What would be some of the resulting challenges for a world of more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics?
Summarizing from the above, we could say in the context of vision and ethical dynamics that: • Ethical aspirations and, more generally, our ethical structure, and related
ethical principles and norms must create a congruent action framework, one that both expresses and creates a synergy between our relationship commitments and qualities, and a privileged personal, institutional or societal vision;
• In practice, relationship commitments and qualities will be driven by the
sense of beauty (or lack thereof) embedded in either the personal, institutional or societal vision driving our individual or collective actions; and,
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• With regards to meaning, we can add that its degree of ongoing pregnancy will be dependent on the ability of our relationship commitments and qualities – ethics -‐ to be congruent with the sense of beauty giving life to our individual, institutional, or collective vision.
While these ethical characteristics are often most evident in the world of high level sports such as those aspiring for Olympic recognition or, for some, religious practice -‐ where a sense of beauty, vision and meaning are keenly integrated -‐, most of us have had the experience of such synergy in some of our ‘peak’ experiences be they related to work, play or the family. At its best, we could also say that the presence of such synergy provides the basis for what was described as the ethical approaches based on intuition described in the Introduction – the situation just feels ‘right’ -‐.
Faith and hope as the ultimate source of our human and social energy for bringing about our world -
Referring back to the world of religion since it has played such a pivotal role in human history and development, we can also see that embedded in what we mentioned above as ‘a sense of beauty, vision and meaning’ and their connection to ethics – individually and collectively -‐ is our human potential for faith21 i.e., that force that engages us with the world and gives relevance to our actions, indeed that provides a basis for our ongoing relationship commitments and qualities – the nucleus of our ethical behaviours -‐ and, that leads to what will be more broadly described below as ‘hope’. In shaping this force i.e., for faith and, ultimately, hope, religions have given expression to many forms of transcendent relationships e.g., one with a superior and all-‐powerful being – God – in the case of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions, with the many gods who controlled the universe for the Ancient Greeks, or with the embedded human powers of our species to bring happiness individually and collectively e.g., Buddhism via the powers of meditation and the practice of compassion. Such transcendent relationships e.g., with God, bringing to our potential for ‘beauty, vision and meaning’ mentioned in the graphic above, a set of related beliefs (to the self). As examples, the importance for the self in Christian religions of the belief in God’s love for us and for his creation, the all-‐encompassing beliefs in the power and caprice of the Gods for the Ancient Greeks, and, in the case of Buddhism, the belief in ‘emptiness or relativity’ which
21 - which will be also described in Chapter 2 as one of our key human cognitive potentialities.
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postulates that ‘all things, no matter what, are empty of their own inherent and intrinsic existence because they are all relative to causes and conditions’.22 These beliefs serving for the self to express – connect -‐ the nature of the relationship between ‘a sense of beauty, vision and meaning’ and our transcendent relationships e.g., with God, in our process of living with its many challenges and opportunities; in effect, facilitating the growth of this transcendent relationship via the creation of ethical aspirations and related ethical principles as examples: the principle of ‘love thy neighbour like thyself’ in the case of Christians, principles related to the fear of offending the Gods in Ancient Greece, and those expressing compassion for all sentient beings in the case of Buddhism. As a further example, we can see that Christian religions like others have belief-‐driven ethical structures e.g., love of God and of others, compassion, justice… and related ethical principles towards both the deity and other human beings e.g., in the Ten Commandments, whose actualization serve to express and characterize both the belief in God and, to foster the development of this transcendental relationship in what we do. To summarize in the context of ethical dynamics, religions throughout history have shown us how ethical structures -‐ their framework of ethical aspirations -‐ and related ethical principles and norms are connected to a set of beliefs, whose function in turn is to give life to a broad and more encompassing ‘faith’ in a transcendent relationship, the latter arising – existientially23 -‐ out of a specific ‘sense of beauty, vision and framework of meaning’. Indeed, all religions have sought to create a synergy between these forces and, especiallly in the 20th century, where many totalitarian ideologies and regimes e.g., Communism and Nazism, have done the same via the promotion of specific ethical structures along with those principles and norms and relationship commitments and qualities most apt to serve their ultimate purpose. For our contemporary world, we can see that dominant ideologies (some would also say religions) such as capitalism with its beliefs in the ‘market’, political liberalism with its beliefs associated with individual freedoms and democracy, and many forms of secular humanisms, all seek to bring about and connect an ethical structure (often expressed as core values as previously mentioned) and a set of ethical principles with a set of beliefs whose function is to give life to a specific transcendent relationship e.g., with the market, other cititzens... – and enhance our ‘faith in the world’. 22 -Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2000, p.108 23 - Except for those who believe that such a ‘vision, sense of beauty and framework of meaning’ is God-given such as in the context of a traditional interpretation of the Bible.
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Indeed, traditional religions today compete with a broad set of transcendent relationships – each with its own set of realities -‐ whose hierarchy of importance varies for each individual and institution. From a practical perspective, we can see that for a religion and the ideologies mentioned above, that we appropriate – make real for us – their ‘sense of beauty, vision and framework of meaning’ by enacting their set of related beliefs via our ongoing relationship commitments and qualities, and more broadly, our ethics as a whole; in efffect, by enacting an implied faith in a transcendent relationship. In this sense, religions and, subsequently, ideologies both serve to give us a ‘sense of beauty, vision and framework of meaning’ and, in turn, are nourished by our appropriation of such realities, and by our related enactments. On a day-‐to-‐day basis, we can see as examples that this is also the case with our participation in state or business institutions i.e., our transcendent relationships; we appropriate or make real for us their ‘sense of beauty, vision and framework of meaning’ be it related to social justice or the production of automobiles by enacting their beliefs in the world e.g., the importance of social justice or automobiles for man’s ‘happiness’, via our many and diverse relationships commitments and qualites (ethics) that give life and meaning to our participation in these institutions. Historically, while religions and broadly based ideologies have promoted a set of meta beliefs and related meta ethical structures and continue to do so, we can also see that the phenomenon of faith that they have reflected may encompass many other transcendent relationships i.e., all those that connect us as individuals and institutions to a ‘broader’ and more encompassing reality. As examples,
• Those arising out of and associated with a more secular ‘sense of beauty, vision and framework of meaning’ such as ‘peace in the world’ or with that of a valued institution e.g., Parliament or a particular corporation,
• With wisdom associated with the pursuit of ‘truth’ as in the sciences or, more simply,
• With our day-‐to-‐day powers to bring about happiness via as an example the creation of wealth, or more simply, by having a family.
Taking an example from the field of science to describe the second point above, Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions goes on to describe that beyond the aesthetic appeal mentioned previously, faith could be viewed as the human force that inspires us to action:
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"But paradigm debates are not really about relative problem-‐solving ability, though for good reasons they are usually couched in those terms. Instead, the issue is which paradigm should in the future guide research on problems many of which neither competitor can yet claim to resolve completely. A decision between alternate ways of practicing science is called for, and in the circumstances that decision must be based less on past achievement than on future promise. The man who embraces a new paradigm at an early stage must often do so in defiance of the evidence provided by problem solving. He must, that is, have faith that the new paradigm will succeed with the many large problems that confront it, knowing only that the older paradigm has failed with a few. A decision of that kind can only be made on faith."24
We can see that faith here expresses Kuhn’s transcendental relationship with the world of science and its ‘sense of beauty, vision and framework of meaning’ e.g., where all pieces are in synergy and, on the other hand, with its related set of meta beliefs e.g., in our human powers to understand the mysteries of the universe and, we could add, with its related ethical structure in which we could probably find honesty and perseverance, those core values that make all this possible.
In our approach to ethical dynamics, all our human endeavors from the most mundane to the most sophisticated will be viewed as driven by similar human dynamics e.g., each one of our endeavors needing to have its own potential for bringing about faith via 1) the expression of beliefs associated with some form of transcendental relationship with, as an example, an institutional vision be it related to a religion, a state or a business, and 2) an enabling ethical structure of core values, their related principles and norms, and relationship commitments and qualities – ethics – . The following graphic summarizes these dynamics:
24 Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, (p. 157,158)
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Referring to the above graphic, we have probably all experienced that when ethics are successful in creating a synergy between an individual, institutional or societal vision and a transcendental relationship say with either God or with a ‘broader or superior’ purpose, that it generally leads us, individually or collectively in the case of a societal context, to the emotion of hope and to its many related manifestations in our feelings of love and awe as examples. Indeed, the pregnancy or capacity of such hope related feelings to bring their energy to our process of living is dependent on the quality of the faith emerging from the synergistic dynamics of vision with its sense of beauty and potential for meaning, and transcendental relationships described above. From the perspective of the previous realities and forces described in Chapter 1, we could add that: • The synergy of vision and transcendental relationships will provide the
energy via hope, for the growth of our sense of consciousness and conscious will as well as for our sense of self and personal identity.
What would be some of the resulting challenges for a world of more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics
Since the above may not be readily obvious, let us look at the implications by taking an example from the world of management in its institutional / organizational context. As we have all experienced, institutions and their organizations large or small are all animated by some form of ‘institutional’ vision of the world and of their relationship with this ‘world’, sometimes the vision is the result of some collective enterprise sometime that of a powerful individual. Also, institutions and their organizations in the context of their relationships (as in the case of individuals) are called upon to transcend their specific interests and to contribute to the success of their institutional / organizational framework of institutions. In effect, to transcend their own interests in what was described above as transcendental relationships. Towards an understanding of the dynamics of faith in this context and their results in the emotion of hope, the first question could be:
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• Does the institutional / organizational vision create an effective sense of beauty and framework of meaning for those who must carry out its tasks?
If so, the second question could be:
• Does working in the institution’s organization give people the opportunity to be connected to a relevant sense of broader purpose (transcendental relationship e.g., a relevant and meaningful mission such as providing effective health care or a safe car?
If so, the third question could be:
• Can people enact related and congruent beliefs e.g., in the importance of health, via a shared ethical reality e.g., respect for all patients as a component of its ethical structure along with related ethical principles and norms.
When these conditions are met, we could say that the opportunity for people to experience faith in the context of their institutional / organizational reality exists. Indeed, when people’s potential for faith is properly ‘managed’ i.e., managing effectively those conditions mentioned above, people not only experience faith but have ‘hope’ and the feelings that come with the emotion in this context e.g., respect, loyalty… and what will be described generally as a feeling of empowerment as opposed to having what is often described in organizations as a ‘morale’ problem, or a feeling of disempowerment. In summary, our human potential for hope gives life and energy to our struggle to bring about the realities that will pull us along in our individual and collective journey towards a better world. Ernst Bloch from a philosophical perspective captures and expresses the thrust of this concept in his Introduction to The Principle of Hope written during the period of the Second World War:
"Once a man traveled far and wide to learn fear. In the time that just passed, it came easier and closer, the art was mastered in a terrible fashion. But now that the creators of fear have been dealt with, a feeling that suits us better is overdue. It is a question of learning hope. Its work does not renounce, it is in love with success rather than failure. Hope, superior to fear, is neither passive like the latter, nor locked into nothingness. The emotion of hope goes out of itself, makes people broad instead of confining them ... The work of this emotion
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requires people who throw themselves actively into what is becoming, to which they themselves belong. "25
The dynamics related to hope could be summarized by the following graphic:
And, also summarized by saying that: the emotion of hope and related feelings will be dependent on our individual and collective ability to enact relationship commitments and qualities, more broadly a shared ethical framework, that are increasingly capable of creating a world of synergy between 1) our sense of vision and its embedded sense of beauty and meaning and, 2) the beliefs giving life to our transcendental relationships – those that take us outside of our selves. Conclusion – as we move on
Chapter 1 has sought to describe the core architecture of human forces and their related dynamics, those that compel us to bring about – enact – an increasingly human world and, that serve as building blocks for our human engagements in the world; as a result, such forces bring about and give life to our human ethical dynamics. Also, as we have seen, these forces take on a ‘life of their own’ as they also shape the potentialities and dynamics of our institutions and their organizations in the context of their societal interactions. Indeed, as we move on to describe institutional / organizational dynamics and, more broadly, societal dynamics, we will see that as a whole these realities i.e., consciousness and conscious will, a sense of self and personal identity and, vision and hope, also constitute the forces that create a synergy (often via competition) between, as an example, individuals and institutions on what will be described as socio-‐political landscapes or, more simply, the social context be it the family for the individual or society as a whole for the institution.
25- Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope, Volume One, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Paperback edition, 1995, p.3
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As examples of these dynamics from the world of consciousness and conscious will, we can see that there must be a meshing – a synergistic meshing -‐ of individual and institutional consciousness and conscious will for both individual and institutional action to take place. Also, we can see that both the individual and the institution’s potential for growth will be dependent on the synergistic quality of this meshing and its ability to contribute to the growth of a sense of self and ‘social’ identity and, vision and hope for both the individual and the institution. To explore these synergistic dynamics, we will now examine more specifically how these forces have been given life and form in what will be described as our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities.
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Chapter 2: Ethics and our Cognitive (Social) Structures and Potentialities Core human potentialities or forces described in Chapter 1: consciousness and conscious will, a sense of self and personal identity and, vision and hope, have been in synergy – arising with -‐ what will be described as our ‘cognitive (social) structures and potentialities’, those structures and potentialities which foster the creation of potentially rich individual and social realities; hence, the reference in the following to ‘cognitive’ structures and potentialities – those bringing about our ‘human’ world -‐, but equally, to social structures and potentialities -‐ those bringing about our ‘social’ world -‐. In our approach to ethical dynamics, cognitive (social) structures will be associated with: our human nature, the self, our domains of endeavor, our institutions (which will also include individuals and societies) and, our collective psyche. In Chapter 3, we will see that domains of endeavor and institutions have the added characteristic of being socio-‐political structures along with what we will describe as our socio-‐political landscapes. Graphically, our cognitive (social) structures could be described as follows: Indeed, these structures and their dynamics will be viewed as the expression of our collective instruments of cognition i.e., those that permit us to create our ‘human / social’ realities and, to give meaning and relevance to – grow -‐ our core human potentialities, keeping in mind that they are also dependent on our core human potentialities e.g., consciousness and personal identity, for their ‘basic’ energy. Though it could be argued that our ‘cognitive’ structures as in the case our human nature and the self are the basis for our ‘social’ structures i.e., those associated with our domains of endeavor, our institutions and our collective
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psyche, we will see that our ‘cognitive’ structures are in a synergistic relationship with our ‘social’ structures – no ‘social’ structures, no ‘cognitive’ structures – and vice versa. The emphasis in the text on ‘cognitive’ to reflect, as pointed out in the following graphic, that we are essentially here in the world of our overall cognitive potentialities. In Chapter 2, we will therefore examine how our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities give shape and meaning to our ethical relationships and, vice versa, how ethics (which will also be described as an individual, institutional, and societal cognitive potentiality) also serve to give shape and meaning to our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities. In this context, it will be important to note (as we briefly mentioned in Chapter 1) that though we often associate cognition and hence our cognitive potentialities with our ability to apprehend and understand the external world, that the following will take a more dynamic and interactive perspective. As Fritjof Capra describes in his book The Web of Life26:
Cognition, then, is not a representation of an independently existing world, but rather a continual bringing forth of a world through the process of living. The interactions of a living system with its environment are cognitive interactions, and the process of living itself is a process of cognition. In the words of Maturana and Varela, 'To live is to know'. (Capra, page 267)
This perspective – cognition as a ‘continual bringing forth of a world’ -‐, will further lead us once again to a dynamic understanding of ethics rather than a static one. Importantly, it will help us to describe how ethics – in their simplest
26- Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life, Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1996
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expression as our relationship commitments and qualities -‐ can best be understood as a process of cognition ever searching for the most effective expression of all our human and social potentialities in bringing forth a human world in synergy with all other ‘worlds’ e.g., with the world of nature of which we are a component. (This definition of cognition will be further expanded upon in Chapter 4 dealing with ‘living systems’.) Chapter 2 will address the following:
• Our core cognitive (social) structures and potentialities, those associated with our human nature – and being possessed by all who share in our human nature – and those associated with the ‘self’, these will be referred to occasionally for simplicity as our human cognitive potentialities;
• Our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities that are more in
the ‘social’ realm i.e., domains of endeavor e.g., medicine, plumbing or home making, our institutions and their organizations which give our domains (and thereby us) the possibility for social relevance e.g., the state, the hospital and the family and, similarly, as we mentioned previously, individuals27 and societies, these will occasionally be referred to as our social cognitive potentialities; and,
• Our cognitive structure and potentiality encompassing the reality of
our collective human experience -‐ ‘collective human psyche’ -‐ as it serves to bring about our world and to give it human – historical – meaning via our culture or more broadly our civilizations.
‘Human’ Cognitive Potentialities
At the outset, it will be useful to acknowledge that the proposed ‘cognitive’ model is a highly original one, the result of a synthesis of the manifestations of human cognition both today and in human history. And, though the model is described in this Chapter only briefly, it should give the reader both a sense for its relevance and usefulness.
27 Individuals sharing the characteristics of an institution and its organization in the individual’s social
manifestations and, similarly, for societies as a whole.
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From a practical viewpoint, the model should help us to understand ethics as a cognitive phenomenon i.e., embedded in cognitive dynamics, both driving and being driven by the other dimensions of our cognitive potentialities. Indeed, giving us from a cognitive perspective (and, later in Chapter 3, from a socio-‐political perspective) an ability to understand and transform – get a handle on -‐ both our ethics per se and our ethical dynamics. As a point of departure, we will first take a look at our core human cognitive potentialities, those associated with our human nature and being possessed by all who share in our human nature (our first cognitive (social) structure mentioned above). In effect, what nature has given us over time as a springboard to start us on our human quest, and from there, we will describe the cognitive potentialities that we could associate with the self. Indeed, those potentialities that underlie and give life to our cognitive potentialities associated with our social structures.
Core human cognitive potentialities
As the following graphic seeks to point out, our core human cognitive potentialities could be characterized as having seven dimensions, each one giving us a specific capacity for bringing forth a human world and, each one being in a synergistic relationship with all of the others. As an example, our human potentiality for ‘symbolism’ by giving a specific and sharable reality to our capacity for mental images (and the often rich unconscious realities underlying them) serves to activate our emotions with their associated perceptions and resultant feelings and to spark our other cognitive capacities, and to give them a social connection -‐ bringing a specific 'emotional' and 'cognitive' energy and reality to the other potentialities, e.g., engaging our potentialities for behaviors, explanations...
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In the context of 'ethical' relationships, such a dynamic between our cognitive potentialities encouraging us to understand as an example, our potential for faith (as described in Chapter 1) as linked to and as a component of our other human cognitive potentialities. In effect, recognizing that our human potential for faith will be enriched or impoverished by our capacity to transform the often more raw emotions and their associated perceptions and feelings e.g., those embedded in the mental images of symbolism, into more sophisticated -‐ more individually and socially rewarding -‐ mental images and their associated emotions, perceptions and feelings. As an example of this process, we can see that our other human cognitive potentialities say for explanations and invention, have transformed over time the mental images and symbolism that were associated with slavery to new emotions, perceptions and feelings -‐ mental images and related symbolism -‐ serving to bring about a new vision that eventually gave life to a broader definition of human rights and more respectful behaviors -‐ the right to vote -‐, new reasons -‐ all human beings share the same needs... – and, have broadened our cognitive potential for faith in bringing about our world. Indeed, such transformation in symbolism being the result of all our cognitive potentialities e.g., our potential for invention -‐ of being able to see new and better social realities -‐; for reason -‐ being able to articulate new ‘reasons’ that make sense -‐; and, for technique -‐ to see how society could function differently -‐. From the perspective of ethical dynamics, we could say initially that while religious doctrines – our traditional cultural and social expression of faith – have been the source of vital ethical systems for our human development, that
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nonetheless our many relationship commitments and qualities – the behavioral manifestation of our overall ethics -‐ must increasingly engage and be the result of all our human cognitive potentialities i.e., not simply be a reflection of a ‘religion’ based faith however sophisticated it may happen to be. More so, our ethics – religion based ethical systems included -‐ must help all our human cognitive potentialities to grow to their full capacity in an increasingly pluralistic world.
Cognitive potentialities and the self
While our core human cognitive potentialities could also be viewed as the core architecture for our other cognitive (social) structures and potentialities in the enactment of our world, these core cognitive potentialities at the outset serve to bring about and give life to what we described in Chapter 1 as the self in his / her quest for a richer autobiographical self and personal identity via social engagements -‐ in bringing forth his / her world -‐. Towards this goal, each of these core human cognitive potentialities becomes an active dimension of the self’s cognitive potentialities. As we can see in the graphic below, symbolism (as a core human cognitive potentiality) becomes the primary spark and connection with our emotions, perceptions and feelings and serves to bring about the cognitive energies of the self, those which engage 'body and mind' in the world. In turn, our capacity for specifically human behaviors provides the self with the potential for embodying the energies associated with these emotions, perceptions and feelings either as words, a way of thinking -‐ a syntax – or, more generally, as a way of behaving, i.e., our many patterns of behavior or, as we will see later, rituals. And, with our potential for explanations bringing about for the self a sense of empathy -‐ 'I understand' -‐. And, we could add, our human potential for invention providing the self with a sense of uniqueness – this is the result of my actions or this is my view of the world – thus providing the basis for the self’s beliefs ... and so forth for the other two dimensions or cognitive potentialities of the self.
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From the perspective mentioned previously that ethics should contribute to a synergy of all our cognitive potentialities, we could say as an example that our beliefs (as associated with our ‘transcendental relationships’ mentioned in Chapter 1), such as those giving life to what will be described below as domain contribution values must be associated with the self's sense of empathy with the world and sense of uniqueness, otherwise such beliefs will probably not be felt as congruent and will have little energy for their actualization. Also, beliefs not giving rise to useful meaning and information (about the world) i.e., not being 'pregnant', will quickly wither into irrelevance28 as is often the case with the more traditional religions in their relationship to modernity (and, obviously, such beliefs do not contribute to our human potential for faith). In summary, and to add to what was mentioned in Chapter 1, ethics and ethical dynamics via the self's engagements with the world must both give life to the self’s beliefs and foster their growth and transformation via the other cognitive potentialities of the self.
Social Structures and Cognitive Potentialities
As we mentioned at the beginning of Chapter 2, our core human potentialities or, we could also say, ‘creative’ forces have been in synergy with our social (cognitive) structures via our human cognitive potentialities, those described above. In the following, we will examine how ethics – especially in their
28- Or have to be kept alive by appealing to our sense of vulnerability e.g., in the case of superstitions
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manifestation as our relationship commitments and qualities -‐ come alive and take shape on the basis of our human cognitive potentialities enacted in the context of our social structures – our collective instruments of cognition -‐ and their own embedded cognitive potentialities i.e., their ability to ‘bring forth a world’. To do so, we will examine in turn:
• Domains – our core social structures, they give expression and social relevance to the enactment of our human cognitive potentialities -‐; and,
• Institutions and their organizations -‐ our social 'relational' structures and the basis, in their organizational forms, for our social relationships -‐.
Indeed, these social (cognitive) structures and their related dynamics – ethical dynamics in particular -‐ will be viewed as the expression of our collective instruments of cognition i.e., those essential to the creation, development and maintenance of our social realities and which have, over time, brought about our rich collective psyche; the latter will be addressed briefly as the last section of this chapter.
Domains of human enterprise
Since our social engagements must both give life to our human potentialities -‐ those forces described in Chapter 1 and the human cognitive potentialities described above -‐, and be relevant to a social context i.e., be recognized and possibly valued by others, in effect giving others the possibility to engage with us, the first social structure to be described will be related to our domains of human endeavor, and will be more simply referred to as domains. In the following, domains will be described mainly as:
• The core social (cognitive) structures which give expression and social relevance to our human potentialities, especially as they give life and meaning (an intentionality) to a social context via their actualization in institutions and their organizations, and
• The vehicle for the individual’s contribution (and transcendental
relationship as mentioned in Chapter 1) to its social environment. In effect, meshing via the domain’s own cognitive potentialities, the cognitive potentialities of the self with those of institutions and their organizations.
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And, from the perspective of an institution and its organization, domains’ are also the vehicle for the institution’s contribution to its institutional context. In effect, the institution mediating via its own institutional cognitive potentialities, the characteristics of the domain’s cognitive potentialities towards relevant and effective social action. (This will be described more specifically when we address ‘institutions and their organizations in the next section.)
Domains as the socially structured expression of our human potentialities -
With the above as our general backdrop, the challenge for active and effective social life becomes one of how to harness our human potentialities and life giving forces -‐ our cognitive potentialities included -‐ both for the benefit of the self and in its social manifestation as an individual and, for the benefit of all i.e., creating a richer social life. To address this challenge, domains, as will be described below, constitute a useful starting point for understanding individual and social dynamics. To begin a description of their cognitive potentialities and resultant characteristics, we will take some examples, some from the domain of economics, others from the domain of photography, to illustrate how they engage our human potentialities on one hand, and on the other, how they engage us in social action. One of the first things that may strike us in the case of economics is that it has a well-‐articulated body of concepts organized in an overall structure making it capable of explaining those human and social forces that shape what it describes as economic life e.g., in the form of theories such as the 'laws of supply and demand'. Photography also does the same with its understanding – theories – related to light and perspective and the chemical properties of traditional film as an example. In both cases, they have sound theories (as a cognitive potentiality) about how both an individual and society can transform the ‘world” into something useful for the individual and for society as a whole e.g., 1) they give the self useful ‘information’ about the world, and the possibility of becoming a social actor – an individual -‐, and 2) provide the basis as we will see later for the creation of ‘knowledge’ in an institutional context. Examining other domain dimensions more briefly, we can see that economics as a domain also brings about and is associated with, a set of individual and social qualities e.g., symbolizing rationality, wealth, and economic order… while photography for some may symbolize qualities related beauty or reality as in the
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case of photojournalism. These qualities as an example, helping to engage the energies of the self e.g., helping to make the study of economics and the practice of photography worthwhile for the self and a source for his / her personal identity. We also notice that economics has a number of specific approaches or forms for the ‘embodiment’ of economic ‘qualities’ e.g., 'two or more variable diagrams' to show the nature – qualities -‐ of the relationship between economic phenomena, while photography as a domain has its ‘embodiment’ forms depending on its specific qualities e.g., those related to wedding photography with their photo albums versus nature photography with its slides. These forms serving to shape the self’s domain related behaviors on one hand and, to contribute to a sense of ‘order’ in the domain’s institutional or societal manifestations on the other. Over time each domain also develops its own ‘stories’ about how the world works e.g., in economics we have the Keynesian story while in photography we have stories related to famous photographers e.g., Hansel Adams for nature photography. In both cases, such stories serving to enrich the imagination of economists and photographers alike, and creating a specific – professional -‐ sense of ‘empathy’ for the world, while contributing, in an institutional context, to its institutional ‘ethos’ – the sum of its stories -‐. Also, economics and photography have their own criteria for ‘beauty’ e.g., well-‐constructed and quantitatively verifiable economic models, and well-‐balanced lighting in the case of photography. And both have preferred ‘values’ regarding their contribution to the world e.g., maximization of resource utilization for economics while photography will seek to elicit a specific human feeling. In the latter case, domain values give expression to and contribute to the self’s ‘beliefs’ about the world and, in an institutional context, such contribution values help to shape institutional ‘ethics’. (It should be noted that from the perspective of the proposed approach, values exist inasmuch as they are associated to -‐ or the drivers of -‐ an institutional (or individual / societal) contribution e.g., to individual, institutional or societal growth; hence the reference in the text to ‘contribution values’ as opposed to strictly the word ‘values’ or ‘core values’ as described previously.) Finally, as we have all come to appreciate, both domains have developed a ‘world’ of truths e.g., 'income elasticity brings demand elasticity' or marginal benefit must be the same or be more than marginal cost in the case of economics and, for photography, the importance for our survival and learning of keeping memories or capturing life’s instances of meaning. Such ‘truths’ bringing
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meaning to the self and contributing to the institution’s ‘ideology’, or we could say, to its framework of truths. While the domains of economics and photography represent two contemporary professional domains, the premise embedded in this approach to ethical dynamics is that all human activity (individual and institutional) takes place via domains; some will be more familiar and universal e.g., those related to the family, the state or to commerce, while others will be more esoteric e.g., surfing. As we have described above, we could say that domains have seven primary dimensions or socially related cognitive potentialities – those helping us in ‘bringing forth a world’ -‐ and, which complement the dimensions of our primarily human cognitive potentialities i.e., those related to our human nature and to the ‘self’. The following graphic outlines the dimensions of cognitive realities specific to domains. As we can see, domains rather than being simple social structures engage the full spectrum of our human cognitive potentialities and become the basis for our institutional engagements and contributions. From an evolutionary perspective, we might be led to think that our core human cognitive potentialities and those related to the self have brought about and have been the driving force in the creation of domains – a one direction arrow -‐. Nonetheless, as we will see more clearly with institutions and, the dynamics of socio-‐political landscapes (in Chapter 3), the advent of human societies with
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their sophisticated and collective approaches to the creation of social realities -‐ their culture -‐ would surely encourage us to also view domains as very much springing from some form of collective enterprise – ‘arrows’ pointing in both directions -‐. From this perspective, domains can be viewed more accurately as the result of:
• A synergy driven at its core by our human potentialities – those forces described in Chapter 1 –
• With those potentialities taking shape in domains via our specific human cognitive potentialities (those mentioned above),
• Themselves finding their expression in the dimensions – the cognitive potentialities -‐ of (essentially) socially constructed domains.
Indeed, our human cognitive capacities first appropriating and then being in synergy with what we described as domain cognitive potentialities – or dimensions -‐. In the end however, and as we mentioned at the outset of this Chapter, domains ultimately serve to bring about and enrich our core human potentialities as described in the following graphic – to make us more ‘human’ -‐ via the enrichment of our cognitive potentialities.
Taking photography as a domain once again, we can see that our domain engagements (via institutions and their organizations) will be successful in enhancing what we described as consciousness (as a core human potentiality) inasmuch as there is a synergy between domain dimensions and our human cognitive potentialities e.g., inasmuch as domain stories enhance our potential – need – for effective explanations to the process of living, or that our capacity for faith is enhanced by our domain values. Before describing institutions and their organizations and their role of mediating and transforming domain contributions relative to an evolving social reality and the impact of these dynamics on our other human potentialities as examples, for the ‘self and personal identity’, let us take a look at the role of ethical dynamics regarding the synergy described in the above graphic.
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What would be some of the resulting challenges for more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics?
Flowing from the above, we could say that:
• Domain ‘contribution’ values should aim to enhance our potential -‐ capacity -‐ for faith (via the enactment and enrichment of our beliefs) and, more generally, that all domain dimensions should aim to be in synergy with our human cognitive potentialities e.g., those potentialities that will ultimately enhance our consciousness and our sense of conscious will or authorship;
• Values, as in the case of the other domain dimensions, will thrive and
develop – become more cognitively pregnant -‐ inasmuch as they provide for the development of, and are in synergy with, the domain's other dimensions e.g., with the domain’s truths and theories… in the domain’s institutional contributions; and,
• As a corollary, ‘institutional’ ethical dynamics that change the domain’s
qualities, forms, stories… will have an effect on domain values.
Simply put, understanding and transforming ethical dynamics – particularly those dynamics stemming from our relationship commitments and qualities in an institutional context -‐ must encompass all domain dimensions and their impact on each other and, ultimately, their impact on our human cognitive potentialities i.e., those associated with our human nature and the cognitive potentialities of the self. As an example, nature photography by having different stories than photography related to marketing will have different contribution values e.g., nature photography possibly related to the creation (as a relationship commitment) of a sense of awe for the universe and its creations, marketing photography possibly related to the development of new customer needs... By implication, a nature photographer hoping to become a marketing photographer will have to change not only his/her domain stories, but also as examples, his/her domain sense of beauty, truths and many of his/her theories about photography; in effect, change the nature and characteristics of his/her relationship commitments and qualities. From another perspective, and coming back to photography, its contribution values must also provide for the development of new, possibly more transcending, truths about the role of photography in the study of nature, and contribute to new photographic theories about photography and nature. And,
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we could add, such new truths and theories leading to new domain qualities, forms, stories... In summary, ethical relationships by being closely associated with domain contribution values, are in an ongoing process of change; in the best of situations (as in the case of open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics), they are in a process of continuous refinement towards the goal of creating the synergy of domain characteristics most likely to enhance the domain's contribution towards the enactment – the bringing forth -‐ of a 'more human world'.
Institutions and their organizations
As we mentioned above, nature photography by having different stories than photography related to marketing will have different values e.g., those of nature photography possibly related to the creation of a sense of awe for the universe and its creations, marketing photography possibly related to the development of new customer needs... and, we mentioned that these values must also provide for the development of new, possibly more transcending, truths about the role of photography in the study of nature, and contribute to new photographic theories about photography and nature, and similarly in the case of marketing photography. In the following, we will examine how, as an example, institutions and their organizations shape the above stories and values and provide for their development; indeed, provide for the meshing of the domain’s cognitive potentialities – those described above – with the cognitive potentialities of other complementary domains via what will be described as the institution’s own evolving cognitive potentialities. Simply put, institutions provide for the domain’s contribution to the creation of social realities. In this context, institutions and their organizations will be described as: • The socially structured expression of our cognitive potentialities for
collective action – our relational structures – and, what will also be described later in Chapter 3 as our socio-‐political transformational forms;
• The social vehicles for the enactment of our domain contributions, for
their development and, for the social expression of our human cognitive potentialities e.g., those related to the self; and,
• The social instruments for the development of our core human
potentialities: those mentioned in Chapter 1 e.g., consciousness and
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personal identity and, as we will see later with socio-‐political dynamics, more specifically, our potential for vision and hope.
Institutions as our human 'relational' structures are therefore the basis and, in their organizational forms, the locus for human social – cognitive -‐ relationships and 'ultimately' serve to help us bring about and to enrich our social realities. And, from the perspective of ethical relationships, institutions serve more specifically to shape and give meaning to our relationship commitments and qualities as an example, by also being history’s or evolution’s medium for maintaining and transforming: • Our learnings of the past – our collective history – e.g., those ethical
aspirations that have served us well and,
• Our social expertise – our ability to do things collectively -‐. Indeed, they constitute our avenue for participation and influence on what will be described as our socio-‐political landscapes via their own core ‘institutional’ potentialities, the same as those which were described in Chapter 1 mainly in the context of the individual e.g., their own potential for (institutional) identity and sense of vision. This will be addressed in the next Chapter dealing more specifically with socio-‐political landscape dynamics. Note: Though the following will focus mainly on institutions as our socio-‐political relational structures e.g., those related to the family, church, commerce and the state, – in general, those which constitute the world of the polity -‐, much of the following could equally apply to the ‘individual’ as a socio-‐political entity and social actor, and more broadly, to ‘society’ as a whole – once again as a socio-‐political entity and actor in its own right -‐.
Institutions and their organizations as the socially structured expression of our ‘human potentialities’ for collective action
As society's socially structured expression of our human potentialities for collective action – our relational structures -‐ and the core architecture of socio-‐political landscapes, institutions and more so as a whole -‐ as components of society's institutional framework -‐, reflect a society's social and historical efforts at making sense and providing for structure, continuity and effectiveness to
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human action i.e., reflective of its need to address successfully basic human emotions, perceptions and feelings29, and its most hopeful stories for the future. In effect, institutions constitute our basic socio-‐political transformational forms30 for giving life and direction to our social actions; and, at the broadest level, their embedded social and historical realities – those originating in the institution’s domain contributions on its many landscapes -‐ represent and give us the ‘potential’ for (for us to use or not) expressing the 'learnings and wisdom’ which we generally associate with a civilization as an example, and for building our civilization of the future.
