Conatus: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

If we return to the sensation, perception, impulse, image, symbol progression, we can see the same notion being played out. Impulse is where we get to as a result of our instinctual drives. Only with image and symbol do we start to apply layers of meaning, and this, in turn, reflects back into how we might respond to further sensations and perceptions. To put it simply, we have a choice of controlling our instinctual drives by constructing meanings, purposes, theories of ethics, morality, justice, law and politics. It is only at this point that we are employing our rational minds rather than our gut instincts.

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To summarise this section on goodness, it could be said that our search for an absolute standard of morality has proven as difficult as our search for truth.

Four basic types of ethics are mentioned — consequentialism, rules-based ethics, virtue ethics and discourse ethics. The thing that is most notable in almost all versions of these is that they are individual ethics and not a morality aimed at the common good — let alone a morality aimed at the health of eco-systems or the bio-sphere. Almost all ethical theories start with the question, what should I do? Even in morality — ethics applied to groups — the question of, what should we do seems hardly to be raised, or it is framed in terms of families, small groups, communities or nations. Even when the whole world is included, it’s the world of humans. What about those other

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