Elucidate

1. to make lucid or clear; throw light upon; explain

I should have recognized that one by the etymology alone.

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Truth is the correspondence of an assertion or a thought with an existing state of affairs.

As we discussed in class, and as I agree, truth does not exist (without sentience) as a part of the universe. The question of truth only arises with something capable of perceiving the state of affairs incorrectly. As we have imaginations, and do not begin with an inherent understanding of the actual nature of the universe, we must, therefore, use our imaginations, along with skepticism, to arrive at an appropriate intellectual equivalent and comprehension for how the universe actually exists.

Can the same be said about ethics? It is certainly easy to claim that ethics can be specific to every person, and only exist in that manner. In some sense, I think, this is true. Sentient beings alone are capable of discerning benevolence from cruelty, and, as far as we can be consequentially informed, alone are the arbiters for this perception. Certainly, there are natural and societal enforcements on right and wrong, but these, perhaps, are separate things, as a variety of circumstance allows us to imagine situations which might be punished for at one time and not at another, by nature or society. As such, sentience alone recognizes right and wrong, and sentience alone judges it.

So if each person in the world lived alone, with no contact to anything else, would ethics differ so greatly as to claim, like theories such as quantum physics do, that it is impossible to form a coherent and quantifiable predictive theory? I think this is not the case. In almost every culture, murder is an act of cruelty. As it can be complicated by various circumstances, we must delineate, and say that hedonistic murder is incorrect. Murdering for one's own gain or joy. The same can be said about most (if not, all) crimes. If we are doing it for the benefit of ourselves, and it harms another, we are being cruel, and as such, immoral. There is an emphasis, at least currently, in almost every religion on the value of compassion and forgiveness. These are things humanity has, through the course of traceable history, considered of note, of virtue, of particular acclaim. In turn, those things based on hedonism have come to find severely negative connotations and, I argue, for good reason (as these notes alone are not enough to coax an objective understanding of ethics).

While these arguments I have presented are mainly intuitive and generalized, I think it not a stretch to claim that harm of anything for hedonistic purposes is wrong. As such, there must be some system for qualifying and quantifying right and wrong. If there is a standard that can be judged, then there is a theory we can form to describe that which is right and wrong. As such, the philosophy of Ethics has plenty of merits, and could, I think, find (continuously evolving, of course) an objective understanding of Ethics.

Now, in addition to this very broad introduction to what I think about Ethics, I would like to add something based on a quote from class. I am not entirely sure I am quoting correctly.

"We do not need to be good to survive" Dorothy Rowe

As well as affirming some things I've said above, Rowe points out something important. The correlation between survival and ethics is, as we discussed in class, intriguing, as the further one gets from needing to survive, the more ethical responsibilities one has. Ought implies can. But does can imply ought? To the best of my knowledge at the moment, it does.

This is very difficult however, as the further one gets to an objective understanding of the universe, the humbler one is forced to be. That we are one of 10,000,000 species, and yet we literally have a vice hold on the planet. That, by our "gift" of intellect, we have used it not to respect our common biological lifeforms, but to manipulate the entire planet to our purpose. To me, especially lately, this has seemed rather cruel. I know that certainly we did not have the tact or the humble nature to accept this before (closest I've found is the Native Americans), but instead of recognizing ourselves, we first set to making ourselves comfortable. That which many religions claim to be given to us as literally a gift, intellect, is certainly what sets us apart from the rest of the world. But have we used it to develop and appreciate that we are but one of millions of lifeforms to have lived on this planet? Or have we used it to manipulate everything, living or not, to our agendas. As if the gift carried with it an inherent right to dominant. Power or not, is it right to dominate? Like many species would act, I expect, we chose us first.

And while this sounds like a horrible condemnation, I do not intend it to be. There is no reason to expect a species not to care for itself first. It was almost like winning the lottery--you've played the game for so long, are you going to give it all to charity? Or use it to buy the most lovely house? The latter option, is, I think, intuitive, natural. As well, I do not think humanity was necessarily cruel in the way it took over the world until it recognized that intellect, while powerful, was a meager thing to stake domination on (if anything is worth staking domination on). If anything, it seems an evil thing to me, to recognize the close inherent similarities of all living things and then say, "But the world gave me this mind, and I have a right to use it, to do as I please to whatever implication for else that lives." This reeks of our animal instinct, and as intellectual beings, that is not the direction we should be moving in.

We can choose not to be animals anymore, but it comes with a price: ignorance is cheap. If we are to receive this gift of intellect, it seems, we have a responsibility to use it to preserve that which does not have the natural brainpower to overcome the entire world. This is a scary proposition because it identifies ethics as an obligation, but how could it be any other way? It has been posited that all processes of thought are, in a way, searches for truth. While this may or may not be the case, one really has to work to recognize something is wrong, to know it truly, and then do it anyway. This is cruelty. And, for the most part, cruelty goes hand in hand with lethargy. I myself, only recently having become a vegetarian, am full aware that it would likely be more ethical for me to become a vegan, yet lethargy stays me. I struggle with it. It is hard to build a system on a set of notions (Manifest Destiny) and then break them down again. We've already tasted the pleasures of a hedonistic existence.

I have followed this philosophy to the end, and arrived at, should we discover the means of survival to do so, we should literally leave this planet, as our presence here is derogatory to other forms of life. My friends have suggested the caretaker stance, but this too seems cruel. Imagine that god was like how I imagined us to be, were we truly benevolent. Not interfering would probably be the most ethical action. To reach down and pluck Hitler from the Earth, even knowing his devastation, would violate free will. We impede other species by always being #1, by an incredibly large margin. I am divided on whether or not we could pass down information, or whether or not we ourselves could be teachers.

Now, that last paragraph is rather extreme, and has reeked to me of uncertainty since the moment I considered it. All of the aforementioned understandings are ongoing, and, as should be duly noted, not well researched, introspective theories; a prejudice, in a sense, a non-empirically ascertained examination. Though I do a fair amount of research these days, it is difficult to find real evidence for such theories, as they are so incredibly broad. None of these are conclusive.

Derek