> What ought we to do now?”
Rosen 
(Hutchins, qtd. in Rosen, 2012, p. 370)
> I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. (Robert Hume, 2015)
# Introduction
In J. M. Coetzee’s novel Waiting for the Barbarians the Magistrate of a small town on the outskirts of civilization invites a representative of the Empire into his town and thereby opens the door to hell. The Magistrate is a good man who sees it as his ethical duty to welcome a stranger to his town and to be helpful to the stranger in accomplishing his mission. In so doing this good man becomes a party to murder, torture, and genocide. This is the ethical dilemma: how can we act ethically in the moment and be purblind to the evil that we unleash at the same time? Gregory Bateson identifies this dilemma as a double bind: to do good the Magistrate must accommodate evil.
Ethics is similar to the two-faced Janus; one face looks backwards and adjudicates our actions, utterances, and thoughts and the other face predicts what we will do in the future. The face that looks towards the past is embedded in “history” as a cultural or personal narrative. The face that is predictive in nature looks to what can be imagined. Both environments are contextual, the past a retrospective narrative, the future an imagined narrative.
In this paper I argue that the predictive element of ethics is only related to the adjudicative element in the sense that **we adjudicate and predict through language**.
More to the point we justify our prediction of the outcome of our present utterances and actions through language. That being the case, the problem of Hume’s guillotine (the “is-ought” problem ) that has bedeviled ethical theorists for centuries evaporates.
We are free to say: this is the condition that we have been in, and this is the condition that we predict to be our future.
The ethical system that has been called “neo-pragmatism ” is an anticipatory system that is ethical in nature in that it allows us to make predictions about how we will probably act in the future. **Since the fundamental nature of neo-pragmatism is the justification of our utterances and our past or proposed actions to a contingent world we can resolve the problem of the double bind and find a solution to Hume's is/ought question.**
**Ethics as an Aspect of Future Studies**
To the extent that Future Studies is not concerned with human agency the notion of ethics is simply irrelevant; and this paper does not explore non-human agency future studies. Stated another way this paper is concerned with futures influenced by what Bell (2004) calls “preferrability”; that is, future states that for identifiable and articulable reasons are considered to be preferable over other states.
That being said, those that discuss the relationship between ethics and future studies concern foresighting include Masini (2006) who points out that the grounding of Future Studies, or foresighting has become linked to a philosophical basis and philosophic principles to guide the making of choices, but this view is not adequate. Choices concerning a preferable future should be based upon what is “best” and not what will merely benefit a particular individual or group.
Poli (2011) says that at least three applications of ethics exist in relation to future studies: (a) as a deontological (Kantian) discipline governing the relationship of the futurist and her client; (b) as values that are a given within a particular futurist exercise; and (c) as the dynamic decision system between the agent and the future (as distinguished from the past).
The primary interest in the relationship between ethics and Future Studies is the set of values that anchor a particular forecasting exercise. This last category of Future Studies is of interest here.
Davis and Pyper (2015) argue that Actor Network Theory (ANT) is a useful model for scenario analysis that answers some of the shortcomings of Intuitive Logics methodology (IL) by focusing on the liberatory potential of possible futures rather than issues of power and legitimacy. Rather than relying upon theory considered as “true,” ANT explores the relationship between human and non-human actors (including modes of thought, memes, and technology) to seek out complex patterns of causality and discover emerging phenomena and structures of power.
Waelbers and Dorstewitz (2013) point out that ANT modeling does not recognize human values or ethical systems as part of the decision- making process and suggest instead the classical pragmatic instrumentalism of John Dewey, which rejects any form of moral universalism while demanding an articulated moral position. An ethical position applies to the agents’ decision-making process since in any real-world scenario an ethical position is at play every time a decision is taken.
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**In Summary** We can say that Neo-Pragmatic ethics is the process of predicting our future conduct within a system that is contingent and without ontological foundation.
In other words, there are no universal a priori standards, only those defined by the boundary critique of the community to which the actor belongs (Di Beradino, 2014; Rorty, 1989, 1991).
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**Context, Contingency, and Relativism** As noted, both Rorty (directly) and Rosen (indirectly) have been accused of “relativism” in the pejorative sense.
Rorty (1980) defines relativism as “the belief that every view upon a certain topic, or perhaps about any topic, is as good as every other” (166).
In terms of modeling processes Edmonds (2007) explains context as the set of factors that define the scope of a specific model. When a group of models can be clustered so that their scopes are similar a “context” of the group may exist.
For the Neo-Pragmatism of Rorty all understanding of any statement of “truth” is necessarily made from within and with reference to a specific context. Said another way, all statements about “truth” are made to be understood by a specific audience at a specific time and under specific circumstances; that is a “context.” All statements purporting to be “the truth” are made though language or through some other medium of communication.
It necessarily follows that statements dealing with the question of “what is to be done” are also contextual statements. This is the genesis of the accusation of Rorty’s relativism.
Rosen (1991, 2012) argued that the distinction between simple and complex systems is substantial including full predictability on the part of simple systems and unpredictability on the part of complex systems; simple systems have no closed loops of entailment while complex systems do. These sharp distinctions together with others drew Rosen to challenge the tacit assumption of reductionism and universalism drawing the inference of relativism.
Neither the work of Rosen nor the thought of Rorty is reductionist; rather they are both context dependent. Rosen’s theory of anticipation is based upon the context of complex systems in relationship to the environment the living system exists in. Rorty’s notion of pragmatism is also context dependent since it expressly recognizes that statements or actions can only be justified (and not expressed as a universal truth) within the context of audience, time, and situation. Both the notion of anticipation as articulated by Rosen and Pragmatism and developed by Rorty are self-entailing, closed systems.