Institutions and domains
In doing so, institutions provide our domain enactments, and by extension, their own domain enactments, with both historical context and social relevance by: • Embodying the learnings of the past e.g., the traditions and ethics
associated with the family or parliamentary form of government or, over time, creating such historical context and social relevance in the case of new domains and, ultimately, new institutions; and,
• Providing the means – the wherewithal -‐ for socio-‐political relevance by being connected and giving life to a web of institutional relationships: the world of the polity or organized society. Indeed, we could also say, institutions ultimately provide our domains with the capacity for transformation and growth i.e., of their cognitive potentialities and characteristics.
As an example, in the context of moving towards a more open, shared and responsible ethical world i.e., of relationship commitments and qualities, we can see that the individual’s domain contribution values may be in tension with the domain contribution values of others e.g., on the basis of the beliefs underlying their contribution values, especially in connection with the individual’s domain contribution to a broader institutional domain, say medicine. Though the socio-‐political dimensions of this resolution will be examined in the next Chapter dealing with the dynamics of socio-‐political landscape, we can see 29- In the sense that emotions, perceptions and related feelings are in an important sense our biological representations of the relationship between the organism and the object and of the causal effect of that object on the organism that must over time be satisfactorily dealt with through some form of human action. 30- Such transformational forms are obviously not dependent on their legal status at a point in history e.g., the mafia being a socio-political form for the society that brought it about, prostitution is also a socio-political form assigned to certain activities that some members of society find valuable while others find despicable.
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initially that institutions, hospitals in this case, seek to deal with this tension – at least at the outset – with a body of ethical principles and norms for its members, itself derived more broadly from its overall institutional ethics – especially what we described in the Introduction as its ‘ethic’ or ‘core values’. Such overall ethics expressing its historical institutional learnings and those of its institutional partners e.g., the overarching human and social qualities that make sense and have been effective for its domain related institutional contributions, in effect which provide for institutional relevance in its broader world of institutional relationships. In doing so, institutions provide our domain contributions with, as mentioned above:
• The means – the wherewithal -‐ for socio-‐political relevance by being connected to and giving life to a web of institutional relationships -‐ the world of the polity or organized society; and, thereby,
• A capacity for both their transformation and growth – of their domain cognitive characteristics -‐ i.e., with the ability to develop new and more appropriate stories, truths and theories…
Institutions and our human potentialities From the perspective of those core human potentialities described in Chapter 1, such institutional mediation and transformation of our domain contributions, say in the context of a hospital, also provide for a richer sense of self and personal identity via as an example, our contribution to the achievement of a more sophisticated vision. Such contributions also having the potential to increase our faith and hope ‘in the world’, and to generate feelings of empowerment via what we described as our human potential for conscious will; or, when institutional mediation and transformation is unsuccessful e.g., institutional vision is not meaningful, our institutional contributions can lead to a sense of alienation, what we often describe organizationally as a 'morale' problem. Importantly, throughout history institutions have been dependent on and have used the energy from our core human forces e.g., those compelling us to grow our sense of self and personal identity via more sophisticated and rewarding institutional domain contributions, for their own growth i.e., the growth of their institutional cognitive potentialities and characteristics and, ultimately, their own core ‘institutional’ potentialities. And, more so, on highly competitive landscapes where institutional socio-‐political effectiveness, or what will later be
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described as their landscape 'authority and power', will depend on the 'quality' of the individual domain contributions which they can attract versus that of other institutions for their own domain contributions on their institutional / organizational landscape. From a historical perspective, we could also say that such human and socio-‐political dynamics and tensions i.e., 1) between the individual and the institution as described above, and 2) between institutions themselves in similar interactions within a society's broader institutional framework, have been at the center of the development of an increasingly sophisticated and complex institutional framework. In summary, institutions have been the socio-‐political instruments for the self in bringing together via his / her domain contributions and their cognitive characteristics:
• The self’s core human potentialities e.g., for consciousness, conscious will and sense of self (and, as we will see in Chapter 6, the self’s core social potentialities); and,
• The self’s core cognitive potentialities e.g., for embodiment, empathy and meaning.
Institutions (and, individuals and societies) on the other hand, have been able to garner the energies and cognitive potentialities of the self31 via the self’s domain contributions i.e., their cognitive characteristics, for their own growth and effectiveness; indeed, as we will see in the following, for the development of their own cognitive potentialities and characteristics and, more generally, for their own core ‘institutional’ potentialities e.g., for institutional identity, vision and hope. Both phenomena are briefly described in the following graphic.
31 Keeping in mind, as we mentioned previously, that the concept of ‘self’ applies as much to the individual as to the institution and society.
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Institutional cognitive potentialities and their role in shaping institutional ‘cognitive’ characteristics
Since understanding and transforming institutional ethics in a dynamic sense supposes understanding their ‘embeddedness’ and dynamics with the institution’s own cognitive potentialities (the approach we undertook for domains), we will take as a first step a brief look at each one of these cognitive potentialities and their role in shaping institutional characteristics. In the next step, we will look at the implications for institutional ethics. To do so, we will compare two familiar and quasi-‐universal institutions: the state and the family. At the outset, we can see that each institution has its own universe i.e., those ‘realities’ and associated ‘issues’ that the institution considers vital or, we could say, those realities and issues which have brought the institution about and for which it exists. In the case of the state, its universe is made up of a myriad of both external and internal realities and issues associated with various domains, some in the field of economics, others social, cultural and most important, those related to security or to its survival. Indeed, those domain-‐related realities and issues that require mediation often across a wide spectrum of domain contributions, both individual and institutional and, which also offer the possibility for society-‐wide transformations – good or bad -‐. For the family, its institutional universe is populated by the realities and issues affecting the well being and survival of the family, in some cases those related to the domain of employment and its related institutions while other issues may relate to more specific family realities and institutions such as those affecting marriage and which have often been addressed in the past by the church as a vital component of its institutional framework. Metaphorically, we could say that the institution’s universe can be associated with the realities and issues that ‘turn it on’, that make it capable as an example, of attracting and engaging the energies of the self in the case of the individual or, more broadly, the ‘energies’ of the institution as a whole (its self). As we move on to the other cognitive potentialities of institutions, we can also see that one of the first goals of state institutions – and one of their core cognitive potentialities – is to bring a sense of order to their universe of realities and issues (and domain contributions) by giving a specific form to their institutional
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(domain) contributions e.g., a parliamentary form of government comprised of as an example, a legislative assembly and government departments… In the case of the family, each epoch and society have given it specific forms and ascribed specific roles to each of its members and to their domain contributions, in effect giving the family a sense of order in addressing its realities and issues e.g., in traditional societies men were often those responsible for work outside the home, women were ascribed family chores…. Over time, institutional realities and issues and the mediating of domain contributions have brought about another cognitive potentiality with specific institutional characteristics i.e., the development of an institutional ethos via the many domain stories associated with how specific issues are dealt with and the characteristics of the realities which they bring about; as an example, Parliament may bring about stories related to freedom, individual liberties and one-‐person one vote… In the case of a family in a traditional society, we could have an ethos based on stories related to how the family has grown wealthy via the ‘hard work’ of the father or the sense of ‘household management’ of the mother. Since institutions mediate realities and issues on the basis of domain contributions and their own historic and social realities – those embedded in their cognitive potentialities and characteristics -‐, state institutions as an example will also be mediating realities and issues on the basis of:
• The sense of beauty associated with relevant domains e.g., possibly balanced and sustainable growth for economic domains, individual justice for social domains along with these domains other underlying realities (e.g., those described for domains above); and,
• The sense of beauty embedded in the institution’s social and historical realities, the result of countless domain contributions and mediations over time and, which has inspired its institutional vision as an example.
Such institutional mediation leading to what could be described as institutional aesthetics i.e., a set of principles associated with its sense of beauty and hence, with its sense of vision; as an example, we could say that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms plays such a role in the Canadian context. Similarly, institutional mediation of realities and issues also results in the case of domain related contribution values in what was described previously as institutional ethics: the ethical structure, principles and norms, and broad relationship commitments and qualities, that will create for the institution a
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synergy of domain related contribution values e.g., with those embedded in the institution’s social and historical realties and, that will be in turn effective in shaping the institution’s own domain contribution values on its internal and external institutional landscape. In the case of the traditional family example above, we can see that ethical principles and norms – those related to the family’s ethical structure -‐ will be related to the contribution values associated with the roles of the father and mother within the family and on the family’s broader institutional landscape. As an example, the father will be expected – be committed – to provide for the family’s living expenses. Rooted in domain contributions are also what we described as their related truths e.g., in the case of the domain of social sciences some could say that human beings are both rational and sociable, others could say that they are emotional and competitively self-‐centered. In effect, state or family institutions in dealing with issues associated with or originating in multiple domains, must also deal with the truths – the embedded meaning for the self -‐ of their related domains and those of the institution’s social and historical realities. By drawing on these truths, institutions are able to develop what could be described as an institutional ideology, their own body of specific truths about the world. In the context of contemporary western states and their governing institutions, we can see that ‘political liberalism’ has been the dominant ideology for some time. And, in the context of the family, we can see a transformation of its traditional ideology towards a more ‘modern’ one where as an example, it accepts more readily that domain related truths for its members are now more aligned to the ideology of ‘political liberalism’ with its greater freedom to pursue a high degree of personal congruency. As a member of a state or family institution as an example, we have also all experienced that institutional mediation must also capitalize on the theories of their related domains and on their social and historical realities. By drawing on such theories and realities about – ‘how the world works’ -‐, institutions are able to develop what could be described as institutional knowledge, their own body of information and theories about the world appropriate to successfully addressing their specific institutional realities and issues. In the world of state institutions, we have the domains of political science and public administration among others devoted to the development of such knowledge.
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As we have done for the other cognitive potentialities described previously, the following graphic brings them together in the context of ‘individuals, institutions and societies’, what we have described as our social ‘mediating’ mechanisms. And, since it is useful to keep in mind our cognitive potentialities as a whole, the following graphic brings together the cognitive potentialities described up until now.
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In summary, institutional, and from a broader perspective, what could also be described as the individual (as a social actor and mediator) and society’s ensemble of cognitive potentialities and characteristics, are in a dynamic relationship, none more vital than the other, and all playing a complementary role to the others.
What would be some of the resulting challenges for more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics?
As described in the context of domains, we can say at the outset that institutional cognitive potentialities (or ‘individual’ or ‘societal’ for that matter) all ‘thrive or die’ together e.g., ethics must aim and ultimately serve to foster a more relevant and pregnant ideology and vice versa. Ethics, like the institution’s other cognitive potentialities, must contribute to the institution’s capacity for both internal and external synergies via its core ‘institutional’ potentialities or forces e.g., its ‘consciousness’ or understanding of the world and, sense of ‘conscious will’ or capacity for directed action, what we described in Chapter 1 as a sense of authorship. Towards the goal of bringing about and sustaining more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics overall, institutional ethics must serve to:
• Help institutions successfully address institutional realities and issues, those vital to the institution’s growth and effectiveness on its institutional landscape, via all its cognitive and core ‘institutional’ potentialities;
• More generally, grow individual, institutional and, societal domain contributions; and,
• Grow our core human potentialities as individuals, institutions and
societies e.g., for consciousness, personal identity and, our potential for vision and hope.
In the case of a state institution, we can see that its ethical principle to treat all citizens as equal under the law will have a synergistic effect on its ideology e.g., accepting only as domain truths (in its mediations) those that foster such an institutional commitment to its citizens; and, similarly have such an effect on its knowledge e.g., privileging domain and institutional theories about the world that encourage as an example, transparency in state decision-‐making – thus ensuring the ‘manageability’ of this ethical principle -‐. We could also say that its
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universe will be made up of a compatible hierarchy of realities i.e., those that support such an ethical principle being ‘at the top’. In turn, we could also say that the institution’s aesthetics e.g., those principles related to its overall sense of beauty (or vision, as a core ‘institutional’ potentiality), must ‘pull’ the institution and its institutional partners towards the achievement of this ethical principle and, similarly for the domain stories that bring about its institutional ethos. On the other hand, such an ethical principle -‐ to treat all citizens as equal under the law – must help the state successfully address institutional realities and issues i.e., such an ethical principle must be perceived as legitimate and valuable by its institutional partners and society as a whole. It must help citizens and the country’s other institutions to grow their individual and institutional domain contributions towards the creation of always more satisfying societal realities. In doing so, such an ethical principle must both reflect and spur the related institutional (ethical) commitments and domain contribution values of society as a whole. As an example, it is easy to see that such an ethical principle in an authoritarian or despotic society without (or probably even with) constitutional safeguards would appear frivolous, though it might make for good rhetoric. In return, for such an ethical principle to be perceived as legitimate and dynamic i.e., instrumental to our evolution as a specie, it must contribute to the growth – transformation -‐ of the institution’s other cognitive potentialities and associated realities e.g., its universe, institutional forms (order), ethos, aesthetics, ideology and knowledge. Or, we could say, as much as the other cognitive potentialities and realities must contribute to this ethical principle, this principle must contribute in return. And, we could add, to the growth of their institutional domain contributions. Finally, institutional ethics and related dynamics must also be viewed as supporting and contributing to the development and growth of the institution’s core ‘institutional’ potentialities and, importantly, in the case of state institutions, to our own core human potentialities: those mentioned in Chapter 1: consciousness and conscious will, a sense of self and personal identity and, our potential for vision and hope. Indeed, we could say that the development and growth of these core potentialities constitute both the driving energy – the forces that we mentioned in Chapter 1 -‐, and the criteria for assessing the quality of institutional ethics and related dynamics.
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As brief examples, we can see that the institution’s cognitive potential for the creation of knowledge – a capacity for relevant or effective action – should facilitate the growth of human consciousness and conscious will whereas its potential for relevant aesthetics – or aesthetic principles -‐ should give energy to its sense of vision. In this journey towards more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics, it will be useful to keep in mind another reality, indeed an ongoing emergent historical reality, the result of our collective human forces and cognitive potentialities, and their socio-‐political striving to bring about a more satisfying world. Though rarely acknowledged in this form, it will be described below as our ‘collective human psyche’.
Collective human psyche
“We are all in this together!”
As sentient beings with specific learning and doing capacities – what we previously described as our human cognitive potentialities – we would be led to think initially that these cognitive potentialities, especially those related to the self (e.g., for embodiment, empathy, and beliefs) that we have described previously in this chapter, have been mainly responsible for the creation of our human world. Nonetheless, as we have seen since the beginning of Chapter 2, these cognitive potentialities related to the self:
• First stem from the cognitive potentialities of our human nature, those that could be described broadly as resulting from a process of evolution as applied to ‘matter’, or as allied to a creative force – for some, god or its equivalent -‐;
• Secondly, (the cognitive potentialities of the self e.g., for beliefs) are
dependent for their survival and development on the qualities of their social interactions i.e., via what we described as domains, institutions and their organizations and, as we will see later, socio-‐political dynamics – effective landscapes -‐; and,
• Thirdly, are dependent on the resultant growth of what we described in
Chapter 1 as our core human potentialities or forces e.g., consciousness, for the impetus for their continued engagement with the world.
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As the above seeks to suggest, our ‘mind’ – the reality and sum of our thoughts and feelings – exists inasmuch as it is connected to and nourished by what could be described as 1) the realities and dynamics of the physical universe – those that give rise to and sustain our ‘human nature’ i.e., our core human and cognitive potentialities -‐ and, 2) the realities and dynamics of our social universe. In summary, our mind as an ‘individual’ (or for that matter, as an institution or society) could be viewed synergistically as at the junction of these two realities, receiving and contributing to the realities and dynamics of both. As a way to describe the above realities and their dynamics in the context of our individual and collective (institutional and societal) human forces and cognitive potentialities, and their ‘socio-‐political striving’ to bring about a more satisfying world, we will use the term ‘collective human psyche’ as metaphorically capturing those aspects related to 1) mind – psyche –, 2) our specific world – human -‐, and their social and universal dimensions – collective -‐; indeed, as expressing our evolving social and historical reality.
An example – domains of endeavor -
From an evolutionary perspective as we mentioned above, we would be led to think that our human potentialities e.g., for conscious will and vision, via the cognitive potentialities of the self have brought about and have been the main driving force in the creation of domains. However, as we saw with institutions, the advent of human societies with their sophisticated and collective approaches to the creation of societal realities -‐ their culture -‐ would surely encourage us to also view domains as very much springing from some form of collective enterprise. Taking the perspective mentioned above i.e., that of our collective human psyche, the one springing from (and acknowledging) some form of collective – social -‐ enterprise be it at the level of the community or as broad as that of a civilization, we can see that the cognitive potentialities of the self in the formation of domains draw from, and are enriched by, the realities and dynamics of their related collective human psyche, be it in the context of the family in the case of a child, or possibly that of a country in the case of a statesman.
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As an example, what are perceived as domain qualities by the self (its source of energies) are only perceived as such inasmuch as they are associated with 'understandable and perceivable' symbols in the self's broader symbolic universe i.e., those symbols which can engage its emotional and cognitive energies in a (usually social) meaningful fashion32. In the domain of food as an example, grasshoppers have a different symbolic connotation – bring about different domain qualities -‐ depending on one's culture and, any domain related to food would have to take this into account. We could also go on to say that domain behaviors (its behavioral forms) e.g., the ones we ‘expect’ from politicians, have to be associated with the body of behaviors – rituals – that we have come to expect of politicians in our collective human psyche as in the case of a culture or civilization. Any person seeking to engage in the domain of politics or to innovate in this domain becomes quickly aware of this reality. And, similar considerations would apply for the other cognitive dimensions of domains discussed up to now. As described in the following graphic, domains – their creation and development -‐ are at the intersect of our 'human and social' cognitive potentialities and what will be described below as the dimensions of our collective human psyche, with the self and his/her social ‘incarnation’ as an individual (and, we could also say as an institution or society) serving to bring together these two realities via the enactment of domains in – usually – ‘institutional’ contributions. Importantly, the self needs such enactments for the maintenance of a sense of self and for its enrichment. Specifically, one can see that the ‘richness’ of the dimensions of the effective or relevant ‘collective human psyche’ – culture or civilization – along with the degree of sophistication of the self’s institutional -‐ societal -‐ participation via domain enactments and their embedded human and social cognitive potentialities, will determine the potential growth of the self – via his/her core 32- Here, we are not talking about those realities - symbols - associated more strictly with the world of the unconscious such as a fear of snakes, spiders...
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human potentialities – and, the growth of the self as an individual – as an effective social actor -‐. And, needless to say, the potential growth of the collective human psyche itself. As an example, a research scientist working in the domain of molecular biology, say in a European or American research institution, will have access to a rich culture of knowledge in the field and opportunities for sophisticated learning and doing in his/her institutional domain contributions – opportunities to grow his/her human and social cognitive potentialities -‐. Such domain contributions most likely leading to the growth of his/her human potentialities e.g., for vision and hope, and effectiveness – authority and power -‐ as an individual and, more generally, to a more sophisticated society. In this context, one could conclude on a preliminary basis that the ultimate goal of ethical dynamics is to:
• Create a growing synergy -‐ the arrows – between the elements in the above graphic; and
• Grow all elements in the graphic, our collective human psyche included, beginning with, as an example, that of our community and, eventually for the planet as a whole.
Before examining some of the challenges and potential benefits of more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics in the creation of the above synergy, we will take a brief look at what could be viewed as the cognitive potentialities and realities of the collective human psyche and their relationships with the human and social cognitive potentialities mentioned previously.
Collective human psyche and our human and social cognitive potentialities
As described in the following graphic, each dimension or characteristic of our collective human psyche (its inherent cognitive potentialities or our overall collective potentialities for learning and doing) could be viewed as being associated with those related to our other human and social cognitive potentialities.
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More so, as described above, these collective dimensions can also be viewed as in a synergistic relationship with these other potentialities, each 'level' drawing from and enriching the other (<-‐-‐>).
Our collective human psyche is therefore ‘part and parcel’ of our human and social cognitive potentialities and, more generally, of our human experience, growing in synergy with the increasing sophistication of our other human and social cognitive potentialities e.g., those of the self and, importantly, those of our institutions. In this context, we can see more clearly that domains as the expression of a specific social reality e.g., photography or medicine, in giving expression to our human and social cognitive potentialities via relevant institutions, can be
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perceived as drawing from -‐ being animated by -‐, the dimensions and realities, along with their cultural characteristics, of our collective human psyche. In doing so, those dimensions and related realities of our collective human psyche could be understood, as mentioned in the above graphic, as related to: symbols (the collective psyche or the mind's symbolic universe as mentioned previously), rituals, myths, art, religion33, philosophy and science, thus giving each domain -‐ being the source for -‐ its possible qualities, forms, stories, sense or principles of beauty, values, truths and theories and, also provide institutions with what we described as their social and historical realities e.g., their ethos, aesthetics and ethics. As the source of the domain's social and cultural specificity, these ‘collective’ dimensions and realities serve to anchor domain realities and characteristics, and to give life to a specific social and cultural context. In effect, giving the domain and our domain contributions their social and cultural relevance and potential for contribution to a broader universe. And, in turn, giving our institutions the basis for the mediation of our domain enactments, say relative to a societal vision, that related to our social and cultural principles of beauty. As an example, automobile marketing as a domain will be specific to the symbols of a given culture (collective psyche) e.g., what aspects of automobiles 'turn people on' in that culture – give it the ‘right’ feelings -‐, to the rituals associated with the automobile e.g., commuting or touring, to its myths or narratives around its history... and, importantly, these same realities will provide the basis for ‘marketing’ institutions to mediate domain contributions related to automobile marketing. These dimensions are described briefly in Appendix 1 along with their contribution to domains and their connection to the self via our human potentialities.
What would be some of the resulting challenges and opportunities for more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics?
As we will describe in Chapter 3 in the context of ‘ethical dynamics and socio-‐political landscapes’, individuals and institutions compete for what will be described as ‘authority and power’ (and, sometimes collaborate on the same basis), usually for the possibility to decide what is right i.e., what will inspire others or what others will perceive as right, and to control relevant resources on a specific landscape. Indeed, wise and / or powerful institutions and individuals 33 - Religion viewed here in its broadest sense as the totality of our ‘transcendent’ human beliefs.
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throughout history have succeeded via such dynamics, in shaping the world and, as a result, what was described above as our collective human psyche. And, as we will also describe, ethics are both the concrete – behavioral -‐ expression of such socio-‐political dynamics and the avenue for their transformation. That is, changes in our relationship commitments and qualities as the most visible behavioral manifestation of our ethical framework:
• Reflect changes in the landscape’s authority and power structure; and,
• Affect changes to this same structure e.g., the oftentimes-‐progressive influence of marginal groups as in the case of those who first became ‘environmentally’ conscious.
With this in mind, we would now have from the perspective of our social and political landscapes and our collective human psyche, the following dynamics where ‘ethics’ is both the nexus – the bond that animates and gives the landscape its integrity – and the conduit for its learnings and transformations i.e., ethics being ‘nourished’ by the nature and quality of the landscape’s dynamics, the arrows in the following graphic, while at the same time nourishing the landscape’s dynamics and its components.
We can now envisage that one of the goals of more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics is to grow the overall universe of our collective human psyche as a condition, for example, for the growth of our individual, institutional and societal core human potentialities i.e., for consciousness and conscious will, a sense of self and identity and, vision and hope and, those that will be described as our core social potentialities in Chapter 6, along with our human and social cognitive potentialities. More specifically, the graphic seeks to emphasize that the growth of our collective human psyche rather than being viewed as something that is solely in the world of the mind is in reality anchored in and in synergy with our human and social realities -‐ via the energy and sophistication of our overall potentialities -‐.
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In summary, from a historical or evolutionary perspective, we can therefore envision that more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics will give us all greater opportunities to participate as fully as we can as individuals and institutions to the creation of not only our current world but of our future ‘human’ worlds; or, to put it differently, to bring all our human and social potentialities and energies to the construction of our current and future worlds.
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Conclusion
Chapter 2 has sought to describe how our core human potentialities, those forces described in Chapter 1, have given rise to and have been in synergy with what we described as our human and social cognitive potentialities and their related social structures i.e., domains, institutions and their organizations and, more broadly, our collective human psyche. Indeed, we have seen that this synergy of our core human potentialities and of our human and social cognitive potentialities has been driven by the qualities and characteristics – the increasing sophistication – of our ethical relationships. And, we could add, where ethics have determined both the potential for the growth of our human and social cognitive potentialities but also the potential for the growth of our core human potentialities e.g., for vision and hope. Indeed, as we have just seen, ethical dynamics also determine the potential for ‘richness’ of the ‘collective human psyche’ that we can draw on for ‘bringing forth’ our world. And, we have also seen how ethics must also be understood as the manifestation of a vital cognitive potentiality, one that is in synergy with our other ‘vital’ cognitive potentialities, all of which are embedded in a ‘cognitive’ process whose goal is to ‘ultimately’ bring forth a human world in synergy with all other ‘worlds’.
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Chapter 3: Ethical Dynamics and Socio-Political Landscapes Overall, our socio-‐political landscapes constitute our social 'playing field' for the effective ‘coupling’ via ethical dynamics, of individual, institutional and societal domain contributions necessary for the creation of evolving and relevant realities, those that provide for the growth of our ‘human’ and ‘social’ potentialities. Since we live in a pluralistic and competitive world of individuals, institutions and societies with each being in some form of socio-‐political relationship e.g., societies ‘competing’ with other societies or similarly, for institutions and individuals or, ‘between’ each other on a shared landscape – what we usually find in large organizations, we will now turn our attention to what will be described as ‘ethical dynamics and our socio-‐political landscapes’, those landscape dynamics that in effect permit individual, institutional and societal socio-‐political synergies or, their ability to exercise authority and power in their ‘institutional’ relationships. To do so, we will examine our key socio-‐political structures, those briefly described below, and examine their ethical landscape dynamics usually in the context of a society (to keep it relatively simple), acknowledging that each of our domains, institutions and socio-‐political landscapes are ultimately dependent on or, serve to bring about, a ‘broader landscape’, be it for some, an institution and its organization or, for others, the planet as a whole:
Domains
As we saw in Chapter 2, domains express and give social relevance to our cognitive potentialities – an ‘intentionality’ – ‘this is my contribution’, with its landscape ‘authority and power’ being determined by its perceived contribution to, as an example, society’s overall ethical aspirations; and, since domains are the contribution vehicle for individuals, institutions and societies, they are the basic building blocks of our socio-‐political landscapes: • Institutions (Individuals and Societies) – Our core socio-‐political relational
and hence, mediating structures and whose landscape authority and
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power is contingent upon the perceived value of their domain contributions (via their social and historical realities), to society’s overall ethical aspirations; they are basically the vehicle through which relevant and evolving landscape realities come about; and,
• Socio-political landscapes – Our social ‘playing field’ for the creation of
relevant ‘landscape realities’ serve to give expression to the authority and power realities of individuals, institutions and society by providing a context for a society’s (in this case) evolving institutional framework or hierarchy of institutions – in effect the landscape’s ‘pecking order’ of valued contributions to a society’s overall ethical aspirations.
In the context of evolving socio-‐political landscape dynamics i.e., the ‘real world’ of competition and cooperation, individuals and institutions via their organizations and societies for that matter, will be dependent on their ability to grow their domain contributions for both their survival and growth; in effect, individuals and institutions as examples, will be dependent on their domains being effectively coupled with other domains -‐ individuals in the context of institutions and institutions through the quality of their inter-‐institutional domain contributions -‐ in the creation of evolving and relevant landscape (individual, institutional or societal) realities. Indeed, the growth of the individual and the institution’s core ‘human’ potentialities (as described in Chapter 1) i.e., for consciousness and conscious will, for a sense of self and personal (or institutional) identity, and for vision and hope (and, social potentialities as we will see in Chapter 6), will be dependent on the effective quality of this ‘coupling’; and we could add, for the resultant ‘energy’ or ‘force’ associated with these potentialities, and that causes them to bring about a relevant or meaningful world, hence the reference in the following to a sense of individual or institutional empowerment. In this context, the goal of bringing about more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics i.e., where all of us and our institutions have a chance to ‘congruently’ grow these potentialities, will be contingent on the ability of our ongoing relationship commitments and qualities – more broadly, our ethics – to mutually: • Grow individual and institutional domain contributions as mentioned
above;
• Grow the individual and the institution's influence, or what will be described as their authority and power, on their various landscapes; and,
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• Create ‘landscape’ opportunities for increasingly meaningful and relevant realities i.e., opportunities for responsible engagements via our ongoing relationship commitments and qualities.
(And, we could say the same for societies on their broader, ultimately, planetary landscapes.) In the context of examining: 1) Socio-‐political landscapes and the dynamics of ‘authority and power’ and, 2) What would be some of the resulting challenges for more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics, we will focus especially on: • How ethics are dependent on the dynamics of authority and power, and
how these dynamics may come to serve the goal of more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics; and,
• How ethical tensions can be viewed as the manifestation of our socio-‐political instincts for survival and growth on our many socio-‐political landscapes and, ultimately, for the survival and growth of our landscapes themselves.
Socio-political landscapes and the dynamics of ‘authority and power’ While institutions serve to mediate, transform and give institutional form and meaning -‐ in effect socio-‐political form and meaning that is both socially and politically legitimate -‐ to our domain contributions via their own domain contributions, socio-‐political landscapes in turn serve as their 'playing field', providing institutions, via their organizations and their actors, with the opportunity to participate in the creation of a specific set of ‘landscape relevant’ institutional realities -‐ landscape realities – those that will, succinctly, ‘grow the institution by growing the landscape’. (This could also be described, simply, as the institution’s landscape sanctioned ‘mission’ or, mutually agreed-‐upon landscape contribution.) By doing so, socio-‐political landscapes provide both individuals and institutions with the opportunity to contribute via a broader sense of vision or purpose e.g., a societal vision, to the landscape as a whole such as to the creation of a 'just and inclusive' society or, for that matter, to a highly exclusive society as in the case of various manifestations of apartheid. Indeed, socio-‐political landscapes provide individuals and institutions alike with the opportunity to participate in a world of synergy comprised of: • Our individual or institutional sense of vision and its embedded sense of
beauty and meaning; and,
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• Our individual or institutional transcendental relationships – those that
take us outside of our selves (institutions included) -‐ and which provide our institutions, and us as described in Chapter 1, with the potential for a sense of ‘faith’ and, ultimately, ‘hope’.
For ease of reference, the graphic appearing in Chapter 1 is reproduced below. In the context of socio-‐political landscapes, the emotion of hope and its related feelings of empowerment will be dependent on our individual and collective ability to enact such a world of synergy, ultimately, as pointed out in the graphic, via the landscape’s effective ethics. This world, as described in the following, will be contingent on the nature and dynamics of authority and power and, though such dynamics apply as much to the individual e.g., on his/her many institutional landscapes, as to the institution, the following will focus mainly on institutional landscape dynamics to simplify the presentation. While historically authority has been generally defined as the ability or recognized landscape legitimacy to decide what is ‘right’ e.g., the Church, the state and, parents… and, power as the ability to control the behavior or contribution of others – individuals and institutions included – be it simply the use of the family automobile, authority and power are viewed in this context – that of a dynamic and changing world -‐ as evolving phenomena ultimately dependent on the ability of the institution, and the individual for that matter, to contribute to the landscape's effectiveness in bringing about a 'more desired world', whatever that may mean at a particular point in history.
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Therefore, in the best of situations, the perceived landscape qualities of institutional contributions (e.g., via its services and products or, what will be described in Part II as social qualities and social goods) in this evolving and changing world will provide the institution with its overall landscape authority and power, succinctly its capacity to inspire and control other institutional contributions. Hence the reference below to the impact of authority and power on landscape ethics, ultimately, as an example, the relationship commitments and qualities that will bring about such institutional contributions. Within the institution and its organization, such landscape authority and power on the part of the institution also become the basis for the institution's own evolving internal authority and power reality. In effect, its ability to inspire and control increasingly sophisticated domain contributions is dependent on its ability to provide for their actualization in the creation of relevant and valued institutional – more so, landscape – realities via what was described above as the mediation and transformation of individual domain contributions. Indeed, the institution's capacity to 'resolve ethical tensions' e.g., those ethical tensions associated with growing individual and institutional domain contributions via inter-‐institutional dynamics (as we will describe below), will be dependent on its ability to compete effectively in the landscape's authority and power dynamics (essentially ethical dynamics as we will also describe) and in the creation of the relevant landscape realities. The following graphic describes in summarized form such socio-‐political landscape dynamics. As the graphic also points out, institutions participate in the landscape’s overall authority and power reality via their contribution to the creation of landscape (or, societal) realities on the basis – ideally -‐ of a shared ‘vision or landscape purpose’ and, its participation in enacting effective landscape ethics, basically the vehicle for enacting the landscape’s authority and power reality.
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In doing so, their contributions serve on one hand to participate in the creation of the landscape’s authority and power / ethical reality -‐ while, on the other, institutions are dependent on the landscape’s authority and power / ethical reality for their legitimacy and landscape effectiveness. In this context, we will turn more specifically to how ethical tensions come about and, how they may be resolved and come to serve the goal of more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics.
Ethical tensions
Since institutions and their organizations are dependent on the landscape’s authority and power reality -‐ or structure -‐ for effectively coupling their domain contributions to other institutional domain contributions and, similarly for the individual, let us take a look at what this entails, first by examining the nature of landscape dynamics at their broadest level, those associated with our core human potentialities and, subsequently, those ethical tensions arising from our cognitive potentialities and, briefly, those tensions arising from what we will describe as our core social potentialities, the subject of Chapter 6.
Ethical tensions and our core ‘human - institutional – societal’ potentialities
To understand what could be described as core or underlying landscape dynamics – those that drive all other landscape dynamics -‐, we must refer back initially to what we described in Chapter 1 as our ‘core human potentialities’ or forces, those that ‘compel us to become ‘who we are capable of becoming’. In effect, those forces that provide us with the basic energy for bringing about our world and that give a ‘human’ structure to our existence. At the individual level, these forces could be summarized by the following graphic taken from Chapter 1.
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We also mentioned that we are compelled as individuals to grow our human potentialities in the sense of a ‘do or die’ predicament. In practice, this means that each one of us must find a way to engage with others in ways that will grow these potentialities, in the best of situations via collaborative ventures where individuals may share a common vision and sense of hope about the world but usually, in most cases, via competition, sometimes ‘friendly’ as in the context of a tennis match among friends, sometimes fierce e.g., where profound differences in vision are present as among individuals of different political ideologies. In summary, we could say as we have mentioned previously that ethical tensions have their origins in these ‘human’ dynamics – in our individual competition for authority and power – e.g., whose vision will ‘carry the day’? In Chapter 1, we also mentioned that such forces – collectively -‐ could also be viewed as those giving life and structure to our institutions, and suggested that institutional potentialities emulate our core human potentialities. In effect, growth in our human potentialities are usually predicated on the growth of the core potentialities of the institutions that we ‘give life to’ or ‘bring about’ via our institutional domain contributions e.g., growth of institutional identity often provides the basis for the growth of our personal identity; such institutional potentialities (as above) could be described as in the following graphic. Also, institutions, like in the case of individuals, sometimes collaborate on the basis of a shared understanding of the world (described above as ‘consciousness’) and a shared or complementary institutional vision though, more often than not, institutions compete for authority and power on the basis of divergent understandings or visions of what the world should become. Indeed, as we will see below, institutions must learn to mediate via the resolution of
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issues of authority and power (e.g., whose institutional identity will grow) not only individual domain contributions but also learn to mediate their domain contributions with other institutional realities. In summary, institutions must learn to resolve ethical tensions (e.g., those originating in their ethical aspirations) via the resolution of issues of authority and power, more so they must seek to create inter-‐institutional ethical synergies. We also mentioned in Chapter 1 that societies large and small have their own ‘core societal potentialities’, those societal forces that emulate those of individuals and institutions and that serve to ‘constructively’ channel the energies of both institutions and individuals, and we could add, which are ultimately dependent on those of individuals and institutions for their legitimacy and growth. As was the case above, they could be succinctly described as follows: In the best of scenarios, societies via their core potentialities could be seen as the ‘glue’ that pulls together and helps to mediate individual and institutional contributions into relevant societal contributions via as examples a shared societal identity and sense of hope. In effect, contributions that make sense and can be seen as legitimate by the members of a particular society. From a practical perspective, such societal potentialities give rise to an authority and power structure usually expressed in the society’s institutional framework or its hierarchy of institutions34. Societies like individuals and institutions are also in collaborative or competitive relationships with other societies e.g., via their governments and international
34- With the most glaring example being the place of the individual in its hierarchy of institutions.
