where does ethics begin in democracy ?

Answer 1

Sweetheart, if I had the answer to that, I'd've won the Nobel prize by now.

Ethics start with each and every single one of us as individuals. Just be true to yourself because you have to live with yourself every day. And if you can't live with you, how can you expect anyone else to?

Good question; it's one I've been wondering about, too.

Answer 2

Ethics is not a part of democracy. That is majority or mob rule. The mob makes the rules and the rules change when the mob's mood changes.

It is only the Rule of law that governs based on moral principles.

Answer 3

Education, and helping those in need. Not 'biding time' and waiting for the majority to fail. Excess luxury must become unethical before democracy will be truly ethical. Otherwise it becomes a dumb and dumber competition.

Answer 4

WE..... thats where it begins .....

.but I am not sure there ever has been a true democracy ..The USA ids a grand experiment in democracy and it doesn't always work does it ? Democracy is an IDEAL not an absolute reality......

Answer 5

When democracy begins. Are you asking when all individuals in a democratic state of unknown kind of democracy is in its totality honest? I am not certain that is possible in the perfect faithful sense. Could those most powerful be honest? What is the description for that mode of self empowerment.

Families form the Civil society.
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Hegel's Philosophy of Right

Third Part: Ethical Life
i The Family
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/prfamily.htm

§ 158

The family, as the immediate substantiality of mind, is specifically characterised by love, which is mind's feeling of its own unity. Hence in a family, one's frame of mind is to have self-consciousness of one's individuality within this unity as the absolute essence of oneself, with the result that one is in it not as an independent person but as a member.

Addition: Love means in general terms the consciousness of my unity with another, so that I am not in selfish isolation but win my self-consciousness only as the renunciation of my independence and through knowing myself as the unity of myself with another and of the other with me. Love, however, is feeling, i.e. ethical life in the form of something natural. In the state, feeling disappears; there we are conscious of unity as law; there the content must be rational and known to us. The first moment in love is that I do not wish to be a self-subsistent and independent person and that, if I were, then I would feel defective and incomplete. The second moment is that I find myself in another person, that I count for something in the other, while the other in turn comes to count for something in me. Love, therefore, is the most tremendous contradiction; the Understanding cannot resolve it since there is nothing more stubborn than this point (Punktualität) of self-consciousness which is negated and which nevertheless I ought to possess as affirmative. Love is at once the propounding and the resolving of this contradiction. As the resolving of it, love is unity of an ethical type.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/prfamily.htm

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Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences
Part III: The Philosophy of Spirit
SECTION TWO: OBJECTIVE SPIRIT

C. ETHICS
§ 513

The moral life is the perfection of spirit objective — the truth of the subjective and objective spirit itself. The failure of the latter consists — partly in having its freedom immediately in reality, in something external therefore, in a thing — partly in the abstract universality of its goodness. The failure of spirit subjective similarly consists in this, that it is, as against the universal, abstractly self-determinant in its inward individuality. When these two imperfections are suppressed, subjective freedom exists as the covertly and overtly universal rational will, which is sensible of itself and actively disposed in the consciousness of the individual subject, whilst its practical operation and immediate universal actuality at the same time exist as moral usage, manner and custom — where self-conscious liberty has become nature.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sp/osethica.htm

Answer 6

ethics is the pursuit of happiness by the pursuit of correct understanding of reality, of all consequences of actions

democracy is the political face of pursuit of happiness

democracy means the people rule - obviously there is no one else who should rule - there is no one else - no smaller group than all the people is entitled to rule - any claim of superiority by any smaller group would be unprovable - and probably not true - the superior could be wrong about themselves, and the inferior [by definition] could not judge the superiority of the superior

which leaves only all-the-people as the only choice for ruler which is compatible with ethics, which depends on the freedom of the individual to pursue her happiness as best she can - no democracy, no freedom - no freedom, no pursuit of happiness - no pursuit of happiness, no ethics

which just about describes the world at present: no democracy, no freedom, no ethics

there is no democracy if there is no equality - there is no equality if there is not equal pay for equal work - and money is power - democracy is equality of power - so there is no democracy if there is inequality of power - equality of power is equality of pay per unit of work

we have pay from $1 to $1 billion per fortnight's work - almost infinite inequality of pay for equal work - almost infinite failure of pursuit of happiness by pursuit of equality - the good news is that we can be almost infinitely happier

the founding fathers knew that democracy was totally dependent on prevention of wealth concentration [ie, overpay, theft of political power] - the democratic athenians knew it: 'equality breeds no strife'

strife is the conflict between overpaid overpowered and underpaid underpowered

ethics is the mother of democracy - it is ethics, the pursuit of happiness, which recognises freedom [democracy] as the essential foundation of ethics - no freedom, no ethical thinking

the human desire to separate into rulers and ruled is pure dis-ethics - a deliberate unnatural relinquishment of the dignity of human being, which consists in individual pursuit of happiness by individual pursuit of reality [intelligence, awareness, wisdom]

this tendency may derive from alpha male deference, but it is fatal to society - if individuals dont think inform decide, the society isnt thinking informing deciding - society is then just a chaos of nonsense - as we see it is

ethics is present as soon as there is a person: ethics is nothing but the individual pursuing its survival and happiness - society telling the individual what to do is the tail wagging the dog - chaos - it is like having a million people driving cars all over a plain with no rules and doing no steering themselves, just waiting for instructions from someone else, who cannot be paying attention to each and every car's situation

of course part of pursuit of one's own happiness is recognition of the effect of our actions on others - but there is no attention paid to the effect of our actions on others if there is no firm commitment to pursuit of our own happiness - so recognition of the truth of the golden rule is totally dependent on selflove, ie pursuit of own happiness

Answer 7

i would think it begins when democracy starts violating universal human and/or animal rights.

Answer 8

when the second member joins in.

Answer 9

When responsibility trumps wantonness.

Answer 10

now a days nowhere !