The Answer
The answer is simple, the solution is impossible. So it would seem as humanity tries to advance its morality.
I’ve studied this issue for decades. I have a PhD specializing in ethics, and I am paid to teach ethics at a public university. Here are two key points.
(1) Ethics is a technology
Here are definitions of "technology" from three dictionaries to clarify this point:
* The specific methods, materials, and devices used to solve practical problems (American Heritage).
* The application of knowledge for practical ends. (Random House)
*The total knowledge and skills available to any human society for industry, art, science, etc. (Collins)
This means that ethics, like any technology, can improve and evolve,
much as in other fields, such as transportation or production.
(2) Goodness (or The Good) is real
This point is founded in science and is based on two simple steps.
(a) The first is that humans are generally the same (Human Sameness)
For instance, the Human Genome Project shows humans everywhere have a shared blueprint.
This teams with the study of psychology, which claims: we have the same basic needs and wants. These include the need for food and sleep, and the wants of friendship and to avoid loneliness and many kinds of pain.
(b) Second, a fair, equal, worldwide ethic can be based on the above human sameness. The bedrock formulation of this ethic is the Golden Rule: Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Note that the Golden Rule appears in many religions, if not all of them. All religions can be avenues to seek The Good.
So What?
So this: We can get closer to The Good by advancing our ethics tech. The invention of human rights was such an advance, an elaboration of the Golden Rule.
We can keep going. Animal ethics. Earth ethics. Psychology and ethics, In fact, all this is happening. We live in an amazing time. We stand, today, in the early 21st century, at a crossroads.
Critical Point
We need to advance our ethics tech along with other advancing tech; otherwise, humanity will destroy or enslave itself. Better ethics is necessary to manage more power. Power and ethics are linked.
Three Examples
Without better ethics, WWIII is coming and with it, nuclear annihilation.
Without better ethics, we will create cheap, powerful AI armies (such as flying drone arsenals) that can hunt, track and wipe out whole populations of civilians.
Without better ethics, we will create AI that can herd, surveil and punish whole countries, creating totalitarian states with no freedom of speech or thought (yes, monitoring devices will be put directly in the brain).
Obviously a lot more examples are possible. A genocidal virus. Or a molecular nanobot that destroys the micro-organisms in soils, or the planktons that produce air.
One More Time
The Good is real. This is based on science. Verifiable, empirical knowledge. I am going to repeat this and try to make it sink in:
The Good is real.
The Good is real.
The Good is real.
This also means Evil is real.
If we don’t evolve our ethics tech, fear will reign. If fear reigns, dictators will dominate cult-like hordes. Imagine god-weapons in the hands of supreme-leader narcissists, who have bottomless holes for hearts--weapons that allow them not only to kill, but also to put devices inside the human brain.
(And, yes, the cult-like followers will readily accept devices inside the brain to prove their loyalty).
In Summary
We’ve made progress toward The Good. I’ll give just one example, but is is huge. Women can vote.
Think about it. We CAN approach The Good. It is doable. This isn’t religion, this is science.
Here is another example. Gay marriage was recently made legal in the USA.
This is an extraordinary time. Don’t give up.
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