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institutions and, at other times, via powerful ‘private’ institutions such as our multinational corporations. In this context, the quality of their core potentialities will determine – like in the case of the individual or the institution – their authority and power on these broader landscapes. In summary, societies provide for both the creation and resolution of ethical tensions on the basis of the ‘quality’ of their core potentialities e.g., the quality and relevance of their societal vision and the sense of hope that they provide to their members. At their best or most functional, such core potentialities help societal members to effectively resolve issues of authority and power by being expressed in what we have described as an ethical structure and a framework of ethical principles and norms, and from a ‘practical’ perspective, in the – relationship commitments and qualities – of, as an example, their government institutions. Before examining the other dimensions of ethical tensions, we can say at the broadest level that the world of authority and power driving our socio-‐political landscapes could be viewed as the result of our core human potentialities i.e., those forces compelling individuals, institutions, and societies to become all that they can become. We could also say that ‘ethics’ in the best of situations aim to create a synergy between these forces – creating the possibility for each to become more of ‘that’ which it is capable of becoming -‐. Simply put, ethics could be viewed as the arrows in the following graphic.
As we mentioned at the outset of Chapter 2, our social structures: individuals, institutions, and societies, and the forces described above compelling them to become all that they can be, are dependent on – more specifically are in a synergistic relationship with -‐ our human and social cognitive potentialities. Indeed, it is via these cognitive potentialities that that the dynamics of authority and power take place – no cognitive potentialities: no human potentialities or forces -‐.
Ethical tensions and our cognitive potentialities
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Issues of authority and power and landscape ethics – ethical tensions35 -‐ are also the result of institutional (individual or societal) interactions embodying and enacting the cognitive potentialities (those outlined in the graphic below taken from Chapter 2) of the institutions involved e.g., institutions do not have similar social and historical realities such as domain stories that help explain and drive their universe, sense of order, ethos, or aesthetics, also over time, institutions develop specific and different core values or ethical aspirations – ethics – that help them mediate effectively their needed contributions and that make them effective or more competitive on their landscapes and, do so similarly for their ideology and knowledge. Simply put, individuals and institutions more often than not compete for the ‘stories’ that will make sense not only for them but will also make them – and their domain contributions -‐ more attractive to other individuals and institutions e.g., politics and religion being prime examples throughout history (not to mention the stories that lovers tell to each other…); in effect, we use our cognitive potentialities to help us garner the necessary landscape authority and power or, the ‘ethics’ that will help us grow our human potentialities as we described in the previous section of this chapter. While the landscape’s overall authority and power reality or structure could be viewed in this context as the result of our evolving or ‘historical’ cognitive potentialities, primarily those of key institutions such as the church or state whose cognitive potentialities e.g., their specific ideology, impact the authority and power structure and, ethics of myriad institutional relationships, our effective landscape ethics are usually the result of our day-‐to-‐day individual 35 - Since issues of authority and power effectively manifest themselves as ‘ethical tensions’, either positively e.g., authority and power promoting ‘empowering’ ethics – positive tensions – helping us become more of who we capable of becoming or, the contrary.
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institutional interactions, those embodying and enacting our cognitive potentialities with those of our institutions in the context of a specific landscape authority and power reality. In the following graphic, individual and institutional cognitive potentialities are ‘mediated’ in the context of the landscape broader authority and power structure. From the perspective of overall landscape dynamics, we could call these interactions the primary or more visible source of potential ethical tensions e.g., individuals and institutions do not have similar social and historical realities or stories that make up their universe or ethos, or a similar sense (or principles) of beauty, indeed from a cognitive perspective each has its own universe, sense of order, ethics… More so, a sense of overall common purpose or vision, one that could help individuals and institutions ‘mediate’ effective ethics in the context of the landscape’s authority and power reality, is often left to individuals and institutions to resolve in many of our societal or institutional situations. (This issue will be addressed in Chapters 7 and 8 in the context of ‘social qualities and social goods and, socio-‐political energies’.) In summary, such institutional ‘cognitive’ interactions aiming to bring about via mutually acceptable, negotiated or imposed, landscape or societal realities i.e., those which serve to enact and more so, to enhance one or more institutional social and historical realities, their institutional visions and sense of hope included. Obviously, there are usually ‘winners and losers’.
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Ethical tensions and our social potentialities
In Chapters 6, 7 and 8, we will see that ethical tensions are also driven by what we will describe as our ‘social potentialities’ (outlined in the following graphic), those that give a specific ‘energy or direction’ to our individual and institutional contributions.
More specifically, we will see that ethical tensions are driven (and, potentially resolved) by our social potentialities enacted in the context of the core institutional dimensions of our institutions, those resulting in our ‘social qualities and social goods’.
Ethical tensions and landscape / societal realities
Ethical tensions can also be the result of what could be described as secondary sources of tension i.e., institutions while participating in the development and enactment of a landscape authority and power structure, are also dependent – or their actions are contingent upon – their landscape’s ‘historical’ authority and power structure and, its own ‘historical’ ethical framework, be it a related to a government or commercial landscape. As an example, government institutions in their interactions among themselves and with other institutions are bound by a specific ‘authority and power’ reality e.g., in Canada, by Parliament and its body of laws and practices, in effect its formal or legal ethical framework. Another source of possible ethical tensions can be viewed as stemming from the overall landscape or society’s preferred or historical hierarchy of institutions in its institutional framework, with some institutions having the capacity –
Social Potentialities Empathy / Belonging
Capacity /Contribution
Connection / Synergy Accountability / Destiny
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authority and power -‐ to impose their own ethical framework e.g., their preferred ethical principles and norms. More specifically, we can see that each epoch has had its preferred set of institutions relevant to its perceived issues. As examples, we could compare the importance given to the Catholic Church in medieval European society to media related institutions such as television and cinema in our world and, their impact in shaping their society’s ethical framework e.g., the stories embedded in their contribution values. From a practical perspective for most of us, the ethical tensions of a family’s ‘coupling’ with institutions of production in a modern society will be driven by a different set of ethical principles and norms e.g., the number of days that can be devoted to family responsibilities, versus what we find in a traditional or agrarian society. Given the above sources of ethical tensions arising from the world of authority and power dynamics, what could be some avenues for more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics and the creation of ‘ever more satisfying societal realities’. From a historical perspective, we can see that efforts towards the resolution of these potential ethical tensions have taken many forms. At the inter-‐institutional level say between two commercial enterprises, formal and informal rules of competition – ethics, or more specifically ethical principles and norms – of many forms and functions have evolved to promote the effective coupling of their ‘human’ and cognitive potentialities e.g., shared vision and knowledge. The resulting ethical principles sometimes related to a commitment to quality products and honesty in their relationships, have served to channel their ability to grow what we described as their core institutional characteristics such as their institutional identity and vision, in line with both the needs and opportunities of the broader landscape. At the broader landscape level, governments have controlled commercial enterprises exercise of power to avoid such behavior as ‘cartels’ via legislation – ethics -‐ and enforcement mechanisms such as the courts, while Chambers of Commerce at the informal level have usually fostered broader commercial cooperation ethics via a sense of broader community responsibility – essential to their survival – and to doing business effectively. In summary, all societies – more so sophisticated ones -‐ have developed a myriad of formal and informal mechanisms to resolve ethical tensions – those tensions embedded in the society’s overall authority and power reality -‐.
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With these preliminary observations as a backdrop, we will now examine how socio-‐political landscape dynamics might come to serve the goal of more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics or, more appropriately, how socio-‐political dynamics might be transformed to serve this goal.
What would be some of the resulting challenges for more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics?
Historically, societies by their very nature e.g., as a way for individuals to live together, have always sought via their authority and power structure, their institutional framework or their hierarchy of institutions and, more specifically, their ethical framework – sometimes more informally in primitive societies, sometimes more formally in modern ones -‐ to channel individual and institutional domain contributions towards valued societal realities, in effect those that contribute to the growth of what we described as their core societal potentialities e.g., societal identity and vision, via the growth of their cognitive potentialities and characteristics i.e., those related to their ‘universe, order, ethos, aesthetics, ethics, ideology and knowledge’ (and, as we will see later, their social potentialities36). On the other hand, one could also argue that our human instincts – those stemming from and associated with our core human potentialities or forces described in Chapter 1 – have been the source and energy for our ‘eternal’ quest to: • ‘Open up’ the dynamics associated with: ‘authority and power / landscape
ethics’ via the development of individual and institutional cognitive potentialities and characteristics e.g., the goal of knowing more about the world (consciousness); and,
• Articulate an ever evolving authority and power structure and landscape ethics, sometimes associated with a religion at other times with government (or, for that matter, a family), in line with an evolving sense of overarching purpose or, we could say, the creation of ever more satisfying landscape or societal realities, those associated with a more satisfying vision.
And, we could add, such instincts -‐ forces -‐ have been at work in all our human endeavors at the individual, institutional and societal levels, and have reflected 36 - The reference to human potentialities in the following should be read as including our social potentialities, those described in Chapter 6.
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our need for both individual and institutional survival and growth on our many socio-‐political landscapes even ones at the international level in the case of nations and states. Nonetheless, before we go on, we must acknowledge that such forces have often been manipulated to serve among other matters: an ideology as a societal reality e.g., Nazism and Communism, a religious doctrine or practice e.g., the Inquisition, commercial interests e.g., cartels… or the interests – preferred vision – of one or more powerful institutions or states. And, in all likelihood, such forces will continue to be ‘manipulated’ in the future since our human forces e.g., those associated with consciousness and conscious will, will always seek to grow via, in the case of individuals, our institutional engagements: • On landscapes with a specific social and historical context of possibilities
associated with a preferred set of realities; and,
• Because of our unavoidable need for ‘some kind’ of authority and power structure –‘good or bad’ -‐ as a conduit for effective action.
In such a situation, how do we avoid, or at the least minimize, the ‘negative’ impacts of these dynamics or, more importantly, how do we move towards the goal of bringing about and sustaining more open, shared and responsible ethical relationship, indeed those which will serve the broader goal of giving us all as individuals and institutions alike the opportunity to participate effectively in the creation of mutually relevant landscape or societal realities. Though Part 2 will deal with this challenge as we go about enacting our worlds individually and collectively via what will be described as social qualities and social goods, we will now briefly examine some elements of strategy specific to socio-‐political dynamics. Overall, and in line with the forces mentioned above, we can see that the achievement of this goal will be dependant on the possibility – and its enactment -‐ of assuming for ourselves both as individuals and institutions, and as societies, the responsibility to congruently participate in:
• The dynamics associated with: ‘authority and power / landscape ethics’ via our individual and institutional cognitive potentialities and characteristics – those driving our domain contributions; and,
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• The articulation of ever more relevant authority and power structures and landscape ethics, in line with an increasingly congruent overarching vision – one which fosters the creation of ever more satisfying landscape or societal realities.
The ‘first practical challenge’ thus becomes one of mutually growing, as we mentioned at the outset of this section, the individual and the institution's influence -‐ their authority and power – via the growth and relevance of their cognitive potentialities and characteristics hence their domain contributions, towards the creation of increasingly meaningful and relevant societal realities i.e., opportunities for responsible and congruent engagements. As an example, the growth of an institution’s aesthetics or knowledge by impacting on other institutions’ domains principles of beauty and ability through new ‘domain theories’ to be more effective, will have an impact on the institution’s landscape authority and power relationships, more specifically on the institution’s potential to inspire and control other landscape contributions i.e., to effectively compete – mutually grow – the landscapes’ socio-‐political realities. The second, and more complex challenge of articulating an ever more relevant and pregnant authority and power structure and resulting ethical dynamics e.g., those ethical dynamics capable of sustaining what we described above as the ‘first practical challenge’, will also be dependent on:
• The socio-‐political characteristics of the individual and the institution’s core human potentialities i.e., for ‘consciousness, conscious will, sense of self, identity, vision and sense of hope’ (as a result of their history of socio-‐political engagements);
• The socio-‐political characteristics embedded in the individual and the
institution’s (human and social) cognitive potentialities and characteristics i.e., in the case of individuals and institutions, their universe of realities, sense of order, ethos, aesthetics, ethics, ideology and knowledge – those which give life and meaning to their core human potentialities, our human ‘forces’ -‐; and,
• As we will see in Part II, the socio-‐political characteristics of ‘resultant’
landscape realities e.g., do they foster the growth of open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics or not.
As the graphic purports to emphasize, authority and power dynamics permeate our entire socio-‐political universe and all its components, ethical dynamics
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included. Hence, the goal of more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics must address this overall reality both in its components e.g., its resultant landscape realities, and as a whole.
Socio-Political Universe
As an example, ethical dynamics (at the centre) by embodying a landscape’s authority and power structure ‘in action’ serve to shape our various identities e.g., who I am as a manager in the context of an organization and, the same dynamics have shaped my understanding of what it is to be a manager – its cognitive characteristics e.g., its ethics, ideology and knowledge -‐, hence their landscape socio-‐political characteristics.
And, we could add, vice versa, that my identity as a manager e.g., how I have constructed my ‘socio-‐political’ identity as a manager from who I am on many landscapes, and my knowledge from other ‘socio-‐political’ institutional participation, will impact on the landscape’s socio-‐political dynamics via the contribution of my specific ethical structure, ethical principles and norms, and my ongoing relationship commitments and qualities – to the landscape’s ethical dynamics, and via such contribution to the landscape’s authority and power structure. (More on this in Part II)
Conclusion
Chapter 3 has examined our key socio-‐political structures i.e., domains, institutions along with individuals and societies, and our social and political landscapes and, their ‘ethical’ dynamics.
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We have seen that in our contemporary world, individuals, institutions and societies compete with each being in some form of socio-‐political relationship e.g., societies ‘competing’ with other societies or similarly, for institutions and individuals or, ‘between’ each other on a shared landscape, and we have described those landscape dynamics that in effect permit individual, institutional and societal socio-‐political synergies or, their ability to effectively exercise authority and power in their ‘institutional’ relationships. And, we have examined how socio-‐political dynamics, or authority and power dynamics, are instrumental in growing what we previously described as our core human potentialities and our human and social cognitive potentialities, indeed for giving them the socio-‐political characteristics for their development. Up until now, the concept of synergy has been used to describe the phenomenon where two or more elements act together – are mutually dependent on each other – both for the production of a third element, and, importantly, for their own existence and growth. Simply put, no synergy – no existence -‐. In the following chapter, we will examine the underpinnings of this synergy from the perspective of what we know from the field of ‘living systems’; in effect going to the roots of the dynamics of who we are as beings belonging to the universe.
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Chapter 4: Living Systems and Ethical Dynamics In Chapters 2 and 3, we saw how our core human potentialities and our human and social cognitive potentialities come to life – are given a living existence – via our cognitive (social) structures and, the dynamics of our socio-‐political landscapes; and, that the historical results of this process could described as our collective human psyche, a ‘meta’ cognitive (social) structure in itself. In Chapter 4, we will describe briefly how our human potentialities along with our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities find their life source and potential for synergy in some of the characteristics of living systems, especially those characteristics that give life to our biological and human universe. To do so, we will examine these characteristics as they relate to the emerging science of living systems and see how they might be useful for understanding and transforming ethical dynamics. In doing so, we will seek to acknowledge that ‘mind and body’ are and act together and, that the characteristics of the dynamics that have given rise to the ‘human’ body as a component of the what could be described as our biological sphere find both a general resonance with that of the mind but, more importantly, can be used to understand the characteristics and dynamics of our specifically human world. As we proceed, it will be useful to keep in mind that ‘ethics = synergy (+ or -)’ and, will be viewed as “the ultimate expression and driver of our search for ‘harmony’ within our individual (institutional and societal) self and the ‘universe’”.
In turn, ‘ethics as synergy’ in our human world should provide us with the basis we need for examining the subject of Part II: ‘ethics in practice’, or more specifically, the development and growth of a more finely tuned ecology of mind and community where ethics will be viewed as the ‘art and science’ of living and growing together.
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To do so, we will describe the following characteristics of the world of living systems along with their implications for the world of ethical dynamics:
• Cognition, as mentioned at the beginning of Chapter 2, will be viewed not as a representation of an independently existing world as we have often been told, but rather a continual bringing forth of a world through the process of living;
• Living will be viewed as a network of production processes in which
the function of each component e.g., each individual, institution and eventually, every society, is to participate in the production or transformation of other components in the network, for the maintenance of what could be described as its own (structural) integrity as a living system, what will be viewed as ‘autopoiesis’ in the world of living systems;
• In the context of autopoiesis, living systems will be described as
interacting with one another and more generally with their environments via structural coupling; and
• Life in all its complexities and sophistication will be viewed as the
result of living in a world of ‘dissipative structures’ ourselves included, where we must “shift our perception from stability to instability, from order to disorder, from equilibrium to non-‐equilibrium, from being to becoming”37.
The synergy of the above characteristics – life forces -‐ and embedded dynamics should help us to understand, as mentioned above, the overall synergy of our human and social potentialities and, cognitive (social) structures and potentialities described until now. Specifically, we will venture to say at this point, and hopefully demonstrate, that ‘ethics’ as we have previously described are a vital component of the manifestation of this synergy in our human world.
Universe of Living Systems
37- - Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life, Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1996, p.180.
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Though each of the above characteristics exist only through its contribution and synergy with the others – as a system – as the above graphic purports to express, we will examine each one specifically at the outset and its relevance to the world of ethical dynamics. Subsequently, we will endeavor to see how as a whole they impact on ‘ethics’ in our human world.
Cognition
As Fritjof Capra describes in his book The Web of Life:
“In the emerging theory of living systems mind is not a thing, but a process. It is cognition, the process of knowing, and it is identified with the process of life itself.”38
And, as we mentioned at the outset of Chapter 2, from the The Web of Life:
“Cognition, then, is not a representation of an independently existing world, but rather a continual bringing forth of a world through the process of living. The interactions of a living system with its environment are cognitive interactions, and the process of living itself is a process of cognition. In the words of Maturana and Varela, 'To live is to know'.”39
This view of cognition as a ‘continual bringing forth of a world’, led us in Chapter 2 to a dynamic understanding of ethics as a cognitive phenomena i.e., as
38 - Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life, Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1996, p.264. 39 Idib, p. 267
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contributing to the growth of our other human and social cognitive potentialities, to our social (cognitive) structures, and to what we described in Chapter 1 as our core human potentialities and, those that will be described in Chapter 6, as our social potentialities. To the first questions that must be addressed -‐ how do we know and what do we know -‐ Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch, provide a useful point of departure for answering these questions at the beginning of their book The Embodied Mind:
“A phenomenologically inclined cognitive scientist reflecting on the origins of cognition might reason thus: Minds awaken in a world. We did not design our world. We simply found ourselves with it; we awoke both to ourselves and to the world we inhabit. We come to reflect on that world as we grow and live. We reflect on a world that is not made, but found, and yet it is also our structure that enables us to reflect upon this world. Thus in reflection we find ourselves in a circle: we are in a world that seems to be there before reflection begins, but that world is not separate from us.”40
And, they summarize later in the book:
“…. Cognition is not the representation of a pregiven world by a pregiven mind but is rather the enactment of a world and a mind on the basis of a history of the variety of actions that a being in the world performs.” 41
In the biological world where this theory of cognition originates (more on this later in discussing autopoiesis), cognition – the enactment of a specific world -‐ can also be viewed as the result of what could be described as evolutionary adaptation – creation -‐ where in the words of Maturana & Varela mentioned earlier:
“A cognitive system is a system whose organization defines a domain of interactions in which it can act with relevance to the maintenance of itself, and the process of cognition is the actual (inductive) acting or behaving in this domain.” 42
40- Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch, The Embodied Mind, MIT Press, Fifth Printing 1996, p.3. 41 Ibid, p.9 42- Maturana, H., and F. Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science [Cohen, Robert S., and Marx W. Wartofsky (eds.)], Vol. 42, Dordecht (Holland): D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1980, p.13.
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Since our relationships with the physical and social world – ‘the history of the variety of actions that we individually and collectively perform’ – are cognitive relationships, we can now see more clearly why ethical dynamics – as vital dimensions of these cognitive relationships -‐ have been described as: • Associated with the process of living – of maintaining and growing ‘who’
we are -‐;
• Driven and given a specific ‘human’ life by the forces associated with our overall human and social potentialities; and, importantly,
• Given ‘structure’ – a capacity for acting and growing -‐ by our human and social cognitive potentialities and their related social (cognitive) structures.
Issues
From the perspective of the ‘characteristics’ of cognition in the world of living systems e.g., as bringing forth a world, we could hypothesize as we have done in Chapters 1, 2 and 3, the following issues towards a world of more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics, in particular: • In the enactment of his/her world, is the ‘individual’ capable of acting e.g.,
in domains via institutions and their organizations, in a manner which brings a sense of congruency and growth to his/her core human potentialities e.g., to his/her sense of consciousness and conscious will (and, from the perspective of the individual’s social potentialities, grow his/her sense of ‘accountability’);
• Are landscape socio-‐political dynamics – of authority and power –
conducive to growing the self as an effective social individual and, hence growing a sense of personal identity; and,
• Are institutional and/or societal realities capable of creating a synergy of
‘world and mind’, or ‘reality and perception’, conducive to the forging of a life giving vision and sense of hope for the individual?
While an example may never completely succeed in capturing how such issues might be addressed or resolved, it might be useful as we proceed with the other characteristics of living systems to keep a possible one in mind.
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In this connection, one could view human experience as potentially interconnected and comparable to a finely 'tuned' jazz ensemble where as an example, both 'reason and intuition' or rational understanding and an intuitive sense of connectedness come together to provide for a living and growing human reality, where the product -‐ the music -‐ contributes to bring forth a world by contributing -‐ enriching -‐ other 'contributions' in the creation of a living human reality. Where, in the final analysis, the music also contributes to bring forth a world where jazz musicians may grow their ‘individual’ institutional (i.e., jazz ensemble) relationship commitments and qualities and their underlying contribution values (those related to the domain of jazz), and hence grow both their personal and individual (professional) identity.
Autopoiesis
From the above example, we can see that a jazz ensemble like other institutional contexts is in the world of circular – synergistic – relationships where one grows inasmuch as one contributes to i.e., is able to congruently shape his/her world, and, in turn, receives from a network of productive relationships. Where the goal is to grow the network of relationships – the jazz ensemble – as a condition to the growth of the individual. From the perspective of living systems, Capra describes such ‘circular’ and synergistic interactions in the context of the work of Maturana and Varela as 'autopoiesis':
"… the organization common to all living systems. It is a network of production processes, in which the function of each component is to participate in the production or transformation of other components in the network. In this way the entire network continually 'makes itself'. It is produced by its components and in turn produces those components. 'In a living system', the authors explain, 'the product of its operation is its own organization."43
And, since we live in the world of ‘social’ systems, Capra in his recent book The Hidden Connections in discussing the work of Niklas Luhmann makes these comments:
“…’Social systems use communication as their particular mode of autopoietic reproduction. Their elements are communications that are recursively produced and reproduced by a network of
43 Maturana and Varela REFERENCE P.98
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communications and that cannot exist outside of such a network.’ These networks of communication are self-‐generating. Each communication creates thoughts and meaning, which give rise to further communications, and thus the entire network generates itself – it is autopoietic. As communications recur in multiple feedback loops, they produce a shared system of beliefs, explanations, and values – a common context of meaning – that is continually sustained by further communications.” 44
From the perspective of the overall synergistic dynamics described until now, we can see that both individuals and institutions as living ‘social’ systems can be viewed as distinct components of broader living systems i.e., what we described as socio-‐political landscapes either in the case of an institutional organization or, more broadly, as a society. We can also see that these broader living systems are themselves components of networks of living systems, what is inferred in the following graphic by the ‘broken’ (open) circle. And, as described previously, each component – either in the case of an individual, an institution or society -‐ can be viewed as being animated by what we described as our core human potentialities e.g., consciousness and conscious will, which are in turn given form and relationship potential by our human and social cognitive potentialities – our abilities to bring forth a human world -‐. Also, from our description of the dynamics of socio-‐political landscapes, we can also conclude that the ability of the network – living system -‐ to being ‘produced by its components and in turn, to produce those components’, will be dependent on, or correlated to, what we described as the dynamics of authority and power i.e., the ability of the network to grow our human potentialities and, to give them the means for bringing about as an example, a more satisfying world. The following graphic endeavors to summarize these dynamics where: • The network of production processes is driven by the human and
social potentialities of its components via their cognitive (social) structures and potentialities;
• Each component in the network – individuals, institutions &
(ultimately) societies -‐ as socio-‐political structures, participates in the production of the network and, of each of the other components via the landscape’s socio-‐political dynamics;
44- Fritjof Capra, The Hidden Connections, Doubleday, 2002, p.83.
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• The components, and the ‘circle’ itself as a living system, are in a mutually dependent network of broader production processes (the broken circle); and,
• The components participate in the overall universe of living systems via their participation in their ‘living system’.
In a ‘living’ world characterized by autopoiesis, we could say that understanding ethics as the expression of individual, institutional or societal relationship commitments and qualities is understanding: • How they affect the ability of the network of individual, institutional and
societal relationships to 'make itself', more specifically in the context of human communities, to grow in their ability to afford ever more sophisticated forms of human expression and to contribute to human ‘happiness’; and,
• How they -‐ the network’s myriad relationship commitments and qualities -‐ provide for the growth of each of the network’s components e.g., individuals, institutions, or societies.
From a business perspective, we could ask: how do ethics as a whole – relationship commitments and qualities included -‐ contribute to the creation of the network’s entrepreneurial energy, and to the professional and financial growth of its actors?
Issues
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Coming back to our goal of creating the possibility for more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics, we can see – as mentioned above and from the description of the dynamics of socio-‐political landscapes in Chapter 3 -‐ that the ability of ‘the components and the network’ to make themselves and to grow (autopoiesis) will be dependent on the nature and characteristics of the synergy between ethics and the reality and dynamics of authority and power as described in the following graphic. In effect, some of the resultant ethical issues to be addressed could be stated as follows: • Overall, does the synergy between ethics and authority and power foster
the growth of the socio-‐political landscape as a living system along with the growth of its components via the growth of their human and social potentialities (more on social potentialities per se in Part II);
• More specifically, how are the landscape’s ethics, especially the myriad relationship commitments and qualities of its actors affected by the landscape’s authority and power reality and dynamics e.g., can they be open, shared and responsible; and,
• Does the synergy of ethics and authority and power open up the landscape to effectively participating on other landscapes?
While the results of the synergy of ethics and authority and power provide for the most visible drivers of autopoiesis, ones with which we are all familiar in the context of our families or our workplaces e.g., to what extent am I allowed to enact my own sense of ethics on the job – my own ethical principles and norms -‐, we are also aware that other phenomena are shaping our abilities to grow as individuals (and similarly for institutions and societies) in interactions with
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other individuals on a particular landscape and indeed, also serve to give shape – substance to -‐ what we described as the synergy of ethics and authority and power while at the same time growing our human and social potentialities. Taking once again the example of a jazz ensemble, we can also see that jazz musicians in interaction with other jazz musicians – what will be described below as structural coupling – are able to grow their musical ‘domains‘ i.e., their structure -‐ cognitive dimensions and their relationships -‐ in the context of a jazz ensemble i.e., their institutional and organizational landscape. While describing briefly the phenomena of ‘structural coupling’ from a living systems perspective, the following will endeavor to describe how it might apply to the understanding of ethical dynamics.
Structural Coupling
Looking back to our description of cognition as the ‘continual bringing forth of a world through the process of living’, and of autopoiesis ‘as a network of production processes in which the function of each component is to participate in the production or transformation of itself and other components’, we will now examine in more detail the contribution of ‘structural coupling’ as a characteristic of living systems in bringing forth a synergistic world i.e., the one described briefly at the outset of Chapter 4. In the following, ‘structure’ in our ‘human world’ will refer to our human potentialities and, to our social potentialities as described in Part II (those potentialities which give a specific direction and substance to our relationships – a set of social qualities –) along with our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities, as applicable to an individual, institution or society as a living social system. More so, structure will be viewed as giving them the capacity for engagement – structural coupling -‐ in a network of relationships.
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Specifically, ‘structural coupling’ will refer to the dynamics – the characteristics of the ‘living and growing’ relationship dynamics – between two living systems e.g., between individuals, individuals and institutions, and between institutions themselves and with society at large. For a broad look at the embedded dynamics involved, we will turn once again to Fritjof Capra for a description of these interactions from a living systems perspective:
"A living system is a multiply interconnected network whose components are constantly changing, being transformed and replaced by other components. There is great fluidity and flexibility in this network, which allows the system to respond to disturbances, or 'stimuli', from the environment in a very special way. Certain disturbances trigger specific structural changes -‐ in other words, changes in the connectivity throughout the network. This is a distributive phenomenon. The entire network responds to a selected disturbance by rearranging its patterns of connectivity".45
In this way, each living system be it a specific individual or a human social system e.g., an institution with its organization, as with the case of synaptic connections in the brain, builds up its own distinctive world according to its own distinctive structure or, as Capra mentions above, its own “multiply interconnected network whose components” or, what could be described as our multiply interconnected network of our overall human and social potentialities. As Varela and then Fritjof Capra put it:
"'Mind and world arise together'. However, through mutual structural coupling, individual living systems are part of each other's worlds. ... There is an ecology of worlds brought forth by mutually coherent acts of cognition. ... From the perspective of the Santiago theory, intelligence is manifest in the richness and flexibility of an organism's structural coupling."46
45-Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life, A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems, Anchor Books, 1996, p.268. 46 -idem, p.269
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And though a living system e.g., an individual, "does not react to environmental stimuli through a linear chain of cause and effect, but responds with structural changes in its nonlinear, organizationally closed, autopoietic network"47, its resultant structure importantly embodies the results of its structural coupling with changes in its structure e.g., its core human potentialities such as consciousness and sense of self, aimed at a new autopoiesis of 'system and environment', or a capacity to maintain and grow itself. In summary, the individual as a social living system (or an institution for that matter) is dependent for his/her human autopoiesis and the realization of his/her human and social potentialities on its ability to engage as an example, in socially instituted domains, and to participate through structural coupling in their ongoing actualization and transformation for the maintenance and continuation of an evolving social sphere. The latter, obviously, being essential to the maintenance and growth of the individual.
How does structural coupling work?
To describe structural coupling, we will examine briefly its three core dimensions: from the perspective of social landscape dynamics, especially those associated with ethical dynamics.
‘Pattern’
On a social landscape, tensions – energies -‐ underlying the synergy (whatever its quality) of authority and power and ethics and its ongoing resolution or, more precisely, ‘working out’, bring about a specific intentionality or aboutness to a landscape component as a living system. From an ethical dynamics perspective, we could say as an example, an emergent ‘ethic’ of fairness, equity, and competitiveness or, more generally, an ethical structure (or ethical aspirations), aimed at the enactment of a specific world or set of complementary realities.
47 -idem, p.269.
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In effect, such an ethic or ethical structure bringing with it as an example a ‘contextual’ vision and sense of hope along with a specific organization – pattern -‐ to the living system’s core structure and, we could add, a specific identity e.g., in the case of an individual we could say a landscape relevant identity – a recognized capacity for engaging with other components -‐; in summary, an ethic or ethical structure provides a specific organization pattern to our human and social potentialities, one that is amenable or conducive to engaging with other relevant living systems.
‘Structure’
As mentioned above, socially driven living systems’ i.e., individuals, institutions and societies, go about enacting their world via their structure. Indeed, their structure gives them an articulated capacity for engaging – structural coupling -‐ in a network of relationships aimed at the maintenance of the living system itself e.g., the individual, and the development of the conditions for its growth via relevant socio-‐political landscape characteristics, or the ability to effectively ‘couple’ with other individuals. The ultimate goal of structural coupling being for the individual the enactment of relevant changes to his/her overall ‘human and social potentialities’ – structure -‐, those that will, from a core human potentialities perspective, grow as examples, his/her sense of vision and hope and, from a cognitive perspective more appropriate ethics or ideologies. And, from a socio-‐political landscape perspective, provide the individual with the authority and power needed to compete effectively towards such goals. In the context of ethical dynamics, structural changes give rise to -‐ and are the result of -‐ evolving individual, institutional, and societal ethical principles and norms.
‘Process’
The other aspect to structural coupling -‐ process -‐ focuses on the nature and characteristics – qualities -‐ of ‘learning and doing’ in a network of cognitive – bringing about the world -‐ relationships. And, from an ethical perspective, is driven and given life by the landscape’s (ethical) relationship commitments and qualities – those that tap into and bring to life the living system’s emotional and cognitive energies on an ongoing basis -‐. As examples, process could be viewed as in the world of our specific 1) relationship commitments – those that give meaning to our daily activities and
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from which we glean our ongoing ethical learnings about the world e.g., what I did turned out ‘good or bad’ – it contributed to my ethic (or ethical structure) as an individual e.g., of justice, and 2) relationship qualities e.g., compassion, honesty and loyalty (or greed, lust and vengeance), that bring to structural coupling its emotional coloring i.e., the feelings associated with what we do and that give us clues as to their appropriateness – those most susceptible to spark, sustain and shape structural coupling for any of the actors involved. The following graphic could summarize structural coupling – pattern, structure, process – and a dynamic view of ethics. In a social context, a component e.g., an individual, institution or, more broadly, a society -‐ as a living system is always in interaction or structural coupling with another living system e.g., musicians in a jazz ensemble, where the object of structural coupling is foremost the creation (or bringing about) of a living reality – in this case a jazz ensemble as a living system –. With the result that structural changes in each of the components – jazz musicians – are mediated – driven – by their relationships – ‘ethical’ contributions – to the jazz ensemble (as an institution / organization). (On a broader scale, we could say that the jazz ensemble as an institution is a component of a larger living system – society -‐, where the mediation of its contribution (matters of pattern, structure and process) takes place via other societal institutions e.g., music schools or the media, via its structural coupling with these and other institutions.)
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In the context of a jazz ensemble, we could say that structural changes in each of the components as a living system are the result of their: • Synergistic relationship – structural coupling -‐ with the jazz
ensemble – the institution and its organization (its other components) – and the jazz ensemble structural changes e.g., its ability to create more sophisticated music via a new sense of vision as one of its core human potentialities;
• Evolving relationship commitments vis-‐à-‐vis the jazz ensemble
and the ability of these commitments to grow their domain contributions as musicians;
• Relationship qualities – individual / institution and organization -‐
and their ability to bring about e.g., creative ‘emotional’ energies, those that will create a synergy between musicians and, ultimately, give the jazz ensemble its energy for engaging with other institutions; and
• More generally, the components evolving ethical aspirations and
associated ethical principles and norms. With this in mind, we would now have the following graphic where two components by participating via the ethical dimensions underpinning structural coupling to the ‘structural changes’ of the jazz ensemble as an example: • To its ethos, aesthetics, ethics, and knowledge, as institutional
cognitive potentialities, • Are in turn < -‐-‐ > transformed, • One, in their contribution domain as musicians e.g., in their
stories, sense of beauty, (contribution) values and theories and, • Two, in their core human potentialities e.g., consciousness,
conscious will, sense of self… and vision and hope.
