The Ethical Engineer Read Online Free

a noun but it has no referent. It stands for nothing.
It means nothing. When you say 'I believe in Truth' you are really
saying 'I believe in nothing'."
    "You're wrong, you're wrong," Mikah said, leaning forward, stabbing
with his finger. "Truth is a philosophical abstraction, one of the
tools that mankind's mind has used to raise it above the beasts—the
proof that we are not beasts ourselves, but a higher order of
creation. Beasts can be true—but they cannot know Truth. Beasts can
see, but they cannot see Beauty."
*
    "Arrgh!" Jason growled. "It's impossible to talk to you, much less
enjoy any comprehensible exchange of ideas. We aren't even speaking
the same language. Aside from who is right and who is wrong, for the
moment, we should go back to basics and at least agree on the meaning
of the terms that we are using. To begin with—can you define the
difference between
ethics
and
ethos
?"
    "Of course," Mikah snapped, a glint of pleasure in his eyes at the
thought of a good rousing round of hair-splitting. "Ethics is the
discipline dealing with what it good or bad, or right or wrong—or
with moral duty and obligation. Ethos means the guiding beliefs,
standards or ideals that characterize a group or community."
    "Very good, I can see that you have been spending the long
spaceship-nights with your nose buried in the books. Now make sure the
difference between those two terms is very clear, because it is the
heart of the little communications problem we have here. Ethos is
inextricably linked with a single society and cannot be separated
from it, or it loses all meaning. Do you agree?"
    "Well...."
    "Come, come—you
have
to agree on the terms of your own definition.
The ethos of a group is just a catch-all term for the ways in which
the members of a group rub against each other. Right?"
    Mikah reluctantly produced a nod of acquiescence.
    "Now that we agree about that we can push on one step further. Ethics,
again by your definition, must deal with any number of societies or
groups. If there are any absolute laws of ethics, they must be so
inclusive that they can be applied to
any
society. A law of ethics
must be as universal of application as is the law of gravity."
    "I don't follow you...?"
    "I didn't think you would when I got to this point. You people who
prattle about your Universal Laws never really consider the exact
meaning of the term. My knowledge of the history of science is very
vague, but I'm willing to bet that the first Law of Gravity ever
dreamed up stated that things fell at such and such a speed, and
accelerated at such and such a rate. That's not a law, but an
observation that isn't even complete until you add 'on this planet.'
On a planet with a different mass there will be a different
observation. The law of gravity is the formula
mM
F = ——
    d 2
    and this can be used to compute the force of gravity between any two
bodies anywhere. This is a way of expressing fundamental and
unalterable principles that apply in all circumstances. If you are
going to have any real ethical laws they will have to have this same
universality. They will have to work on Cassylia or Pyrrus, or on any
planet or in any society you can find. Which brings us back to you.
What you so grandly call—with capital letters and a flourish of
trumpets—'Laws of Ethics' aren't laws at all, but are simple little
chunks of tribal ethos, aboriginal observations made by a gang of
desert sheepherders to keep order in the house—or tent. These rules
aren't capable of any universal application, even you must see that.
Just think of the different planets that you have been on and the
number of weird and wonderful ways people have of reacting to each
other—then try and visualize ten rules of conduct that would be
applicable in all these societies. An impossible task. Yet I'll bet
that you have ten rules you want me to obey, and if one of them is
wasted on an injunction against saying prayers to carved idols I can
imagine just how universal