| The condition of ethics in the West Here is photographed properly. We can accept this situation? We can do without ethics? We can not answer these questions before they have answered the following questions: of what we talk when we talk about ethics ? My reflection starts from the response to this question.
1. Of course we speak of human action, what depends on the exercise of their freedom: the our choices. That's what we talk about when we talk about ethics. Since the choice by its very nature presupposes and implies a case whereby the choice of A rather than B, we can not ask the question on what basis the choice justice is done. These elementary observations are enough to formulate a basic question about the freedom and ability of choice: there are criteria for judging, so why do not the choice of A and B are valid not only for those who are choosing but for any reasonable person? It would be useful first to answer this question, to say which properties should have these "reasons for action", if any. It seems to me that are at least five. (1) reasons are valid before any interest, desire, preference: apply to themselves. (2) are not valid reasons why and not as a plan courses of action deemed capable of satisfying their desires. (3) are reasons to be shared by any reasonable person: specific to each and every one. (4) are reasons that may apply to adjust their interests, desires and preferences while surrendering. (5) are reasons that require unconditional respect for the freedom, not admitting that it ever violated on the grounds of infringement of their interest, their desire, their own preferences or those of the social group you belong to. The hypothesis of the existence of these reasons it is helpful to have a better understanding of 'homo agens , the acting person. immediate experience is a fact that each has of itself when it acts, being inclined toward a goal to reach with his choice. Who does that, always acts to an end. The strength of motivation to act is what drives it, the end, it is believed to be able to satisfy our "wants". Each character has always offered us a view of property it is able to [have felt able to] respond to Our desire is to quell our movement or inclination. Considering these data elements, we must ask: logic, logos intimate inclinations of man [eg sexual inclination, the inclination to live in society] is a radical selfishness? The inclinations are directed exclusively to the satisfaction of the individual good? They carry only a utilitarian logic? Or live in a vocation to the natural human inclination to be governed by a reasonableness that we introduce a form of goodness that does not coincide coll'utilità own? In short, there are only "goods for me" or are "property in and of itself? Our reflection, even starting from elementary data, has come now to the crux of the matter. It can be shown in two fundamental ways. First way: the reason is purely instrumental, is simply the power given to us to design and implement a satisfactory response to the needs of the individual but it is also the faculty that is able to detect and propose courses of action that make the man as man, courses of action which frees man from his "particular" and elevate it to an eternal order and has its own beauty? Second way: there are only property [now prefers to say: values] individuals or there are goods that are common, each person's own words and all the people? The two formulations are at the bottom of the concave and convex of the same figure. That's what we talk about today when we talk about ethics. Let's talk about that is, what is the good of mankind. More specifically speaking of measure of our reason, what it really means to live reasonably. In a word we speak of man in search of himself, and his true good. 2. However, I was asked to reflect on the crisis of ethics. Means of ethical reflection. I have to say first what I mean by "crisis." Ethical reflection may be faced with difficult questions and unpublished, and serious difficulties in finding an answer. It may be in a conflict of answers to these questions. This situation, however, perhaps in two radically different contexts. The conflict of the responses from within the acceptance of such meta-ethical assumptions, and takes the form of argumentative discord. Or the conflict from within against meta-ethical assumptions, and is configured as conflict between the premises of the argument as such. If you switch from first to the second situation, there is in that I call the crisis of ethical reflection. My thesis is that this is the condition in which ethical reflection in the West today. The most serious symptom is fatigue, I would say the West's inability to develop a public ethics. But let us proceed with order. We are in a conflict of conditions, or that match. the conflict is at the level of fundamentals. In what sense? The debate took place in the first paragraph has given us the tools to build the answer to this question. The crisis in the sense that, for the notion of reason of freedom, and therefore the relationship between truth and freedom . In the end, about man's vision: it is a conflict of Anthropology. 's about the reason. More specifically, the practical reason. It is self-limited to practice only as "serve the interests of the individual, the individual's wishes. So says one of the fathers of modernity: "We do not ever go a step beyond themselves" [D. Hume, The Philosophical Works , Treatise of human nature , Laterza, Bari - Rome 2002, p.. 80]. The reduction of the practical reason why a small car has changed everything. All the ethical discourse, while continuing to unfold and articles using the same vocabulary [freedom, good, evil, conscience, law morality] has totally changed direction. They are the same signs on the staff, but the key is changed to read: the music is another. is the radical ethic of autonomy, understood as a mere statement of his own desire, which is absent from any reasonableness that references to a "step beyond himself." 's about freedom. It affirmed the primacy of absolute freedom, freedom is a primum which is in itself and for itself, its meaning. That there might be a good in and of itself to which the person is naturally inclined and oriented, that free choice can accept or reject, is denied. Freedom in his background is pure indifference, it is pure neutrality. The consequence is that the good can not take on the face of that office: bonum quia jussum ; evil that can not be presented with the face of the forbidden: malum quia prohibitum . And there is no reason inherent in the freedom to do the first and avoid the latter. There is no question of truth / falsity about the project and the person makes of himself with his own freedom. A discussion of ethical discourse, therefore, that should perform as universally valid, it is impossible, and contrary to the affirmation of freedom. Many autobiographies are only possible as there are ethical people, moral strangers to each other. We'll see how this speech should be taken in social terms, in terms of public ethics. And we are to take decisive question for the crisis of ethics: the relationship truth-freedom. We start again from the observation of what happens in us when we make a choice, when we make a decision. The