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From the perspective of musicians as individuals on a broader societal landscape, we can also see that the results of structural coupling in this context will also affect them more broadly e.g., in their own ethos, aesthetics, ethics, and knowledge, as ‘individual’ cognitive potentialities.
Issues
In line with the goal of creating more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics, issues will therefore stem from the ability of structural coupling to grow: • The overall human and social potentialities of each of the components as
living systems -‐ in themselves – and,
• In the capacity of each of the components i.e., individuals, institutions and society, to grow the overall human and social potentialities of the other components.
From the perspective of ethical relationships, core issues could be stated more specifically as follows: • To what extent are the prevailing individual, institutional or societal
relationship commitments and qualities – those that can be seen and felt and that are at the same time conducive to the creation of ‘process’ in their structural coupling – the result of shared relationship commitments and qualities or, from another perspective, shared beliefs (for the self, as an example), and shared domain contribution values among its actors i.e., overall, do they have the potential for creating or reflecting a shared
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ethical structure and related principles and norms -‐ a shared ethical congruency -‐;
• Are the ethical principles and norms as an example, that I bring to
structural coupling as an individual via my domain contributions, conducive to growing the institution’s overall human and social potentialities – its structure – i.e., make it more capable of dealing with its challenges on its institutional landscape, in other words, do my ethics have the potential for being responsible; and,
• Are the results of the institution’s structural coupling on its landscape as
an example, conducive to growing the landscape’s ethical structure, in effect a more effective sense of aboutness or intentionality, one capable of growing in the best of cases, society’s human potentialities such as its vision and sense of hope and, from a cognitive perspective, its ethics, ideologies and knowledge; and, as we will see in Part II, those social potentialities related to belonging and contribution as examples; in effect capable of creating the context for the growth of its actors?
In summary, structural coupling is where pattern, structure, and process as we have described come together to drive individual, institutional, and societal changes and their evolution through the creation of networks of relationships. And, while we mentioned above that “... From the perspective of the Santiago theory, intelligence is manifest in the richness and flexibility of an organism's structural coupling", we would now add that such richness and flexibility is the result of the evolving sophistication of our ethical dynamics in creating an effective structural synergy among the components of a living system. Nonetheless, while structural coupling gives us a way of understanding our evolving world, our selves and our institutions included, another concept is needed to explain how our world changes -‐ moving from what appears to be stability to instability and then to what appears to be new forms of stability -‐. To do so, we will explore as we mentioned at the beginning of Chapter 4 Prigogine's concept of dissipative structures, once again in the context of ethical dynamics.
Dissipative Structures
As living beings (living structures), we are all aware from a biological or, more simply, a physical perspective, that living is very much a process of energy dissipation i.e., we take in energy from our environment and, through the process of living, dissipate energy usually in the form of heat. As Capra points
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out in The Web of Life in describing the work of Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Laureate and professor of physical chemistry, such dissipation of energy while usually associated with waste is, surprisingly, a source of the creation of order:
“In classical thermodynamics the dissipation of energy in heat transfer, friction, and the like was always associated with waste. Prigogine’s concept of dissipative structure introduced a radical change in this view by showing that in open systems dissipation becomes a source of order.”48
As a point of departure for understanding this phenomena from the perspective of ethical dynamics, we could say that in creating and maintaining our living structure i.e., as individuals, institutions or societies, that we exist inasmuch as we are capable of receiving, transforming and dissipating energy e.g., food appropriate to our metabolism – for our physical integrity – and, we would add, from a social perspective, inasmuch as we are capable of receiving and transforming the psychic and emotional energies embedded in those social interactions capable of nourishing or giving life to what we described as our core human potentialities -‐ our core embedded forces – e.g., those associated with consciousness and conscious will, and those of our social potentialities e.g., for a sense of ‘destiny’. Also, as we often realize, each moment of our existence (as a dissipative structure) is made up of competing forces, some biological others more in the world of the mind and of our emotions, each pulling us in one or another direction, our efforts for calm and stability notwithstanding. Indeed, one could argue that meditation in the world of Buddhism aims to enact a ‘perfect’ harmony with these forces of dissipation and, that its concept of ‘emptiness’ – living in a world of cause and effect or ‘open systems’ –, is really about living in a world of dissipative structures where stability in state or meaning is always fleeting, what will be described below as ‘nonequilibrium’. To live is therefore to be a component of a network of dissipative structures both physically where in Capra’s words “a living organism is characterized by continual flows and change in its metabolism, involving thousands of reactions”49 and, we would add, socially, where our core socio-‐political structures i.e., as individuals, institutions and societies, as living systems are especially susceptible to receiving and giving in their networks of living social structures i.e., open to change and transformation.
48 Capra The Web of Life, P.89 49 CAPRA P.181
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Capra describes this process of openness and change for physical structures as follows:
“According to Prigogine’s theory, dissipative structures not only maintain themselves in a stable state far from equilibrium, but may even evolve. When the flow of energy and matter through them increases, they may go through new instabilities and transform themselves into new structures of increased complexity.” 50
And, he goes on to emphasize in his later book, The Hidden Connections:
“This spontaneous emergence of order at critical points of instability is one of the most important concepts of the new understanding of life. It is technically known as self-‐organization and is often referred to simply as ‘emergence’. It has been recognized as the dynamic origin of development, learning, and evolution. In other words, creativity – the generation of new forms – is a key property of all living systems.”51
While this view serves well to describe changes that have taken place over history in the biological world e.g., the spontaneous emergence of order that has brought about the planet’s many species, we would venture to say that similar processes have served to shape our core social structures as living social systems as well, sometimes in spectacular fashion at critical points in human history e.g., the appearance of the ‘individual’ as an effective and autonomous ‘political’ actor with the introduction of democratic forms of government and, after both World Wars, we saw the emergence of ever more sophisticated international institutions as in the case of the United Nations in 1945. In this sense, our core socio-‐political structures can be viewed as having been the result of flows of ‘cognitive’ energy52 – human and social –, energies that are susceptible to being ‘metabolized’ by our core socio-‐political structures e.g., individuals, via what we have described as socio-‐political dynamics – those related to ethics in particular -‐, and susceptible to self-‐organization or to the creation – emergence -‐ of an evolving human world or, a world of ‘human’ realities. From this perspective, an individual (as well as for an institution and society as a whole) as a socio-‐political structure and living system is dependent on social ‘cognitive’ interactions for the existence and growth of his/her core human and 50 CAPRA, p. 89 51- Fritjof Capra, The Hidden Connections, Doubleday, 2002, p.14 52 - Those associated with our overall cognitive potentialities as described in Chapter 2.
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social potentialities e.g., sense of self and personal identity and, ultimately, as a socio-‐political structure exists only in synergy – nonequilibrium -‐ with other socio-‐political structures / living systems where, as an example, changes or growth in his/her core human and social potentialities will be related to the nature and characteristics of the individual’s social ‘cognitive’ interactions i.e., with other individuals, institutions and society as a whole. Capra in The Web of Life, referring to the work of Prigogine once again, describes it as follows for the molecular world:
“Prigogine emphasizes that the characteristics of a dissipative structure cannot be derived from the properties of its parts but are consequences of ‘supramolecular organization.’ Long-‐range correlations appear at the precise point of transition from equilibrium to nonequilibrium, and from that point on the system behaves as a whole.”53
And,
“While dissipative structures receive their energy from the outside, the instabilities and jumps to new forms of organization are the result of fluctuations amplified by positive feedback loops.”54 (p. 89)
Coming back to our example of musicians in a jazz ensemble, jazz musicians like basketball players on a basketball court are in a constant process of energy exchange via what we have described as their domain ‘cognitive’ contributions e.g., their stories, sense of beauty and, in the context of ethics, their contribution values and, as the embodiment of a ‘self’, with its specific cognitive energies, sense of empathy, uniqueness and beliefs as examples. In both cases, jazz musicians and basketball players are – in a continuous process of ‘positive feedback loops’ -‐ receiving and giving ‘psychic and emotional’ – cognitive -‐ energies that can be metabolized by the individuals as jazz musicians or basketball players and, ultimately, by the jazz ensemble or basketball team as a whole (as institutions with their organizations). With the result that jazz musicians and the jazz ensemble that they bring to life may grow in complexity and sophistication e.g., a more satisfying ethos, a more pregnant sense of aesthetics and, ethics that may enhance their authority and power on their broader social landscapes. In turn, jazz musicians and the jazz ensemble growing via the growth of their human and social cognitive potentialities (as individuals and as an institution) 53 . Capra in The Web of Life, P181 54 . Capra in The Web of Life, P 89
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what we have described as their human potentialities i.e., consciousness and conscious will, sense of self and personal identity and, vision and hope (and social potentialities). In effect, these forces both in the case of the individual, the institution or society, compelling them to ‘grow or die’. In summary, as ‘individuals, institutions and societies’ the energies associated with our human and social potentialities are ‘metabolized’ by our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities via our socio-‐political – ethical – dynamics to create an ‘emerging’ order: new social realities. Indeed, it is the synergy of ‘human and social forces and cognitive energies’ (the horizontal axis)– always unstable, in nonequilibrium – that constitutes the essence of what we have described as the source or potential for order, creativity and change for a socio-‐political structure / living system e.g., an individual, in his / her participation – enactment -‐ in other socio-‐political structures e.g., an institutional organization. While ethics in the above graphic are at the centre of this necessary synergy (in effect expressing the resolution + or – of the state of nonequilibrium -‐ of becoming) between core socio-‐political structures i.e., the individual, institution and society, and their related socio-‐political landscapes, one must be quick to point out that:
• The other ‘individual / institutional / societal cognitive potentialities e.g., those related to their symbolic universe, aesthetics, ideology or knowledge; and,
• Human potentialities e.g., vision and hope and, social potentialities e.g., contribution and accountability;
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• All participate, as mentioned above, in creating a dynamic synergy between socio-‐political structures (e.g., an institution) and their socio-‐political landscape).
Issues
“In living systems the order arising from nonequilibrium is far more evident, being manifest in the richness, diversity, and beauty of life all around us. Throughout the living world chaos is transformed into order." (Capra, p. 190)55
Towards the goal of participating more fully in the potential of life – human life in particular -‐ for ‘richness, diversity, and beauty’, as Capra mentions in the Web of Life, and, what could also be viewed as the goal for more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics, issues will stem from:
“The capacity of core socio-‐political structures i.e., individuals, institutions and societies via their cognitive (social) structures and potentialities -‐ their domain contributions in particular, and their landscape socio-‐political dynamics, in effect their ethics, to grow – be in synergy with -‐ what makes us ‘human’ i.e., our core human and social potentialities via the creation of ‘new order’ – new and more ‘humanly’ pregnant social realities.”56
More specifically, ethical issues would focus on: • As individuals, institutions or societies, to what extent are our (or
prevailing) socio-‐political dynamics -‐ ethics – e.g., relationship commitments and qualities, conducive to growing our domain contributions towards the creation of relevant social realities, what will be described in Part II as social qualities and social goods; or,
• Do ethical dynamics create a sense of alienation for individuals or
societies as a whole e.g., what we often find to be the case with aboriginals vis-‐à-‐vis the ethics driving our contemporary world, or a world of social realities incapable of growing their human and social potentialities?
In summary, in the world of dissipative structures and ethical dynamics, it is the ‘open’ synergy of our ‘human and social’ forces and of our cognitive (social)
55 Capra reference p.190 56 reference
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structures and potentialities (the horizontal axis) with those forces -‐ of authority and power / ethics -‐ driving the vertical axis of our socio-‐political structures and social realities, as a whole ‘always unstable, in nonequilibrium’, that constitutes what we have described as the source or potential for order, creativity and change – the essence for human life -‐. From what we have described as the contribution of living systems theory to the understanding of ethical dynamics, Capra in The Web of Life provides a useful summary that will serve as a backdrop for Part II: Ethics in Practice: an ‘ethical’ strategy for an ecology of mind and community.
"Based on the understanding of ecosystems as autopoietic networks and dissipative structures, we can formulate a set of principles of organization that may be identified as the basic principles of ecology and use them as guidelines to build sustainable human communities. …The first of those principles is interdependence. All members of an ecological community are interconnected in a vast and intricate network of relationships, the web of life. They derive their essential properties and, in fact, their very existence from their relationships to other things. Interdependence -‐ the mutual dependence of all life processes on one another -‐ is the nature of all ecological relationships. The behavior of all the living members of the ecosystem depend on the behavior of many others. The success of the whole community depends on the success of its individual members, while the success of each member depends on the success of the community as a whole. ... A sustainable human community is aware of the multiple relationships among its members. Nourishing the community means nourishing those relationships."57
57. Capra The Web of Life, p.298
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Part I: Ethics and our Human Potentialities and Social Structures
Summary
Before proceeding to Part II and for ease of reference, the following graphic aims to summarize the core elements and dynamics that have been described in Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4. In the graphic, we can see that the core elements – those in the middle circles -‐ are in synergy with the other via what we described as ethical dynamics, those dynamics – and their embedded realities: ethical aspirations or core values, principles and norms, and relationship commitments and qualities -‐, that serve to mediate and express the landscape’s socio-‐political dynamics or the realities of authority and power. And, finally, as with all other forms of biological life on the planet, the system – our human reality as a whole -‐ is driven by the dynamic qualities of living systems.
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Part II: Ethics in Practice: Towards an ecology of mind and community
In Part II, we will be brought to conclude that what we described as our socio-‐political instincts, those that led to the articulation of increasingly sophisticated ethical frameworks (with their ups and downs), ultimately aim to bring about an increasing ecology of mind and community where our human and, what we will describe more specifically in Part II as our ‘social potentialities or forces’, as individuals, institutions and society, are increasingly in synergy with our social realities via our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities. Overall, it will aim to give us the wherewithal for ‘growing – more consciously -‐ an ecology of mind and community’, one that seeks as an example, to create an evolving and constructive synergy between the world of our mind i.e., that of our human and social potentialities, and overall cognitive potentialities, with those of our core socio-‐political structures – those giving life to our ‘community’ via their domains of contribution – and their resultant social realities. Indeed, we will argue that an ecology of mind and community is the fundamental ethical aspiration at the core of all our human ethical frameworks; hence the need to give us all an opportunity to participate in its development via more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics. As a first step, Chapter 5 in Part II will seek to bring ethics into our social world by describing how ethics and ethical dynamics do not ‘stand alone’ but rather are embedded in – give life to – and, are in a synergistic relationship with our core social functions, what will be described as ‘stewardship, governance, and management’; more so, we will seek to point out that ethics ‘live’ through these core social functions, and, that to understand and transform ethical dynamics we must also understand and transform the nature and characteristics of these core social functions. To describe this connection between ethics and social functions, we will refer to some of the characteristics of living systems that we described in Chapter 4, namely the dynamics of ‘structural coupling’ where ‘pattern, structure, process’, will now be associated with our core social functions – stewardship, governance and management -‐. Finally, we will see that if we are to move towards more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics, that each of the three social functions must increasingly be driven by an ‘open’ synergy of their ethical dimensions, one involving us all.
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The overall thrust of the next three chapters – 6, 7, and 8 -‐ will aim to give us the wherewithal for bringing about ‘increasingly’ an ecology of mind and community’ via what we will describe as our social qualities, social goods and related socio-‐political energies. In Chapter 6, we will see that, as in the case of our core human potentialities or forces, we are also driven ‘ethically’ by what will be described as a combination of our ‘social potentialities or forces’, those which give a specific direction and substance to our relationships – a set of social qualities – via their enactment in what will be described as our core institutional dimensions. In doing so, resultant social qualities will be viewed as the specific social energy underpinning individual, institutional and societal mediation of domain contributions. Chapter 7 will examine the nature of social goods, their embedded characteristics and, the challenges to creating a relevant synergy between ethics and the world of our ‘social qualities – social goods’, for individuals, institutions and society (and, we could also say, for the world as a whole); and, describe how social qualities and social goods provide on one hand the substance of ethics – what ethics aim to achieve – and on the other hand, the springboard – the necessary realities – for the enactment of ever more sophisticated ethical manifestations. Chapter 8 will focus on harnessing our socio-‐political energies towards more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics as they apply to an individual, institution or society, broadly their ability to bring about those realities – social qualities and social goods -‐ that will grow their human potentialities say, for individuals, their degree of consciousness, personal identity and sense of hope and, their social potentialities e.g., for contribution. Specifically, this chapter will address the conditions for an ecology of social qualities and social goods, the nature and characteristics of socio-‐political energies leading to an ecology of mind and community and, how we can mediate / negotiate – create a synergy between -‐ our need for growth with the need for growth of others or, create strategies for more open, shared and responsible ethical energies. In summary, in the next three chapters, we will describe how an ecology of mind and community is in the final analysis predicated on an ecology of social qualities and social goods, and related socio-‐political energies and, that such an ecology is in turn predicated on the growth of our human potentialities and social potentialities via our individual, institutional or societal domain contributions.
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Chapter 5: Growing an Ecology of Mind and Community
Ethics and ‘Stewardship, Governance and Management’
Towards the development of a comprehensive – in effect, more realistic -‐ analytical and transformational model for the world of ethics, one capable of helping us bring about a broadly based ecology of mind and community for us all, we will now examine how ethics as the manifestation of our ‘living’ socio-‐political instinct for survival and growth, make an essential contribution to – more so, bring about and are embodied in -‐ our three core social (relationship) functions, namely, as referred to above: stewardship, governance, and management. In summary, our social functions are:
• In a synergistic relationship – the arrows in the following graphic;
• Are ‘nourished’ by their landscape dynamics and realities; and,
• Exist to transform landscape dynamics and realities. For the purpose of describing and understanding the synergistic nature of the contribution of ethics to our social functions, we will first make the following associations on the basis of our three ethical dimensions, namely: ‘relationship commitments and qualities, ethical principles and norms, and ethical structure’ -‐ our hierarchy of core values or ethical aspirations -‐, as our starting point. For this purpose,
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• ‘Relationship commitments and qualities’ will be viewed as in the world of management, basically a world of relationships – relationship commitments and relationship qualities – those giving life and direction to our results-‐oriented relationship – management -‐ processes, all of what we do;
• ‘Ethical principles and norms’ will focus on the world of governance, a
world of policies and practices, those capable of providing meaning and broader connections to our relationship commitments and qualities by giving them the potential for bringing about the object of our ethical structure -‐; and,
• ‘Ethical structure’ – the world of our core values or ethical aspirations -‐
will be seen as being in the world of stewardship, a world focused on bringing about as an example, an ethic e.g., justice, equity, and competitiveness, generally in the context of a specific ethical structure, in our individual, institutional and societal pursuits.
Simply put, ethics are at the centre of our social functions. And, since we have emphasized previously that ethics (in their three dimensions) are the express ion of the resolution of, and conduit for, authority and power dynamics in a social milieu, it will be useful at the outset to examine the connection between such dynamics on one hand and, ethics and our core social functions on the other.
Ethics - stewardship, governance and management – and, the world of authority and power
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From the perspective of the definitions provided previously for the dynamics of authority and power in a socio-‐political context, in effect those underlying socio-‐political dynamics, we could say in summary that:
Stewardship is in the world of ‘authority’ – what inspires and pulls us towards the creation of a world more reflective of the ethical aspirations that we hope to achieve -, management is in the world of the power – those actual behaviors (relationship commitments and qualities) required to bring about these aspirations -, while governance is constituted of those policies and practices (or principles and norms) capable of creating an institution or landscape relevant synergy between the two i.e., between authority and power.
As examples, in an institutional context (we could say the same for the individual and for society as whole), authority and power dynamics in their ongoing and evolving manifestations give rise to what could be described as its ‘governance’ framework – its myriad set of policies and practices, both formal and informal, that provide for the resolution of authority and power issues (large and small) that the institution has to deal with in the production of its products and services – more broadly, in bringing about its institutional realities – and that embody, importantly, its ethical aspirations. And, we could also say looking at the situation from the perspective of institutional policies and practices, and their embedded authority and power reality, that such policies and practices i.e., the institution’s governance framework (formal or otherwise), are also the result of the institution’s ethical principles and norms and the many relationship commitments and qualities bringing them to life in the institution. In effect, from the perspective of what will be proposed later, institutional policies and practices, ethical principles and norms and, authority and power dynamics are in a synergistic relationship. As an example, the institution’s authority and power reality not only giving shape to institutional ethics (as we mentioned previously) but, importantly, institutional ethics – via their embodiment in institutional policies and practices -‐, provide for the growth and sophistication of the institution’s authority and power reality. The following graphic seeks to summarize these dynamics.
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In the case of the model summarizing the dynamics described in Chapter 3 and reproduced below for ease of reference, ethical issues related to our social functions could be stated as those flowing from the following questions:
! Are individual and institutional (we could also say societal) authority and power dynamics (or, socio-‐political dynamics) – the top portion of the graphic -‐ conducive to ethical principles and norms and related governance policies and practices, more generally, ‘ethical dynamics’ -‐ the centre of the graphic -‐, which are capable of growing via ‘institutional’ products and services or, more broadly, their landscape realities – the bottom portion of the graphic -‐, our core human and social potentialities and, our overall human and social cognitive potentialities e.g., for the individuals and the institutions involved?
! Are ethical principles and norms capable of growing via their
embodiment in institutional policies and practices (governance), institutional authority (stewardship), and power (management) via the growth of our human and social potentialities and those related to our overall cognitive potentialities?
As further examples from the perspective of relationship commitments and qualities, and management, we could ask: Do our management processes with our partners e.g., the quality of our meetings, communications, and partnerships bring about a stronger capacity for enhancing the ‘ethical qualities’ of our products and services – those related to stewardship? In summary, each ethical dimension and associated core social function can be seen as in a synergistic relationship with the other, as further examples:
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• ‘Ethical aspirations’ can be viewed as impacting on ethical principles and
norms on the basis of the ethical qualities (or the core values) of the reality to be enacted – stewardship -‐ and, ethical principles and norms – governance policies and practices -‐ impact on relationship commitments and qualities – management -‐ on the basis of identifying those most suited to the achievement of overall ethical aspirations, the ones associated with stewardship, and
• Since synergy implies a ‘two way’ interaction or contribution,
• We can see that embedded in our relationship commitments and qualities
(those giving life and direction to our management processes) are the ‘seeds’ for our growing core human potentialities e.g., our own specific and growing vision and sense of hope, those characteristics that are capable of giving enhanced meaning to our relationship commitments and qualities thereby enriching ethical principles and norms (governance policies and practices) and making them more capable of bringing about a new and possibly more sophisticated meaning to our ethical aspirations i.e., a more universal understanding of ‘justice’ (stewardship).
Simply put, the synergistic dynamics and qualities between the three ethical dimensions and of our core social functions -‐ via their enactment in a social context -‐ determine the effectiveness of each one, and their ultimate impact on our core individual, institutional and societal potentialities e.g., for consciousness, conscious will....
Stewardship, governance and management and living systems’ dynamics
Now, from the perspective of living systems’ dynamics presented in Chapter 4, the above synergy becomes more evident in the context of autopoiesis where living systems – structures – exist inasmuch as they are components of a network of production processes where each component participates in the production or transformation of itself and other components via ‘structural coupling’. More specifically, we can see that in the case of our social functions and their attendant ethical dimensions: • Stewardship, and its focus on the institution’s ethical structure or ethical
aspirations, can be seen in structural coupling as expressing matters of
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pattern -‐ what is to be achieved i.e., the object(s) of our ethical aspirations – giving context to the other two social functions and being ‘validated and enriched’ by the results of these other functions -‐;
• Governance and its focus on ethical principles and norms via its policies
and practices, can be seen as giving effect to the object(s) of our ethical aspirations via ‘structural’ changes in our individual, institutional and societal ‘human and social’ potentialities58 along with ‘structural changes’ to our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities59 and, of validating (or not) the object(s) of our ethical aspirations on the basis of its (their) ability to grow such ‘human and social potentialities’; and,
• Management and its focus on learning and doing – process -‐ is driven and
given life by the landscape’s (i.e., individual, institutional and societal) relationship commitments and qualities – those that tap into and bring to life the living system’s emotional and cognitive energies on an ongoing basis -‐. It is both driven by our (or, as an example, the institution’s) ethical aspirations and ethical principles and norms and in turn provides them with ethical learnings about the world e.g., what I did contributed to my ethical aspirations as an individual e.g., for justice, and to feelings as to their appropriateness – those most susceptible to grow my ethical aspirations or my stewardship competence -‐ and, similarly, regarding the ability of my ethical principles and norms to grow my ‘human and social potentialities’.
From a visual perspective, such synergistic dynamics could be expressed and summarized as in the following graphic, keeping in mind that the arrows go both ways, sometimes the emphasis being put on stewardship e.g., where the arrows point downwards, sometimes on governance and management but always with the realization that each function and its related ethical dimension exists only in its contribution to the others and to the whole. More so, we could emphasize that stewardship and governance exist inasmuch as they are useful to, and ‘nourished’ by, their landscapes via management: our learning and doing; in effect, reflecting – as we described above -‐ that we are in the world of living systems.
58 - As examples, changes to our vision and sense of hope as individuals or, to our sense of accountability and destiny as institutions or societies (as social potentialities as we will see later). 59 - As examples, changes to our domain theories, and to institutional or societal knowledge.
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In the context of the above graphic, we can now see that while ethics was described as at the centre of the transformation and growth of our core human and social potentialities as individuals, institutions and societies (our core socio-‐political structures) via what we described as our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities in bringing about our individual, institutional and societal realities, that ethics are enacted in – give life to – our three core social functions. In connection with our goal of moving towards more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics, we can now see that ethical issues in this context will be driven by the degree to which each of the three social functions is driven by an ‘open’ synergy of their ethical dimensions. Stewardship in this context must aim to embody an ethical structure that: • Promotes the growth of our structure – what we can describe broadly as
our human and social potentialities – via individual, institutional and societal, congruent ethical aspirations, those capable of bringing about effective relationships commitments and qualities i.e., those capable of growing our learning and doing in the enactment of our world and,
• Is open to change i.e., to reflect our ‘learning and doing’ – management -‐
processes, and their contribution to the growth of our human and social potentialities e.g., a more sophisticated consciousness and vision and, from a cognitive perspective, a more empowering societal ideology (and, as we will see later, in the context of our core social potentialities, we could add, our capacity for contribution and accountability).
Governance in its expression of our ethical principles and norms must be capable e.g., via its policies and practices, of: • Transforming our structure – our capabilities -‐ be it in the case of an
individual, institution or society towards the achievement of our ethical aspirations and their associated realities and, of giving direction and meaning to our relationship commitments and qualities and,
• Growing our structure – our human and social potentialities – in line with
the learnings of our relationship commitments and qualities – those giving life to our management processes -‐ and, of giving effect to our ethical aspirations and their realities -‐.
Management as constituting the processes giving social – interactive -‐ capacity to our relationship commitments and qualities must be capable of:
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• Bringing emotional and cognitive energy to our relationship
commitments and qualities – of engaging our human and social potentialities -‐ towards the creation of a synergy with institutional policies and practices and,
• Growing our relationship commitments and qualities (in ever more
sophisticated relationship networks) towards the growth of our structure via more sophisticated policies and practices and, we could add, the growth of a more suitable and relevant ethical structure and supporting realities.
In summary –
Chapter 5 has sought to explain how ethics and ethical dynamics do not ‘stand alone’ but rather are embedded in, and are in a synergistic relationship with our core social functions, what we described as stewardship, governance, and management. More specifically, that ethics ‘live’ through -‐ give life and receive life -‐ via these core social functions and, that to understand and transform ethical dynamics we must also understand and transform the nature and characteristics of these core social functions. Hence, we could now replace ethical dynamics at the centre of our previous graphic by our core social functions as the drivers of our overall ‘human’ dynamics. To emphasize the latter point, we referred to some of the characteristics of living systems that we described in Chapter 4, namely the dynamics of ‘structural coupling’ where ‘pattern, structure, and process’, can be correlated via their association with ethical structure, ethical principles and norms, and relationship commitments and qualities with our core social functions.
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Overall, this will help us more towards a more context specific analytical and transformational model, one that underlies everything that we do and the basis for the analytical and – later -‐ transformational ‘templates’ applicable to any situation e.g., how an institution and its organization can give effect to what it perceives to be its overarching core values in all that it does via its governance policies and practices and management processes, or in addressing a specific issue e.g., why some institutional products and services are not providing for the growth of the institution and its members. This will now lead us in Chapters 6, 7 and 8, to move from the world of ethics in a generic and universal sense to one that is more context specific i.e., understanding ethics as they serve to bring about those social qualities and social goods that will help us – give us the energy -‐, to be in creative synergy with other individuals, institutions and societies on a variety of socio-‐political landscapes i.e., moving towards an ecology of mind and community in practice -‐.
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Chapter 6: Growing an Ecology of Mind and Community
Step 1: Social Potentialities – Institutional dimensions
“Social Qualities”
The overall thrust of the next three chapters will further aim to give us the wherewithal for ‘growing – more consciously -‐ an ecology of mind and community’, one that seeks to foster, as we mentioned in the Introduction to Part II, an evolving and constructive synergy between the world of our mind i.e., that of our human and social potentialities, and of our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities, with those of our core socio-‐political structures (those structures that we have associated with the individual as a social actor, institutions and their organizations and, more broadly, with society as a whole) and, their social realities. To do so, Chapter 6 will focus on social qualities – those that we will associate with the various characteristics of our social potentialities –, Chapter 7, will address the nature and characteristics of social goods – those realities that reflect that we are part of a network of production processes aimed at the maintenance of our human world as a living social system -‐ and, Chapter 8 will focus on harnessing our socio-‐political energies through more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics by focusing on what we described in Chapter 3 as the landscape’s socio-‐political dynamics. With the above goal in mind – growing an ecology of mind and community -‐, social qualities and social goods will also be viewed as being in synergy with the world of ethics: its hierarchy of ethical aspirations or core values, its ethical principles and norms and, its relationship commitments and qualities and, with the world of our socio-‐political energies (socio-‐political energies being a reflection of our effective ethical dynamics); more so, social qualities and social goods will be viewed as providing on one hand the substance of ethics – what ethics aim to achieve – and on the other hand, both will also be viewed as the springboard – the necessary realities – for the enactment of ever more sophisticated ethical manifestations.
Social Potentialities – Institutional dimensions: “Social Qualities”
In Chapter 1, we presented our core human potentialities as forces e.g., for consciousness and conscious will, and as compelling us overall to become who we are capable of becoming via what we described in Chapter 2 as our cognitive
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(social) structures and potentialities, those taking life and shape via our socio-‐political structures and their related socio-‐political dynamics described in Chapter 3. And, in Chapter 4, we emphasized that as with all other forms of biological life, the system as a whole – our human reality -‐ is driven by the dynamic qualities of living systems. We also mentioned that ethics in their manifestation as an ethic, or our ‘hierarchy of ethical aspirations’ or core values, ethical principles and norms, and relationship commitments and qualities, were the essential drivers of this process of ‘becoming’ via what we described in Chapter 5 as our core social functions – those that bind our actions together as social beings -‐ namely: stewardship, governance and management. And, we emphasized throughout the previous chapters that ethical issues could be understood as to their degree of contribution (+ or -‐) to the growth of our core human potentialities either as individuals, institutions, or societies. In this chapter, we will see that, as in the case of our core human potentialities and their dynamic relationship with our cognitive structures and potentialities, our socio-‐political structures, and related socio-‐political realities and dynamics, we are also driven ‘ethically’ by what will be described as a combination of our ‘social potentialities or forces’ (specific to our human species), those at the source of a specific direction and substance to our institutional relationships – a set of social qualities – via their enactment in what will be considered our core institutional dimensions i.e., a set of complementary characteristics shaping all institutions and, serving as the basis for our overall ‘ landscape or societal’ institutional framework. In summary, we would have the following synergistic relationship. Before proceeding however, we must say that as in the case of our human potentialities that ‘compel us to become all that we are capable of becoming’ either as individuals, institutions or societies as a whole, our core social potentialities and what will be described as our institutional dimensions also apply to individuals and institutions as mediators and socio-‐political actors, and to society as a whole in its role of mediating, at least from the perspective of being the expression of our collective mind, the domain contributions of myriad individuals and institutions.
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Nonetheless, for the purpose of keeping the text as straightforward as possible, we will generally focus on core social potentialities as being the expression of our potentialities as an individual and, our core institutional dimensions as those related to our usual definition of institution with an occasional reference to the other aspects mentioned above. As we proceed, we will first seek to describe the nature and characteristics of our social potentialities and institutional dimensions and how they come together – and create -‐ in an institutional context, via their contribution to the mediation of institutional domain contributions and their embedded domain qualities and contribution values among their other dimensions, what we mention above as social qualities; subsequently, we will examine the connections between social qualities and ethics (values), and how they are in effect driven by the same human and social realities and dynamics. As an example, relationship commitments and qualities – what we described as at the source of ethical behavior -‐ both bring about and, in turn, are given legitimacy and meaning, and a specific social energy, via their mediation in the world of our core social potentialities enacted in the context of our core institutional dimensions as described in the above graphic. More to the point, (ethical) relationship commitments and qualities in any institutional context cannot effectively exist outside of their contribution to our core social potentialities and their enactment in one or the other of our core institutional dimensions; indeed, outside their ultimate contribution to what we have described as both ethical aspirations or core values, (whatever they may happen to be for the particular individual, institution or society). However, as the above graphic also seeks to point out, in any social context, what are perceived as social qualities (ultimately serving with social goods as the basis – substance -‐ for core values) also provide direction and meaning to the
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mediation of the relationship commitments and qualities embedded in our domain contributions via our core social potentialities enacted in one or the other core institutional dimension. To describe these dynamics, we will endeavor to explain overall how: • Our social forces – those which historically have led to and given life to a
specific set of related social qualities – in synergy with what we described above as our core institutional dimensions,
• Give our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities e.g., our domains,
along with our socio-‐political structures and their related dynamics, the basis for the growth of our core human potentialities via what could be described as their contribution to our overall ethical aspirations or core values and, their manifestation in our ‘ethics’ as a whole, what could be viewed as the first step towards an ‘ecology of mind and community’.
To do so, this chapter will first proceed to describe briefly in ‘Core social potentialities – Core institutional dimensions,’ our core social potentialities along with some of their connections to our core institutional dimensions – the right hand side of the following graphic -‐, and how the two together: social potentialities enacted in institutional engagements bring about specific social qualities. In ‘Social Qualities and the World of Ethics’, we will first describe how social qualities i.e., their characteristics and transformational potential, are affected by the same realities and dynamics as those described in the case of ethics in Part 1 (by the left hand side of the graphic below). Subsequently, we will describe how social qualities (and later in Chapter 7, in combination with social goods) are both the manifestation and drivers of the ethics steering our social functions, namely stewardship, governance, and management, as portrayed in the graphic below.
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Before proceeding, it will be useful to keep in mind that though the nature of our core social potentialities each have a universal aspect i.e., shared by all human beings, their specific characteristics – qualities -‐ are ‘culturally’ specific and, one must add, that such culturally specific characteristics, and similarly for the specifics of our core institutional dimensions, are always in some form of relationship with the realities of their socio-‐political landscapes and their embedded authority and power realities and dynamics. Also, as we will see in the next chapter, social qualities are always in synergy with what will be described as social goods and, that the two together, give ethical meaning (or substance) to the ethical dynamics embedded in what we described as our overall social functions: stewardship, governance, and management.
