[Xmca-l] Re: Anniversary for Sakharov's Essay

[Annalisa Aguilar]

Thanks Andy!


OK. I accept that there is a historical conditioning to these words "moral" and "ethics", arising from language roots, Latin and Greek respectively, and then also that their meanings (connotations) shift over time. Sure, that's fine.


But what are meanings to which the words point? and what do those meanings have in common? What is their substrate?


What you have shared doesn't alter my assertion (with my assistance provided by a dictionary) that "moral" is particular and "ethics" is systemic.


Regardless, what are these words pointing to that were you to pull out conditioning by human society, by history, what would be left? It would be cause and effect. No different than if I throw a ball up into the air, the ball will eventually come down to earth. If I plant a seed and provide it the right conditions of good soil, sunshine and water, the sprout emerges.


If I do X then Y will happen. If you do X then Y will happen too.


and this necessarily sets up an argument particularly if you say


If you do X then Y will happen, but if I do X then Z will happen.


The distraction is what letters you set into the places where X, Y, and Z stand in the above sentences. The truth of these statements (what they have essentially in common) is cause and effect.


This is so pervasive that we take it for granted. It is like watching our eyes.


We understand this connection between cause and effect intrinsically, at the same time, this understanding is not because we are human, even if the way we make sense of it is through mind and language, which are very much  (human) tools at our disposal.

Kind regards,

Annalisa
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