Do you believe a universal ethics is possible to find or not? Seeing as how we're constantly killing each others over having different ethical views, would it be possible to form an ethics system that everybody could accept? If so, what would the basis of it be?
One example I find of universal ethics would be humanism, with the following axioms (at least according to my own interpretation):
- the ethics should be consequence ethics - the consequences of actions are what matters
- however, consequence ethics can't be used in a practical everyday situation. Therefore, on a regular basis, ethical rules are formed that will come as close as possible to consequence ethics without being too difficult to handle, and where the possible exploits are minimized. In practical situations the rules are used, and must have been unambigiously defined.
- in these ethics, the consequence we're trying to achieve is to minimize suffering, and minimize real threats. Real threats are strongly correlated to suffering, but not fully correlated - you can survive a difficult life and be happy, while others can have unlimited money and be unhappy, for example. Therefore, it must be decided whether the system should be centered on the emotional measurement (minimizing amount of suffering), or the threat based measurement, or a measurement based on a form of minimizing the average of the two (thus taking both into account).
- the central axiom is that in a case where the lives of different people are at stage, all people are of equal value, and the option that causes least death and/or real threats and/or suffering is to be chosen. However if possible choices should be made so that no such dilemmas ever exist.
And now to my own possibly more controversial extensions:
- a long term reasoning should be applied. Avoiding short term suffering should not be done at the expense of greater long term suffering
- most ethical systems are made so that if not all within the society accept them, those who do accept it will be at a disadvantage compared to those who don't follow it. As a result, many ideologies are driven to the extreme in a way such that people are being killed, forcedly converted or similar, so as to ensure that all follow the ideology so it can be followed by it's founders without putting them at a disadvantage. I'd claim that this applies both to religions and political ideologies that we've seen so far. So: the system should be made so that those who follow the ethical rules will have an advantage over, or have exactly as good life as those who don't follow the ethical rules. Not following the rules shouldn't pay off compared to following them, unless the rules are broken in a way such that suffering is minimized better than it would be if the ideology would have been followed. Thus no controversiality of forced conversion is necessary for the ideology, neither would the ideology prevent a better ideology from being used
- the ideology must be fair in a sense acceptable to all. A possible goal could be to maximize the possibilities of the human species to survive, because it's something that everybody benefits from achieving. As such, the fairness is based on a foundation that nobody has much reason to oppose. However, according to the point above the ideology shouldn't need forced conversions, so nobody who follows the ideology would care if somebody decides not to follow it. Since we're talking about consequence ethics (as opposed to rule ethics) as the basis, it would be scientifically possible to - with absolute exactness (provided our models of reality become accurate enough and are good and predicting the future) - determine which action would be ethically correct and which action wouldn't be so. The suggested fairness requirement would thus eliminate the conflicts, because the correct action to perform could be determined unambigiously.
- the downside of the above point might be that people would dislike to have a world where the correct action would be determined unambigiously, but this is already taken into account in the points above - boredom is a form of suffering and as such it wouldn't be benefitial. Boredom also isn't just suffering but also a real threat, because boredom damages the brain in different ways etc. So no matter whether the suffering or threat based consequence ethics is chosen, it'll yield a result where boredom isn't common, and where freedom of action would be preserved to a very great extent.
- the final point being that even a universal ethics system slightly dislikeable would be benefitial to accept due to the damages that war etc. do. So if something reasonably acceptable could be agreed upon, it would be better than current status. The reasons why people go to war are complex and just trying to stop the war by talking to the parts of course won't change anything. So it's already included in the above definition that the consequences of just talking won't be peace, as long as the reasons for the war remains, so whatever method is used for avoiding war according to this ethics system must remove the reasons behind it as well, and thus it should also remove the desire for any part to wage war. Thus nobody would be unhappy about the ethics system because it would prevent them from fighting a war they would find it necessary to fight. However if war is truly unavoidable, the system, trying to be the optimal system in minimizing suffering and/or real threats, would thus also accept war, but make sure the war gets conclusive ideologically so it won't need to be refought, that the peace treaty is acceptable to both parts so as to avoid revenge wars, and also so that the actual war is fought with minimized damage caused.
So what do you think? Is it possible to find universal ethics or are people too instinct-driven and desiring short term pleasures too much to care about long term consequences in any matter? Do you think people prefer risking death, torture, rape and other hideous treatment for themselves and their children and grandchildren to get the chance (even if it's only a 5% chance) of getting slightly richer than they could be in the suggested system, or a system where almost everyone (maybe up to 99%) would have nearly that richess with limited burden of work?
Of course the above ethics system suggestion is still very theoretical and assumes very exact knowledge and very accurate models of measurement etc. is available. Also the exact consequences of applying approximate and non-exact models of reality with this system must be explored further before it should be implemented.