Core social potentialities – Core institutional dimensions
Since our core institutional dimensions and the institutions to which they belong are the result of evolutionary processes taking place over many thousands of years, we can hypothesize, without much chance of error, that our evolving institutional framework followed closely the development of our human consciousness (more generally, our human potentialities as a whole) and its 'perceived' challenges e.g., related to the myriad emotions, perceptions, and related feelings of frustration and opportunity with the process of living at any point in human history. We can further hypothesize that humanity’s evolving institutions sought to give effect to its hopes and dreams, those that would further its sense of congruency, or harmony, with its process of living. Also, we can perceive that the need for (individual) institutional mediation and transformation to give a more effective pattern to our efforts in dealing with our world would grow in complexity with the development of more sophisticated understandings and feelings. In effect, all of this aimed at the growth of what we described in Chapter 1 as our core human potentialities. Nonetheless, we can also see that underlying – and associated with -‐ the development of our institutions (especially, their institutional dimensions) was the growth of our social potentialities: those potentialities such as empathy and accountability, that give us the ability to live and grow together effectively, and which stem from our human nature or, from a cognitive perspective, from our human approach to bringing about our world -‐.
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Indeed, social potentialities and institutional dimensions ‘evolving together’ towards the development of ‘satisfying and effective’ social qualities: those that would permit us to grow our core human potentialities via the development of our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities and of our socio-‐political structures and their related dynamics and, bring forth as mentioned at the outset of this chapter, a growing ecology of mind and community. In this context, our working hypothesis for the following – one that we will try to make evident -‐ is that the above dynamics have provided for an evolving symmetry between core social potentialities and core institutional dimensions – each one growing the other. To begin, we will first describe briefly the world of core social potentialities and, afterwards, that of our core institutional dimensions. Subsequently, we will examine for each of our core social potentialities some of the characteristics of their enactments via our core institutional dimensions.
Core social potentialities
At the outset, it is important to note that our social potentialities exist in relation to each other (the arrows in the following graphic); none exists in and by itself, more so, they have evolved together – in synergy -‐ in their multiple institutional (or individual) enactments. As a whole, they express the core set of ‘relationship’ potentialities that drive and characterize human relationships in all their various endeavors and in which specific relationship qualities find their meaning and relevance. As an example, ethical relationship qualities described up until now such as fairness, loyalty, and honesty… will find their relevance – as social qualities -‐ inasmuch as they contribute to growing what will be described as our core social potentialities e.g., to belonging, contribution or synergy, as presented briefly in the following graphic.
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As we can see from the above graphic, core social potentialities focus on our ability as ‘social beings’ of living and growing together. As an example, our potential for sharing a sense of accountability and destiny so important to growing our sense of vision and hope and, of making them a reality; and, at the same time, such social potentialities provide the basis for ethical relationships: for our ethical aspirations or core values, our ethical principles and norms, and relationship commitments and qualities. In an institutional context, such social potentialities provide both the relevant ‘social’ energy -‐ one that is at the source of ‘social’ direction and meaning to our institutions -‐ on one hand and, on the other, as institutional core social potentialities, provide their organizational actors with opportunities for growing their core social potentialities such as for contribution and synergy and, more generally, are the vital ‘social’ energy for individual and institutional ethical relationships. More broadly, core social potentialities are also the vital ‘social’ energy for inter-‐institutional ethical relationships or, in our case, the basis for understanding and transforming inter-‐institutional ethical relationships as in the case of sharing a common sense of destiny.
Core institutional dimensions
However, since we will also be referring to what we described as our ‘core institutional dimensions’ and have emphasized the connection with our social potentialities, let’s take a brief look at these core dimensions and at some of its dynamics as outlined in the following graphic.
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Though institutions were previously described as permitting our domain enactments to be connected to larger social purposes, creating in the process what we described as a relational institutional framework, ever growing in complexity and sophistication, in this chapter as we mentioned above, institutions will be viewed from the perspective of engaging and fostering the expression of our core social potentialities e.g., for empathy, belonging and accountability... and, ultimately, being driven in their institutional mediations by such social potentialities. (In the next chapter, our institutional dimensions in conjunction with our social potentialities will be also associated with the production of what we have mentioned above as ‘social goods’.) From this perspective, institutions (keeping in mind that this is also the case for individuals and societies) via their institutional dimensions are in a co-‐creative or synergistic relationship with our core social potentialities by providing, more specifically by being, myriad channels for their enactment and development. As in the case of core social potentialities, we will see that 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., in the case of our myriad state institutions, exists only in synergy – the circular layers of the graphic -‐ with all other institutional characteristics or institutions. As in the case of core social potentialities, we will see that each core institutional dimension either as a set of institutions e.g., in the case of our myriad state institutions, or as an institutional characteristic – having the characteristics of the state as to the social potentialities to be enacted -‐, exists only in synergy – the arrows in the graphic -‐ with all other institutions or institutional characteristics.
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As examples, state institutions have existed and continue to exist usually because there is a nation to be protected and production institutions to be coordinated; in effect, these latter institutions – nation and production -‐ provide along with the other institutions in the framework the rationale (each in its own way) for the existence of the state. More so, as we will see, all core institutional dimensions along with their characteristics are also present to some degree in all institutions e.g., family institutions to be effective need to share some of the characteristics of the state as in the case of creating – as we will see later – a synergy of family related contributions. And, as in the case of the specific relationship qualities mentioned above that find their relevance and meaning via our social potentialities, specific relationship commitments find their relevance and meaning via their contribution to specific institutional dimensions. As examples, ethical relationship commitments aimed at competitiveness usually find their relevance and meaning in the world of institutions devoted to the production of goods and services (though not exclusively as we will see below) while institutional relationship commitments devoted to creating some form of harmony -‐ connection and synergy -‐ among institutions will usually be enacted primarily in civil society or state institutions. Since our evolving social potentialities have been in synergy with our evolving institutional dimensions and more broadly, our institutional framework as a whole, we will now examine both in the context of their primary ‘connections’ i.e., social potentiality and institutional dimension, while at the same time describing briefly their other connections.
Core social potentialities <-–> Core Institutional dimensions
As a backdrop to the following description, we have joined the elements of the two graphics together so as to keep in mind their essential synergy.
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For the purpose of highlighting the unique contribution of each of our core social potentialities and institutional dimensions to human endeavor and to the growth of our core human potentialities e.g., for a sense of self and for vision and hope, and for growing an ecology of mind and community, both – social potentiality / institutional dimension -‐ will be examined together in the context of their most prevalent synergies. Methodologically, we will proceed from the center of the graphics to the outward elements. However, as the arrows point out, we could also have chosen to proceed from the outward elements to those at the center. As an example, the planet as the ultimate institution – as mediator and enabler of life per se – is also the ‘institutional’ context for the development of our collective – social -‐ sense of destiny. As we proceed to describe each one of these social potentialities in themselves and in their institutional connections and resultant social qualities, we will see that what emerges is the beginning of a more ‘substantive’ template for ethical dynamics i.e., one that gives us an understanding for the ‘functionality’ or ‘growth potential’ of the ethics that we have via their inherent and vital connection to social qualities, and that moves us closer to understanding the ethics that we must have via the growth of these inherent social qualities. For this reason, we will aim to describe each – social potentiality / institutional dimension – in sufficient detail as to permit a useful understanding of their enactments in multiple contexts. So, let us begin.
Empathy - Family
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From an evolutionary perspective, as an animal species moves beyond simple coupling and reproduction, patterns of relationships or reciprocities develop around the capacities and needs of the partners and siblings involved, in effect each responding -‐ understanding -‐ its role 'instinctively' in the reproductive and survival process; in a sense having an empathy for the role of others however crudely expressed. More specifically, developing empathy and a capacity for its expression through imitation and participation in the survival rituals of the species and for the characteristics of its effective landscape60. The development of empathy as a social potentiality and its resultant social qualities associated with our capacity for emotional and rational understandings and the basis for potential relationships with others and our environment however expressed such as through play, cooperation or competition, takes on a much greater importance for the child and is reflected through more prolonged and complex child rearing processes. Either in the context of the traditional family or in other forms such as the kibbutz, the need for empathy for the child’s survival and, more so, his / her development in relationship to the institutional roles of the parents and family (or significant others) brings forth for the child his / her original and often very complex relational template both with other human beings and with his / her environment as a whole. In effect, the challenge for the child and for all of us seems to be: how do I sufficiently understand and effectively express such understanding with the people and elements in my immediate environment to meet my needs, or how do I learn to sufficiently empathize with them -‐ understand and relate to their emotions and feelings, and rational understandings -‐ so that I can engage them in my survival and development? (We could also say the same – as we infer above -‐ for the realities of our physical environment.) From a longer term perspective, as pointed out by the arrow in the above graphic, our capacity and need for empathy continues to grow as we, as individuals, engage in other aspects of our development, both emotional and rational; nonetheless, our initial success at developing and expressing a strong sense of empathy (and the social qualities associated with it e.g., respect for others), and the relational patterns that this process engenders, remains very much a pre-‐condition and the basic pattern for the development of our other social potentialities / qualities, having begun as the first of our social potentialities.
60- In the case of barn cats, one can often see how survival rituals are passed on and developed from the mother to the kittens and among the kittens themselves in the form of what sometimes appears as play, with the effect of creating a sense of 'empathy' among all cats in the litter.
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In the case of institutions – as an institutional characteristic -‐, say of the family or the state, or society as a whole, their existence and growth will be conditional upon their ability to express and elicit a rational and emotional connection with current and potential members; indeed, their ability to express empathy – embody its related social qualities e.g., openness to individual differences -‐ for the needs and aspirations of their members along with an ability to grow such a sense of empathy. And, in the context of a broader institutional matrix, say one involving institutions of the state and civil society, institutions must be capable of expressing empathy – emotional and rational understanding -‐ for the realities of other institutions and those of their members (and elicit the same). From an ethical perspective, we could say that an institution’s ethical structure: its hierarchy of ethical aspirations or core values’ – its overall ethic – must address the need to grow ‘empathy’ as a core social potentiality and its related social qualities, along with the ethical principles and norms and, relationship commitments and qualities to bring it about via the institution’s core social functions: stewardship, governance and management.
Belonging - Community
In nature, the expression of our social potentiality (and need) for belonging can sometimes be taken to extremes i.e., belong to the community or die, as in the case of bees and many other species. In the case of the child, it becomes quickly evident that all his / her social needs cannot be satisfied in the context of the family where belonging (often one could say symbiosis) via strong affiliation and biological connection is generally a given. Personal interests and other needs not present in the family such as those more vital as in the case of sex must usually be satisfied outside the family. The individual must therefore find ways of being accepted in a wider community via his / her social potentialities and their related social qualities e.g., such as loyalty to the group, if he or she is to grow as an individual, separate from his or her biological connection. In this quest, community institutions e.g., schools, churches, sports, friendships... often serve as initial institutions of broader belonging and permit the child to learn potentially effective belonging strategies which, as in the case of empathy, will continue to grow in the context of participation in other institutions, and on other social landscapes.
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In turn, institutions -‐ those of the community and in the final analysis, all institutions -‐ can exist only by offering effective belonging strategies for their potential and actual members. In effect, institutions must be capable of satisfying the needs of their members for a broader context of participation and actualization (even as consumers), and for the expression of their other social potentialities. As a corollary, institutions will grow inasmuch as they are capable of engaging -‐ one could also say refine and grow -‐ via their ethical framework, their members capacity for belonging to a broader context, indeed be an effective source for this engagement. As a current example, market institutions say the banks and retail stores have found ways of engaging us, for better or worse, via their ethics say those related to respect for our needs such as for fairness, and have given us a sense of belonging to their institutional matrix as consumers. On the other hand, institutions and their organizations are in a similar relationship among themselves where they must continuously reinvent their belonging strategies in the form of social qualities via the expression of these social qualities in more sophisticated relationship commitments and qualities e.g., partnerships, in their evolving community of institutions.
Capacity and contribution – Education and Professional, and Production
Our social potentialities for empathy and belonging, as in the case of many of the more 'social' animal species e.g., wolves, bees, ants... will of necessity evolve to focus on the development of useful and socially recognized capacities to be the formal expression of a reciprocal sense of empathy and belonging, and to provide a basis for their continuation and enrichment via our social potentiality for contribution. Indeed, the resultant social qualities of our individual capacities e.g., expertise, and contributions both anchor empathy and belonging in an institutional context or, in the case of their absence, makes such empathy and belonging impossible, at least over the longer term. In contemporary society, the development of capacity e.g., in the form of specific competencies, while being a dimension of all institutions from the family to those focusing on planetary affairs also has its specific set of institutions e.g., schools, colleges, universities… hence the reference above to ‘Education and Development’. Indeed, institutions like the individual, survive on the basis of the social relevance – qualities -‐ of the capacities that they are able to develop in their members and for themselves as a whole. Since the object of life is usually to create a better world for ourselves and for those who share it with us (however expressed), contribution is the core social
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potentiality that connects the individual via institutional enactments, to the world. From the perspective of the dynamics of the above framework, contribution both embodies and nourishes what was described as empathy, belonging, and capacity, but also reflects, and at the same time creates, what will be described below as our social potential for synergy, accountability, and a sense of collective destiny. While contribution is often viewed as taking place in what could be described as traditional production institutions i.e., those associated with goods and services, all institutions are in the production 'business' in the sense that they exist for, and on the basis of, the contributions of their members; and, inasmuch as they can transform individual contributions into socially relevant contributions -‐ be themselves effective instruments of such contributions -‐. In this context, institutional ethics say their ethical principles and norms must aim to foster and grow the capacity and contribution – their related social qualities -‐ of their institutional members; more so, institutions via their ethical framework must also be effective instruments of social capacity and contribution.
Connection and synergy - Civil society and the state
As we move towards effective social interactions, those that transform our social landscapes by binding our individual and institutional actions towards a broader purpose while at the same time grow the social potentialities described previously, our social potentialities for connection and synergy, and their related institutional dimensions that we find most prominently in civil society and state institutions take on a vital importance. Historically, our social potentiality for connection – of being able to join others in a common pursuit -‐ have brought about the development of myriad civil society institutions61 (i.e., institutions that serve to connect both individuals and institutions around broader purposes) such as guilds for artisans, professional societies, chambers of commerce, labor unions, political parties, and community associations among others. By having as their substance the capacities and contributions of specific individuals and institutions on one hand along with their specific sense of accountability and destiny on the other (as we will see below), civil society
61- The definition given to civil society institutions is generally broader here than that given in public administration or political science, where they are often associated with the voluntary or 'not for profit' sector.
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institutions provide via their specific (and general) social qualities e.g., conviviality and purposefulness, the basis for individuals and institutions to transcend their immediate social context (and interests) by bringing to each of them the possibility for more socially relevant and pregnant contributions, while at the same time defending or giving importance to their particular interests in the world of the landscape’s socio-‐political dynamics. Importantly, such a web of civil society 'connecting' relationships and those more spontaneous of individuals and other institutions serve as the basis, more clearly the potential, for the creation of social synergy, especially one which is considered legitimate for the broader social landscape on which the more specific connections take place. This need has brought about what is now considered, in its most recognizable form, as the institution of the state. To understand synergy as a social potentiality it will be useful to take a look at the role of the state62 in the creation of 'legitimate'63 individual and institutional synergy. We can see that one of its early manifestations in human history is with the tribe and its 'state' organization generally comprised of the chief and sometimes a tribal council where tribal issues (i.e., basically issues of tribal synergies: as an example, who does what, who gets what and how is it rationalized) are addressed. In effect, where the chief and council and their network of relationships embody the organization of the state as an institution, and do so in the context of the tribe which provides for its raison d'être i.e., usually the survival and well-‐being of the tribe, and also the protection and enhancement of a pattern of tribal relationships i.e., those ‘socio-‐political’ relationships that produce and protect tribal goods. From a practical viewpoint, synergy as a social potentiality draws on our other social potentialities for the articulation of its institutional forms i.e., its organizational features and key relationship characteristics. As examples, where individual and institutional connections were perceived to require control (in the case of little shared empathy and sense of belonging) relative to a preferred set of overall relationships e.g., in the case of a ruling monarch, state institutional form focused on control, sometimes absolute control; at other times, when individuals and institutions were able to develop 62- Keeping in mind the synergy between social characteristics and dimensions of the institutional framework. 63- Sometimes invoking as a source of legitimacy a superior authority: in some cases 'god', sometimes wisdom, sometimes the 'will' of the people, sometimes the vision and power of an individual or group of individuals or more often in the case of state institutions per se, a collective sense of nation or nationhood, which will be described later.
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distinct and sophisticated relational expertise i.e., effective connections, in expressing and carrying out increasingly complex purposes, separate from or in conflict with those of state institutions, more democratic state institutional forms such as the creation of a 'republic' were (had to be) developed and enacted, quite frequently wrought from those individuals and their institutions which continued to seek control. More broadly, state institutions (and all other institutions for that matter) give expression to and are driven by specific perceptions of societal accountability and destiny64, and as societies grow in complexity, so have the institutions of state and the need for social synergy in all individual and institutional action65 as an example, this has often brought state institutions to focus on fairness, legitimacy, and the rule of law as social qualities. Such need for synergy has also fostered the contemporary role of the state as mediator, that is creating optimal societal synergies for a whole range of diverse interests and opportunities for individuals and other institutions to enact sophisticated forms of synergies e.g., the most striking contemporary challenge being multi-‐national corporations where each concerned state must seek to create effective and legitimate institutional and societal synergies across a large number of states. While the above has focused on the role of civil society institutions and that of the state, all institutions are dependent to a greater of lesser extent on our social potentialities for connection and synergy and their related institutional dimensions e.g., all institutions must address issues of synergy of contribution or, stated differently, issues of ‘state’. From an ethical perspective, we can see that the social qualities associated with these social potentialities like for the others described until now will be dependent on the dynamics of our individual, institutional and societal ethical framework. As an example, does our institutional or societal ethical framework aim to create – enrich -‐ via some of its specific elements e.g., as one of its core values such as fairness or equity, or principles and norms or, in its ongoing relationship commitments and qualities, social qualities that provide for effective connections and synergies between myriad individual and institutional contributions.
64 - Increasingly, one could also say, planetary accountability and destiny… 65- Such overall dynamics help explain why the lack of sophisticated and effective individual and institutional synergies e.g., relative to complex societal goals, hinders the development of democratic state institutions in many of the world's countries.
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Accountability and destiny - Nation and planet
Accountability as one of our embedded social potentialities expresses our individual and collective need and capacity for effective interdependence, however expressed. Indeed, accountability makes us capable of recognizing that as individuals and as institutional actors (and thereby in the case of institutions themselves), we are the product of our participation in many mutually dependent human communities large and small and, as a corollary, that we are vital and responsible actors in the creation of those mutually dependent communities be it the local church or, we could also say, the local mafia. From a societal perspective, accountability as a ‘human’ social potentiality leading to specific social qualities e.g., loyalty, has been instrumental in bringing about and giving ‘effective’ life to our socio-‐political landscapes, and for this reason all civilizations have sought, more or less successfully, to grow in each individual and in all institutional relationships a sense of shared interdependence and accountability for the world that is collectively enacted. Indeed, both the psychological growth and well being of the individual and the long-‐term effectiveness of any institution, indeed of any society, seems to be predicated on the success of this learning process. Historically, our emergent sense of collective accountability has closely followed our social potentiality for a sense of common destiny, first taking place in the family and the immediate community as in the case of the tribe, later on as a people in a very broad sense as in the case of the Greeks, Romans, Israelis and Muslims, and has given rise, especially beginning in the 18th century, to the nation as the expression of a 'common will' embodied generally in the state66, to express and bring about a collectively congruent reality. From the perspective of our overall institutional framework, the nation (as a dimension) taking on – expressing -‐ the properties of an institution in our collective mind relative to its capacity for mediating and transforming individual and institutional contributions while at the same time reflecting and constructing a particular world view e.g., in matters of culture, religion, economic practices, and sometimes regarding language and ethnicity among other factors – what we described previously as a specific social and historical reality -‐. Indeed, the nation thereby becoming and often being viewed in the first part of the 20th century as the ultimate source of authority – what is deemed as right -‐
66- With the state often being viewed as the custodian and steward of the nation and given the relevant institutional form to do so, at best state and nation being in synergy, or as is sometimes the case, where state 'form' and collective ethos have few relationship anchors leading to destructive synergies as is frequently the case in so-called developing countries.
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for the full spectrum of societal institutions, from the family to those involved in production, and hence the ultimate source of accountability and sense of destiny. In such a context, one could simply say "no sense of nation, no sense of collective accountability and destiny"; and, no real basis for the role of the state. While the 'institutional' function of the nation in relation to the state and to other societal institutions in the latter part of the 20th century has evolved in the case of the Western World, in effect the traditional role of the nation now being obliged to compete with other broad sources of authority and accountability e.g., the pull of global financial markets and various environmental challenges, a sense of collective accountability and destiny is nonetheless present and vital to all our institutional engagements from those within the family to those with state institutions, and in all institutional interactions per se. Historically, we can also see that to anchor and give life to our social potentialities for accountability and destiny, indeed to provide for their sustainability and continued relevance in evolving societal contexts e.g., from the family to the modern corporation, all civilizations have produced and recognized 'exemplar' individuals who have been able to transcend the particulars of their context and foster a broader and more relevant sense of accountability, generally for a meaningful collective vision of a better world however defined, and in some cases, for human destiny as a whole. This has been the case with Jesus Christ in the Judeo-‐Christian world, later Muhammad in the Muslim world, and from a different perspective and civilization, Buddha, for the world generally associated with religion. Also, 'exemplar' individuals in the field of politics e.g., Charles de Gaule and Winston Churchill during the last World War both embodied a sense of ‘national’ accountability and of human destiny (on the planet) for their people, and by doing so inspired acts of bravery and resistance towards the aggressor. More to the point for our contemporary world, such examples exist in all fields of human endeavor e.g., in the arts, science and business, and for the full spectrum of human social contexts from the very large as described above to the more circumscribed in the case of a community and, one could add, for communities viewed as both legitimate and illegitimate. Indeed, our social potentialities for a sense of collective accountability and destiny serve to animate – give ‘collective’ and hence, effective and enriched individual and institutional meaning – to our other social potentialities, hence to all our other social qualities. And, though institutions related to religion e.g., the Catholic Church for most of its existence, have sought to be the institutional manifestation of our social potentiality for a sense of destiny in particular, we can see that this social
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potentiality is taking new roots in the current globalization of the economic, environmental and communication spheres among others, and in that of our budding planetary government institutions, where our sense of destiny is increasingly secular and associated with the planet as a whole. Hence, our social potentiality for a sense of destiny, one that is as an example, associated with our growing overall consciousness as a human potentiality, is increasingly linked to the planet as the overriding ‘institution’, -‐ the institution that ultimately mediates our existence or non-‐existence -‐, therefore its reference as the institutional dimension which ultimately mediates all human contributions; and, like the other institutional dimensions, one that we must grow – via our overall social potentialities -‐ if we are to survive. Importantly, growing more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics ultimately depends on growing a more shared and congruent sense of accountability and destiny and the full spectrum of social qualities that bring them to life in a social context e.g., those related to empathy – a capacity for understanding others – and, to synergy – a capacity for effectively ‘working together’, via what we described previously as our ethical framework. On the other hand, as mentioned above, growing our social qualities related to accountability and destiny will grow – give ultimate direction and meaning to our other social potentialities – our other social qualities (the arrows in the graphic at the beginning of this section).
To conclude…
As a way of linking the above realities and dynamics with what we described in Part 1, we could say once again as we mentioned at the outset of this Chapter that 1) human potentialities and their related cognitive (social) structures and potentialities, socio-‐political structures and their socio-‐political dynamics, have brought about a complementary set of 2) social potentialities and institutional dimensions, more so that 1 and 2 have been in synergy -‐ via social qualities (and social goods) – on the basis of the nature and characteristics of our ethical dynamics – our ethics – as summarily presented once again in the graphic provided at the outset of this Chapter. (More on this later)
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More specifically, we have seen that our social potentialities come to life with our institutional engagements both as individuals and as institutions participating on a broader institutional landscape and, that such engagements lead to what we have described above as social qualities or, we could now say more appropriately, to a landscape relevant set of social qualities bringing about in the best of circumstances, an effective synergy – an evolving ecology -‐ of ‘mind and community’. Before moving on to further describe the world of social qualities and its connection with the world of ethics, we could have as examples of initial or overall issues: • Do the ethics e.g., the ethical principles and norms – governance policies
and practices –, framing our institutional engagements provide for the growth of our social potentialities?
• Do the social qualities resulting from our social potentialities enacted in
an institutional context provide for the growth of our core human potentialities, say the quality of our vision and sense of hope?
Now, we will turn more specifically to social qualities as related to the actual substance or subject matter of ethics – the realm of what ethics aim to achieve –.
Social qualities and Ethical dynamics
At the outset, we can say that social qualities (as in the case of ethics) are ‘also’ in synergy with the following realities:
• Our core human potentialities or forces;
• Our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities;
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• Our socio-‐political structures;
• The dynamics of authority and power or socio-‐political dynamics;
• The dynamics of ‘living systems’; and,
• The realities and dynamics of our social functions, namely stewardship,
governance, and management. Understanding social qualities i.e., their characteristics and transformational potential, beyond what we have described previously, is also understanding how they are affected by the above realities and dynamics inasmuch as these realities and dynamics impact on the world of ethics (since the two are in synergy). Let us examine this briefly for each of the above points while recognizing that social qualities are also affected by all the above realities and dynamics as a whole.
Our human potentialities or forces –
At the outset, social qualities as in the case of ethics are driven by what we described in Chapter 1 as our human potentialities or forces – those that compel us to become ‘all that we are capable of becoming’. As examples, our quest for growing a sense of self and personal identity via our institutional engagements will aim to foster – will be dependent on -‐ relevant social qualities, especially those social qualities associated with our domain contributions.
Our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities -
While we have seen that ethics in the case of an individual or an institution (or society for that matter) are rooted in our potential for faith, beliefs and domain contribution values in the world of our cognitive structures and potentialities, social qualities related to our social potentialities as an example, for empathy and belonging such as understanding and solidarity, can also be understood on the basis of the quality of the ‘faith, beliefs and contribution values’ driving the ‘ethical’ relationship bringing about such social qualities. Simply put, the nature of our ‘faith, beliefs and contribution values’ e.g., as linked to our vision of the world and sense of hope, will determine to what extent ‘understanding and solidarity’ as social qualities are powerful drivers of the realities to be enacted or, mere rhetorical pretexts for some form of action.
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In the context of our collective human psyche as our overall cognitive structure, social qualities such as those related to our social potentialities for accountability and destiny e.g., solidarity and compassion, can best be understood from the perspective of the ethics (as a cognitive potentiality that have shaped over time our human and social realities as a whole as in the case of our evolving state and religious institutions.
Our socio-political structures (domains, ‘institutions’ and socio-
political landscapes) -
Individuals, institutions and societies as our core mediating structures are first of all cognitive structures sharing the characteristics mentioned above e.g., institutional ethics and ideology, will impact on social potentialities / institutional dimensions and resulting social qualities in institutional mediation of domain contributions. Domains as both cognitive structures and socio-‐political structures also share in the characteristics mentioned above with the added dimension that they give a ‘landscape’ intentionality to our contributions with its attendant landscape authority and power e.g., the importance given to a particular domain and its stories ‘coloring’ the social qualities resulting from its institutional mediation. As an example, the authority and power given to computers on contemporary landscapes shape social qualities in matters contribution. Socio-‐political landscapes by expressing the authority and power realities of its core socio-‐political actors thereby express the institutional cognitive characteristics e.g., ethics, that will shape institutional mediation of social potentialities and institutional dimensions and, its resultant social qualities. In summary, 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.
The dynamics of authority and power or socio-political dynamics -
In the case of social qualities and socio-‐political dynamics, say social qualities such as competence, fairness, and legitimacy, relative to our social potentialities for contribution and synergy, we can suppose that they will also be affected by the ‘ethical’ realities of authority and power framing the relationship between social potentiality and institutional dimension such as the ethical aspirations that
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are perceived as key to our survival as a nation or, more simply, as members of an institution, say the family. 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; in the case of power, in matters of contribution does it promote fairness and a broad sense of legitimacy for the contribution of all or does it privilege the contribution of only a few. In summary, the degree of ‘open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics’ afforded by the dynamics of authority and power will affect all social qualities stemming from the enactment of our social potentialities in an institutional context.
The dynamics of ‘living systems’ -
In the case of the dynamics of ‘living systems’, social qualities resulting from our social potentialities for accountability such as a sense of loyalty and interdependence, and destiny such as sustainability as examples, will be dependent on the ethical dynamics affecting the characteristics of ‘living systems’ giving a specific life to overall landscape dynamics and, in particular to those dynamics affecting the individual in his/her institutional relationships or, as we have seen in the past, institutional relationships themselves. As examples,
• Do social qualities such as loyalty, a sense of interdependence, and sustainability stem from – and provide for – a sense of congruency in the enactment of our specific realities or world – what we described as a key ‘ethical’ characteristic related to cognition if we are to grow our human potentialities;
• Do the characteristics of such social qualities help the network of relationships grow – become more effective in bringing about relevant goods and services as an example, what we mentioned as autopoiesis;
• Do these social qualities help us to create meaning and learning e.g., grow our human and social cognitive potentialities, in our institutional relationships – what could be viewed as ‘ethical’ goals re structural coupling -‐; and,
• Do they contribute to the unfolding of a new and more pregnant world for all i.e., as a possible ‘ethical’ result of the fact that we are ‘dissipative structures’ in the context of living systems?
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The realities and dynamics of our 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 ‘effective’ social qualities (and, social goods). As an example, governance policies and practices framing our institutional engagements / domain contributions provide for the growth of our social qualities and related social potentialities e.g., for contribution (and our human potentialities). In turn, social qualities (and, social goods) validate the ethical realities driving our social functions and, are its raison d’être. We could also say that social functions aim to create via their embedded ethical realities, an effective synergy between social qualities and social goods i.e., a synergy capable of bringing about ‘desired’ social goods – of creating the ‘necessary’ relational conditions or energy, while also growing social qualities. As an example, the goal of our social functions is to bring together, harness and embody all the realities and dynamics mentioned above, more so, as in the case of our ‘faith, beliefs and contribution values’ relative to our cognitive potentialities, to transform ‘socially’ these realities and dynamics toward the creation of effective social qualities, those that will lead to the creation of relevant social goods – those capable of creating a growing synergy with our social qualities – as described in the following graphic. In this context, we could say that: social qualities can best be understood by the social goods that they serve to bring about and vice versa, social goods by the social qualities that bring them about.
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As an example, ‘equity’ as a social quality resulting from and driving our social potentiality for synergy in the context of a state institution can best be understood by ‘equity’ as a social good – the result of the state’s mediation of myriad domain contributions. From another perspective, social goods such as automobiles or computers can be ‘best evaluated’ on the basis of ‘competence’ as a social quality in the world of their production.
In summary –
This Chapter: ‘Social Potentialities – Institutional Dimensions’ and resultant ‘Social Qualities’ could be viewed as we mentioned at the outset as the first step towards understanding what bonds us together (for better or worse), and that gives us the potential for growing an ecology, or an ever growing synergy, of mind and community, one that will give us the possibility of ‘becoming all that we are capable of becoming’ – individually and collectively -‐. In doing so, social qualities can be viewed as the specific social energy underpinning individual, institutional and societal mediation of domain contributions. As a way of summarizing the above realities and dynamics with what we described in Part 1, we could say once again as we mentioned at the outset of this Chapter that 1) human potentialities and their related cognitive (social) structures and potentialities, socio-‐political structures and their socio-‐political dynamics, have been in synergy with a complementary set of 2) social potentialities and institutional dimensions driving an overall institutional framework, more so that 1 and 2 have been in synergy -‐ via social qualities (and social goods) – on the basis of the nature and characteristics of our ethical dynamics – our ethics – as summarily presented once again in the graphic provided previously in this Chapter. (More on this later.)
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Chapter 7: Growing an ecology of mind and community
Step 2: Social Goods – Core values / Ethical Structure
The concept of ‘social goods’ versus the more narrow concepts of ‘personal goods’ – those that pertain to us as a ‘social’ person -‐, or ‘private or public goods’ – those that refer to their socio-‐political context -‐, will be used to reflect that who we are – as individuals, institutions or societies -‐ is very much a reflection of the overall ‘living system’ in which we participate, and while this living system also participates vitally in the biological and physical worlds, it is characterized foremost by the fact that we exist in – take our existence from -‐ a world of social relationships and from its realities which we will describe in the broadest of terms as social goods, what ultimately keeps this living system ‘alive’. In this social world, we have seen that we are ‘co-‐creators’ both of our own world and of the world of all those who we share it with, in effect we could say (as per the living systems dynamics described in Chapter 4) that we are part of a network of production processes in which the function of each component e.g., be it an individual, institution and eventually, society, is to participate in the production or transformation of other components (individual, institution or society) in the network (via social goods), for the maintenance of what could be described as its own (structural) integrity as a living system – a human social system -‐, what we described as the function of ‘autopoiesis’ in the world of living systems. In this sense, the realities – social goods -‐ that we bring forth either as individuals, institutions or societies, more so their synergy with related social qualities and core values as we will see, shape who we are, what we described as our core human potentialities, those that we associated with ‘consciousness, conscious will, a sense of self and personal identity, and our vision and sense of hope’, while at the same time being more broadly social realities i.e., affecting the core human potentialities of those with who we share our world both as individuals, institutions and society and, in the end, humanity as a whole via what we described as our collective human psyche. Towards the goal of creating a world of more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics, one that would lead us to an increasing ecology of mind and community, social goods like social qualities as mentioned in the previous chapter, bond us together – give us a common reality – via as an example the common domain stories or institutional knowledge that bring them in the world of our human and social cognitive potentialities.
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The following graphic, initially presented in the previous chapter, now aims to show more of the relationship of social goods with social qualities. For ease of understanding, we could say that social goods result more (conceptually) from the meshing of our human potentialities with our human and social cognitive potentialities in the context of our social structures and socio-‐political dynamics (the left hand side of the graphic) – the approach which we will use mainly in the following -‐, while social qualities can be seen as the result of the meshing of our social potentialities with institutional dimensions (the right hand side) -‐ the approach we have emphasized more in the previous chapter -‐. Nonetheless, overall social goods and social qualities both ‘driving and being driven’ by these complementary dynamics as we have mentioned in the previous chapter. In effect, both social goods and social qualities via as we will see their synergy with our ethical aspirations or core values, give ‘ethical’ meaning (or substance) to the ethical dynamics embedded in what we described as our overall social functions: stewardship, governance, and management. In this context, we can see that social goods must be viewed as specific to a given culture in the broader context of a civilization or ‘époque’ e.g., automobiles as a social good have a rich and diverse meaning for our contemporary Western world by being linked to many contemporary social qualities and core values of our civilization e.g., freedom to travel, less so for the Inuit or for the aboriginals in the Amazon, and unimaginable for those who first discovered and explored the American continent. We can also see that social goods in the realm of our many contemporary freedoms e.g., of thinking, relationships, employment, and opportunities such as for education, travel and wealth, are also linked to a cultural context, more specifically to the core values and ethical principles driving its socio-‐political
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characteristics e.g., our political freedoms in Canada are tied to the nature of our political institutions – democratic -‐, their hierarchy of ethical aspirations e.g., liberty, justice and tolerance, and to their governance principles which we find as an example, in our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms e.g., freedom of religion and association, while our opportunities as social goods are very much linked to our free markets as a socio-‐political system with its own set of core values or, as we will describe later, its ethical structure e.g., focused on development and growth as ethical aspirations, and associated governance principles. And, as we have mentioned previously and will further describe later, we can also conclude that social goods are only ‘social goods’ inasmuch as they elicit or are associated with relevant social qualities and core values. No link to social qualities or core values, no social goods. On the other hand, the richer the links to ‘desired’ social qualities and core values, the ‘richer’ the social goods. Hence, in this chapter social goods will usually be described in their synergistic relationship with social qualities – the social energy mediating relevant domain contributions -‐, and more so later, with their synergistic relationship -‐ social qualities and social goods -‐ with ethics, especially in their manifestation as core values or ethical aspirations – indeed, what gives us the impetus and direction for social engagement in whatever form this may take. Towards the goal of giving us the wherewithal to move towards more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics, in effect creating an ever-‐increasing ecology of mind and community for all, we will first begin by examining 1) the nature of social goods, their embedded characteristics, 2) the challenges to creating a relevant synergy between ethics and the world of our social qualities – social goods, for individuals, institutions and societies (and, we could also say, for the world as a whole) via our core social functions and, 3) an overall summary of the elements of this necessary synergy – between ethics and the world of our social qualities and social goods.
