Preamble to Ethics

A preamble to Ethics

            I was going to call my blog “Beyond Right and Wrong,” but now it will just be the title of my thoughts on Ethics. This is, of course, a play on Nietzche’s “Beyond Good and Evil.”

But my purpose consists in showing how ethics must be more that winning an argument, proving that I am right and the other guy is wrong. Ethics must nourish the good, understood as integration. Much of my own writing is on American philosopher Josiah Royce (1855 – 1916) whose understanding of the good may be called “teleological harmony.” If that term discourages anyone, it simply means that our purpose is to integrate all things so as to create a greater universe of good. My thinking has been influenced mainly by Royce and his friends, the founders of Pragmatism, C. S. Peirce (1839 -1914), and William James (1842 -1910). An earlier influence on me was, and still is, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274).

Most creative thought in all of areas comes about by finding a harmony among ideas that seem to be hopelessly opposite each other, or at least so different that they do not seem to be part of a whole. But creative though unites them creating an ever larger and more integrated cosmos.

So let’s see if you and I can be a part of that process.

I will begin tomorrow putting up my thoughts on ethical issues and looking forward to yours