Human and/or Animal: The Morals, Ethics and Responsibilities of the Highly Intelligent - Part Three

DAVID RALPH MACKERETH dmackereth@canimac.com

Continuing with thoughts on whether highly intelligent Humans have developed this intelligence or was it an attribute Nature arbitrarily provided.

Improvements to Binary Politics

We’ve lost the idea that politics are part of the humanities.” (Martha Craven Nussbaum) Just witness political debates! And understanding, “[…] politics is always about moral questions” (Leon Richard Kass, 1988)

“[I] warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally […] it serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration.” (George Washington, 1732-1799)

Many Western Countries are effectively Two-Party Democracies. Leading to Binary Elections – voting ‘Out’ or ‘In’, making it much easier for the Wealthy and Powerful to control the outcome; and influencing many not to vote. For instance, in Canada: Liberals or Conservatives, in the United States: Republicans or Democrats, in the United Kingdom: Labour or Conservatives have formed each Government over the past 10 plus Elections.

Current Binary Politics bypasses ‘Classical Democracy’. Replaced by ‘Political Party Theory’, where most Voters have insignificant input, in either, their representative or the Political Platform.

A theoretically intelligent Human who automatically votes 100 % of the time for one party (and its entire platform) over another party (and their platform), may be bringing that intelligence into question!

Adding NOTA (None of the Above) to Elections

“[…] if people have a reason to vote, if their vote is going to make a difference, then they will vote.” (Arturo Madrid) Rather straight forward!

“Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.” (Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862) Humans, especially HIs, must communicate their thoughts!

“It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.”

(Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, 1452-1519)

Purportedly in a Democracy, one Eligible Person gets one Vote, and if that Person does not accept any of the ballot suggestions, a mechanism is needed to register their displeasure, as a Vote. Following Leonardo’s advice; to record your resistance at the onset!

The 2016 U.S. Presidential Election had 251 million eligible voters, of which 135 million did vote (Clinton 65 million – 26 %, Trump 63 – 25 %, and others 7 – 3 %). Therefore 116 million (46 %, almost equal to Clinton and Trump combined) were considered to have not voted. These folks did indeed Vote by Not-Voting! With a two-year Presidential Campaign period and billions spent on marketing and communication there could not have been many Americans (perhaps none) unaware of the Presidential Candidates; confirming they Voted by Not-Voting. But these 116 million potential votes were not recorded. But could easily have been marked in the ballot area “NOTA”; thereby, having have a significant impact on whom should be presented as a Candidate: avoiding necessary follow-up Elections.

“He stops voting in elections he knows are a farce. […] His revolt is an attempt to live within the truth.” (Vaclav Havel)

Oxford English Dictionary – Democracy: “[…] control of an organization or group by the majority of its members” and “the practice or principles of social equality.”

“The poor have been rebels but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government; the poor man really has a stake in the country.” (Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 1874-1936)

Increase Separation to include State, Church and Business

“The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.” (Walter Bagehot, 1826-1877)

“In a society without social justice and with free-market ideology, guns, greed, and jails are bound to win.” (Freeman John Dyson) Best described by the US!

“States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.” (Avram Noam Chomsky) Citizens should be in control!

“Quite simply: corporations are not ethical. That is they are not meant to be ethical. They are meant to be self-interested.” (John Ralston Saul)

“Democracy clearly is at odds with corporate structures and power that are unaccountable and unresponsive.” (Sheldon Sanford Wolin, 1988)

“The superior man understands righteousness; the inferior man understands profit.” (Confucius, c.551-c.479 BCE) Why should the inferior man dominate?

Sparta (seventh century BCE): “[…] where commerce was prohibited because it supported softness and inequality; […]” (Benjamin R. Barber and Patrick Watson, 1988)

“Democracy is also a single ideology, and like all such templates, it has its limits. What works, in a legislature might not work in a corporation.” (Fareed Rafiq Zakaria) State and Business are disparate institutions!

Today Business has more, or at least equal, domination over Society than the Church exercised in the past (pre-separation). Just as 4,200 or so Religions are allowed to operate independent of Government (in most countries), Businesses can also function separately (but adhering to the laws and regulations set by the State, as Religions do).

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov is, “[…] quite aware of the monstrous relations in human and international affairs brought forth by the egotistical principle of capital when it is not under pressure from socialist and progressive forces.” Separation of Church and State (Wikipedia): “[…] is a philosophic and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the nation state.” We must now determine an acceptable unbiased political distance for businesses (especially very large corporations) from the nation state.