Social goods
Before examining the nature and characteristics of social goods more systematically, let us take a brief look at the world of automobiles as an introductory example of what will follow. First, we can see that automobiles in our present world are the result of our historic vision and hope as human potentialities for easy mobility and could be
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viewed as the product of increasingly sophisticated domain contributions – from the wheel to gasoline engines -‐ in many institutional and societal contexts. From a socio-‐political perspective, we could add that their contemporary relevance and legitimacy are dependent on the degree of authority and power that their manufacturers can garner from consumers and society in general for their production and, to the relationship of automobiles with the core values of individuals and society in general e.g., the tradeoff that they are willing to accept re their concern for a healthy environment and, from a more positive perspective, their contribution to the growth of our core values as opposed to other means of transportation as an example – what could also be described as relating to their societal legitimacy. And, we could add, the impact of these core values on our social functions i.e., stewardship, governance and management. And, from the perspective of our social potentialities and institutional dimensions, we can see that automobiles are dependent on the social qualities that provide the ‘social energy’ for their production e.g., from the social qualities related to a sense of belonging and contribution on the factory floor to those associated with the need for synergy and accountability to its broader societal context on the part of the company in the world of its institutional dimensions. In the following, we will examine such issues more systematically from the perspective of what we need to know about social goods, pretty much as we did in the case of social qualities though, as we mention above, giving more emphasis to the left hand side of the above graphic, in order for us to understand how we might go about addressing the challenges of creating a more relevant synergy between ethics – those that we aspire to -‐ and the world of our social goods and social qualities, our next step. To do this, we will describe briefly how social goods are associated with how we bring about our world, -‐ via -‐:
• Our human potentialities e.g., for vision and hope, either as individuals, institutions, or society;
• Our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities;
• Our socio-‐political structures (domains, institutions…);
• Our socio-‐political dynamics;
• Our institutional dimensions, our social potentialities and resulting social qualities; and,
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• Our social functions: stewardship, governance and management.
And, since social goods may be social goods for individuals, institutions or society as a whole, our examples will try to address these three dimensions as we proceed from one point to the other, keeping in mind that social goods can only be understood ‘effectively’ from the perspective of the individual, institution, or society, for which they are social goods i.e., a component of their cognitive universe.
Social goods and our human potentialities -
Overall, the impetus for social goods like for all other human behavior is linked to what we described in Chapter 1 as our core human potentialities or forces – those that compel us to become ‘all that we are capable of becoming’ – as individuals, institutions and societies. In such a context, the nature of social goods (one could also say simply, ‘human’ goods) could be viewed as whatever contributes to our ‘becoming human or more human’ -‐ with its ‘ups and downs’ -‐; ‘social or human’ goods can be associated with the world of our feelings e.g., what is more specifically elicited by music and poetry (joy or sorrow) and sometimes by religion (a state of ecstasy), with our material objects (our things) -‐ ‘human’ creations large and small -‐, with social characteristics – peace, justice and solidarity and, with ‘personal or self’ characteristics – integrity, attractiveness or health. Indeed, understanding the nature and characteristics of social goods is first understanding how they are related to or, more broadly, what they mean for, each one of our human potentialities i.e., the nature of their contribution to our consciousness, conscious will, sense of self, personal identity, vision and sense of hope either as individuals, institutions or society. Taking the example of automobiles once again, we can see that for an individual (the same analysis could be made for an institution or society), automobiles as social goods could have the following nature and characteristics as per his / her human potentialities: Consciousness – it is usually in the nature automobiles to enhance the individual’s sense of possibilities e.g., for mobility, freedom… and via automobile aesthetics, open up a new universe of symbolic ‘social’ qualities e.g., those related to a sense of power and of social importance.
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Conscious will -‐ generally, automobiles have had much appeal for individuals because of their potential for empowering them and freeing them from the need to use human power for mobility. Sense of self – automobiles often provide via their specific connection with the self, a sense of independence – of distinctiveness – from others (however great this may be an illusion). Personal identity – automobiles by being of many brands and configurations provide for the enhancement of – or for specifically choosing – our social identity as it may be related to automobiles and their larger societal symbolic meaning. Vision -‐ automobiles by their speed, maneuverability and being part of a specific world of aesthetics can both connect to and enhance an individual’s sense of beauty and contribute to his / her overall vision of the world. Sense of hope – automobiles can also contribute to an individual’s faith in the world e.g., we are not tied to one geographical space on the planet, and thereby his / her sense of hope. We can deduce from the above that automobiles as social goods are in a synergistic relationship with a specific set of core values or ethical aspirations e.g., those related to freedom or personal autonomy, and social ‘recognition’ for some individuals, and probably many other core values or ethical aspirations for others. On the other hand, we can also see that automobiles as social goods contribute to an individual or to society’s ethical structure, especially to its hierarchy of ethical aspirations; any efforts at understanding and transforming ‘core values’ will have to reckon with the relationship between core values and related social goods as they impact on our human potentialities.
Social goods and our cognitive (social) structures and cognitive
potentialities -
From what we described in Chapter 2, we can also deduce that social goods – under the impetus of our human forces -‐ are the more specific result of our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities, especially those giving shape to the institutional domain contributions serving to bring about institutional products, be they in the domain of material ‘things’ such as our example of automobiles, or in the realm of ‘political’ goods such as societal justice or world peace.
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As an example, automobiles (as social goods) are the product of a distinctive set of cognitive (social) structures: �‘domain’ contributions in the field of engines and tires, ‘institutions’ for the mediation of domain contributions towards the manufacturing of ‘cars’, and �‘societies (as a socio-‐political landscape) for providing a relevant ‘institutional framework’ for the production, sale and, maintenance of ‘cars’. Following the example of automobiles as social goods in an institutional context, say as institutional products of an automobile company, and focusing our attention on their embedded cognitive characteristics, we can see that automobiles as social goods will have a distinctive set of cognitive characteristics, some related to the stories, sense of beauty, contribution values and theories embedded in the myriad domain contributions ultimately required for their production. As examples, some stories possibly related to the ingenuity of the founder of the company and to the company’s successes in racing, or to specific theories related to automotive engineering e.g., all wheel drive... In the case of beauty, automobiles can be the result of a sense of beauty that privileges flowing lines as a company trademark, or to contribution values related to the economic benefits of cheap mobility versus that of social status. These ‘automobile’ stories, sense of beauty, contribution values and theories as descriptive of the nature and characteristics of automobiles as social goods for the company will be crucial in its role as mediator of myriad domain contributions within the company and, also in its political relationships on its institutional landscape e.g., with government regulatory agencies and in competition with other companies for valuable resources…
Social goods and our socio-political structures (domains, institutions
and socio-political landscapes) –
As socio-‐political structures, domains express what social goods have merit – are worth pursuing -‐ on our socio-‐political landscapes and vice versa, social goods also define those ‘related’ domains that will have socio-‐political importance. In effect, domains are in a synergistic relationship with social goods, each grows or withers with the other. Over time, domains evolve to reflect those social goods that are useful for the growth of our human potentialities e.g., automobiles over the horse and buggy, word processors over the typewriter.... Institutions (individuals & societies) as socio-‐political structures are the social ‘mechanisms’ that harness human and social ‘energies’ for the production of
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social goods; in doing so, their institutional cognitive potentialities e.g., aesthetics and ethics, serve to bring together e.g., a diverse sense of beauty and contribution values, in the production of relevant social goods. In summary, institutions (along with their organizations) are the ‘actual’ producers of social goods via ‘their’ domain contributions to their overall socio-‐political landscapes. Socio-political landscapes define the importance to be given to our social goods and, provide the resources for producing them. To do so, socio-‐political landscapes provide for the ongoing articulation of a hierarchy of social goods and, a hierarchy of institutions relevant to their production (e.g., car companies are more important than horse-‐driven ‘buggy’ companies) and, provide for the necessary network of ‘productive’ socio-‐political relationships (by giving ‘resources’ to car companies). And, as we have mentioned in Chapter 3, our socio-‐political structures ‘for better or worse’ are always in synergy.
Social goods and our socio-political dynamics -
As we mentioned above, we can also see that social goods are foremost – in the usual sense – institutional (individual and societal) products and as such are the result of broader landscape dynamics in their overall social context; in effect, institutional products becoming social goods for their social context – the product of their social context and its socio-‐political dynamics -‐, those of ‘authority and power’. (And, as we pointed out previously, the same could be said for the individual in his/her institutional context – individual goods becoming social goods for their institutional and societal context.)
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To help us describe social goods as institutional products or creations, we will remember that in Chapter 2 we pointed out that institutions are foremost our relational structures and as a whole constitute the core architecture of our socio-‐political landscapes, and reflect our efforts at making sense and providing for structure, continuity and effectiveness to human action. In doing so, they provide the wherewithal for socio-‐political relevance by giving life to a web of institutional relationships and, provide our domains with the capacity for relevant contributions. In the context of individual, institutional and societal dynamics, this would lead us to say that understanding the nature and characteristics of social goods obliges us to understand their synergy with the landscape’s socio-‐political dynamics i.e., those dynamics aimed at making sense and providing for effective action. In effect, what has inspired and permitted its actors to ‘become more human’ (whatever this may have meant at various times in history) via individual, institutional and societal goods; in other words, what over time constituted ‘authority’ on one hand and, on the other, what gave them the ‘power’ to ‘produce’ them. This would mean, in the case of the automobile, understanding the socio-‐political dynamics that over time led to its development as an individual / institutional / societal product, as an example understanding the domain qualities67 associated with its predecessors e.g., the horse-‐drawn carriage, indeed those qualities that pulled us along via our individual and collective emotions / feelings on the path to the production of automobiles. In effect, those specific individual and collective emotional energies capable of both inspiring its production e.g., via a sense of beauty and, at the same time capable of competing for the necessary landscape resources for its production. In the case of this example, surely for most, the horse-‐drawn carriage was an improvement over other means of transportation say the oxen-‐driven cart; and, we can surmise that its domain qualities for the time were what could be considered ‘emotionally’ more attractive than for its predecessors e.g., horse-‐drawn carriages were generally faster, more reliable, more comfortable… than what had existed before. From an ‘authority ‘ perspective, these more attractive domain qualities (we could also have mentioned more interesting domain stories since all domain cognitive dimensions are in synergy with each other) ‘pulled’ us along in our search for bringing about what seemed to be a more human world, one that would be free of many of the constraints of geography; in effect, more 67 -Those capable of spurring human energies for the self as we mentioned in describing domain qualities in Chapter 2
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sophisticated domain qualities leading to the expression of more sophisticated ethical aspirations in the domain of travel -‐ it had to become ‘faster, more comfortable and reliable’ -‐. Nonetheless, keeping in mind that such domain qualities related to the automobile have to compete with the domain qualities (and other cognitive characteristics) of other domains that share somewhat the same ethical aspirations. Indeed, automobiles must compete on their broader socio-‐political landscape for authority e.g., with buses and airplanes for long-‐range travel and, with bicycles in the city… and for power, the means of producing them e.g., human and physical capital, while also making a contribution to their broader ethical aspirations. Therefore, to understand the nature and characteristics of automobiles as the product of individual / institutional / societal dynamics, we need to understand their synergy with the landscape’s broader core values or ethical aspirations such as those mentioned previously e.g., freedom, personal autonomy, and social ‘recognition’, more so with its overall ethical structure; and, we could add, how their (automobiles) synergy with these key ethical aspirations has served in the creation and development of our societal universe, order, ethos, sense of aesthetics, ethics, ideology and knowledge i.e., our individual / institutional and societal cognitive characteristics as outlined in the following graphic. We can also see that by being connected – giving life – to a society’s institutional architecture, each institution participates in the creation of all other institutions via a network of socio-‐political landscape relationships, with each institution sharing to a greater of lesser extent via its own domain contributions (e.g., automobiles) in the institutional dimensions (hence institutional products) of the others e.g., state institutions sharing the dimensions and products of those related to production (be it simply the buildings that state institutions occupy) or civil society (e.g., the social communication networks of political parties). More so, such sharing taking place on the basis of the authority and power that institutions (and individuals and societies on their own landscapes) are capable of garnering for themselves, and exercising in their institutional relationships, more specifically via their influence or degree of control on the social qualities shaping institutional relationships and, more broadly, on the landscape’s overarching ethical structure.
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As examples, state institutions that we have identified as ‘normally’ drawing their institutional ‘mediation’ energy from our social potentiality for synergy and related social qualities will only be able to do so inasmuch as they are perceived – from the perspective of society’s ethical structure -‐ as the ‘keepers’ of societal synergy on their relevant landscapes in the production of related social goods. Historically, we have seen that our collective potentiality for social synergy has often been driven by other institutions e.g., those related to production where society as a whole was driven by their ‘production’ interests be it related to commodities – oil and its oil magnates -‐ or manufactured goods such as automobiles (‘what’s good for General Motors is good for America’), with such institutions taking on the role of the state by in effect driving societal synergy, and related social qualities and ethical aspirations, to suit their goals – institutional products or social goods -‐. As a further example, social goods such as a ‘vision of the future’ resulting from our social potentiality for a sense of (common) destiny may be enacted in the context of a religious institution say the Catholic Church or, a political movement say the Green Party. In this context, the institution’s ‘planetary’ institutional dimension will be affected by the landscape’s overall socio-‐political dynamics – what importance does society as an example give the Catholic Church versus the Green Party as the institutional mediator for planetary issues or, for its social potentiality for a sense of destiny and related ethical aspirations. In summary, understanding the creation of social goods from a practical perspective, supposes that we understand them within the context of their broader institutional and socio-‐political landscape dynamics; more so, understanding social goods as the expression of ethical dynamics i.e., the result of – in synergy with -‐ our ethical structure, specifically our core values or ethical aspirations, and resultant principles and norms, and relationship commitments and qualities.
Social goods and institutional dimensions, our social potentialities and resulting social qualities -
From what we described in Chapter 6, we can see at the outset that social goods are in synergy with the social qualities that serve to bring them about i.e., those that create the individual, institutional and societal energy needed for the mediation of myriad domain contributions.
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As examples, social goods (products) such as computers and airplanes are dependent on -‐ epitomize – some of our contemporary social qualities e.g., those resulting from our increasingly sophisticated social potentialities for capacity and contribution, and their enactment in the context of our institutional dimensions related to ‘education and development’ and ‘production’; such social qualities as competence, dedication and ‘team work’ found in the individuals and institutions (companies) needed for their production. In effect, it would be difficult to imagine both computers and airplanes without the development of such and other contemporary social qualities and, we could add, related ethical aspirations such as ‘freedom to travel’. On the other hand, we can see that both computers and airplanes in this example both serve to provide a focal point for the continued development of such social qualities, hence the previously mentioned synergy between social goods and social qualities and, we could add, their contribution to the refinement of related ethical aspirations. More specifically, social goods are the result of: • Their institutional context and its key dimensions e.g., production, state,
community,
• The social potentialities driving its key institutional dimensions e.g., contribution, synergy, belonging, and,
• The resultant social qualities e.g., productivity, cooperation, compassion,
characterizing its institutional energy. As an example, we could have social goods such as ‘societal governance’ in the case of the state as a product of our social potentiality for synergy being driven in the institutional context of the state by social qualities such as compassion, competitiveness, or equity; nonetheless, recognizing that the state in this matter is also in competition with other institutions say religion or commercial institutions… Understanding the nature and characteristics of social goods i.e., ‘societal governance’ from the perspective of ‘state’ institutional mediations would require that we understand: • The state’s social and historical realities in its societal context e.g.,
democratic or authoritarian as social qualities, with social justice or social order as social goods,
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• The nature of those social potentialities driving institutional -‐ state – institutional dimensions e.g., the nature of ‘synergy’ – participative or hierarchical – among other social potentialities and,
• The social qualities characterizing institutional – state -‐ energy as an
example, for who and how universal in its application is compassion as a social quality in state mediations of domain contributions?
In effect, understanding a social good – ‘societal governance’ – requires that we understand all three of the above dimensions, especially the social qualities e.g., compassion and possibly competitiveness, that have served as the social energy in bringing it about and sustaining it as a social good and, importantly, the ethical structure with which this social good and related social qualities have been in synergy.
Some examples from a historical perspective -
To give us some insights into these realities and dynamics, a broad societal or civilization perspective on the evolutionary dynamics involved may be useful, one that would also be relevant for what we described in Chapter 2 as our ‘collective human psyche’. In the following, we will see that historically, while social goods have been in synergy with institutional dimensions and social potentialities, and resultant social qualities, that these dynamics as expected have been affected by the broad characteristics of the civilizations in which they took place, what we have referred to as their social and historical realities. First, in a so-‐called ‘traditional society’, social potentialities for synergy, accountability, and destiny were primarily associated with the Church or with an authoritarian form of government say the Monarch as institutions. As a result, social qualities such as ‘respect for authority ‘ would probably have been in synergy with ‘strong group solidarity’ beginning with the family or clan and the ‘maintenance of a relevant hierarchical order’ as social goods. Here, ‘respect for authority’ as a social quality and ‘strong group solidarity and maintenance of a relevant hierarchical order’ as social goods would probably have constituted a vital component of ethics for that society i.e., a part of its core ethical aspirations, along with ethical principles probably characterized by ‘command and control’ in all of its key institutions from the state to the family. In comparison with a more contemporary context, ‘respect for authority’ as a social quality aimed at the creation of a ‘just and open’ society as a social good in the context of state institutions as an example, would be associated with very
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different ethical aspirations e.g., freedom and democracy, along with ethical principles focused on ‘speaking truth to authority’ and, relationship commitments aimed at open and congruent partnerships with ‘authority’. From the perspective of a ‘modern’ society with its emphasis on a ‘more open and evolutionary’ understanding of human nature, social potentialities for synergy, accountability, and destiny are normally associated with the state via a Republic or Constitutional form of government, where social potentialities for synergy, accountability, and destiny are linked to citizen participation e.g., as the expression of the ‘will’ of the people, usually accompanied by Charters of Rights and Freedoms‘ (as in the case of Canada) as state ensured’ citizenship goods with related social qualities – open and equitable relationships with all citizens -‐ providing the social energy for institutional mediation such as through a transparent justice system, a fair or largely acceptable tax system, and ‘due process’ in decision-‐making. Indeed, citizenship goods and social qualities providing the basis for the state’s ethical structure. In our increasingly post-‐modern world, synergy, accountability, and destiny as social potentialities are often viewed as the purview of the individual with the expression ‘what turns you on’ symbolizing its ethos or primary characteristic. Here, institutions such as the state and church are seen as competing with other institutions for the attention of the individual, and with the individual him/herself. In this context, institutions providing for the individual’s personal, professional, or spiritual growth, have a great deal of influence over both the individual and our collective perception of synergy e.g., how we ‘balance’ our lives between work and play, our sense of accountability e.g., to ourselves and our spiritual growth be it on the basis of some esoteric religion or philosophy, or to our perception of what’s linked to our sense of destiny such as ‘saving the environment’. Social goods and social qualities in this context will have legitimacy on the basis of their contribution as examples, to a sense of personal freedom and autonomy as ethical aspirations, hence the challenge for state institutions to be the instruments of social synergy or, for any religious institution to be the sole purveyor of a sense of destiny. As the above has endeavored to point out, the institutional context for the interplay of social potentialities and institutional dimensions is always a fluid one in the creation of social qualities and resultant social goods. Sometimes the relationships are pretty much as inferred in Chapter 6 and repeated here for ease reference, very often not.
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A couple of current examples –
While the family as an institution was described as the focal point for the development of our social potentiality for empathy, children in contemporary society often spend very little time in the context of the traditional family. Hence, their social potentiality for empathy and its associated social qualities / social goods – an ability to understand and relate to others and the world – must be developed in a variety of other institutional contexts such as day care, kindergarten and the like. Hence, day care as an institution will necessarily have ‘an ability to understand and relate to others and the world’ as vital ethical aspirations. With the advent of sophisticated and pervasive communication technologies, the institutional dimension related to ‘community’ driven by our social potentiality for ‘belonging’ is no longer related solely to matters of geography or traditional institutional contexts such neighborhood, school, church or work place. Increasingly, ‘community’ and ‘belonging’ are defined for both children and adults as relative to – being driven by -‐ personal interests among similar minded individuals, be it in sports, the arts or some ‘good or bad’ cause. Understanding related social qualities / social goods therefore requires an understanding of the realities and dynamics of these broader socio-‐political landscapes.
Social goods and our social functions: stewardship, governance, and management -
As we mentioned in Chapter 5, ‘individual, institutional and societal realities’ – what we have described in this chapter as social goods and social qualities -‐ are ultimately the product of our social functions.
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By being the embodiment of ‘ethics’: our ethical aspirations (stewardship), ethical principles and norms (governance) and relationship commitments and qualities (management), in their actualization and transformation capacity – for bringing about a ‘better’ world via the transformation of our social goods and social qualities -‐, the goal of our social functions is to bring together – harness -‐ our core human and social potentialities and dynamics and to give them purpose and structure in a social context via its embedded ethical structure; indeed, of growing our social goods and social qualities towards what we described as an ever increasing ecology of mind and community (with its ups and downs). Before we move on, and for ease of reference, the following previously presented graphic that aims to describe these actualization and transformational dynamics will be useful to keep in mind.
More specifically, stewardship, governance, and management, by being ‘living’ social functions – capable of growth and adaptation – aim to create a synergy between the realities of our social goods and social qualities as individuals, institutions and societies, and the broader realities – social goods and social qualities -‐ of their socio-‐political landscapes; in effect, social goods and social qualities which are ‘dynamically’ relevant to their larger context and, as we mentioned above, capable of participating in the creation of a growing ecology of mind and community. And, by doing so, provide our evolving and (hopefully) increasingly relevant social goods and social qualities – what we described as the substance of ethics – with the opportunity to participate in the development of an evolving and increasingly relevant ethical structure via the development of our social functions as described by the arrows in the following graphic.
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To further describe the above dynamics, let us take the example of ‘equity’ as the expression of 1) a core value – one of the ethical aspirations – driving our ethical structure, 2) equity as a social good and social quality and, 3) equity driving institutional mediations of relevant domain contributions via its expression in each of our social functions. In the context of our ethical structure, ‘equity’ as a core value in an institutional context will be reflected in its principles and norms and in its relationship commitments and qualities. As an example, in principles such as fairness in its dealings with partners and clients and, relationship commitments such as being respectful of their legitimate expectations and, in relationship qualities such as openness to their individual differences. And, as we mentioned in Chapter 6 in the context of describing the role of our social functions in the context of our social qualities, “‘equity’ as a social quality resulting from and driving our social potentiality for synergy in the context of a state institution for example, can best be understood by ‘equity’ as a social good – the result of the state’s mediation of myriad domain contributions” and we could add, on its larger landscape. With this in mind, we could now say that this synergy of social qualities and social goods e.g., one being understood by the other, is the result of the state’s mediation of myriad domain contributions via its ethical structure e.g., ‘equity’ as an ethical aspiration (core value), embedded and driving its social functions; and, as we mentioned above, since our social functions are ‘living’ social functions aimed at creating a growing ecology of mind and community between say an institutional good such as equity and a broader landscape reality or social good such as competitiveness, resultant changes in the substance of equity as a social good and social quality will affect the substance of our ethics, and in the best of circumstances, bring about changes in our the ethical structure to enhance its overall landscape effectiveness e.g., via a more refined understanding of equity as an ethical aspiration relative to the landscape’s overall ethical framework, and
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as such foster more relevant ethical principles and norms and, relationship commitments and qualities. From a different perspective, ‘equity’ as a core value and ethical aspiration say in the context of an automobile company’s ethical framework will be affected by the impact of the company’s ethical principles and norms (those driving its governance function) on its related social goods and social qualities e.g., its personnel pay and promotion policies as social goods and general staff relation practices as social qualities as examples; changes in such policies and practices i.e., in its social functions, will impact directly on equity as a core company value and on its overall ethical framework. To conclude, we could say that social goods and social qualities by being the expression – the result -‐ of our ethical structure driving our social functions on our socio-‐political landscapes, will in turn affect our social functions and their driving ethical structures as described briefly in the above graphic.
Creating a relevant synergy between ethics and the world of our social qualities and social goods
Since the overall goal of this approach to ethical dynamics has been to grow what we have described as our core human and social potentialities, either in the case of an individual, institution and society as a whole, via the growth – as we have seen above -‐ of a relevant synergy between ethics and the world of our social qualities and social goods, let us take a closer look at what this entails from the perspective of our social functions – those functions by which such growth will either succeed or fail. In such a ‘fluid’ context, understanding and transforming – growing -‐ landscape ethics giving ‘social’ life and meaning to our core social functions i.e.,
• The core values or ethical structure associated with stewardship, • The related principles and norms framing ‘institutional and
organizational’ policies in the world of governance, and • The relationship commitments and qualities sustaining and giving
relevance to ‘work’ processes in the case of management -‐ Via their synergy with social qualities and social goods, supposes that we first understand the relationship of landscape ethics to:
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• The social qualities and social goods with which landscape ethics are in synergy – ‘what are we trying to achieve’ -‐;
• The socio-‐political dynamics driving social qualities and social goods
i.e., which institution ‘calls the shots’ and for what; • The key cognitive potentialities underlying landscape realities e.g.,
domain contribution values and institutional ethics or, domain stories and institutional aesthetics; and,
• The nature and characteristics of the ‘living systems’ dynamics giving
life to the landscape as a whole e.g., the level of individual and institutional congruency in bringing about social qualities and social goods in ‘structural coupling’, or the degree of openness of landscape dynamics to the creation of new social qualities and social goods (in recognition that the system as a whole needs a high level of ‘freedom’ to function effectively as a dissipative structure).
Since a brief example for each of the above points may be useful, let us take the world of health care, more specifically the context of a hospital facility to examine each one of the above points, and importantly, how they are each connected to the world of ethics in synergy with the world of our social qualities and social goods.
The social qualities and social goods with which they – ethics - are in synergy – ‘what are we trying to achieve’ -
We can see that the hospital’s overall ethical structure: its core values or ethical aspirations e.g., those related to respect for life, professional competence, and compassion, will be in synergy with – and sometimes similar to -‐ the social qualities driving institutional energy, even in synergy with those social qualities which could be viewed as in the realm of hospital administration e.g., value for money and team work... In effect, such core values, by being embodied in and giving life to the hospital’s ‘vision and sense of hope’ (as drivers of its other human potentialities e.g., hospital – institutional -‐ identity) will provide the context for the hospital’s stewardship i.e., the core values providing the means for the attainment of the hospital’s collective ‘vision and sense of hope’ via its governance policies and management processes.
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On the other hand, we can also see that the core values mentioned above (respect for life, professional competence, and compassion) are also in synergy with the more specific social goods provided by the hospital e.g., diagnostic services, and surgeries. In effect, ethics giving specific institutional meaning – by being associated and giving life to the institution’s overall ‘vision and sense of hope’ -‐ to the institution’s social goods. In turn, the institution’s social qualities and social goods by being as we’ve seen the product of a variety of domain institutional contributions on an ever changing socio-‐political landscape provide what could be viewed as a critical contribution to the development of the institution’s core values / ethical structure and, via institutional stewardship, governance and management, to its evolving ‘vision and sense of hope’ (in synergy with our other human potentialities e.g., consciousness and conscious will). The following graphic seeks to describe these dynamics.
The socio-political dynamics driving social qualities and social goods i.e., which institution ‘calls the shots’ and for what -
As we mentioned previously, social qualities and social goods result from the overall landscape authority and power of the institution in determining its ‘control’ over its institutional dimensions say for production -‐ in this case, social goods such as diagnostic services and surgeries -‐, and its social qualities e.g., to what extent it can be compassionate. Indeed, both social qualities and social goods being dependent on the landscape’s overall socio-‐political dynamics.
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As an example, we could say: how much authority and power can the hospital garner for its social goods -‐ diagnostic services and surgeries -‐; or stated in practical terms, how do other landscape institutions e.g., government as a major stakeholder, view the value of these services (authority) and, how much money (power) are they willing to provide the hospital? Referring back to the above graphic, we can see that understanding and transforming ethics -‐ core values / ethical structure -‐, in their potential for shaping and giving life to our vision and sense of hope and thereby growing our other human potentialities via institutional or individual stewardship, governance and management, supposes that we understand their relationship with those social qualities and social goods afforded the institution or the individual via the landscape’s socio-‐political dynamics. Also, understanding the relationship between core values – those giving life and meaning to our vision and sense of hope -‐ and the social qualities and social goods afforded by the institutional landscape, gives us the opportunity of transforming one or the other via our social functions i.e., stewardship, governance and management. As an example, in the case of a hospital by being more professionally competent in what it does e.g., better surgeries and, by being more cost efficient.
The key cognitive potentialities underlying landscape realities e.g., domain contribution values and institutional ethics or, domain stories and institutional aesthetics -
Before describing the connection between cognitive potentialities and our ability to understand and transform ethical dynamics via their synergy with social qualities and social goods as suggested above, let us take a look at what we described in Chapter 2 regarding those cognitive potentialities that we associated with institutions (which would also be applicable to individuals and society) and to domain contributions. As we mentioned in describing these cognitive potentialities, understanding one dimension say institutional ethics (in this case) supposes that we understand their relationship -‐ more so their synergistic relationship – with the other institutional dimensions say aesthetics, ethos, ideology and knowledge as institutional cognitive dimensions. And, since institutional ethics are the result of institutionally mediated domain contributions, understanding institutional ethics also requires that we
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understand the cognitive dimensions of key domain contributions; as examples, the stories, sense of beauty, and contribution values in the domain of surgeries (re our example in the world of health care). Therefore, understanding, more so, transforming core values – ethics – via, as we mentioned above, the ability of our social functions to transform social qualities (more compassionate) and social goods (better surgeries) require that we understand these other cognitive dimensions. As a further example, what contribution values in the case of surgeons enhance their beliefs and grow their sense of faith (‘turns them on’). And, how are these contribution values associated with the domain’s sense of beauty, their stories, and truths as examples; more specifically, how do domain stories e.g., stories of success in saving lives, and the domain’s other cognitive characteristics impact on the social qualities and social goods that are associated with surgeries … And, in the case of institutions, understanding their universe, ideology, and knowledge as cognitive potentialities, provides for an understanding of their capacity for the mediation of domain contributions via their social functions e.g., governance principles, and for their resultant social qualities and social goods. As an example, hospitals with a good knowledge of the world of surgeries will be better able to implement governance principles regarding such core values as professional competence or compassion. The nature and characteristics of the ‘living systems’ dynamics giving life to the landscape as a whole e.g., the level of individual and institutional congruency in bringing about social qualities and social goods in ‘structural coupling’, or the degree of openness of landscape dynamics to the creation of new social qualities and social goods (in recognition that the system as a whole needs a high level of ‘freedom’ to function effectively as a dissipative structure). As we mentioned in describing living systems dynamics, understanding and transforming ethics towards the goal of more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics is first of all dependent on the degree of congruency afforded individuals and institutions (more broadly, we could also say societies as core socio-‐political structures) in bringing about individual and institutional realities – what we have described here as social qualities and social goods -‐. In our hospital context, we could say: to what extent are those providing surgeries and diagnostic services – goods – capable of engaging others in the hospital in transforming – improving – their services on the basis of the contribution values of their professional domain and, their broader ethics as individuals.
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As an example, in the context of ‘structural coupling’, are they capable of congruently engaging others in matters of pattern (their vision), structure (the content of their professional domain), and process (their ability to learn and improve). In effect, are they capable on their institutional / organizational landscape of growing their core values e.g., professional competence, and compassion, by growing the social qualities and social goods of their domains? And, from the perspective of what we have described as the characteristics of ‘dissipative structures’ – a world of becoming -‐, we could ask: are the landscape’s socio-‐political dynamics – the world of authority and power – open to change in the sense of accepting that hospital staff can make improvements to surgeries and diagnostic services – sharing of authority -‐ and, that they are given the means to do so – power -‐.
Summary: Some overall elements of this necessary synergy – between ethics and the world of our social qualities and social goods -
Finally, ‘creating a relevant synergy between ethics and the world of our social qualities and social goods’ supposes that those dynamics described in 2-‐ a) above as pertaining to the institution – say the left side of the following graphic -‐, must now be seen as in synergy with similar dynamics taking place on its landscape as a whole, more specifically with institutions with which it is competing for landscape authority and power. As examples, the institution will be competing with the ‘vision and sense of hope’, the ‘stewardship, governance and management ‘ realities, the ‘core values / ethical structure’ and, the ‘social qualities and social goods’, of the landscape as a whole and, as we mentioned above, especially with those institutions key to its authority and power, or its ability to achieve its preferred vision and, to give life to its sense of hope. Indeed, institutions (and, on a different scale, individuals and societies) must compete on all four of the dimensions mentioned above for the development of a compatible or effective overall landscape reality as an example, via ‘structural coupling’, if it is to maximize the synergy between its ethics and its social qualities and social goods. Simply put, such a synergy will only be possible if the institution is in synergy with the overall realities of its landscape e.g., its vision and sense of hope and the overall social qualities and social goods embedded in its vision and sense of hope are in synergy with those of the landscape’s vital institutions.
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In summary – Chapters 6 and 7
In Chapters 6 and 7, we have sought to lay out some of the main conditions for ‘growing an ecology of mind and community’ via the creation of an evolving synergy between our social qualities and social goods, and our ethical structure i.e., its hierarchy of ethical aspirations or core values, and its resultant relationship principles and norms and, relationship commitments and qualities. In doing so, we have seen that social qualities and social goods provide on one hand the substance of ethics – what ethics aim to achieve – and on the other hand, the springboard – the necessary realities – for the enactment of ever more sophisticated ethical manifestations. We are now left in the next chapter to describe an approach for dealing with what will be described as socio-‐political energies, those energies that are associated with the realities and dynamics of authority and power as they apply to the individual, institutions and, more broadly, to societies as a whole as they bring about social qualities and social goods and, which ultimately determine the nature and characteristics of a possible ‘ecology of mind and community’.
