Search for a Rational Ethic

1 Introduction.- 2 A Revolutionary Age.- The Industrial Revolution.- The Technological Revolution.- The Democratic Revolution.- The Environmental Revolution.- The Protestant Revolution.- The Rational Revolution.- 3 What's Gone Wrong?.- A: Introduction.- B: Waste.- Water and Soil.- Energy.- Minerals.- Food.- Forest Products.- Manufactured Products.- Armaments.- Waste Disposal: Industrial Waste.- Economic Consequences of Waste.- C: Misguidance in the Marketplace.- Characteristics of Advertising.- Costs of Advertising.- Misguidance at the Retail Level.- Consequences of Misguidance.- D: Debt Encouraged.- International Debt.- Debt within the United States.- The Encouragement of Debt.- How Our Growing Burden of Debts Has Been Financed.- Social and Economic Problems Created by Consumer Debt.- E: Unneeded Wealth Misused.- Some Data Concerning Income in the United States.- The Effect of Taxes.- Legitimate Uses of Unneeded Income.- Philanthropy.- Wealth Misused.- Consequences of Wealth Misused.- F: Security Sought Through Power or Privilege.- Security Sought Through Power.- Security Sought Through Privilege.- Consequences of Security Sought Through Power or Privilege.- G: Dishonesty Condoned.- H: Major Crime Unpunished.- The Mafia: History and Organization.- The Mafia in Sicily.- Crimes with Big Return, Little Risk, and Murder in the Background.- The Penetration of Labor Unions.- The Penetration of Legitimate Business.- The Corruption of Public Officials.- Why the Mafia Still Thrives.- I: Conclusions.- Complexity of Economic Causation.- The Moral Component.- Our Seven Wrongs.- An Economy in Trouble.- Planning Ahead.- 4 The Biological Background of Social Behavior: Genetic Factors.- The Immensity and Diversity of the Mammalian Genome.- Variability in Human Chromosomes.- The Variability of the Mammalian Genome.- Detecting the Effects of Heredity and Environment.- Behavior Studies with Inbred Mice.- Some Observations Suggesting Genetically Determined Behavioral Variability in Chimpanzees.- The Brain and Behavior.- Twins.- Crime and Personality.- Evidence for a Genetic Component in Criminal Behavior.- Studies of the Prosocial Sentiments.- Summary and Conclusions.- The Biological Background of Social Behavior: Evolutionary Factors.- Social Characteristics of Man's Near Relatives.- The Bones of Our Ancestors.- Hunting-Gathering Societies.- What Archaelogy Can Tell Us About Human Social Behavior.- The Evolutionary Sources of Aggressiveness and Cooperativeness.- Aggressive and Cooperative Behavior as Seen in a Few of the Social Mammals.- What Animal Studies Tell Us About Man's Social Nature.- Warfare in Primitive Human Societies.- The Driving Forces in Human Evolution.- The Evolution of Man's Moral Nature.- Conclusion.- What Is Ethics?.- Some Definitions.- Moral Law: The Cultural Component in the Determination of Our Prosocial Behavior.- Moral Law Is Relative or Conditional, Not Absolute.- Value and Value Systems.- The Happiness System.- The Want Value System.- The Survival Value System.- The General Welfare.- The Approval and Disapproval Value System.- Money.- The Will of God.- Self-Realization.- Rational Ethics.- Selecting a Philosophical Basis for a Rational Ethic.- 7 The Rules We Live By.- The Code of Family.- The Code of Amity.- The Code of Equity or Justice.- The Code of Enmity.- The Code of Commonwealth.- Are There Other Moral Codes?.- Ethics and the Survival of Democracy.- 8 Looking to the Future.- The Need for a More Ethical Society.- The Ethical Potential of Our Species.- Men and Women of Goodwill.- An Era of Renewal.- Getting Ethics Applied.- Author Index.