Hardback:
ISBN: 978-0-9573017-1-9
August 2013
£50.00

Fuzzy Ethics:
A moral criterion for sustainability

 Efrén Moreno Benavides, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain

Ebook:
ISBN: 978-0-9573017-6-4

August 2013


We need to know what sustainability is, before it can be achieved. How must sustainability be defined? 


Fuzzy Ethics describes a new moral criterion which locates ethics in the physical world and, based on it, proposes a new definition of sustainability that generalizes concepts from engineering, physics, and ethics. 

This book has two main parts. The first part conducts a dialogue in order to establish the operative definitions (for example: order; and effort) needed to increase the rigor of argumentation; ethical framework; and moral criterion to follow. The second part sees a final reflection isolating one by one, the main sentences on which the previous dialogue is based. This part reveals the key points that the reader must interrogate in order to find any flaws in the theory. The final part links ethics and sustainability and reveals how the finitude of humankind leads to fuzziness.

 
Key Features


  • based on the physical world
  • presented in a dialogic format, which is formalised at the end of the book
  • uses a broad concept of order, based on the number of special ways available to do something
  • introduces the concept of happiness as the state with the highest degree of order, based on the definition given, and builds a new ethical framework, based on the definition of happiness
  • presents a moral criterion, based on comparing the effort required for doing and undoing
  • written by a practicing engineer


 

The Author

Efrén M. Benavides is a Professor at the School of Aeronautics, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, in theories of sustainable design, mechanical design, reciprocating engines and propulsion systems with research work in the field of aeronautics. Efrén has written books and numerous articles about these subjects in a variety of scholarly journals and scientific literature. This is his first book with TrueHeart Press.


 Contents

Dialogue about life and common sense; Discovering concern; On common sense; On disorder and unhappiness. The natural order; On the possibility of the natural order as a link; On the existence of a universal categorical imperative; On the importance of objectives and dialogue in the imperative; On whether or not to act; On the importance of the attributes of the imperative; On whether or not the imperative leads to forgiveness and overcoming. The need for social structures; On whether to listen to the heart or the mind; The universal categorical imperative; On whether or not the universal categorical imperative makes the person using it virtuous; On restraint in the use of resources. The professions; On the need for an appetite; On the difficulties with using the universal categorical imperative; On the scope of the universal categorical imperative; Farewell; Reflections of an excursionist; Additional content (change; society; universality; the Universe; love); Sustainability