A book a day: Fernando Savater: Ethics for Amador

Original language: castellano

Year of publication: 1991

Valuation: Alright

There are a lot of books on ethics, from classics of philosophy to rubbish of various tendencies, because at the end of the day it is a discipline that analyzes human behavior and tries to define what is right and wrong, in short a reflection of such dimensions that very It could well end up being a blank page that each person, based on their convictions, fills with content. In any case, as is logical, it is something that has always worried thinkers and philosophers, who have tried at all times to find the correct answers.

Savater, who was or is a professor of Ethics, surely could not avoid writing a book on the subject, one (I don’t know if there are more) among the imposing essayistic and literary production of the San Sebastian philosopher. The author approaches it, as the title indicates, as a book addressed to his son Amador de el when he is fifteen or sixteen years old, and by extension to adolescents and young people in general. The decision is risky, because such an approach seems to imply the use of a light tone, sprinkled with humor and examples accessible to that type of audience, and this is a bit of a walk on the wire. Personally, I don’t like this type of text (I’m thinking of a certain title that was fashionable a few years ago, also on philosophical subject matter, absolutely unfathomable), because the effort of an adult to get closer to the language and perspective of a teenager not only seems to me hopelessly doomed to failure, but rather a rather pathetic result. But hey, it’s Savater’s bet, which apparently brought him some success, I suppose because of the pull that he can have with a book on very serious issues formulated in a plain and accessible way.

At some point the author comes to say that it is not a text about Ethics nor does it contain rules to conduct oneself through life. I understand that what he intends is rather to show that blank page and emphasize the importance of living according to principles that each person must develop. The key to all this is freedom, the maximum expression of the human being that differentiates it from other species, the margin to decide based on reasoning and the values ​​that one assumes as one’s own. Freedom, of course, is not full, or not always, it is mediated by orders, customs, and sometimes subject to whim or confused with it. Freedom, then, is still subject to a certain tension, generally coming from the environment, although sometimes also mediated by the individual’s own circumstances.

Savater’s offer consists of being clear about this space and having it available to build a full life, in which satisfaction lies in having chosen the right path, just that, or nothing less than that. Although we will hardly find recipes to identify this path, the most important one would have to do with the approach to other human beings, the awareness that we are all part of a group where what happens to one affects everyone, for better or worse. , something that we could call empathy, and that has a very clear relationship with what Nuccio Ordine explained in this book that we brought here recently. Dilemmas arise, some already classic, in which one must decide between several options, unknowns that must be resolved, crossroads in which one decides oneself based on one’s values. Humanity or a sense of justice would be concepts that would contribute to the correct choice, but it is advisable to analyze all the options and weigh the consequences, because the exercise of freedom also implies responsibility.

In this aspect I think we find the most valuable thing about the book: lacking a list of rules to follow, the decision is up to each person, based on that freedom and their own criteria, which is precisely what is intended to be put in the foreground. . He already says it in the prologue: ‘the objective is not to produce right-thinking citizens, but to stimulate the development of free thinkers’. Something so old, that many others talked about before, but so difficult to obtain, and so necessary right now, I don’t know if more or as much as in other times.