THE CONCEPT OF AN ECO-ETHICS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL THOUGHT

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NOTION OF VIRTUE

Semantic Transposition

The history of moral philosophy is the history of the development of virtue through a series of dramatic changes. "Virtue" derives from the Latin word "virtus," which means "to be strong". It suggests the ideal situation of the male as posssessing the strength to combat uncivilized enemies in defense of his family or society. This original sense of the word did not express a transexual moral quality or general human virtue. In the course of time, however, with the development of human culture and changes in the environment the daily physical struggle for which virile and even savage strength was needed become no longer necessary. Thus, the ideal situation of being human changed into today's transsexual notion of virtue.

This semantic transposition of the moral concept is clearly manifest regarding the Greek word areté, virtue in classical times meant virtue. In the text of Homer this meant only a military strength for battle. From the time of the tragic poets to that of the classical philosophers, however, the semantic sense of areté changed. In uncivilized times persons needed physical strength to fight for the protection of the community. Bodily strength was important, admired and aspired to as the ideal; physical force was an ethical virtue. By the time of Socrates, however, virtue no longer had a functional sense, but had developed a more spiritual or moral meaning.

The concept andreía, which long had meant courage or audacity, is an almost parallel case. This notion derived from the word aner in the sense of a virile male and had the same meaning as virtue. In the classical Platonic texts, however, it signified no longer only strength for battle against the enemy, but also human courage in general. Andreia as spiritual audacity or bravery thus became established in moral philosophy through the creativity of Socrates.

In Chinese culture, too, one finds a parallel phenomenon regarding the notion of audacity (bravery or boldness). In uncivilized times when men needed physical strength for battle this effort was considered a moral virtue. Emphasis upon being strong which was expressed by the addition of the sign ( ) to the ideogram for man ( ) to signify a developed strength so that the ideogram ( ) meant audacity as andreía or virtue. Through the creativity of Confucius (552-479 B.C.) that notion of virility was deepened morally to become an interior force correlative to the virtue of responsibility which appears in the Lun-yu (dialogue between Confucius and his disciples) 1.1.14, "when one sees his responsibility and does not act responsibly he lacks andreía (audacity)." Boldness as andreia or virtue in Confucius also changed from a masculine to a transexual or general human virtue in a manner parallel to that of Socrates. Both were sensitive to changes in the human social environment from a village situated in nature to a cultured city, and this provided the basic motivation for their projects of ethical renewal.

Objective Development

Beyond the semantic transposition of virtue, its sociological renovation was taking place on the phenomenal level. For example, loyalty as fidelity of the nation to the king and of the citizenry to the city differ in their objects, but are entirely identical in their moral essence as fidelity. This transposition in the object of the virtue of fidelity constitutes a new discovery in moral virtue. Cicero in antiquity or Mencius in the classical Chinese texts perhaps first presented civic virtue as a new form of the fundamental virtue of fidelity.

The above two types of changes, namely of virtue, namely of virtue from a physical to a spirital meaning and of loyalty from allegiance to a king to concern for a city, are not identical. The first is a semantic universalization of moral meaning, whereas the second is a specific determination in the object of a fundamental virtue. In both cases the renewal of virtue was carried out by philosophers sensitive to an ethical change; the theoretical clarification of such changes always has been one of the duties of philosophers.

Ethical crises are signs of critical points in human history. In our epoch the environment is structured not solely by geography and human culture, but also by a universal scientific technology; this calls for a further development of moral philosophy for which the two above-mentioned factors, namely, semantic transposition and the objective modification, do not seem to suffice. A technological society so different from the past requires that we show that there is such a thing as the radical innovation of a virtue entirely unknown in the past.

Moral Innovation as Discovery of New Virtue

The history of humanity contains one not merely renewal as semantic transposition and objective modification, but also the invention of radically new virtue absolutely unknown in the past. One example is the virtue of tapeinophrosyné, which literally is the attitude of the beggar or mendiant, namely, modesty. The word in question is not found in classical Greek, but was constructed by a Christian in the second part of the first century where it appears first of all in the Didache and the letter to the Ephesians. Totally unknown in Western antiquity, this virtue of modesty undoubtedly found its origin in the precept of Christ: "With perfect humility . . . bearing with one another lovingly" (Eph. 4:2).

