CONCEPT
Ethical Know-How
Varela's 1999 framework for ethics as <em>embodied wisdom</em> rather than rule-following — a capacity for appropriate response developed through practice and attention, not through the application of principles to cases.
Ethical Know-How: Action, Wisdom, and Cognition was Varela's most sustained articulation of the ethical implications of his cognitive framework. The argument runs: ethical judgment is not rule-based. It does not follow from the application of moral principles to specific cases, the way a calculator applies mathematical rules to inputs. Ethical situations rarely cooperate with rules — they are messy, ambiguous, context-dependent, and unrepeatable. The ethical actor must respond to the specific situation with wisdom that cannot be algorithmic, because the situation is not a case that falls under a rule but a unique configuration demanding a unique response.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Varela's framework draws heavily on the Buddhist distinction between conventional ethics (the explicit precepts that structure novice practice) and wisdom-based ethics (the spontaneous appropriate response that emerges from sustained cultivation). The Buddhist tradition treats the former as scaffolding for the latter — rules are useful for beginners precisely because they bypass the need for judgment, but they are a limit on ethical
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