**The trolley Simulation** The Trolley Simulation is a classic test used to simulate the dimensions of an ethical system. It is a useful tool to compare and contrast outcomes under differing ethical systems. You are watching as a runaway trolley barrels down the railway tracks toward five people who cannot get out of the way. To prevent their deaths, your only option is to divert the trolley onto a sidetrack—but diverting would cause the death of one person on the sidetrack; clearly, the situation is very complicated based upon the environment the trolley exists in. To make a specific point, each of the simulations below drastically simplifies the ethical system that they represent and discounts the degree of complexity they all have been developed through.
In a rule based ethical system the adjudicative and predictive aspects are the same. As applied to the trolley simulation the rule that would apply is that an agent may not kill another agent. Applying the trolley simulation to a deontological system , you would do nothing; you have two choices, change the direction of the Trolley or not. If you were to follow the deontological ethical system you would do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people who are unable to get out of the way.
**Consequential Ethical System** In a consequentialist ethical system we cannot predict our actions by reference to existing rules, but by consideration of the consequences of those actions. In the trolley simulation we can predict two consequences: one person dies or five people die.
We are left with the conclusion that in order to save five persons we must act in a way that brings about the death of another person; this is so even though we may have deep moral revulsion toward such a predictive act. Indeed, McNaughten and Rawling (1991) have argued that pure consequentialist ethics is agent neutral; the moral compass of the actor cannot be taken into account in the determination of the best result of our actions.
**Virtue Ethics System** The primary focus of virtue ethics is the character of the actor, not the system of rules (deontology) or the consequences of the act (consequentialist).
An act is good if it emphasizes an internal character trait considered to be admirable, generally based upon human wellbeing, reason, or care. In order for our actions and utterances to be good they must be in accordance with what a virtuous agent would do; neither rules nor the consequences of our acts are important.
It is difficult to imagine a predictive scenario that could be made from virtue ethics, given that both the single person and the group of five persons are worthy of consideration. Perhaps it would serve the virtue of reason if the virtue ethics model predicted that it would be more reasonable to sacrifice the life of one person rather than five. The virtue of care must be considered in the choice to sacrifice one person’s life for the lives of five; it would be nearly impossible to choose between the single person and five persons if a decision based upon virtue is strictly concerned with the wellbeing of all six people.
**Neo-pragmatism** Understanding Neo-Pragmatism involves acknowledging the fact that we live in a contingent world. The factors that go into predicting our actions tomorrow may very well change tomorrow; indeed it is highly probable that some of those factors will change.
The second factor that distinguishes Neo-Pragmatism from other ethical systems is that it is **value based** and no value is particularly privileged or particularly non-contingent.
In other words, our values may differ from person to person and culture to culture and may also change from time to time. Applied to our predictive actions or statements the most we can do is justify our actions to ourselves and to others based upon the values that we hold at that particular time and under the particular contingent circumstances that may exist or which we believe will exist.
Applying Neo-Pragmatism to the trolley simulation we may say that we value female lives over male lives if it so happens that the five persons are male and the one person is female; we can decide to spare the one and sacrifice the five based on a value judgment of gender.
Another scenario is that the one person is in a state of health, and the five are all terminally ill. Based on this consideration, should we then sacrifice the five for the one?
**Neo-Pragmatism as an Anticipatory System** An Anticipatory System is a natural system that contains an internal predictive model of itself and of its environment, which allows it to change state in an instant in accord with the model’s predictions pertaining to a later instant (Louie, 2010).
Applying Neo-Pragmatism to Rosen’s definition of an Anticipatory System we can see that it fits very well.
An ethical system is a model of how we adjudicate our past utterances and actions or how we can predict our future utterances and actions. It is clear that a particular ethical system does not need to be able to adjudicate our past conduct and predict our future conduct and indeed what we can learn from a Deontological System is that our predictive conduct often does not comport with the adjudication of our past conduct.
Neo-Pragmatism is based upon an ever-changing environment interacting with our values—not our rules, but our values. Neo-Pragmatism does not place any particular value as privileged and so the greatest good—as argued by consequentialist ethics—is not necessarily the value that will be applied in a particular circumstance, nor will any particular virtue.
**Conclusion** Masini (2006) said “these different visions of a desirable future are in some way embedded in the social structures from which they emerge, and are linked to the needs and the hopes of the people living at the time” (p. 1159). This statement is remarkably contextual and anticipatory. Being embedded in a social structure a desirable future can be anticipated in much the same way as a deciduous tree anticipates the future coming of winter by dropping its leaves and conserving its lifeblood during the cold that will soon come. The future is also remarkable in its contingency upon the specific social structure from which it emerges and linked to those needs and hopes.
Hume posed the ethical question that has yet to be answered in a satisfactory manner: the “is-ought” problem, also known as Hume’s guillotine. How is it that a statement of “what is” becomes a statement of “what ought to be?”
I believe that Rorty and Rosen would re-describe the question in pragmatic terms as the difference between what was and what will be. As a system of ethics the predictive aspect of Neo-Pragmatism most closely models Rosen’s Anticipatory System theory and can be a useful tool for systems thinkers, sociologists, ethicists and all persons interested in the study of the future and anticipation.
The question of “what ought we to do now” must be addressed by future studies and the method by which we decide the “what” is of critical importance to life on this earth and the flourishing of human society.