The Ethical Engineer
Page 4
tired, and it is not important." He warily took thecigarette case from Jason's pocket and dropped it onto the tray. Jasondidn't attempt to interfere. Mikah poured himself a third cup of teawith a slightly apologetic air.
"You must excuse me, Jason, for attempting to make you conform to myown standards. When you are in pursuit of the big Truths, yousometimes let the little Truths slip. I'm not intolerant, but I dotend to expect everyone else to live up to certain criteria I have setfor myself. Humility is something we should never forget and I thankyou for reminding me of it. The search for Truth is hard."
"There is no Truth," Jason told him, the anger and insult gone nowfrom his voice since he wanted to keep his captor involved in theconversation. Involved enough to forget about the free wrist for awhile. He raised the cup to his lips and let the tea touch his lipswithout drinking any. The half-full cup supplied an unconsideredreason for his free hand.
"No Truth?" Mikah weighed the thought. "You can't possibly mean that.The galaxy is filled with Truth, it's the touchstone of Life itself.It's the thing that separates Mankind from the animals."
"There is no Truth, no Life, no Mankind. At least not the way youspell them--with capital letters. They don't exist."
Mikah's taut skin contracted into a furrow of concentration. "You'llhave to explain yourself," he said. "You're not being clear."
"I'm afraid it's you who aren't being clear. You're making a realitywhere none exists. Truth--with a small _T_ is a description, arelationship. A way to describe a statement. A semantic tool. Butcapital _T_ Truth is an imaginary word, a noise with no meaning. Itpretends to be a noun but it has no referent. It stands for nothing.It means nothing. When you say 'I believe in Truth' you are reallysaying 'I believe in nothing'."
"You're wrong, you're wrong," Mikah said, leaning forward, stabbingwith his finger. "Truth is a philosophical abstraction, one of thetools that mankind's mind has used to raise it above the beasts--theproof that we are not beasts ourselves, but a higher order ofcreation. Beasts can be true--but they cannot know Truth. Beasts cansee, but they cannot see Beauty."
* * * * *
"Arrgh!" Jason growled. "It's impossible to talk to you, much lessenjoy any comprehensible exchange of ideas. We aren't even speakingthe same language. Aside from who is right and who is wrong, for themoment, we should go back to basics and at least agree on the meaningof the terms that we are using. To begin with--can you define thedifference between _ethics_ and _ethos_?"
"Of course," Mikah snapped, a glint of pleasure in his eyes at thethought of a good rousing round of hair-splitting. "Ethics is thediscipline dealing with what it good or bad, or right or wrong--orwith 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 longspaceship-nights with your nose buried in the books. Now make sure thedifference between those two terms is very clear, because it is theheart of the little communications problem we have here. Ethos isinextricably linked with a single society and cannot be separatedfrom 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 whichthe 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 orgroups. If there are any absolute laws of ethics, they must be soinclusive that they can be applied to _any_ society. A law of ethicsmust 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 whoprattle about your Universal Laws never really consider the exactmeaning of the term. My knowledge of the history of science is veryvague, but I'm willing to bet that the first Law of Gravity everdreamed up stated that things fell at such and such a speed, andaccelerated at such and such a rate. That's not a law, but anobservation that isn't even complete until you add 'on this planet.'On a planet with a different mass there will be a differentobservation. The law of gravity is the formula
mM F = ---- d squared
and this can be used to compute the force of gravity between any twobodies anywhere. This is a way of expressing fundamental andunalterable principles that apply in all circumstances. If you aregoing to have any real ethical laws they will have to have this sameuniversality. They will have to work on Cassylia or Pyrrus, or on anyplanet or in any society you can find. Which brings us back to you.What you so grandly call--with capital letters and a flourish oftrumpets--'Laws of Ethics' aren't laws at all, but are simple littlechunks of tribal ethos, aboriginal observations made by a gang ofdesert sheepherders to keep order in the house--or tent. These rulesaren't capable of any universal application, even you must see that.Just think of the different planets that you have been on and thenumber of weird and wonderful ways people have of reacting to eachother--then try and visualize ten rules of conduct that would beapplicable in all these societies. An impossible task. Yet I'll betthat you have ten rules you want me to obey, and if one of them iswasted on an injunction against saying prayers to carved idols I canimagine just how universal the other nine are. You aren't beingethical if you try to apply them wherever you go--you're just findinga particularly fancy way to commit suicide!"
"You are being insulting!"
"I hope so. If I can't reach you in any other way, perhaps insult willjar you out of your state of moral smugness. How dare you evenconsider having me tried for stealing money from the Cassylia casinowhen all I was doing was conforming to their own code of ethics! Theyrun crooked gambling games, so the law under their local ethos must bethat crooked gambling is the norm. So I cheated them, conforming totheir norm. If they have also passed a law that says cheating atgambling is illegal, the _law_ is unethical, not the cheating. If youare bringing me back to be tried by that law you are unethical, and Iam the helpless victim of an evil man."
"Limb of Satan!" Mikah shouted, leaping to his feet and pacing backand forth before Jason, clasping and unclasping his hands withagitation. "You seek to confuse me with your semantics and so-calledethics that are simply opportunism and greed. There is a Higher Lawthat cannot be argued--"
"That is an impossible statement--and I can prove it." Jason pointedat the books on the wall. "I can prove it with your own books, some ofthat light reading on the shelf there. Not the Aquinas--too thick. Butthe little volume with _Lull_ on the spine. Is that Ramon Lull's 'TheBooke of the Ordre of Chyualry'?"
Mikah's eyes widened. "You know the book? You're acquainted withLull's writing?"
"Of course," Jason said, with an offhandedness he did not feel, sincethis was the only book in the collection he could remember reading,the odd title had stuck in his head. "Now let me see it and I shallprove to you what I mean." There was no way to tell from the unchangednaturalness of his words that this was the moment he had been workingcarefully towards. He sipped the tea. None of his tenseness showing.
* * * * *
Mikah Samon got the book and handed it to him.
Jason flipped through the pages while he talked. "Yes ... yes, this isperfect. An almost ideal example of your kind of thinking. Do you liketo read Lull?"
"Inspirational!" Mikah answered, his eyes shining. "There is beauty inevery line and Truths that we have forgotten in the rush of modernlife. A reconciliation and proof of the interrelationship between theMystical and the Concrete. By manipulation of symbols he explainseverything by absolute logic."
"He proves nothing about nothing," Jason said emphatically. "He playsword games. He takes a word, gives it an abstract and unreal value,then proves this value by relating it to other words with the samesort of nebulous antecedents. His facts aren't facts--just meaninglesssounds. T
his is the key point, where your universe and mine differ.You live in this world of meaningless facts that have no existence. Myworld contains facts that can be weighed, tested, proven related toother facts in a logical manner. My facts are unshakeable andunarguable. They exist."
"Show me one of your unshakeable facts," Mikah said, his voice calmernow than Jason's.
"Over there," Jason said. "The large green book over the console. Itcontains facts that even you will agree are true--I'll eat every pageif you don't. Hand it to me." He