In the absense of ethical standards, one's consciousness is naturally more important than the physical manifestation of consciousness in others that is perceived by one's consciousness, regarding those of both individuals and groups. By extension, all groups with which one aligns via base morphological similarities or symbolic or personal interests are naturally more important than dissimilar groups. This is really a circular argument, because importance identifies a relation to self, so the self is the root of that which we consider worth expending resources.

In this sense, ethical standards are a byproduct of the self's inability to expend its resources to accomplish what it feels to be important, first, necessarily to the self and, second, to others. The impetus for defining ethical standards can be broadly traced back to conflicts of interest between dissimilar groups (of selves) who, due to any number of communicative divides, between selves, groups and each other, and resource deficiencies, have failed to see eye to eye, or self to self as it were, and yet, because of a preexisting mix of binding circumstances that join these dissimilar groups to one another by cultural or geographical or, now with the advent of the Internet, informational, connections, have been forced to adapt to one another's differences to insure, or at least increase chances of, biological or cultural survival.

‹ Dr. Hatcher's "Proof"upFrequenting Freewill ›