To answer what I think is the most important query here, I agree that
systems do not have interests. Interests may be ascribed to what ever system
we are considering. A system is always conceptual and is subject to the
evaluation. The error that I may have made in using the practical example of
the biome as a morally considerable being(s) is that this belief [of mine]
is subject to interpretation. There is the hermenuetic problem therefore in
the definition of what the system consists of, and morally whether it is
worthy of consideration in my scheme. A system has no inherent interest
unless it were to express one. Since a system is a human construct, it
cannot speak for itself, but relies on a speaker other than itself. A robot
can be programmed to express interests, but an ecosystem cannot. Only humans
can ascribe values. But other entities do have needs. By extension, only
rational & free agents can make choices. We will never know if other beings,
outside of humans, can deliberate or make choices that refect moral acts
similar to humans. And is it necessary?

Several thinkers in the past have postulated that there is a sympathetic
imagination in humans that makes us, more or less, different than other
animals. I am not one to pontificate on spiritual beliefs but this
'sympathetic imagination' may be a faculty that humans possess. For
instance, anticipation of future events is not the sole ability of a
mathematical model that inputs values and generates predictions, it also the
ability of any person to anticipate a future or to possibly envision the
past. If this were not true, then many of the genera of literature known as
sci fi and adventure would not be possible. Jules Verne's ability to imagine
the center of the earth would not be feasible. William Blake insisted that
the Christ was nothing other than the imagination, and asserted that Christ,
the saviour, is the imagination in humankind. Without the imagination then
it could not be entirely possible to reflect on courses of action, unless
one had a very powerful computer. And what would provide the motive?

One can only imagine what is referred to as sustainability and what is a
peaceful world. No one has really experienced either since this to is
subject to interpretation.

Karl Jaspers once stated that when persons or communities are faced with
boundary issues or extreme situations, the ability of the human imagination
[as an act of faith] would be very influential and critical in the outcome
of that community or self. My reading of Solzynthesin in the Gulag
Archipelago is informative in this area, surfacing, keeping ones head above
water. What kept this author alive, besides enough food, was that he
believed that he was right [that he had no authentic reason for being there]
and that he had a mission and that his mission was to survive and describe
the experience that he went through. No one in my mind was capable of doing
this in the same unique way that he did. He was trained as a mathematician,
kept copious notes that he sequestered away for years on napkins, and
survived to tell the world about the conditions in the work camps of Soviet
Russia.

What is relevant to the question of whether there can be a holistic moral
philosophy has to be determined by the actors involved in the evaluation.
This is a self prescribing activity. Only an individual or community could
be capable of a truely moral act. Systems are representations of what is
known or not known about the external world or, at the very least, the self
understanding of the prescribing entity in a momentary act of reflection or
consciousness. There error of ascribing value to anything is that values are
evaluations of what are interpreted as fact or existents. There is a
currency for them. Beliefs have currency. A moral act therefore to be a
moral act must meet the criteria that are solely and morally eligible, that
is, the 'promise' to do something when something is not right. Thus a
promise is based on the belief, decision of the believer who is considerate
of others or herself in the face of consequential evidence which could be
imaginative or real. The real criteria is keeping the promise that is made
or configuring actions according to the promise that one has made. This is
the basis for the 'is' versus the 'ought' in recognition of consequences and
existents.

A true holistic moral philosophy would be cosmic in the sense that every
act, every deliberation of the moral agent would have to correspond to the
beliefs that that agent held as being cherished. A holistic moral philosophy
would focus on the other as a morally considerable being, any other, even a
rock. It is not important if the rock is real or not, nor does it matter if
the temporal dimensions are seconds or decades. Alexander's organizational
goal in the Gulags was to survive {and to tell others everthing about it}
and he kept his promise which was made to himself, and later retold to others.

john








At 10:32 AM 10/23/1998 -0700, you wrote:
>Reply to John
>
>Okay, John, I'm beginning to get the picture and it all sounds fine in
terms of
>describing a course of action. Even your suggestions as to what we might
consider as
>morally considerable might have great practical import. However, I'm still
unconvinced
>that ascribing morally considerability (sic) is enough to legitimize the
status.
>
>It is beginning to sound as if you wish to ascribe interests to systems,
and I'm
>beginning to think that is what a holistic moral philosophy intends. If
I'm correct,
>then, leaving aside any practical advantage to those entities who clearly have
>interests, we must ask if systems can in any way have interests.
>
>I can understand easily the advantage to thinking in terms of the biome. I
still have
>difficulty in getting my head around the notion of "the welfare and
continuance of the
>biome."
>--
>Ian
>
>
>
        



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