ethics, ideologies, and psychological paradigms

Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
3 Sep 1998 14:31:28 -0000

You know, writing to xmca can be habit-forming.

I was thinking just now about the ethical entailments of
different psychological paradigms and would like to
hear what you think. What I offer below is pretty
simplistic, categorical thinking, but it offers
for me a framework to think more about ethics.

Two profoundly different paradigms: One, we start out as
individuals and BECOME social beings; the other, we start
out as social beings and BECOME individuals. In the first,
individuality is a kind of sacred ground that must be protected
as we move toward sociality. In the second, sociality is the
sacred ground that must be protected as we move toward
individuation. The end point can be imagined either as
attainable, or, in what I take to be the more sophisticated
understanding, unattainable. In the first case, we are always
inevitably caught up in an existential predicament, ever
autonomous souls aspiring to an impossible communion.
Ethics - that is, taking responsibility for self-in-world -
in the first case suggests to me prioritizing self over
world(of others). In the second case, however, we are caught up in our
bondedness to others, never quite achieving the autonomy that western
capitalist culture promises but can not possibly deliver. Ethics
in the second case suggests prioritizing relatedness/ engagement
with others over the protection of ego.

So -- waddaya think?

judy

Judith Diamondstone (732) 932-7496 Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183