An aesthetic problem masquerading as an ethical one
Aristotelian ethics has dominated western thought for millenia. Mortimer Adler is even on record as stating that the only ethics that made any sense to him at all was the Eudaemonic. I will sum up Aristotelian ethics:
Step 1) Come up with a list of things a human needs to be truly happy - insert lots of debate here.
Step 2) Declare that everything on that list constitutes a moral obligation - thus, people you disagree with aren't merely mistaken, they are morally wrong as well.
Step 3) Explicitly and implicitly enable coercion, punishment or ostracism on those who are thus morally wrong. Spend a lot of your time lamenting why people won't do what you tell them to do to be happy.
A couple of years ago, I came across the methodology of "non-violent communication" (www.cnvc.org). I was impressed that they took a moral problem and converted it into an aesthetic problem. The list of human needs was there, but there was no moral obligation to fill them, only an aesthetic awareness of their beauty. I thought it was wonderful that after 2500 years, someone had finally figured a way out of coercive ethics.
Then I read Plato's symposium. In it, Socrates quotes the teachings of Diotima the priestess on the subject of love. She argues that love is an impulse which guides humans to the immortal and eternal, either through having children or creating works which will endure. She then notices that love is attracted to beauty and from there makes the conclusion that the best and highest life that humans can aspire to is to learn to percieve and create beauty. She thus frames the question of "how ought we to live" as an aesthetic rather than an ethical issue.
I am now wondering if my initial thought that Marshall Rosenberg (creator of non-violent communication) had transformed the ethical problem of how we should live into an aesthetic one, might not be backwards. Perhaps it was Aristotle that transformed the aesthetic issue of how we should live into an ethical one. I think I will give the pre-socratics some more attention.
Do you think the question of the best way for humans to live is most appropriately framed in ethical terms of right, wrong, duty, obligation etc. or in aesthetic terms of beauty, creation and growth?
Step 1) Come up with a list of things a human needs to be truly happy - insert lots of debate here.
Step 2) Declare that everything on that list constitutes a moral obligation - thus, people you disagree with aren't merely mistaken, they are morally wrong as well.
Step 3) Explicitly and implicitly enable coercion, punishment or ostracism on those who are thus morally wrong. Spend a lot of your time lamenting why people won't do what you tell them to do to be happy.
A couple of years ago, I came across the methodology of "non-violent communication" (www.cnvc.org). I was impressed that they took a moral problem and converted it into an aesthetic problem. The list of human needs was there, but there was no moral obligation to fill them, only an aesthetic awareness of their beauty. I thought it was wonderful that after 2500 years, someone had finally figured a way out of coercive ethics.
Then I read Plato's symposium. In it, Socrates quotes the teachings of Diotima the priestess on the subject of love. She argues that love is an impulse which guides humans to the immortal and eternal, either through having children or creating works which will endure. She then notices that love is attracted to beauty and from there makes the conclusion that the best and highest life that humans can aspire to is to learn to percieve and create beauty. She thus frames the question of "how ought we to live" as an aesthetic rather than an ethical issue.
I am now wondering if my initial thought that Marshall Rosenberg (creator of non-violent communication) had transformed the ethical problem of how we should live into an aesthetic one, might not be backwards. Perhaps it was Aristotle that transformed the aesthetic issue of how we should live into an ethical one. I think I will give the pre-socratics some more attention.
Do you think the question of the best way for humans to live is most appropriately framed in ethical terms of right, wrong, duty, obligation etc. or in aesthetic terms of beauty, creation and growth?
posted by seanross at 10:31 PM
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