choice and decision is not determined by the object chosen, the action figure that I planned to do. Freedom is self-reliance, freedom is to be determined by himself, is self-determination. But for this to be possible, simply because it is possible to choose decide freely and it is necessary that the person gives an opinion about the subject to choose from, the decision to make. It is by virtue of this view on the value or goodness of the object, that the will is not moved by the object itself, and that the person moves itself. The reference to the truth, known by the opinion, belongs to the essence of free will. is in this light that reveals the true nature of moral evil. It is the evil of their freedom, as well as the error is just the wrong reason. It is precisely in the fact that freedom denied by his choice that the reason stated in his opinion. But if deny that there is a truth about the good of [the reasons I talked about the five characteristics] and affirm that the good / evil is in close analysis by the decision of freedom [here is secondary, if the individual or social consensus], where the choice and the decision did not contain within themselves the "moment of truth", and it is done without reference to the truth that is rooted in an objective order of being, moral common sense of the term would be simply unthinkable. It is perhaps still continues to talk about morality, but it comes in fact totally different. It is the present condition. "In short, the contrast between good and evil, so essential to morality, presupposes that the will of any object is realized in human action based on the truth about the good that these objects are "[K. Wojtyla, Person and Act , Rusconi Libri, Milano 1999, p.. 339] . If not, the man would simply be an unnecessary experiment, and his life, as the poet says, a tale told by an idiot with no sense. 3. Let me think a little about what I believe to be the most severe symptom, the most dramatic crisis of morality in the West: the growing difficulty that Western societies try drafting a public ethics. I mean public ethics for the set of rules which removed the social life is no longer possible. The public ethics simply does not coincide with the ethics tout court: the offense is distinct from sin. Let the fundamental question whether the consent obtained by the public use of practical reason, ie through the comparison of free and open to all on equal terms, is the fons essendi sufficient public ethics. If you can propose an ethics based solely on public consent. from a text by Leopardi. "If the idea of \u200b\u200bright and wrong, good and bad morality does not exist or does not come by itself, the intellect of man, no law of no legislator can make an act or omission that is just or unjust, good or bad. For, there can be no account for what is right or wrong, good nor bad, ubbedire any law, and no principle on which there can be funds that any one has the right to control who is that "[Zibaldone 3349-3350]. Send Leopardi poses the basic question: there is something unjust in itself and can never be justified by any legitimate public procedure? In other words, there is a truth about the good of mankind regardless of the results of the argument, debate and public deliberation? When I say that the democratic process is the only fons essendi the legitimacy of the rule, one of two things. Or I think this procedure as a clash of opposing interests whose only solution is the imposition of stronger or I think this procedure as a way worthy of man to find the solution that can recognize the reasonableness of each. In the first case simply deny that there is equality in dignity among men and the norm is always and only the domain of one another. In the second case is assumed and affirmed, and the equal dignity of every person and the possession by each of the same reason or rational nature. That's the idea tommasiana law and natural law. Only building a consensus that it is oriented to the search for truth about the good, is an authority that is not man's dominion over man. Even J. Habermas has been forced to come to these conclusions, arguing that the legitimacy of a constitution by the people can not be limited to the calculation of arithmetical majorities-minorities. It should have a reasonable argument "with sensitivity to the truth." Always Habermas in his work The future of human nature. The risks of genetic liberal [Einaudi (original 2001), Torino 2002] mean that issues of human genetics can be resolved through democratic procedures. The root of social breakdown we see is a kind of censure against each instance that keep alive the "sensitivity to the truth." Think of the treatment receiving the Church's moral teaching. Education to a full use of reason is one of the most pressing challenges for the future. The project to build a legal system, and therefore a public ethos, without truth, puts a burden on the shoulders of the law that is not capable of carrying. You the burden of creating a human community, to produce an identity. The Romans did not say ubi jus ibi societas but Ubi Societas ibi jus. As this is an impossible dream, it opens the next two serious risks. Or make the law itself imposed a vehicle of values: is the risk of clerical fundamentalism. O "privatize" legally any content of human experience: the risk of secularism is exclusive. It is believed that the category of fundamental human rights can serve as the connective tissue of the human social. however, denied that there is a truth about the good of man, or - which matches - that there is a reasonable human nature, basic human rights are likely to be conceived and practiced as what the individual prefers for himself, et de gustibus non est disputandum. This has a devastating consequence on the idea of \u200b\u200bcivil law and the role of the legislature. The new idea is that the State and the law should not prohibit what the individual prefers. And with that social cohesion is threatened to its very origin. The solution of the problem is not recourse to the principle "if you do not want, why can not I?", Ie with the launch of law, nor impositive nor coercive, but permissive. Not wanting to fill the gap ethics, criticize the question of truth in the name of a supposed tolerance, is leading to the disintegration of our western societies. The practical reason to have replaced glue communicative reason he walked around the ethical discourse on a public street that has no exit. In conclusion. It can not seriously build a public ethics if you deny that there is a universally valid truth about good. But this denial is to be held today, bringing a tear to the human social unsustainable. 4. I want to conclude with the thought of Heraclitus who said "for those who are awake there is a single, common world, and instead each of them that sleep in their own world again "[The Presocratics , Bompiani, Milano 2006, p.. 326, 89]. D. This is what Hume denied : that man can escape from your world, make a step beyond Ourselves . Those who have awakened from the sleep of reason, has a light that is the same for every man, and that helps us see the good as what is common to all. It is this light that lays the foundation for human community.
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