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Chapter 8: Growing an Ecology of Mind and Community
Step 3: Harnessing our Socio-Political Energies Towards More ‘Open, Shared and Responsible Ethical Dynamics’
As mentioned previously in the Introduction to Part II and, more generally in Part I, ethics, more so our ethical framework as an individual, institution or society, could be viewed as the ultimate manifestation of our socio-‐political instincts for survival and growth on our different landscapes. In effect, where we could conclude from Part I that our survival and growth assumes an evolving and constructive synergy between the world of our mind i.e., that of our core human potentialities and of our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities, with the world of our socio-‐political structures – domains, institutions (individuals and societies included) and, our socio-‐political landscapes -‐; hence, our reference in Part II to the need for growing an increasing ecology of mind and community as the ultimate expression of this synergy and, our ‘overarching’ ethical aspiration. In Chapters 6 and 7 of Part II, we also pointed out that such a synergy – one leading to ‘growing an ecology of mind and community’ -‐ is also dependent on the enactment of our social potentialities in the context of the institutional dimensions of our overall institutional framework, one leading to -‐ as one would expect -‐, the creation of an evolving synergy between our social qualities and social goods – our realities –, and our ethical structure i.e., its hierarchy of ethical aspirations or core values, its resultant principles and norms and, its relationship commitments and qualities, a synergy conducive to our survival and growth on our different landscapes. And, from the perspective of overall social dynamics i.e., social dynamics involving all of us and not only dependent on a ruling elite, we could say that a ‘synergy’ between our social qualities and social goods and, ethical structure, one leading to a growing ‘ecology of mind and community’ will be dependent on our ability to have more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics where our social qualities and social goods become, as we mentioned in the previous chapter, the springboard – the realities – for the enactment of ever more sophisticated ethical manifestations and, therefore the enactment of ever more satisfying social qualities and social goods for all. As we will now see in Chapter 8, achieving an ecology of mind and community through more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics will also be dependent on what we described in Chapter 3 as the landscape’s socio-‐political
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dynamics i.e., those dynamics that we associated with the realities of authority and power, and that underlie and give life to what we will describe in the following as our socio-‐political energies as they apply to an individual, institution or society, broadly their ability to bring about those realities – social qualities and social goods -‐ that will grow their human potentialities say, for individuals, their degree of consciousness, personal identity and sense of hope and, their social potentialities e.g., for contribution. In summary, this chapter will first describe what would be some of the conditions for an evolving ecology of mind and community from the perspective of social qualities and social goods as one of the avenues for moving towards increasingly ‘open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics’; and, in doing so, it will acknowledge that what we described as the substance of ethics i.e., social qualities and social goods, is also the substance – the world -‐ of an ecology of mind and community. To do so, it will first describe an ecology of social qualities as one capable of creating a constructive or ‘ecological’ synergy of social potentialities and institutional dimensions; and, it will do the same with respect to an ecology of social goods i.e., one capable of creating sustainable landscape dynamics and, where individuals, institutions, and societies as a whole can ultimately grow their human potentialities say for consciousness and a sense of hope, along with their social potentialities. In doing so, it will briefly describe the implications for our ethical structure and social functions. Next, we will address the fact that what are social qualities and social goods for an individual, institution, or society – those capable of growing their human and social potentialities -‐ are often not the same for other individuals, institutions, or societies. As an example, important social qualities and social goods for an individual are often in competition or conflict with those of important institutions say the family or the church. More so in the case of states where competition for vital social goods e.g., resources such as oil, has led to war. Such issues will be the motivation for describing initially the conditions for an ecology of socio-‐political energies, those energies that stem from the forces that compel us to grow, more so compete for authority and power on all our effective landscapes as a condition to our ‘effective’ survival be it for the individual in the context of the family as a child or, as the candidate of a major political party seeking to become the head of state; and, we could also say the same for an institution on its institutional landscape or for a society as a whole. Finally, since we ultimately exist and, take our existence only as a component of a network of production processes in which the function of each ‘component e.g.,
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each individual, institution and eventually, every society, is to participate in the production or transformation of other components in the network, for the maintenance of what could be described as its own (structural) integrity as a living system’, we will try to answer the question of how – in a world of social qualities and social goods, and related socio-‐political energies – do we negotiate / mediate or, create a synergy between our need for growth with the need for growth of others towards an ecology of mind and community or, create strategies for more open, shared and responsible ethical energies. Specifically, Chapter 8 will examine: • The conditions for an ecology of social qualities and social goods -‐ those
leading to an ecology of mind and community -‐;
• The nature and characteristics of socio-‐political energies leading to an ecology of mind and community; and,
• How we can mediate / negotiate – create a synergy between -‐ our need
for growth with the need for growth of others towards an ecology of mind and community or, create strategies for more open, shared and responsible ethical energies.
Before proceeding however, the following points and graphics will be useful to keep in mind. The first graphic points out that our human potentialities as individuals, institutions and societies are not only those forces that compel us to become all that we are capable of becoming as we mentioned in Chapter 1, they are also the forces through which our ‘becoming’ takes place; in effect, pointing out that while more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics aim to create via social qualities and social goods, a growing ecology of mind and community, that such ethical dynamics do so via the growth of our human potentialities.
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The second graphic adds another dimension to the above, one that we alluded to in Chapter 2 when we mentioned that our human potentialities grow together – in synergy – or that they don’t grow at all. Now, we can also mention that an ecology of mind and community first begins with an ‘ecology’ of core human potentialities; in effect, where the function of our social qualities and social goods – for the individual, as for the institution and society as a whole -‐, is to grow our human potentialities as a whole e.g., social goods capable of bringing about a vision and sense of hope that can be the source for a greater degree of consciousness and a richer personal or institutional identity. The above requirement that our social qualities and social goods grow our human potentialities as a whole helps to explain why contrary to the ‘control’ aspirations of some institutionally-‐driven religions or ideological movements, often with a well-‐articulated sense of vision and hope, our human potentialities – vision included -‐ are always in a state of becoming, always seeking to be more finely tuned to our potential for growing a ‘better world’ via a synergy of all our human potentialities. As in the case of our human potentialities, the following graphic also aims to emphasize that while more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics aim to create via social qualities and social goods, a growing ecology of mind and community, that such ethical dynamics do so ‘socially’ -‐ from a social energy perspective -‐ via the sophistication of our social potentialities (enacted in the context of the institutional dimensions or our institutional framework).
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And, similar to our human potentialities, the next graphic points out as we alluded to in Chapter 6, that our social potentialities ‘live and act’ as a whole and, that the social qualities and social goods leading to an ecology of mind and community will be the product – and reflective – of an increasing ecology of social potentialities e.g., where we find that social qualities related to destiny are also in tune, more so in synergy, with those related to belonging and capacity and, we could say the same, for social goods. In describing how we might go about growing an ecology of mind and community from the perspective of harnessing our socio-‐political energies via more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics, we will articulate a cascading series of questions which could be applied to any specific social context.
The conditions for an ecology of social qualities and social goods - those leading to an ecology of mind and community -
In the following, we will seek to describe some of the conditions for creating a constructive or ‘ecological’ synergy of social qualities and social goods, one capable of creating and growing sustainable landscape dynamics where individuals, institutions, and societies as a whole, can ultimately grow their human potentialities say for consciousness and a sense of hope and, their social potentialities say for belonging and contribution on the basis of harnessing their socio-‐political energies via more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics. Later, in number 3 below, we will examine more specifically what would constitute some of the main issues associated with an ecology of social qualities and social goods for a given socio-‐political landscape with its individuals, institutions and societal context, and with its own ethical structure.
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As we proceed, it will be useful to keep in mind that (as we described in Chapter 7) social qualities, social goods, and ethics can sometimes be perceived as one and the same. To describe this situation, we used the example of ‘equity’, where in the case of government policy, it can be viewed as a social good – the result of the state’s mediation of myriad domain contributions – and the basis for a high degree of social harmony or, simply, social peace. Nonetheless, equity can also be viewed as a social quality driving – giving a specific energy to -‐ our social potentiality for synergy in the context of a well functioning family or company and, in the context of an institution, a core value of its ethical structure ‘motivating’ its members via related principles and norms and, specific relationship commitments and qualities. Evidently, in the following, equity would be viewed as a social good or social quality. We will address first what would constitute some of the conditions for ‘an ecology of social qualities’ and, later for ‘an ecology of social goods’, keeping in mind that social qualities and social goods are always in a synergistic relationship, one bringing about the other.
Towards an ‘ecology’ of social qualities -
In Chapter 6, we saw that social qualities are the result of our social potentialities enacted in the context of the dimensions of our institutional framework, and to describe these dynamics we provided the following graphic. Now, we will seek to describe what would constitute an ecology of social qualities, those capable of creating a constructive or ‘ecological’ synergy of social potentialities and institutional dimensions, the arrows in the graphic above, those leading potentially to growing an ecology of mind and community and capable of giving us a sense for the ‘ethics that we must have’ or, that could be the basis for harnessing our socio-‐political energies via more ‘open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics’ (since social qualities are one of the two ‘substances’ of ethics).
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As a starting point, we can see from what we mentioned previously in describing the following graphic that an ecology of social qualities would first aim to provide for the growth – via social energies -‐ of our human and social potentialities as examples, the growth of our human potentialities related to consciousness and vision, and to such social potentialities as belonging and accountability; such growth taking place via ethics and their influence on the social functions driving overall landscape dynamics and its specific realities. So, while social qualities ideally aim to provide for the growth of our human and social potentialities on a particular socio-‐political landscape say one related to a family, an institution or a society in general, an ecology of social qualities i.e., those related to and resulting from our social potentialities enacted in the context of the institutional dimensions of our overall institutional framework, will aim to provide for an ecological synergy of both human and social energies both within specific landscapes but also, increasingly, across our human landscapes as a whole. More specifically, where social qualities related to say our social potentiality for belonging are capable of growing those related to synergy or destiny, and where those related to destiny are capable of fostering ‘transcendent’ meaning to those related to belonging. And, from a broader landscape perspective, where social qualities resulting from our social potentiality for accountability in the context of a nation e.g., loyalty and solidarity, do not hinder or restrict those related to a broader or more universal sense of destiny such as in the context of the planet as a whole e.g., openness to the realities – social qualities and social goods -‐-‐ of other nations; and, we could add, keeping in mind that such social qualities do so in the context of growing our human potentialities say for vision and hope and, importantly, our social potentialities as a whole, and for those with whom we relate.
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Here, we could ask in addressing the challenges of a specific landscape, do our social qualities as an individual, institution, or society: • Bring about a growing ecology of social qualities where each one in effect
serves to strengthen the other e.g., where those social qualities related to belonging contribute to those related to synergy and destiny for the individual as an example, and for the individual’s contribution to his/her broader landscape, say that of the planet and, also
• Create a growing ecology of social qualities capable of bringing about
those social qualities and, ultimately, those social goods, reflective of our ethical aspirations e.g., for social justice in the context of a society or, simply, safer automobiles in the context of an automobile company?
And, as an example, since institutional (individual or societal) social qualities are in the best of circumstances in a constructive synergy with the institution’s ethical structure – its ethics – via its social functions, we could also ask: • To what extent is the current matrix of ‘effective’ social qualities in
synergy with the institution’s ethical structure, especially its ethical aspirations as expressed in its professed core values, its ethical principles and norms and, its key relationship commitments and qualities, both relative to its internal dynamics and, also, in its network of institutional relationships?
To answer these questions from a practical perspective, one could begin by describing the current matrix of social qualities, say in the context of an institution, and identify those institutional social qualities that help and those that hinder the enactment of those overall social qualities reflective of the institution’s proclaimed ethical aspirations and those of relevant others e.g., such as its institutional partners. As an example, are social qualities related to belonging in the case of a political party hindering its members, once in government, from seeking the enactment of other social qualities e.g., related to destiny such as openness to others and the world, reflective of the political party’s ethical aspirations for social justice or environmental sustainability. In summary, we could also ask: • Are our individual, institutional, and societal, social qualities – their social
energies -‐ helping us to become all that we are capable of becoming as individuals, institutions, and societies and,
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• From the perspective of harnessing our socio-‐political energies towards
growing an ecology of mind and community, are they the result of ‘open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics’?
Towards an ‘ecology’ of social goods -
To understand what would constitute an ecology of social goods, we need to refer at the outset to what we mentioned in Chapter 7 where both social qualities and social goods were seen as the substance of ethics – what ethics ultimately aim to achieve (for ‘good or bad’) -‐ and, where we also mentioned that social qualities and social goods can be understood on the basis of their socio-‐political landscapes – the result of authority and power dynamics -‐ and the nature and characteristics of the landscape’s ethical structure and social functions as described in the following graphic presented in Chapter 7. In turn, we can also say that socio-‐political landscapes can be understood on the basis of the social qualities and social goods that bring them about and that give them an ongoing existence; in essence, that give them the potential for growing an ecology of mind and community via their embedded authority and power characteristics or more specifically, their ethical dynamics. In such a context, an ecology of social goods in synergy with an ecology of social qualities (one doesn’t go without the other), would aim to create sustainable landscape dynamics as an initial outcome i.e., from the perspective of living systems, the production of what could be described as its own (structural) integrity as a living system (autopoiesis) where as examples, social goods resulting from the landscape’s production institutions e.g., cars or computers, are in synergy – are capable of growing, at least minimally – those e.g., social justice, related to the landscape’s state or planetary institutions. For ease of reference, the graphic referring to what we described as our institutional dimensions in Chapter 6 follows.
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From a more practical perspective, we could also say, where social goods such as illicit drugs are not permitted to destroy those other social goods such as public heath and safety which are vital to the survival of the living system e.g., the individual, family or society, as essential social structures – institutions -‐. Towards understanding what might constitute an ecology of social goods, the first step would be to understand the nature and characteristics of the current synergy of social goods and how they impact their relevant socio-‐political landscapes, in effect their – social goods -‐ embedded authority and power. As an example, we could ask: • To what extent does a particular social good say automobiles impact on
other social goods say clean air – their relative importance to each other or which one drives the other on their socio-‐political landscapes e.g., how much of our resources financial or otherwise does each one consume relative to the other – their relative authority and power -‐?
Second, since the landscape’s structural integrity i.e., its ability to engage in ‘production processes’ essential to its maintenance and growth, be it in the context of an individual, institution or society as a whole, exists only on the basis of what we described as a dissipative structure i.e., that of ‘becoming’, this implies that an ecology of social goods would aim to foster a landscape where individuals, institutions, and societies as a whole can ultimately grow their human potentialities say for consciousness and a sense of hope and their social potentialities say for contribution and connection.
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From this perspective, we could ask: • Is the particular socio-‐political landscape open to the possibility of
‘change and development’ regarding the relative importance to be given certain social goods versus others e.g., those that offer the possibility of maintaining life on the planet or that foster democratic values versus those that maintain a rigid social hierarchy.
And, since social goods like social qualities are also in synergy with the institution’s ethical structure – its ethics – via its social functions, we could also ask like we did in the case of social qualities: • To what extent is the current matrix of ‘effective’ social goods in synergy
with the institution’s ethical structure, especially its ethical aspirations as expressed in its professed core values, its ethical principles and norms and, its key relationship commitments and qualities, both relative to its internal dynamics and, also, in its network of institutional relationships? And:
• Are our individual, institutional and societal social goods along with their
embedded authority and power realities helping us to become all that we are capable of becoming as individuals, institutions and societies or driving us ‘metaphorically’ such as in the case of our consumer oriented societies, towards possible extinction or, as we mentioned in the case of social qualities, are they the result of ‘open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics’?
In summary, the following graphic points out that as a first step, growing an ecology of mind and community is ultimately dependent on growing our social qualities and social goods via more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics.
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While the above has set some of the main conditions for moving towards an ecology of mind and community and given us the basis for harnessing our socio-‐political energies via more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics, we are nonetheless left with the challenge of meeting those conditions in a world of competition for authority and power where, as we mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, what are social qualities and social goods for an individual, institution, or society, are often not the same for other individuals, institutions or societies.
The nature and characteristics of socio-political energies leading to an ecology of mind and community -
Moving towards a more finely tuned ecology of mind and community obliges us to understand as we mentioned above, the current synergy between social qualities and social goods and the landscape’s socio-‐political dynamics i.e., those dynamics aimed at making sense and providing for effective action via our social functions and their embedded ethical structure but also, importantly, as we will see in the following, to understand how these same socio-‐political dynamics via what will be described as socio-‐political energies, also determine our ability to bring about a growing ecology of mind and community. To do so, our next step will be to examine the nature and characteristics of our socio-‐political energies, those energies that are associated with the realities and dynamics of authority and power as they apply to individuals, institutions and, more broadly, to societies as a whole and, from the perspective of an ecology of mind and community, the role for more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics.
What are socio-political energies -
From what we have mentioned since the beginning, especially since Chapter 1, we can see that our socio-‐political energies have their roots in our human potentialities – in those forces that compel us as individuals, institutions, and societies alike to become all that we are capable of becoming -‐; in effect, those forces that compel us to grow, more so compete for authority and power on all our effective landscapes as a condition to our ‘effective’ survival be it for the individual in the context of the family as a child or as the candidate of a major political party seeking to become the head of state68 or, in the case of a government institution, to compete for a bigger or, at least, a ‘sufficient’ share of the government’s budget. 68 - Sometimes, in the case of collaboration, we could argue against our own ‘self-interest’ e.g., in the case of a greater cause.
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Such human forces – essentially socio-‐political energies when expressed on social landscapes – are related, as we mentioned in Chapter 1, to our need for growing our consciousness and conscious will, our sense of self along with a more socially powerful personal, institutional or societal identity and, a more satisfying vision and sense of hope; and, we mentioned that such forces take form through what we described as our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities. Also, we can say once again that such structures and potentialities are given a specific social direction and substance via our social potentialities enacted in the core dimensions of our institutional framework. For ease of reference, the graphic referring to our cognitive (structures) and potentialities is reproduced below. Before we examine more specifically how do we might go about creating a synergy between our need for growth with the need for growth of others towards an ecology of mind and community via what will be described as a progressive spiral of social qualities and social goods, we will first examine what could be described as the nature and characteristics of socio-‐political energies.
The nature of socio-political energies -
The nature of socio-‐political energies (as opposed to their characteristics which we will address later) is first of all tied to the nature of our human and social potentialities. In effect, to the nature of: • The forces that give life to our human potentialities e.g., the need to grow
a sense of conscious will or authorship along with a sense of self in the case of an individual, institution or society;
• The cognitive (social) structures and potentialities that bring about our ‘cognitive’ realities e.g., the fact that our cognitive potentialities are all mutually dependent or act – grow -‐ as a whole (or don’t) via as an example, our domains of contribution either as individuals, institutions or societies;
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• The institutional (individual, societal…) need to give social and historical meaning to domain contributions and to link them to a broader context; and,
• The social potentialities and institutional dimensions that give social direction and substance to institutional contributions.
As a corollary, understanding socio-‐political energies is viewing them first and foremost as the expression of the nature of such potentialities or forces. Towards an ecology of mind and community, say in the context first of the individual and his/her institutional domain contributions, and following the approach we used for social qualities and social goods, we could ask initially, do the institution’s socio-‐political dynamics as expressed in its effective ethical structure promote the growth for the individual -‐ via open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics -‐ of such socio-‐political energies, do they: • Foster the growth of the individual’s ability to develop and give effect to a
congruent sense of vision and hope (thereby enriching the individual’s socio-‐political energies – giving the individual the authority and power to grow his/her human potentialities as a whole -‐);
• Allow for the individual to effectively participate in the transformation of as examples, the institution’s ethos and ethics via the individual’s key domain stories and contribution values;
• Permit the individual’s own social and historical meaning to effectively
participate in the institutional mediation of his / her domain contributions; and,
• Grow the individual’s social potentialities via his/her contributions to the
growth the institution’s institutional dimensions.
And, we could say the same for an institution on its institutional or societal landscape, or for a society or country on a broader international one. As examples, we have seen that historically societal socio-‐political dynamics along with their embedded ethical structure have favored some institutions – given them more of a say re the above points – to the detriment of others, with the result that some institutions have ‘more’ socio-‐political energies than others on their landscapes; in our contemporary Western world, prestigious universities have generally more say – more authority and power -‐ i.e., more socio-‐political energies or clout, in government policy than religious institutions; simply put, contemporary socio-‐political dynamics and their embedded ethical structure are more amenable to educational institutions than to religious ones.
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Similarly, some countries sometimes to the advantage and at other times to the disadvantage of others have played a dominant role in international matters at different times in human history – have had tremendous socio-‐political energies -‐ sometimes on the basis of a pregnant idea e.g., democracy (authority), sometimes on the basis of a superior army (power); in other words, on their mastery (control) of the broader landscape’s socio-‐political dynamics and its ‘effective’ ethical structure. In this context, aiming for an evolving ecology of mind and community would first require that we understand the nature of our evolving socio-‐political energies as they apply to individuals, institutions and societies themselves e.g., • Can a society, or a community, effectively participate in shaping the
answers to the above four questions, say in the context of ‘globalization’ in matters of commerce and culture?
More broadly, we could ask: • Can the nature of their socio-‐political energies contribute to the
development of an ethical structure, its related social functions and resultant social goods and social qualities, those capable of growing ‘congruently’ their human and social potentialities?
And, in summary: • Are the landscape’s socio-‐political dynamics amenable to ‘open, shared
and responsible ethical dynamics for all its landscape participants?
The characteristics of socio-political energies -
While the above has focused on some aspects of the nature of our socio-‐political energies as individuals, institutions and societies, our socio-‐political energies i.e., those energies that give us authority and power on our socio-‐political landscapes and allow us to ‘effectively’ participate in their socio-‐political dynamics, are also driven by the characteristics of our human and social potentialities and, those of our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities as they apply to an individual, an institution or, more broadly, to a society as a whole e.g., does my vision and sense of hope as an individual give me authority and power on my institutional and societal landscape, or from an ethical perspective, does it give me the possibility of shaping a congruent and effective ethical structure for my contributions.
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In effect, an individual’s socio-‐political energies (and similarly for institutions and societies) are also characterized by how his/her human and social potentialities shape the characteristics of the individual’s institutional domain contributions e.g., by how an individual’s consciousness is expressed in domain theories, or how the nature of an individual’s faith – hope – is expressed in domain contribution values and, from the perspective of the individual’s social potentialities, how his/her potential for accountability shapes our overall ability to live together. From the perspective of socio-‐political energies, we could ask for this example: • What is the degree of institutional authority and power, can his/her
domain theories and contribution values, and sense of accountability, garner of the institution’s authority and power dynamics – its ethical dynamics -‐?
From an institutional perspective, institutions throughout history have grown and withered on the basis of similar dynamics as an example, the universe of (symbolic) qualities associated with the monarchy e.g., magnificence, wisdom… have for many slowly lost their importance – authority and power -‐ to other institutions e.g., sometimes to the state and, for some, magnificence is now associated with the entertainment world while wisdom may be linked with academia or with some esoteric religion or philosophy. More to the point in our modern and technologically driven world, those companies – institutions and their organizations – that possess as examples, the ideology and knowledge (as institutional cognitive characteristics) for producing attractive and useful technological products (what we described as social goods and related social qualities) not only influence via their socio-‐political energies, their institutional landscape per se but also their societal landscape as a whole e.g., defining a good deal of societal aesthetics – what has beauty from cars to computers – to influencing its ethos (its overriding stories) and ideology with its domain truths e.g., the importance for our success as an individual to have an ability to use computers. And, by doing so, such companies shape via their own socio-‐political energies and generally for their own use or advantage, much of society’s overall socio-‐political dynamics. In effect, they successfully compete for the degree of their landscape’s authority and power that will permit them to grow via a congruent and effective ethical structure, their ‘human – institutional -‐ potentialities’ e.g., their institutional identity along with their institutional vision and sense of hope and, their social potentialities such as for their sense of destiny.
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Towards an ecology of mind and community, this time from the perspective of the ability of institutional characteristics to grow the institution’s socio-‐political energies on the institution’s socio-‐political landscape, we could ask: • Do institutional ‘human’ potentialities say in the case of its understanding
of the world e.g., consciousness and, its institutional identity, give authority and power to its institutional domain contributions in its network of institutional contributions;
• Do institutional cognitive potentialities in the case of its ethics and
ideology influence – have authority and power -‐ with regards to the landscape’s overall ethics and ideology; and,
• Do institutional ‘social’ potentialities, say for belonging and a sense of
destiny, contribute to growing the landscape’s sense of community and share destiny?
And, from the perspective of landscape socio-‐political dynamics, we could ask: • Do the landscape’s socio-‐political dynamics and embedded ethical
structure foster the growth of the institutional characteristics of its network of institutions – those characteristics capable of growing their authority and power -‐.
And, by way of summary and as a condition for growing an ecology of mind and community, we could also ask as we did in the context of the nature of socio-‐political energies: • Are the landscapes socio-‐political dynamics amenable to ‘open, shared
and responsible ethical dynamics for all its landscape participants?
In summary -
Overall, our ability to bring about a growing ecology of mind and community via more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics, is dependent on the nature and characteristics of the socio-‐political energies bringing about our social qualities and social goods, in effect those socio-‐political energies capable of creating a growing synergy between our social qualities and social goods and our ethical aspirations – growing an ecology of mind and community being at the core of our ethical aspirations for our ultimate growth and survival -‐.
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Now that we have examined briefly some of the key conditions necessary for an ecology of social qualities and social goods and, similarly for an ecology of socio-‐political energies, we are left with how we might mediate / negotiate – create a synergy between -‐ our need for growth and survival with the need for growth and survival of others in the world of our social qualities and social goods, and socio-‐political energies, towards growing an ecology of mind and community for all.
How can we mediate / negotiate – create a synergy between - our need for growth with the need for growth of others towards an ecology of mind and community or, create strategies for more open, shared and responsible ethical energies?
The context -
Collectively, growing an ‘ecology of mind and community’ as our ‘overarching’ ethical aspiration will be dependent on the ability of individuals and institutions (and societies in the broader planetary sense) to bring about those ‘collective’ social qualities e.g., those associated with synergy and destiny, and ‘collective’ social goods such as those related to our community and nation, to become the springboard – the realties – for the enactment of ever more appropriate ethical manifestations, those increasingly associated with being open, shared and responsible. In effect, on the creation of an increasingly relevant synergy between our social qualities and social goods – our realities -‐, and an ethical structure i.e., its hierarchy of ethical aspirations or core values, along with their principles and norms and, their relationship commitments and qualities; more specifically, an ethical structure (embodied in our social functions) conducive to the growth and sophistication of our individual and collective socio-‐political energies – our ability, more so our capacity, to bring about a growing ecology of mind and
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community – (rather than keeping us individually and collectively in our own separate universes). And, as the following graphic points out, the growth of such individual and collective socio-‐political energies, those capable of giving us ‘increasingly’ those social qualities and social goods conducive to an ecology of mind and community, will be dependent as we mentioned above on the nature of our ethical dynamics, indeed, as we have argued, on their being increasingly open, shared and responsible. In summary, an ecology of social qualities and social goods being on one hand the goal of more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics via relevant socio-‐political energies and on the other, the venue for the creation of more sophisticated socio-‐political energies and for growing an ecology of mind and community. As we proceed to examine how we might go about mediating / negotiating our need for growth with the need for growth of others towards an ecology of mind and community either as individuals, institutions or societies, it will be useful to keep in mind as we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter and in Chapter 3 regarding ‘living systems’, that we ultimately exist only (and take our existence) as a component of a network of production processes in which the function of each ‘component e.g., each individual, institution and eventually, every society, is to participate in the production or transformation of other components in the network, for the maintenance of what could be described as its own (structural) integrity as a living system’ – its ability to survive and grow – via what we have described as the human and social potentialities (forces) of its components. Growing an ecology of mind and community will therefore have its origins and its ultimate manifestation in: • Our individual and collective network of production processes and its
products – our social qualities and social goods -‐, more specifically via
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what we have described as our domains of contribution – what, in effect, keeps us and our living system ‘alive’ -‐,
• The broad landscape authority and power dynamics -‐ essentially ethical
dynamics -‐ that drive institutional (individual / societal) mediation of domain contributions – that give them their socio-‐political energies – and,
• The dynamics of our social functions: stewardship, governance, and
management, providing -‐ via what we described as ‘structural coupling’ from a living systems perspective -‐ for a living social reality to our domain contributions and institutional mediations.
Mediating / negotiating – creating a synergy between -‐ our need for growth with the need for growth of others towards the goal of an ecology of mind and community in the context of what could be described metaphorically as a ‘progressive spiral’ of social qualities and social goods and, a similar ‘progressive’ synergy of socio-‐political energies -‐ those capable of giving us ever more sophisticated ethical manifestations – will require that we examine such mediation / negotiation in the context of the above realities and their associated dynamics. The following will therefore examine the conditions, or from a practical perspective, the questions that we might ask for growing via an ecology of socio-‐political energies, an ecology of social qualities and social goods; in effect, how we might go about mediating / negotiating a growing and effective (re the goal of growing an ecology of mind and community) synergy -‐ or progressive spiral -‐ between the two, and the importance of more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics for achieving such synergy.
An ecology of social qualities and social goods via an ecology of socio-political energies -
In the first part of this chapter, we examined some of the necessary conditions for an ecology of social qualities and social goods and, subsequently, the related conditions for an ecology of socio-‐political energies, now we will examine more specifically what would constitute some of the main issues associated with an ecology of social qualities and social goods via an ecology of socio-‐political energies for a given socio-‐political landscape with its individuals, institutions and societal context, and with its own ethical structure; indeed, what questions would be pertinent for the creation of what we described above as a progressive spiral of social qualities and social goods, and socio-‐political energies.
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To do so, we will examine the issues underlying the goal of an ecology of social qualities and social goods via a progressive spiral of socio-‐political energies for each of the three points mentioned above, in summary, for: • Our domains of contribution;
• The landscape authority and power dynamics -‐ essentially ethical
dynamics -‐ that drive institutional (individual / societal) mediation of domain contributions; and,
• The dynamics of our social functions: stewardship, governance, and
management. Before beginning, it will be useful once again to keep in mind that social qualities and social goods are shaped ‘overall’ by our social potentialities, those forces that give social relevance to our human potentialities and, by our cognitive (social) structures and potentialities, enacted in the context of what we described as the dimensions of our overall institutional framework.
Social qualities and social goods and our domain contributions -
As we have seen in Chapter 2, our individual (the same would apply to institutions and societies) domain contributions are the result of the domain’s cognitive dimensions / characteristics enacted -‐ mediated -‐ in the context of the institution’s own cognitive dimensions / characteristics towards the creation of what we described as societal realities – social qualities and social goods -‐. While the nature and characteristics of the socio-‐political energies driving the enactment of our domain cognitive characteristics and those of the institution in its mediating role will determine to a greater or lesser extent – in the context of the landscape’s ethical dynamics which we will address later -‐ the sophistication of resulting social qualities and social goods, in turn, the nature and characteristics of the social qualities and social goods themselves – those afforded by the broader landscape dynamics i.e., its socio-‐political energies -‐ will provide for (or not) the growth of the domain and the institution’s cognitive characteristics. As examples, social qualities / social goods such as those related to equity and solidarity resulting from our domain contributions in the context of a ‘community’ institution will thrive and grow inasmuch as ‘equity and solidarity’ as social qualities and social goods have a rich meaning for the broader landscape e.g., equity and solidarity will not thrive in a culture of greed. More so,
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the cognitive dimensions / characteristics of related domain contributions and institutional mediations in such a culture will be stifled or have little in terms of socio-‐political energies in their potential for growth. However, social goods such as those related to automobiles will offer many opportunities for the growth of the cognitive characteristics of related domain contributions and institutional mediations on a landscape where personal transportation – as a social good -‐ is given a high value; such domain contributions will be associated with strong socio-‐political energies or, what we have described previously as ‘authority and power’. We could summarize the above considerations by saying that: • Our domain driven institutional products – social qualities and social
goods – will be relevant to the creation of an ecology of social qualities and social goods inasmuch as their cognitive characteristics e.g., domain theories and institutional knowledge, are relevant – mesh with -‐ the growth of the landscape’s other domain driven institutional products and,
• Our domain and institutional cognitive characteristics will grow inasmuch
as their ‘products’ -‐ social qualities and social goods – are relevant to their landscape, more specifically, help it grow its overall human potentialities say for vision and hope, and its social potentialities say for social qualities related to a sense of accountability and destiny.
In summary, the degree of relevance of domain driven institutional social qualities and social goods – their ability to be the springboard for more sophisticated ethical manifestations or more sophisticated social qualities and goods -‐ will be determined by 1) the pertinence of their cognitive characteristics relative to their overall landscape and, 2) their ability to, in effect, contribute to what we described as a progressive spiral of social qualities and social goods and, as we will see more specifically later, to a progressive spiral of the landscape’s socio-‐political energies. In summary, we could ask in the context of ‘mediating / negotiating our need for growth with the need for growth of others towards an ecology of mind and community’: • To what extent are the cognitive characteristics of my domain
contributions e.g., the quality of my domain stories and theories as a photographer, producing social qualities and social goods -‐ my photographs -‐ which are conducive to the growth of photography and
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other domains on my landscape and to its (and their) socio-‐political energies?
From the perspective of ‘my’ ability to grow as a photographer via the growth of my domain cognitive characteristics, we could ask: • To what extent are the landscape’s overall cognitive characteristics e.g., its
aesthetics and ideology, conducive to the growth of my domain cognitive characteristics, in effect to my socio-‐political energies?
Social qualities and social goods and the landscape’s authority and power dynamics – ethical dynamics -, more specifically, its socio-political energies -
In Chapter 3, we saw that authority and power as they apply to an individual, institution, or society as a whole are at their best a reflection of what has the ability to inspire or to be a source of growth – authority -‐, and what has the ability to give us the means for achieving such growth – power -‐. As a corollary, authority and power dynamics are a reflection of how the two are enacted ‘together’ on a specific individual, institutional, or societal landscape and, are generally reflected in what we have described as the landscape’s ‘functioning’ ethics, specifically its core values, ethical principles and norms and, relationship commitments and qualities and, are the primary determinants of its socio-‐political energies. From the perspective of social qualities and social goods, more specifically in their capacity to become the springboard for ever more sophisticated ethical manifestations, social qualities and social goods embody both a capacity to inspire and a means for achievement (authority and power). As examples, social goods such as buildings often have the capacity to inspire a more sophisticated sense of aesthetics – spurring us towards a more sophisticated sense of what has ‘beauty’ -‐ and, at the same time, provide us with a functional space for work, worship or entertainment. Such dynamics being at the source of what we have described as a ‘progressive spiral of social qualities and social goods’.
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Social qualities and social goods by reflecting and giving life to – each in their own way -‐ the landscape’s ‘authority and power’ structure via the dynamics mentioned above, are also a reflection of the landscape’s ethical dynamics and the socio-‐political energies that spurred their enactment and gave them an ongoing existence. An ecology of social qualities and social goods is therefore a dynamic phenomenon (not a static one as we might sometime be led to believe), one involving a progressive spiral of social qualities and social goods giving life to and sustaining, ever more sophisticated authority and power dynamics along with an ever evolving ethical structure and, provides the landscape with its evolving socio-‐political energies. As a way of shedding light on the embedded issues in the context of ‘mediating / negotiating our need for growth with the need for growth of others towards an ecology of mind and community’, we could ask in the context of social qualities and social goods and, related socio-‐political energies: • To what extent are the landscape’s social qualities and social goods, and
related socio-‐political energies, conducive to the growth of the landscape’s authority and power – its ability to inspire and achieve?
And, from the perspective of creating a progressive spiral of social qualities and social goods and socio-‐political energies, we could ask:
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• To what extent is the landscape’s ethical structure as a reflection of the
landscape’s authority and power dynamics conducive to the growth – progressive spiral -‐ of its social qualities and social goods, and to the growth of its socio-‐political energies?
As further examples, we could add that social qualities and social goods brought about by exemplar individuals (Jesus Christ, Buddha, Mohammed… or simply, an inspiring colleague) or powerful inventions (the telephone, airplanes… or a new institutional policy) have often shown the way in the best of circumstances via profound changes in authority and power dynamics, for more sophisticated ethical manifestations e.g., more sophisticated core values and ethical principles and norms, which have in turn spawned more sophisticated social qualities e.g., a greater sense of compassion, and social goods e.g., global communications… and given us the wherewithal as individuals and institutions as examples, for new and more powerful socio-‐political energies to bring about a more meaningful world. In doing so, such social qualities and social goods and related socio-‐political energies have in effect brought about such changes via their impact on what we have described as our social functions namely, stewardship, governance and management.