The mendiant as symbol of virtue is an invention of Christ. As the truly poor mendiant extends his or her hands for alms and accepts modestly whatever is given, the one whose heart is poor, like the beggar, extends his or her hand to God in order modestly to accept whatever difficult destiny is given. For such a person there is no discontent, grief or dissatisfaction. As a lessening of one's personal demands, modesty was unknown as a moral virtue to classical Western philosophers. Indeed Socrates felt at home at the table of Plytaneion; according to Aristotle megalopsychia as self-aggrandizement, the antithesis of tapeinophrosyne, and the pride of self-love were the virtues of a citizen of the city. Thus, at least once in human history there has beem discovered a new virtue which contradicted earlier axiology; modesty as tapeinophrosyne symbolizes of the possibility of moral discovery. This third type of moral renewal, namely, the creative discovery of moral virtue, is our moral task in these difficult times.

But is it possible to invent a virtue in a modern intensively developed society? This can be answered affirmatively by showing the historical fact of the invention in modern times of the virtue of responsibility--a neologism in the context of 18th century social contact theories. As I have shown in Betrachtungen über des Eine (1968) and Studia Comparata de Aesthetica (1976), that term is not found in any classical Greek or Latin text of antiquity or the Middle Ages; but appears first in French in 1787 in places where the English word "responsibility" was used. Its content, however, was not always precise. In John Stuart Mill, for example, responsibility signified accountability understood as a justification or apology for one's self. In German the corresponding term, Verantwortlichkeit, appeared for the first time at the end of the 19th century. As the virtue of responsibility is essential to a contractual society it was invented only in modern times.

The historical fact of the invention of a new virtue in modern times can be established then, and the history of philosophic reflection in morals is the history of the three types of innovation of virtue: (1) the semantic transposition of traditional virtue, (2) the objective modification of traditional virtue, and (3) the invention of new virtue.

THE PRACTICAL SYLLOGISM: A SEMANTIC TRANSPOSITION OF TRADITIONAL VIRTUE

In response to the present crisis of morals it is necessary to develop an appropriate ethic for our technological society. This is not a sociological compromise with technology or a psychological accommodation to our situation as a modern society, but a development of the moral horizons of humanity. Sociological compromise and psychological accommodations remain on the animal level; ethics as the morals of humanity is the self-establishment of the human spirit as conscious of its duty before the moral dilemmas of a technological society. We shall consider this development of ethics in relation to the three types of innovation of virtue.

It is necessary to distinguish act from action: action is the physical movement of a person without regard to their human interiority; act is action in view of a personal decision made from within. For example: A runs towards a station at the speed of 13 seconds per one-hundred meters; B and C also run towards the same station at the rate of 13 seconds per hundred meters. Thus the action of A, B and C are the same. However, A is fleeing prison, B pursues A in order to arrest him, and C follows in order to impede B. In these circumstances although the actions are parallel, the acts differ entirely one from another: that of A is resistance against militarism, that of B is obedience to the system, while that of C is friendship for A. Despite the identity of the actions as physical movements, the human acts as personal decisions and interior practical thoughts differ one from another. Whether theoretical or practical, conscious or not, however, human thought must be structured logically because, as decisive, an act is not a mere reaction bereft of thought.

As the structure of human thought is a syllogism, there must be a practical syllogism for decisive practical thought. The classical formulation of this practical syllogism is found in Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics:

A) A is desirable

But p, q, r and s realize the A desired.

Therefore, for some reason, I choose p as the means to achieve the A desired.

In this practical syllogism the minor is the horizon of the freedom of choice, the object of which is a means to achieve the end or goal; thus, the end as ideal is prior to the choice of an effective means. This primacy of finality or goal orientation has made possible rapid progress of the technology of these means. Now, however, the effectiveness of the means, has taken a qualitative leap as the technical world has moved from heteronomous instruments to autonomous technology. As power now assumes an absolute primacy over the goal, and means over end, in the realm of all human acts the structure of the classical practical syllogism becomes problematic. Power in the form of systemic, atomic and electro-magnetic energy, or capital in the economic order, invert the order of premises of the practical syllogism in the following manner:

(B) We have means P.

But, P can realize a, b, c and d as goals.

Therefore we choose A, for some reason, as the

goal of these acquired means.

The minor remains the horizon of our freedom of choice: its object, however, is not the means but the goal to be realized. Further, the goal in question is not a transcendent ideal--an end which the human spirit spontaneously desires--but only the natural outcome of technological power. Thus, the means controls the ends by determining which end will be realized. Technological power as means assumes priority over the end which becomes one of its consequences. Though the human spirit chooses one of the outcomes of that technological power, the choice no longer reflects spontaneous desire.

This control by technological power considerably influences the problems of modern ethics. First of all, there is a change of grammatical subject between Aristotle's practical syllogisms and that of our technological age which substitutes the subject "we" for Aristotle's "I." This reflects a transposition of the earlier ethics of the individual into one of committee. In our technological society there remains a moral dimension in which the Aristotelian practical syllogism of the individual is necessary, but at the level of public interaction the individual is only a small part of large technologically organized whole which only committees acting in terms of "we" can manage effectively.

