Value systems: Thomas Aquinas

In the middle ages, Thomas Aquinas constructed the Natural Law Theory for ethics… In his view, human beings are pre-loaded with some instincts/drives that make them good.

The natural laws are:

  • Preserve life
  • Make more life
  • Educate one’s offspring
  • Seek god
  • Live in society
  • Avoid offence
  • Shun ignorance

I personally agree with this value system in ~80%. Let me explain why…

In my value system the point: “Seek god” does not have a place. In my view ethics and divinity are completely separate things. What is good and what is bad does not come from some higher consciousness… but rather from a deep understanding of who we, humans, really are.

There is one other point where my value system differs from that of Thomas Aquinas, and that is the point: “Make  more life”. This is indeed a strongly wired instinct in all animals, and consequently in all humans. But I would not go as far as to give it a prominent place in my value system, because doing so would imply that those who are not having children – either for health or for social reasons, or simply because they choose not to – are somehow less valuable people.

Value systems: Plato

In his book, The Republic, Book IV, Plato wrote down what the ancient Greeks called the four cardinal virtues.

These virtues are:

  • prudence
  • cadence
  • temperance
  • justice

I took the liberty of using a different words, more accessible to the 21th century thinker, to describe these virtues:

  • wisdom
  • courage
  • self control
  • fairness

This list is very useful…. Because it is concrete! In all my readings about ethics, philosophers go to a great detail in setting up frameworks and defining concepts, but they rarely have the guts to come up with practical useful guidance. This is a rare exception.

I personally agree with these values in 100%.

The will to power

Schopenhauer said in the early 19th century that the most inner drive in humans is the will to live. A generation later, Nietzsche challenged this statement, and said the most inner drive in humans is the will to power.

That seems to be true… but it got me thinking.

My understanding on human motivations is firmly based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

But then, if Maslow’s theory on human drives is fundamentally true, then why is power not mentioned at all in it?

[If anyone well educated in psychology and philosophy can give me some pointers, please do.]

My first thought is that power is a tool to achieve the goals set on the levels of the pyramid. That’s a comforting thought… It means that power is not a fundamental drive, just a tool – and that paints a better picture of humanity than if it were the other way around. Following on this thought, I ask myself: is power equally useful on all levels of the pyramid? I somehow question the idea that power is useful to gain love. I doubt even more that power is useful for self-actualization. I came to this hypothesis: power is more useful on the lower levels, and less and less useful as you go up. I need to think more about this…

My other thought was that power is actually present in the pyramid, it is just called differently. In my interpretation, by power Nietzsche meant the level of esteem. Achievement, ambition, and the striving to reach the highest possible position in life – these are all manifestations of the will to power. This is interesting too… if we believe that the will to power is truly fundamental, then we need to rearrange the levels in the pyramid. It means that the level for esteem goes down to the bottom. It means that esteem is more fundamental than food or love. When poor homeless people refuse to accept food stamps we see supporting evidence of this hypothesis.

The ethics of power

Here is the question (again): what’s more important in evaluating one’s actions (whether they are good or bad): the intentions or the consequences? This is best illustrated by an example question…

Let’s imagine that you’re driving along in a car. You’re slightly over the speed-limit, but you’re on a straight length of road, without any houses around. It’s also early in the morning, and there are no other cars nearby. You are in no way driving recklessly. You’ve done the same route many times before, and you’ve never run into trouble. But this morning you don’t spot a small pothole in the road. Your front wheel hits it, and you lose control of the car. The car skids around and around, and you watch with horror as a bus stop veers into view. You crash into it, and in doing so, hit two school children waiting for their ride to school. One is seriously injured, the other killed outright.

There is no correct answer to this question. That’s why it’s called an ethical dilemma. And the general problem that lies behind is equally puzzling: what’s more important in evaluating one’s actions (whether they are good or bad): the intentions or the consequences?

I say this… it depends on how much power the moral agent (the decision maker) has. The more power you have, the more I will evaluate your actions on the consequences and less on your intentions.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Sharpening the ethical mind

I am diving into ethics.

I am a software engineer. Recently the software engineering community found itself in a sudden heated discussion involving ethical dilemmas. Facebook was called for influencing the very fundamentals of democratic society with the Cambridge Analytica controversy. Meanwhile the Department of Defense of the United States is ramping up its technology for algorithmic warfare marching towards the next “atomic bomb”, involving industry leaders like Google. These are heavy topics… and they caught most technologists unprepared. For decades, software developers were only focusing on creating the technology and not giving too much thought on the moral questions around its usage.

So, earlier this year I decided that I will ramp up my ethics knowledge, and enter the debate. I did my homework in the last few weeks: Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Kant, Rousseau, Nietzsche…

Here is a test question: what’s more important in evaluating one’s actions (whether they are good or bad): the intentions or the consequences? This is best illustrated by an example…

Let’s imagine that you’re driving along in a car. You’re slightly over the speed-limit, but you’re on a straight length of road, without any houses around. It’s also early in the morning, and there are no other cars nearby. You are in no way driving recklessly. You’ve done the same route many times before, and you’ve never run into trouble. But this morning you don’t spot a small pothole in the road. Your front wheel hits it, and you lose control of the car. The car skids around and around, and you watch with horror as a bus stop veers into view. You crash into it, and in doing so, hit two school children waiting for their ride to school. One is seriously injured, the other killed outright.

How do we judge this action?

There is no correct answer to this question. That’s why it’s called an ethical dilemma. And the general problem that lies beneath is truly puzzling: what’s more important in evaluating one’s actions (whether they are good or bad): the intentions or the consequences?

Nietzsche gave something of guidance on this matter. He distinguished two kinds of moralities: master morality and slave morality.

Nietzsche says that in master morality the values are things like pride, strength, and nobility. Actions are evaluated on good or bad consequences. Quite contrary, in slave morality the values are things like kindness, humility, and sympathy. Actions are evaluated on good or bad intentions.

Nietzsche was quite clear on which kind of morality he preferred. – Take a hint from how he named them.

I am not so convinced however… I do think that kindness is a great value.