§2) Serving a Purpose

Context: The roots of ethics
 

MAT 18:20 For where two or three gather together because they are mine, I am there among them."  The first gathering, however, toke place between the serpent and Eve with all the wheeling and dealing in GEN 3:1:

 Now the serpent was the shrewdest of all the creatures the LORD God had made. "Really?" he asked the woman. "Did God really say you must not eat any of the fruit in the garden?" 2  "Of course we may eat it," the woman told him. 3  "It's only the fruit from the tree at the center of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God says we must not eat it or even touch it, or we will die." 4  "You won't die!" the serpent hissed. 5  "God knows that your eyes will be opened when you eat it. You will become just like God, knowing everything, both good and evil." 6  The woman was convinced. The fruit looked so fresh and delicious, and it would make her so wise! So she ate some of the fruit. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her. Then he ate it, too. 7  At that moment, their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they strung fig leaves together around their hips to cover themselves. 8  Toward evening they heard the LORD God walking about in the garden, so they hid themselves among the trees. 9  The LORD God called to Adam, "Where are you?" 10  He replied, "I heard you, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked." 11  "Who told you that you were naked?" the LORD God asked. "Have you eaten the fruit I commanded you not to eat?" 12  "Yes," Adam admitted, "but it was the woman you gave me who brought me the fruit, and I ate it." 13  Then the LORD God asked the woman, "How could you do such a thing?" "The serpent tricked me," she replied. "That's why I ate it."

According to Asimov's 2nd laws of robotics in §2, the prime ethical consideration, a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. In short, we should only use concepts which lead to systems we can be responsible for and that without causing undue pain, e.g. inhibiting the lifefulfillment of others.

This means getting away from diverging into meaninglessness in the direction of converging towards understanding the laws of life fulfillment of those concerned.

In disregard of §1 and §2, in 2001/2 terror has become a major trigger for currents of compassion in the onset for the show-down of postmodernism: Bin Laden hiding in a cave, is quoted to have said that one day, we, his enemies will all be too afraid to leave our homes. Actually home has become less and less the place where you are understood, but more and more the only place where you can still feel your fears. Outside home, in management, marketing and institutionalized science, at best, the fear of customers is a topic. As insider you have to pretend to thrive projecting a fearless life with more of the same than those have who cannot afford this mental luxury any more. Thus the money flow is to converge from the fearful towards the banc accounts of the few seemingly fearless.

What would be a solution in terms of §1 and §2? It entails dealing with those who hurt others! In the past those who violated §1 were used as scapegoats to uphold §2, e.g. the obedience to the system wardens. And that in turn required the hangman or the mob to violate §1 in torturing the scapegoats up to their execution, or mobbing them, up to stoning them. With the progress of science, law enforcement and psychiatry took over with isolation, electro shocks and lobotomy, drugs and other ways of physical and direct neurological manipulation such as in the communist Gulag. However, psychiatry has also come up with a proper solution for §1 and §2: Surrounding the madman with enough people who can confront him or her, until he or she calms down and gets ready for a proper trauma treatment.

§2 in this world

 

Ethics §1-hurtfree ] [ §2-meaningful ] §3-self ] §0-global ]