Minimum and Maximum Ethics: Societal Harmony and Personal Fulfillment

Ethics of Minimum and Maximum: Foundations of Justice and Happiness

Understanding Minimum Ethics: Civic Foundations

Minimum ethics contains the essential requirements of justice that are absolutely necessary to ensure citizens live in peace and can develop their own idea of happiness. This ethic is also known as civic ethics. It implies that citizens understand and uphold fairness. Its five core principles are:

• Freedom: Understood as moral autonomy—the capacity to make moral decisions for oneself; and political autonomy—the ability to participate in political institutions without coercion.
• Equality: Involves the elimination of domination, ensuring everyone can enjoy a reasonable amount of all goods. Citizens must have minimum social and cultural resources to build a decent life, along with equal opportunities and self-esteem.
• Solidarity: The commitment to help the vulnerable achieve the greatest possible autonomy and self-esteem, and to develop one's talents to assist others.
• Tolerance: Not mere indifference, but active respect. It means giving others the opportunity to establish relationships with us.
• Dialogue: A reciprocal exchange, not a monologue. It implies equity (equal treatment for all participants) and empathy (the ability to understand another's perspective).

Maximum Ethics: The Pursuit of Personal Happiness

Maximum ethics refers to each citizen's pursuit of personal happiness. This ethic is also known as the ethics of happiness. It implies that every citizen strives to achieve their own well-being. The collective pursuit of happiness for all citizens is inherently linked to and impossible without the implementation of civic ethics.

Key Ethical Definitions

Ethics:

A branch of philosophy that includes the study of morality, virtue, duty, happiness, and the good life.

Moral:

A set of beliefs, norms, and circumstances through which we can determine if a person has lived a good life, considering their contributions to the social group and characteristic behavior.

Socratic Ethics:

Emphasizes the need for self-control and a strategic approach to discovering truth, primarily through the Maieutic Method (Socratic method), which is based on dialogue. This method involves three steps: irony, perplexity, and maieutics.

Golden Mean (Aristotelian Mean):

The desirable middle ground between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. It represents knowing the difference between vice and virtue, a state often achieved by the wise.

Hedonistic Maxim:

The moral principle that asserts the highest good is to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

Utilitarianism's Moral Aim:

To achieve the greatest happiness, pleasure, or utility for the greatest number of people.

Categorical Imperative:

A practical law, proposed by Immanuel Kant, that dictates how a rational being should behave to act as a person of good will, regardless of personal desires or outcomes.

Habermas's Universal Principle:

A norm is considered valid if all affected parties would freely accept the consequences and side effects that would follow from its general compliance.

Habermas's Principle of Discourse Ethics:

States that rules are valid if they are accepted by all concerned parties as participants in a rational discourse or dialogue.

Minimum Ethics:

Contains the requirements of justice absolutely necessary to ensure citizens live in peace and can develop their own idea of happiness.

Maximum Ethics:

Refers to each citizen's pursuit of personal happiness.