Social qualities and social goods and related socio-political energies, and the landscape’s social functions: stewardship, governance, and management -
As we mentioned in Chapter 5, ethics as the manifestation of our ‘living’ socio-‐political instinct for survival and growth makes an essential contribution to – more so, brings about and is embodied in -‐ our three core social functions, namely stewardship, governance, and management. And, we added, that those social functions are embedded in all that we do, more so in all individual, institutional and societal mediations of domain contributions. In bringing about our social realities – social qualities and social goods – we mentioned that stewardship was in the world of ‘authority’ – what inspires and pulls us towards the creation of a world more reflective of our ethical aspirations or core values -‐, management was in the world of power – those actual behaviors in terms of relationship commitments and qualities required to bring about these aspirations -‐, while governance was constituted of those policies and practices (or principles and norms) capable of creating landscape relevant synergies
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between the two i.e., between authority and power and, between stewardship and management. From the perspective of creating a progressive spiral of social qualities and social goods, and related socio-‐political energies, our social functions provide the conduit -‐ in all that we do -‐ via their embedded ethical structure, for the landscape’s evolving authority and power dynamics – that emerging from our social qualities and social goods – on the basis of what we described as the dynamics of ‘structural coupling’ i.e., how we go about bringing our evolving or changing world ‘together’. In effect, we have seen in Chapter 5 in the case of structural coupling, that: • Core values and, we could now add, related social qualities and social
goods69 embedded in stewardship, drive matters of ‘pattern’ – what is to be achieved – on our landscape and, provide the basis for our socio-‐political energies,
• Ethical principles and norms embedded in governance aim to give
direction to our human and social potentialities – matters of structure -‐ e.g., how consciousness is to serve in bringing about our core values and related social qualities and social goods or, how our social potentiality for synergy is to serve in this context, and provide direction – structure – to our socio-‐political energies,
• Relationship commitments and qualities give life to management by
providing the substance for ‘process’ – our learning and doing -‐, and to our socio-‐political energies.
In summary, stewardship, governance, and management via ‘pattern -‐ structure – process’, from the world of structural coupling, bring about our evolving social qualities and social goods and, related socio-‐political energies, by providing the vehicle for the expression and transformation of the landscape’s authority and power -‐ ethical – dynamics. ‘Mediating / negotiating – creating a synergy -‐ between our need for growth with the need for growth of others towards an ecology of mind and community’ via a ‘progressive spiral’ of social qualities and social goods and related socio-‐political energies, will unavoidably be on the basis of these social functions, those shaping ‘structural coupling’ in a social context. Simply put, negotiating / mediating will focus on:
69 - Or, we could also say social qualities and social goods and their embedded core values…
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• Stewardship – what is viewed as having authority both with respect to social qualities and social goods and, their associated core values or ethic;
• Governance – those principles and norms most apt to give shape via
human and social potentialities, to those social qualities and social goods and related socio-‐political energies in line with the ethical aspirations or core values of the social context; and,
• Management – those specific relationship commitments and qualities
capable of providing us with the ‘learning and doing’ capabilities – the power – to bring them (social qualities…) about on an evolving and changing social landscape via a progressive spiral of socio-‐political energies.
In summary, stewardship, governance and management driving those dynamics described in the previous graphic. With the goal of creating a synergy between our need for growth with the need for growth of others towards an ecology of mind and community via the creation of a ‘progressive spiral’ of social qualities and social goods and related socio-‐political energies, we could ask at the outset for each of our three social functions as they apply to individuals, institutions and societies as a whole: • To what extent are they a reflection of a negotiated agreement among
relevant social actors i.e., those most apt to benefit or be affected – grow their human and social potentialities -‐ from such social qualities and social goods or, benefit from their related socio-‐political energies?
Subsequently, we could ask more specifically, are:
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• The landscape’s vital social qualities and social goods and their related core values – those that are the object of stewardship -‐ capable of growing the human and social potentialities of landscape actors e.g., their potential for ‘hope’ and for ‘accountability’ via their socio-‐political energies;
• The landscape’s ethical principals and norms conducive to growing their
human and social potentialities in line with the social qualities and social goods and related socio-‐political energies giving life to their ethical aspirations – stewardship –; and,
• The relationship commitments and qualities afforded to its landscape
actors capable in turn of growing via ‘learning and doing’ the landscape’s social qualities and social goods and related socio-‐political energies – their related ethical aspirations -‐ via more effective ethical principles and norms?
Finally, we could say more broadly: • To what extent are the landscape’s social functions – stewardship,
governance, and management – effective in resolving issues of authority and power towards the creation of a progressive spiral of social qualities and social goods, and related socio-‐political energies via more open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics?
In summary –
In Chapter 8, we have sought to describe what would be some of the conditions – or criteria -‐ for an evolving ecology of mind and community from the perspective of social qualities and social goods and related socio-‐political energies and, in doing so, the importance of increasingly ‘open, shared and responsible ethical dynamics’; and, we also emphasized that social qualities and social goods, and related socio-‐political energies, are in effect both the substance of ethics and, the substance – the world -‐ of an ecology of mind and community. We also mentioned that an ecology of mind and community was predicated on an ecology of social qualities and social goods, and related socio-‐political energies and, that such an ecology was in turn predicated on the growth of our human potentialities described in Chapter 1, and of our social potentialities described in Chapter 6, via our ‘institutionally’ driven domain contributions.
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Finally, we examined what would be the conditions for the successful mediation or negotiation of our need for growth with the need for growth of others towards an ecology of mind and community.
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Conclusion
“Growing who we are by growing who we are together”
As we have pointed out throughout the text and in the sub-‐title to the Conclusion above, we first of all grow who we are by growing who we are together, hence our reference to ‘ethical dynamics’ as opposed to ‘ethics’ in the overall title of the approach and, our usual focus on ‘ethical issues’ as the ‘stuff of life’ as opposed to discussing only ‘ethics’ per se, this in our effort to emphasize that we are in an ‘unfolding world’ and that we are ‘together’ the actors in the ‘unfolding’ however willing or unwilling we may be at any point in time. As an overriding consideration, it is therefore up to us to ensure that the ‘unfolding’ is to our advantage, 1) as a species in a web of interdependencies with other species living together on an ultimately fragile planet and, 2) as individuals living and depending on the realities and dynamics of complex socio-‐political landscapes for our survival and growth, hence our reference to an ‘Ecology of Mind and Community’, one involving us all. Historically, we have addressed such ‘ethical’ challenges by creating an evolving architecture of institutions with each one ensuring via its embedded human and social potentialities in the context of its specific social and historical realities, that our individual contributions result in the production of relevant social qualities and social goods be it in the case of the church, the state or, simply, the family. In effect, this expanding and ever more sophisticated architecture of institutions (with its ups and downs!) have ensured that – human – ethical issues are first of all recognized e.g., through an institution’s (and we could say, as we have mentioned previously, an individual or societal) sense of vision and hope and, secondly, addressed in the context of producing what we described as a growing spiral of social qualities and social goods e.g., institutions needing to grow their sense of vision and hope via the growth of their authority and power on their landscape. And, we must hasten to add that this process -‐ however imperfect it may have seemed to some at any one point in time – has been driven by the ‘individual’ as a fully functioning and evolving institution in its own right, in effect, the individual has been the key player – both instigator and beneficiary – of this evolving architecture of institutions; more so, the human energy for this collective human enterprise.
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As actors in the ‘unfolding’ be it in the case of an individual, an institution or society itself, we have also increasingly recognized that the underlying direction of our human journey has been, as we discussed in Chapter 8, to grow our individual and collective socio-‐political energies, in effect to create new and growing spaces for ever more sophisticated contributions, those that grow our cognitive potentialities say for more relevant ethical aspirations and, our social potentialities say for a more inspiring sense of destiny. If we are to follow the path of history, the challenge of addressing ethical issues more effectively is twofold, one focuses on accelerating the sophistication of societies, institutions and individuals to enact – bring to life -‐ ever more relevant social qualities and social goods and, the other, to do so via growing the sophistication of their domain contributions. And, since we are all in this together, growing the sophistication of our institutions as an example and, their domain contributions, supposes that we deal with our human potentialities as a whole i.e., that institutions grow only when they grow all ‘our’ human potentialities in ‘harmony’ as we have pointed out in Chapter 1 and, we must hasten to add, our social potentialities as a whole as examples, those related to a sense of destiny as well as to a sense of belonging. While this would seem obvious in light of our approach, institutions as well as individuals and societies by being also the keepers of a social and historical reality on highly competitive socio-‐political landscapes e.g., Catholic or Protestant churches, must usually navigate -‐ compete – via their cognitive potentialities with other institutions as an example, for effective landscape space or, their ability to bring about a ‘congruent’ world. In a sense, competing for which ‘stories’ in the world of myriad domain contributions will carry the day in the formation of a landscape’s ethos and, to what extent they can affect their landscapes social potentialities say for synergy or a sense of destiny. Growing more sophisticated institutions (or individuals or societies) in such a context will necessarily mean growing more sophisticated institutions as a whole via what we described as their overall – or landscape -‐ capacity for stewardship, governance, and management, or their capacity for ‘structural coupling’ on ever expanding landscapes, via the sophistication of the landscape’s authority and power – ethical -‐ dynamics to bring about a growing spiral of social qualities and social goods. In this sense, institutional growth i.e., their ability to bring about ever more sophisticated social qualities and social goods, is dependent on their ability to grow the institutional sophistication of other institutions sharing their socio-‐
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political landscapes. No contribution to the growth of other institutions -‐ no socio-‐political energies, hence no growth. In summary, since as a species we are dependent on the multi-‐dimensional contributions of myriad institutions, individuals and, ultimately, societies included, via their social qualities and social goods for our survival and growth, addressing ethical issues effectively will always mean addressing them in the context of growing our institutions more so, our overall institutional framework and, from the perspective of individuals, grow their capacity for increasingly sophisticated domain mediations, those capable of growing their human and social potentialities and, similarly for societies, especially in their capacity for recognizing and being the conduit for a wide spectrum of domain contributions.
Postscript
As we move to bring about a world of more open, shared, and responsible ethical dynamics, it will be useful to keep in mind (as we all know) that we are in a human world and not in mechanical one. As much we would like ‘to pin things down’, the goal of much of our ‘modern’ civilization, in describing ethical dynamics and addressing ethical issues, we are very much at the intersect of the conscious and the unconscious – of what we know and what we don’t – in the world of human behavior. For this purpose, the following comments of some recent authors – as words of caution -‐ will be useful. Wegner, which we referred to in Part 1, characterizes our world in The Illusion of Conscious Will, as being both subject to conscious will and very much subject to unconscious influences:
"The circle of influence (in describing hypnosis and will) that occurs in reality is accompanied by a vaguely similar set of causal relations that are consciously apprehended by the individuals involved. The causal influences people have on themselves and on each other, as they are understood, capture only a small part of the actual causal flux of social relations."70
And, from the perspective of brain research, Joseph LeDoux points out:
"We concluded people normally do all sorts of things for reasons they are not consciously aware of (because the behavior is produced by brain systems that operate unconsciously) and that one of the main jobs of consciousness is to keep our life tied together into a coherent story, a self-‐
70- Daniel M. Wegner, The Illusion of Conscious Will, Bradford Books, MIT Press, 2002, p.314
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concept. ... Although a good deal remains uncertain about the cognitive unconscious, it seems clear that much of mental life occurs outside of conscious awareness."71
These thoughts and similar ones from many other fields such as philosophy, anthropology and linguistics, may explain why we are so often at a loss to describe many of the real causes of our actions and their outcomes, as well as those of others and of our institutions, even though we feel 'pushed' to find coherent explanations. It will therefore be useful to keep in mind that a ‘conscious’ ethical structure though vital as it may be for an institution, and ethical principles and norms for a specific landscape, or in some cases 'ethical' standards of conduct for a profession while sometimes evident as causal factors, are also often insufficient to explain ethical behaviors such as our actual relationship commitments, and qualities. As we all know, our inspiration of the moment may have more to do with a piece of music, a poem or, for some, a mystical revelation. Nonetheless, our overall purpose has obviously been to push the limits of our conscious understanding and influence in the world of ethical dynamics by endeavoring to bring many of our ‘human and social’ dimensions ‘to the table’ for our active consideration and by showing how many of these dimensions e.g., science and art, live and grow side by side. Indeed, as we have seen throughout history and continue to see in our many institutions in particular, such a lack of understanding has been accompanied by large and small ‘catastrophic’ consequences sometimes for a society as a whole, sometimes for the individual at the ‘bottom of the totem pole’.
71- Joseph LeDoux, The Emotional Brain, The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life, Touchstone edition, 1998, p.33
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Addendum: The connection with current ethical theories and ‘morality’ – As we pointed out in the Introduction, underlying ethics as the expression of our socio-‐political instincts for survival and growth on our many landscapes, we have what could be described more generally as our moral instincts, those obeying to what Marc D. Hauser in Moral Minds describes as a moral grammar:
“a capacity that naturally grows within each child, designed to generate rapid judgments about what is morally right or wrong based on an unconscious grammar of action. Part of this machinery was designed by the blind hand of Darwinian selection millions of years before our species evolved; other parts were added or upgraded over the evolutionary history of our species, and are unique both to humans and to our moral psychology”.72
We would argue that this ‘universal moral grammar’ as he describes, has given rise and taken shape historically in a number of ‘moral’ approaches leading to specific ethical philosophies and behavioral systems e.g., frameworks of ethical principles and norms, with each of these moral approaches endeavoring to give contextual relevance to this more general ‘universal moral grammar’. Since each of these approaches continue to be relevant not only for specific individuals or groups e.g., to those that adhere to a particular religious doctrine as a manifestation of this phenomena, but also of our collective human effort to deal with this reality in our complex process of living, we will endeavor to describe how our approach to ethical dynamics is a source of explanation for their origins and specific reality and, also how it can serve to grow their overall effectiveness. To do so, we will examine each of the moral / ethical theories and approaches mentioned in the Introduction, namely what we described as those stemming from or related to:
• Moral sense, moral conscience, or moral faculty -‐ • Intuitionism or ‘common sense’ – • Teleological and / or utilitarianism – • Religious doctrine or philosophy -‐ • Deontology –
Before we proceed, it will be important to note that while our moral instinct can first be associated with our need for survival as a species, the specifics of our
72 Mard D. Hauser, Moral Minds, Harper Collins, 2006, Prologue, p.xvii
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‘universal moral grammar’ as Marc Hauser mentions above “were added or upgraded over the evolutionary history of our species” often in line with the contribution of the moral / ethical approaches mentioned above and, we would add, to address what we have described as our human and social potentialities. In effect, each of these approaches stem, as in the case of our approach to ethical dynamics, from our need to grow sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly – as individuals, institutions and societies -‐, one or many of our human and social potentialities e.g., the role of ‘hope’ as a human potentiality and need in the case of religious approaches and, as another example, accountability as a social potentiality in the case of deontological ones. And, though some approaches may be based in ‘revelation’ as in the case of the Bible, they nonetheless speak to our need to grow such potentialities, albeit sometimes in the context of ‘serving God’ or, a greater good. Also, we could mention that each of these approaches as in the case of our human and social potentialities and needs are shaped – get their social energy for actualization – from what we described as our socio-‐political instincts for survival and growth on our many landscapes and, in turn, must address the socio-‐political dynamics of their landscapes, once again doing so directly or indirectly. Finally, for ease of comparison, the following brief descriptions of each of these approaches will seek to provide what could be viewed as a general contemporary definition rather than a complete academic one and, since our comments could often apply to more than one of these approaches, we will seek to focus on those comments that would seem to be the most relevant. And, since our ‘moral sense, moral conscience, and moral faculty’ have been what many consider to be the main inspiration for our ethical systems, we will delve more deeply on its relationship with our approach at the beginning.
Moral sense, moral conscience, or moral faculty -
Ethics related to what has been described historically as our moral sense or moral conscience will be driven by our ability or ‘moral’ faculty for perceiving -‐ more so sensing -‐ and understanding right or wrong, in effect, giving us the possibility for evaluating and directing (or approving and condemning) our behaviors, hence, for judging oneself and, by inference, the behaviors of others,
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and leading for some to what is described as virtues and, recently, giving rise to ‘virtue ethics’ i.e., those traits of character that permit us to live ‘well’73. This, as opposed to what will be described below as intuitionism or common sense where the moral qualities of our actions and those of others are identified spontaneously or intuitively, without a necessary reference to their motivation or objective consequences. Historically, we could say that our moral sense or moral conscience has been the source of much of our Western moral life especially as it pertained or was driven by a religious faith. Here, our moral conscience was perceived as the voice of the soul or God. More broadly, as described in the on-‐line version of the Oxford Dictionary, “an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior”. More specifically, our moral sense was and for many still is, associated with our potential for ‘sensing’ the moral qualities of our actions and those of others as those qualities that have a broad positive impact or, more simply, that express a capacity for altruism or benevolence as opposed to egoism, and that we can perceive – feel -‐ as ‘virtuous’ in the sense of contributing to something greater than our own self interest, ideally as we have inferred for ethics, for the survival and growth of humanity. In its simplest expression, our moral sense could also be viewed as the underlying impulse for what is expressed quasi universally as the Golden Rule or, more generally, an ‘ethic of reciprocity’. While our moral sense is first of all a ‘subjective sense’ where right or wrong are supposedly self-‐evident to our moral -‐ human -‐ conscience, it has nonetheless been influential in bringing about (or reinforcing some would say) contextual frameworks of duties and obligations say in the case of a religion (e.g., the Ten Commandments) or, more broadly, as one of the – sometimes the principal -‐ underlying motivation for numerous laws protecting human life as a whole or, we could say from the perspective of our approach to ethics, bringing about a specific set of ethical aspirations with their related behavioral principles and norms. As a result, our moral sense expressed now as our moral faculty has been dependent on some form of authority, for some God, for others reason, for its justification per se and, more so, for its human and social impacts. So, on the basis that such a faculty is perceived to exist for a wide spectrum of the world’s
73-Kwame Anthony Appiah, Experiments in Ethics, Harvard University Press, 2008, p. 34 …
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population, how does our approach to ethical dynamics help us understand our moral faculty and help us steer its potential for ‘bringing about a better world’, in effect how does it help us deal constructively with issues of ‘justification’? While for some our moral faculty as it is expressed in our moral conscience will always be a God-‐given faculty as mentioned above with little potential for change, we will take the perspective that our moral faculty is susceptible to becoming more sophisticated on the basis of learning through ‘feedback’ i.e., the results of my actions produced the ‘right or wrong’ effects. To do so, we will first briefly examine its realities and dynamics from the perspective of what we have mentioned as the main sources of motivation for human behaviors i.e., our human and social potentialities, without prejudice hopefully for what has come first and what has followed i.e., has our moral conscience fashioned our human and social potentialities or vice versa. In effect, we are apt to believe that the two – moral conscience and human and social potentialities -‐ have been intertwined ‘from the beginning’. Secondly, we will examine how our moral faculty is in synergy with our landscape’s socio-‐political dynamics, those that we associated with authority and power. Though our human and social potentialities function as a whole, we will focus in the first case on two human potentialities, namely for vision and sense of hope and, two social potentialities namely those related to accountability and destiny for our purposes. In the case of vision, we could say that our moral faculty is motivated or, at the least enriched, by our perception of what the world should be like or, more specifically, as we mentioned in Chapter 1, by “an aesthetic appeal, an inner sense of beauty … bringing together our desires, goals, and obligations...” whatever they may happen to be or whatever their origin e.g., in our religious faith or otherwise. In effect, it would be difficult for our moral faculty over time to be motivated by something with which we disagreed (even though some religions have tried) or didn’t find aesthetically appealing. As a corollary, we would argue that enriching our sense of beauty – vision – will enrich our moral faculty. The ability of our moral faculty to also “express a capacity for altruism or benevolence as opposed to egoism, and that we can perceive – feel -‐ as ‘virtuous’ in the sense of contributing to something greater than our own self interest” as mentioned above, has also been motivated by what we described in Chapter 1 as ‘faith’, or as “that force that engages us with the world and gives relevance to our
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actions, indeed that provides a basis for our ongoing relationship commitments and qualities – the nucleus of our ethical behaviours -‐ and, that leads to what will be more broadly described below as ‘hope’”. While religions have historically promoted a set of meta beliefs to engage us ‘constructively’ with the world and to keep us ‘on track’, we can also see that the phenomenon of faith that is instrumental in bringing about our sense of hope and for engaging our moral faculty, may encompass many other transcendent relationships such as with broadly based ideologies e.g., ‘political’ liberalism, that connect us as individuals and institutions to a ‘broader’ and more encompassing reality. From this perspective, growing our moral faculty individually and collectively, and providing justification for its impacts, will be dependent on our enactment of ever more relevant and congruent beliefs via our core values, ethical principles and norms, and relationship commitments and qualities, those that help us grow our collective sense of hope. More briefly, we can also see that our social potentialities related to accountability i.e., our individual and collective need and capacity for effective interdependence, and sense of destiny i.e., our potential for sharing a common vision of our raison d’être on the planet or for our existence per se are key to the existence and growth of our moral faculty. As we mentioned in Chapter 7, “accountability makes us capable of recognizing that as individuals and as institutional actors (and thereby in the case of institutions themselves), we are the product of our participation in many mutually dependent human communities large and small and, as a corollary, that we are vital and responsible actors in the creation of those mutually dependent communities be it the local church or, we could also say, the local mafia.” Indeed, our social potentiality for accountability not only underpins our moral faculty with its “possibility for evaluating and directing (or approving and condemning) our behaviors, hence, for judging oneself and, by inference, the behaviors of others” on a social landscape, but also provides the basis for understanding and evaluating what we mentioned above as a “framework of duties and obligations” by acknowledging a shared sense of interdependence. In turn, growing our sense of interdependence through a mutual sense of accountability will grow – make more sophisticated – our moral faculty, i.e., helping to make it more relevant to our other social potentialities and to the creation of what we described as a constructive spiral of social qualities and
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social goods by giving us the energy and structure for what we will now describe as a common sense of destiny. As we also mentioned in Chapter 7, our social potentiality for accountability has closely followed our social potentiality for a sense of common destiny as often embodied in our concept of nation where ‘nation’ takes on the “properties of an institution in our collective mind relative to its capacity for mediating and transforming individual and institutional contributions while at the same time reflecting and constructing a particular world view e.g., in matters of culture, religion, economic practices…” And, as we have all experienced, a sense of common destiny can also apply to a family, tribe, or social group… Simply put, our social potentiality for a common sense of destiny giving our moral faculty its ultimate raison d’être or, we could say, growing our social potentiality for a common sense of destiny via as an example, the growth and sophistication of our institutional contributions will provide for the refinement of what we described above as ‘virtuous in the sense of contributing to something greater than our own self interest’, hence to our moral faculty. Now, we will examine briefly how our moral faculty is in synergy with our landscape’s socio-‐political dynamics, those that we associated with authority and power. At the outset, we can see that ‘authority’ or what has the capacity to pull – inspire – us towards a greater sense of accomplishment or growth is closely associated with what is generally understood as virtuous in the context of our moral conscience i.e., “contributing to something greater than our own self-‐interest”. In turn, we could say that what is perceived as virtuous from the perspective of our moral conscience will also be what ‘generally’ shapes our perception of what has authority on a particular landscape, notwithstanding the competition for authority that we usually find on most landscapes and, how we may misconstrue its ‘true’ nature from time to time. We have also seen that historically our moral faculty (or what is considered our moral faculty or moral conscience) via what we described above as the possibility for evaluating and directing (or approving and condemning) our behaviors, hence, for judging oneself and, by inference, the behaviors of others, has also been instrumental in molding what we described in Chapter 3 as ‘power’ or “the ability to control increasingly sophisticated domain contributions” and, we would add, towards what could be viewed as having authority. In summary, we could say that what could be viewed as the product of our moral conscience say an ethical aspiration for social justice, has been in synergy with
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what we have described as authority and power and, as a corollary, growing authority and power in the sense of growing what has the capacity to inspire us towards a ‘better’ world and giving us the means to achieve it via more relevant institutional contributions as in the case of the individual, will grow our moral faculty.
Intuitionism or ‘common sense’ -
Intuitionism, in the context of our approach to ethical dynamics or, more generally, as a moral philosophy is predicated on the fact that we are ‘moral’ beings and, as such have an innate capacity to distinguish between right and wrong and, that we identify the moral qualities of our actions spontaneously or intuitively, without a necessary reference to their motivation or objective consequences (as opposed to what we described above as our moral conscience or moral faculty), hence its manifestation in what we usually refer to as ‘common sense’. Some could also say that an action feels right and another feels wrong or, some things are naturally good while others are naturally bad. From the perspective of our conceptual framework, we would argue that our moral intuition or common sense relative to ‘right or wrong’ which has served us over the centuries – sometimes well and at other times poorly say with regard to slavery -‐ and helped us generally to survive and grow together as ‘human’ beings, is intimately tied to (we could also say originates) with what we described as our human and social potentialities and, that our ‘common sense’ has grown in line with the growth and sophistication of these potentialities and the social qualities and social goods that they have brought about. As an example, actions such as ‘hard work’ that help me grow my human potentiality for a sense of self and personal identity on my social landscape by making it possible to have a successful career or a respected business (as social goods) will be perceived – intuitively -‐ as inherently ‘good’. More so, since such actions over time also contribute to a society’s sense of self and ‘societal’ identity, or are in synergy with society’s sense of self and societal identity, they become what we know as a shared ‘societal common sense’ or what society judges as intuitively right or wrong. In our conceptual framework, we could say that what often constitutes ‘common sense’ could be associated with often unexpressed core values or ethical principles and norms. Nonetheless, we are now most often in a world where our moral intuition or common sense alone no longer suffice. As we can readily understand, our
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common sense or our moral intuition is usually the result of a synergy between our need to grow our individual human and social potentialities with those of the institutions on our broader social landscape, sometimes with society as a whole. As examples, small and homogenous societies have established a great deal of agreement around the notion of common sense relative to right and wrong, sometimes around high ideals e.g., respect for the environment as a social good, sometimes compassion for the poor, on the other hand, sometimes around very narrow objectives e.g., greed or power as in the case of criminal groups. In our culturally diverse contemporary societies, pretty much around the world, our individual or institutional (or societal for that matter) moral intuition cannot or will not go unexamined, too much is at stake especially for those who do not control the levers of power. With this in mind, our approach to ethical dynamics offers the following tools (as examples) for understanding the ‘moral intuitions’ that we have and for developing the ‘moral intuitions’ that we must have (as we have said for ethics). First, we have seen that ethics as a reflection of ‘good or bad’ re our survival and development are both a product and component of our cognitive potentialities, inasmuch as such potentialities are the vehicle for giving effect to – growing -‐ our human and social potentialities. As a product, institutional ethics as a reflection of our ‘ethical’ common sense are the ‘mediated’ result of the values inherent in the domain contributions of its actors and their own underlying beliefs and, as component, we have seen that ethics in an institutional context are also connected with the institution’s sense of aesthetics and knowledge. As a brief example, the values (and associated stories) in the domain of management have usually given rise to an ethic of productivity in most corporations which in turn has resulted in a framework of moral intuitions or common sense for its day to day corporate operations e.g., value for money… We have also seen from the perspective of any landscape’s socio-‐political dynamics, that ‘good or bad’ regarding a particular action has an embedded authority and power reality. Here, we could ask in the case of authority: does the ‘collective’ common sense of my social landscape inspire the growth of my human or social potentialities or does it inspire the growth of the human and social potentialities of others e.g., what apartheid as an expression of ‘a collective common sense’ had on Blacks in South Africa and what it had on Whites? From the perspective of power, we could ask: does our collective common sense give everyone the means to grow their human and social potentialities or just a few?
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Teleological and / or utilitarianism approaches -
Teleological approaches focus on the ‘morality or immorality’ of an act depending on its consequences or final purposes; in the context of Ancient Greek theories, they focused as an example on virtue as motivated by the perfection of human nature. In contemporary Western societies, and in what could be viewed as stemming from a more Anglo-‐Saxon tradition, a similar moral dynamic has taken shape in what has been for the past couple of centuries, utilitarianism i.e., overall “it defines the right conduct as that which promotes the best consequences”74, generally what maximizes happiness to those involved or affected by an action, or, ideally, for the greatest number. What also characterizes modern utilitarianism, say in comparison to ethical approaches derived from what we described above as our moral conscience or moral faculty is its focus on ‘lived’ experience and an evaluation of an action’s consequences relative to a ‘good’ (utility) that can be perceived and evaluated empirically, hence its continued attraction in the context of our culturally and religiously diverse societies and, its continued importance for the effective functioning of our public and private institutions, say in the context of the administration of justice. From the perspective of our approach to ethical dynamics, we also emphasized that social qualities and social goods – we could say overall, what has utility -‐ are the substance of ethics; in effect, they drive and give meaning to ethical principles and norms and, we added, to our individual, institutional and societal relationship commitments and qualities. More so, we described how such social qualities and social goods embody our core values or ethical aspirations. We could also conclude that ‘the greatest happiness for all or what the Ancient Greeks might view as what contributes to the perfection of human nature’ is contingent on what we described as a progressive spiral of social qualities and social goods and the socio-‐political energies to bring it about. More specifically, our approach articulated a framework for understanding social qualities and social goods on the basis of our evolving social potentialities and our overall ‘societal’ institutional framework and, pointed out how such social qualities and social goods as a whole are always in some form of synergy, sometimes one capable of providing overall growth to its actors, sometimes one where some social goods as an example, automobiles, restrict the development of other goods such as environmental sustainability.
74 - Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Routledge, 2000, Teleological Ethics, p.879.
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We also mentioned that such a spiral of social qualities and social goods was tied to – in synergy with -‐ the growth of our human and social potentialities via our individual, institutional, and societal institutional domain contributions, the latter being dependent on the resolution of the landscapes socio-‐political dynamics through our social functions, what we described as stewardship, governance and management and, we must add, their embedded ethical reality. In summary, our approach to ethical dynamics – our framework of conceptual tools – by showing the connection between social qualities and social goods and, the growth of our human and social potentialities, constitutes a comprehensive methodology for growing current utilitarianism approaches be they in government or in the context of society as a whole.
Religious doctrine or philosophy –
Religious doctrines and philosophies have always been the drivers of their own ethical frameworks via their definition of what it means to be human along with their specific ‘theories of living’ or what constitutes a good and appropriate way of living; in the case of religious doctrines, this is usually associated with the teachings of a ‘creator’ or of a ‘founding’ religious figure, and in the case of philosophies, with a system of meaning giving life to a framework of truths and theories. Since religious and philosophical driven ethical systems are also to a great extent a reflection of the sources of ethical motivation that we described above e.g., religious ethical systems have often been associated with what we described as our moral conscience while philosophical ones have often had their source in what we described as utilitarianism or intuitionism as in the case of ‘practical philosophies’, we will focus briefly (this in itself could be the object of one or two more chapters) on how our approach to ethical dynamics complements and enriches ethical systems driven by either religious doctrines or philosophies. To do so, we will examine first the contribution of our approach from the perspective of its framework of human potentialities and secondly, that of its social potentialities, for enhancing the relevance of such approaches for the world of our social qualities and social goods. In the case of our framework of human potentialities, we can see that it proposes that potentialities such as ‘vision’ often at the source and the focus of a philosophy or, ‘hope’ usually the goal of a religious doctrine, are components of a
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broader and more encompassing framework of human potentialities – they don’t stand alone – as sometimes (or too often) seems to be the case in either one. As institutional ‘human’ potentialities, say in the case of a religion, hope is often pursued ‘institutionally’ to the detriment of the institution’s other ‘human’ potentialities e.g., for growing its potential for ‘consciousness’, in its mediation of institutional contributions from individuals or other institutions and, in the context of the institution’s contribution to broader social qualities and social goods, with the result that its institutional core values as an example are skewed towards that potentiality to the detriment of the others. As we have emphasized in Chapter 1, human potentialities grow together i.e., no growth in consciousness or sense of self, no growth in vision or hope or, we could say, vision or hope not grounded in, or contributing via their related ethical dynamics say their principles and norms to consciousness and a growing sense of self are no more than a chimera. From the perspective of our social potentialities, we could begin by saying pretty much the same as we mentioned above for our human potentialities. While some religious doctrines have emphasized our social potentiality for a common sense of destiny e.g., heaven in the case of Christian religions, and have often encouraged a single minded ‘ethical’ approach towards this goal, we have emphasized that our shared sense of destiny is but one of our social potentialities and that our ethical dynamics must bring it in synergy with our other social potentialities say with accountability and contribution if it is to have any meaningful substance or effect on our social qualities and social goods. In summary, while religious doctrines or philosophies have served to articulate sometimes very sophisticated ethical systems (e.g., as in the case of the Catholic Church or the philosopher Kant), their doctrines or philosophies have been left wanting relative to the world of day-‐to-‐day ethical dynamics where all our human and social potentialities are at play in bringing about our world of social qualities and social goods, and where all must be in synergy if we are to increasingly achieve our goal of an ecology of mind and community.
Deontological approaches –
Deontological approaches to ethics could be associated with professional – some would also say ‘moral’ -‐ duties as in the case of a profession or of a specific institution where ‘deontological’ (ethical) principles and norms aim to reflect, more so, give effect to a specific set of social or societal core values or, what we have also described as ethical aspirations – those that serve to bring about an
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agreed upon social or societal vision e.g., quality health care as a social good. In practice, deontological approaches also serve to resolve issues of authority and power for a specific relationship – socio-‐political – context be it between a medical doctor and his/her patient or, via what is also referred to as ‘codes of conduct’, a public servant providing vital services to a country’s citizens. We can see as examples, that the overall theoretical framework with its conceptual tools helps us both to understand and, potentially, transform deontological (ethical) principles and norms on the basis of their need to: • Contribute to the growth both our human potentialities e.g., for a personal
-‐ social – identity (e.g., as lawyers or public servants) and, more broadly, sense of hope as individuals, institutions and societies, but also our social potentialities e.g., those for connection and contribution in the context of a specific ‘helping’ relationship;
• Reflect the on-‐going refinement of our overall individual, institutional and
societal ethics as a component of our cognitive potentialities, those stemming from more compelling stories of what is right or a new sense of aesthetics, for bringing about an ever more ‘satisfying’ world; and, as a further example,
• Contribute to the achievement of an increasingly valued – or progressive
spiral, as we have mentioned in the previous chapters -‐ set of articulated social qualities and social goods as in the example of more sophisticate health care, reflecting the requirement that as ‘dissipative structures’, societies either grow or die.
Though the above examples should suffice to describe the pertinence of our conceptual framework to the development, if desired, of more relevant deontological principles and norms, one could also argue that the conceptual framework as a whole could serve as the backdrop for the evaluation (or the elaboration of performance criteria) of current deontological principles and norms.
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Appendix 1- Collective Human Psyche, Domains, Self and Human and Social Cognitive Potentialities As we saw in Chapter 2 in the context of our collective human psyche, each domain may be understood as drawing from and contributing to the dimensions and realities of our collective human psyche, with each of the dimensions of our collective psyche being in synergy (+ or -‐) via the self, with our corresponding human and social cognitive potentialities. The graphic in Part I, Chapter 2 is repeated here for ease of reference. In the following, each of the dimensions of our collective human psyche is described as to its contribution to domains along with its connections with the cognitive potentialities related to our human nature and to the self. • Symbols give the domain a specific set of qualities that trigger the
energies of the self via our human potential for symbolism (sparking the world of our emotions, feelings and perceptions);
• Rituals give the domain specific forms, thus giving our behaviors specific
and predictable embodiments or enactments of its realities;
• Myths give the domain its stories and engage, via its explanatory potential, our potential for empathy;
• Art gives the domain its sense of beauty and brings about our sense of
uniqueness via our potential for invention;
• Religion provides the domain with a set of values and gives shape to our beliefs via our potential for faith;
• Philosophy gives the domain specific truths, helping us to give meaning to
the world by engaging our potential for reason; and,
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• Science provides the domain with its theories and the self with
information via our potential for technique. Importantly, as mentioned above, the dimensions of our collective human psyche are in a synergistic relationship with our other human and social cognitive potentialities, each drawing from and nourishing the other.