Moving the needle one more notch, we can separate the business community from direct entanglement with the Government (as with the spiritual communities); separating human demands from Business Demands: Profits and Market Values. Individual citizens could be assured just laws and regulations will be established by the State, allowing the Church and Business to collaborate with Humanity.

John Kenneth Galbraith in 1987 put forth; “The great dialectic in our time is not, as anciently and by some still supposed, between capital and labor; it is between economic enterprise and the state.” Essential HI discussion obligatory!

The intently studied Jean-Jacque Rousseau in 1762 accentuates: “[…] one unique and absolute arrangement of government would not be proper for every State, but that there can be as many governments different in nature as there are States of degrees of greatness.” Rousseau continued emphasizing over 250 years ago; governments are required to be entrenched to resolve the predicament arising within a money-based society. In 2022 we are headed in a misguided direction!

“The one thing we have become sure of is that there is no consensus on what democracy is or what it requires.”

(Benjamin R. Barber and Patrick Watson, 1988)

Adam Smith considered the father of economics, in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) was well aware; it is easier to operate a business than to manage the affairs of the individual: “The man of the system […] seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own.”

“[…] but believe me it is better to understand the balance-sheet of one’s life than of the corn trade.” (Lucius Annaeus Seneca 4 BCE – 65 AD)

“When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals.” (John Maynard Keynes, 1883-1946)

“The best things in life really are free! Love, knowledge, art, music, literature, community have no bottom line.” (Daniel Joseph Boorstin)

Finally, an intriguing comparison with 1800: “The 200 or so corporations […] operating in the US by the year 1800 were each kept on a fairly short leash. They weren’t allowed to participate in the political process. They couldn’t buy stock in other corporations. And if one of them acted improperly the consequences were severe.” (Kalle Lasn) It is time to impede the Business Sector and get on with ‘Reversal’ objectives!

Afterword

“It has bothered me all my life, that I do not paint like everybody else.” (Henri Emile Benoit Matisse, 1869-1954) As with HI thinking!

“We need genius, however envious or uncomfortable it makes many among us.” (Harold Bloom) To enhance both: the lives of Mankind and the entire Biosphere.

“That is the wisdom of the past, for all wisdom is not new wisdom.” (Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, 1874-1965)

“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832)

“All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882)

“[…] but that may be the paramount use of past geniuses; we have to adapt them to our place and our time, if we are to be enlightened or inspired by them.” (Harold Bloom)

“When the stakes are very high you have to try, even if you cannot say you will probably succeed.” (Julian Baggini) And the ‘Stakes’ could not be more decisive!

If Democratic Elections are actively influenced by either or both Money and Unacceptable Candidates; then we will continue with our ‘Hypocrisy’ and will not have Democracy! “It is so convenient to be immature! If I have a book to have understanding in place of me, a spiritual adviser to have a conscience for me, a doctor to judge my diet for me, and so on. I need not make any efforts at all. I need not think, so long as I can pay; others will soon enough take the tiresome job over for me.” (Immanuel Kant, An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’ – 1784)

“Ethical ideas and sentiments have to be considered as parts of the phenomena of life at large. We have to deal with man as a product of evolution, with society as a product of evolution, and with moral phenomena as products of evolution.” (Herbert Spencer, 1820-1903) And with HIs as a product of evolution.

“Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first, it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident.” (Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860)

“The difficulty lies not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones.” (John Maynard Keynes, 1883-1946)

“As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act now. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” (Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865)

“I have acquired a habit of looking for the outside view. But it will never be the natural thing to do.” (Daniel Kahneman).” For all Humans, but a necessary enterprise.

“Nothing else in the world […] not all the armies […] is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” (Victor-Marie Hugo, 1802-1885)

“The value of men’s work is not the works themselves but in their later developments by others, in other circumstances.” (Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valery, 1871-1945) Representing imaginable achievements of a HumEnvitarian HI. Part Two will concentrate on the Highly Intelligent and Economic Affairs.

Part Three addresses individual human decisions.

Part Four will stress legal and education concerns.

“Believe than many percepts are better than much wealth; for wealth quickly fails us, but percepts abide through all time; for wisdom alone of all possessions is imperishable.” (Isocrates, 436-338 BCE)

“Certainly it is presumptuous to say that we can’t improve, and that man, who has only been in power for a few thousand years, will never learn to make use of his power.” (Edward Morgan Forster, 1879-1970).