Thus a semantic transposition of the virtue of responsibility takes place, from personal responsibility to that of a committee or of solidarity. Because responsibility is grounded ontologically in the person it should be especially individual, but in technical interaction responsible decisions are made by committees because technical power has become a public or common good. Hence, there is need to develop an ethic of solidarity or of committee for the virtue of responsibility. For example, when a person resigns from a committee which does not work well he or she may be psychologically purified, but such a solution remains on the level of personal responsibility. It is necessary to discover how to integrate this personal morality into the new social reality by a semantic transposition of the virtue of responsibility from that of an the individual to that of the committee or of solidarity. This is not a sociological or political science problem; it is one of eco-ethics.

Information and Communication

as Objective Modifications of Values

The major of the contemporary practical syllogism is not a statement of a desired end, but the confirmation of technological power as a gigantic means which can serve for or against humanity. That the human spirit must accept the evident reality of this power as the situation of its actions means that the technological complex now is our environment. When this had been solely nature, prior to moral acts one needed only common information and good sense--for example, about which mushrooms are poisonous and which are edible, or about the power of water, fire, wind, etc. Now that our modern environment is no longer solely one of nature but also of technical interaction, however, we must obtain at least enough information to be able to make sense of it, e.g., some basic knowledge of electricity, bio-chemistry, bio-technology and atomic physics. As sciences in their own domain these are not easy, but education in science should not be directed only towards the preparation of future specialists. Everyone needs at least basic scientific information regarding such basic aspects of our environment, for just as the study of classics is necessary for culture, the study of technology and scientific information is necessary for modern civilization. Similarly, just as some information and interpretation of the nation's history is a duty and hence a social virtue of the cultivated citizen, today an amateur's ordinary knowledge of technology also is a duty and thus a social virtue.

To climb a tree or swim in water are sports with a touch of gymnastics; though not specifically ethical they enable one to aid a drowning person or one who wants to pick fruit: strength and gymnastic capabilities serve the ethical by making it active. This approximates an ethical virtue or at least can be transformed into ethical virtue. In a parallel manner in a technological society driving a car, steering a boat and managing a computer might be called gymnomechanics for they enable one to help many people. In effect, learning at least one machine technology in the modern world has become an ethical virtue.

Information supposes communication which in specific domains entails the abbreviation of terminology and thus the use of jargon. This results in mutual alienation between specialists in different public domains. Naturally specialists must use scientific and technological abbreviations not mastered by the general public. For interdisciplinary exchange of exact information some control of jargon is a professional virtue.

Further, for linguistic information in a technological world a new intellectual virtue is required of every citizen, namely, the acquisition of an appropriate language. Modern technology has so advanced the possibility of international travel and correspondence that as a technological unit today's society is characterized by mobility and communication; it constitutes a vast meeting place for the whole world, either by chance or by necessity. Because to communicate effectively with others one needs to know at least one foreign language, the atmosphere of the contemporary technological unity is entirely bilingual. This does not imply a disregard of the capacity to read texts in the esoteric language of the elite of one's society, but the need to speak effectively in today's mobile world means that learning a foreign language is a virtue for international friendship.

Tolerance: An Objective Modification

of the Traditional Virtue

Having become a technopolis, the megalopolis is now one of the most important bases of international transportation and great cities have become meeting places for people of all nationalities. Their meeting is not only temporary, as with tourism, but also permanent because the megalopolis is able to provide job opportunities for foreigners due to the new primacy of sign over language and of universal technology over historical specificity. This means that the person in the technopolis as a factor in the technological effort can obtain citizenship in the megalopolis. For this only an ability for mechanical work is required; it does not include one's religious or cultural outlook.

Tolerance as generosity of thought now becomes the first condition of such coexistence. Whereas the classical virtue of tolerance meant patience with another person who caused embarrassment, in our technological society tolerance implies the generosity to allow for the validity of other ideas or religious systems. In a technological age public professional interaction requires neutrality of thought for effective collaboration and political coexistence. As an administrative attitude neutrality differs from tolerance which is an ethical virtue; but neutrality in the professional sphere is implied and included within the ethical virtue of tolerance. Note that this objective modification of the virtue of tolerance, from patience in regard to other persons' defective acts to permission of different types of activity, is an objective modification of virtue in our technological society.

