The Tasks of Man
Schumacher notes that within philosophy there is no field in more disarray than ethics. He argues that this is because most ethical debate sidesteps any "prior clarification of the purpose of human life on the earth." Schumacher believes that ethics is the study of divergent problems; which require transcendence by the individual, not a new type of ethics to be adopted by all.
He argues that there is an increasing recognition among individuals that many solutions to human problems must be made by individuals not by society, and cannot be solved by political solutions that rearrange the system. For Schumacher, the "modern attempt to live without religion has failed".
He says that the tasks of an individual can be summed up as follows:
- Learn from society and tradition.
- Interiorize this knowledge, learn to think for yourself and become self-directed.
- Grow beyond the narrow concerns of the ego.
Man, he says, in the larger sense must learn again to subordinate the sciences of manipulation to the sciences of wisdom; a theme he further develops in his book Small is Beautiful.
Read more about this topic: A Guide For The Perplexed
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