Samaritan Ethics, Systems Science and Society

Contemporary approaches to ethics are centred upon utilitarian and formal ethics. Yet, these are not capable of counteracting the moral crisis in our society. We must move beyond self-interest or merely doing what is specified in codes, to Samaritan ethics, which means attending to the needs of our neighbour even when he is unable to repay us. This ethic has systemic properties; therefore, it can be incorporated into an appropriate systems science framework that includes the humanities and the historical mode of reasoning. Furthermore, rather than social, economic and political manipulation, education—in the classical humanist tradition—should be the appropriate method to help implement such ethics into our societies.