Review: Ethics for Amador by Fernando Savater

Written by Victor Mechan

Tuesday, 01 December 2009 00:00

Victor Mechan

Now that I read again

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Ethics for Amador (Fernando Savater.2000 [1991]. Editorial Ariel S.A. Barcelona), I discovered a chapter (pp, 151-164) that dissects ethics and politics. Savater, professor of Philosophy of the University of Alcalá de Henares of Madrid, belongs to this new wave of Spanish scientists who like Mosterin J., Arsuaga J.L, Ayala J.F, Bermúdez de Castro and others invade and shake the current cultural world.

The book of ethics, dedicated to his son Amador (15 years old, in 1991), without attempting to become in... "moralizing recipes to everyday problems"… shows that

ethical or moral reflection, is essential in any educational project. Aware that the son is the man's father, Savater trusts that the book becomes a personal conversation between both. Thus while learning from Amador, he will struggle to transmit him that before any difficulty or enterprise to build, he must have confidence in himself.

By the way the philosophical savaterian writing style (pop, direct and thoughtful while deep) is far from the encyclopedic and stylized Emile (Rousseau, JJ.1973. Emilio or of the Education. Barcelona, Fontanela), forerunner of modern education of children, adolescents, males and women, more adequate to the nature although too constraining for the moral utopias that it proposes (especially for teenagers), carried out on forced foot before the achievements of the successful ones of the time: political, military and nobility of the Renaissance.
Before the question : what kind of political organization to prefer?, Savater rehearse some answers. Basically, one that propitiates and respect all type of freedoms (of meeting, of expression, of sexual option, etc), criticizing the responsibilities of politicians that made serious lacks against the country, adducing "historical necessities" or "state’s reasons". Opting independently for organizations that foment justice with dignity for all, to those that propitiate attendance to the neediest, whenever it is not made to coast of their dignity... to those that respect human rights, to those that combat the hunger, those that don't waste money in weapons, those that invest in health, education, those that oppose to racist or nationalist attitudes, those that oppose to fanatic ideologies.

Savater, insists that ethics is the art of choosing with freedom (with reasons), what more suits to each individual, as long as concerns to the politics to organize the social coexistence at the best. The politics is an activity that alone aspires to its own ends under the cover of social coexistence. He considers that in politics the only thing that counts is the results of certain actions

The politician presses to obtain certain results, not caring if they are sustained by the reason, for fear, for routine or for superstition. Contrarily, in ethics the most important thing is the reason. Ethics is synonymous of freedom for each one and for all. With sharpness Savater explains that the countries have the presidents that they deserve. Ultimately the masses (countries), choose those who resembles very close to them (Alan García, Ollanta Humala), with all their faults and virtues, being difficult that they vote for someone differentiated (Vargas Llosa, Lourdes Flores), except if they are imposed.