4. ETHICS, COMPASSION AND VALUES
The Dalai Lama argued in Ethics for the New Millenium that:
- everyone wants to be happy & content, and
- an important way to do this is live ethically, e.g.,
- avoid harming others.
- Everyone has compassion, i.e. can feel others, which makes
humane action possible.
Maybe based in mirror neurons, which respond to specific
gestures in others (Rizzolatti).
Clearly, empathy & compassion are inhibited by preconceptions &
prejudices.
Arguments against rule based ethics similar to those against reductionism
(Johnson):
- Fixed rules cannot anticipate complexities of human condition, and
- they require interpretation.
- Also second order rules like Kant's categorical imperative require even
more interpretation.
But rules can be valuable guidelines, just as with design.
Problems arise when rules are seen as universal principles.
Also important to note that values come in interacting systems, not as
isolated principes.