Progressively modern technology so expands the impact of machine efficiency that daily appliances can be run by remote control. When a citizen of Tokyo can telephone a person in Paris without difficulty they become technological neighbors. This technological relationship, however, is entirely different from classical relations in which neighbors are spatially close to one another, speak face-to-face, are mutually visible and limited in number. In modern technological structures one interacts with an unlimited number of persons while all remain mutually invisible. Due to distance one does not see directly the situation of one's indetermined and unknown interlocutors, and under cover of the technological apparatus one can forget shame and embarrassment. At midnight by telephone one can more easily engage an unknown person in a distant city than knock at the door of one's neighbor. Willingness to commit massive homicide by a bomb is made possible by the technological means which enable one to ignore those whom one attacks. One would have to imagine the suffering of unknown, undetermined and distant people in order to evoke the direct sympathy involved in a face-to-face meeting. To render moral our actions in technological structures it is necessary to cultivate the imagination through aesthetic activity in art, the learning of which becomes a propedeutic for eco-ethics in a technological civilization: aesthetics has become a necessary discipline for morality.

In any case, the content of the virtue of love of neighbor has been modified effectively through contemporary technological structures which free one's outlook on love of neighbor from the limited surroundings of one's residence, opening it to the vast horizon of humanity, now and in coming generations. This, too, is an objective modification of virtue.

The Invention of New Virtues

First, in a technological context any delay through defects or errors in the operation of a machine becomes important inasmuch as such work requires punctuality. In the past this was not numbered among the virtues, but regarded as the sign of a narrow spirit, whereas generosity which did not attend to minor matters was a sign of the greatness of the person. While generosity remains one of the most important virtues, in the present technological society punctuality has become a new virtue.

Second, as the technological horizon is also international, alongside national loyalty one must be international and world brotherhood has replaced feudal loyalties.

Third, the need to limit population makes control of birth and Malthusianism necessary, and there are many new means for this. Sexual relations without generation are counseled so universally in married life that in this perspective the principle goal of sexual relations could become, not the birth of an infant, but sexual pleasure. As this would raise a question regarding restriction of sexual relations to marriage, an eco-ethics must discuss the problem of sexuality. Scriptures of the traditional religions concerned with the well-being of humanity which have viewed marriage as engendering many children begin to be out of harmony with ethical opinion confronting the present crisis of humanity. Such eco-ethical problems must be thought through for the future of humanity.

Finally, technology has transformed men into bio-mechanisms for whom death becomes ever less necessary. Must one always extend one's life despite the misgivings of one's conscience in view of degenerating health? Can one not say that there is reason to die as well as to live? Thus, euthanasia becomes a topic for contemporary ethics.

The research atmosphere for such an eco-ethics must be interdisciplinary. Eco-ethics itself, however, is not a collective study, but must be constructed and systematized by each person thinking philosophically. It is, nevertheless, a discipline for humanity in its technological context.

Broadening the Horizons of Moral Thought

We have cited the Lun-yu text of Confucius on the dynamic of the notion of virtue and used the word "responsibility." But that is a modernized interpretation of the ancient Chinese text, for the word "responsibility" originated in the modern European tradition. This suggests the need to broaden one's historical and philosophical horizon in order to think, not at a provincial level, but at the level of humanism.

In the orient where society traditionally does not sufficiently appreciate the individual and overestimates inter-personal relations the outlook of traditional virtue differs from the West. In Confucius's ethical system charity and responsibility are the most important virtues. The Chinese word to which we apply the term "responsibility," Y, signifies idiogramatically the situation in which I take on my shoulders the lamb for sacrifice. That is to say, I must be responsible vertically to God and horizontally to members of my society. Y expresses responsibility as correspondence between two things, as for example between a signification and its word.

This broadened reflection on the virtue of responsibility teaches us that innovations in virtue within a philosophic tradition is not new within the extended context of human culture. For the innovation in moral virtue required for spiritual progress a comparative study of philosophy is very important. It becomes a phase of eco-ethics as the human environment broadens into a generalized technological world and life in society comes to depend upon world information. This change of human environment demands international communication between different civilizations and thus knowledge of the ethics of other civilizations, not only in order to listen to others, but to be integrated with them.

Finally, ethical innovation is not limited to the realm of virtue, but extends also to the ontology of human acts. Without the concepts of person and personality one cannot speak in a sufficiently philosophical manner of freedom or responsibility. In this sense Christianity has endowed humanity with a great ethical innovation. In the East where the Christian tradition is not truly rooted, the concept of responsibility still has not affected the notion of the person. At the end of the 17th century Wang Yang Min taught the notion Rientse, which meant conscience as the subject of knowledge (Gewissen); this perhaps is close to the notion of person. But in the East, as the ontological notion of person has not been distinguished from the historical notion of personality, the ontological notion of the dignity of the individual has remained confused with personal honor as an historical concern.

University of Tokyo

Tokyo, Japan