"To See a World in a Grain of Sand": Complexity Ethics and Moral Education

Abstract

Making the case for the mutual relationship between ontology (what reality is like) and ethics (how we should conduct ourselves), this essay argues that the dualistic, linear, deterministic ontology of Modern Science that categorically separates perceiver and the perceived, knower and known is oppressive by virtue of objectification. Delineating a relational (that is, non-linear) ontology disclosed by New Science and Complexity Theory, this essay extrapolates to an ethical paradigm, named ‘participatory ethics’. Key to participatory ethics is perception of “patterns that connect”—which, to manifest, the moral agent needs to emergently embed itself in the pattern, in a manner analogous to fractal reiteration. Since non-linearity (complexity) manifests everywhere we turn and in everything we encounter, participatory ethics modeled after complexity is about recalling, remembering, and reminding ourselves of, our inter-beingness.

Perspectives on Complexity, Its Definition and Applications in the Field

“…Over the past decade, the term complexity has readily made inroads into the educational literature, which now includes references to complexity in the discussion of educational change at the school and district level (Lemke & Sabelli, 2008;Trombly, 2014), learning systems (Davis & Sumara, 2006), curriculum (Doll, Jr., 2008;Hussain, Conner, & Mayo, 2014;Smitherman, 2005), pedagogy (Phelps, 2005), research methodology (Hetherington, 2013;Koopmans, 2014), epistemology (Alhadeff-Jones, 2008;Gilstrap, 2011;Le Moigne, 2013), classroom dynamics (Semetsky, 2005), English as a second language writing (Nelson, 2004), spirituality (Low, 2008), creativity (Trueit, 2005) and ethics (Bai & Banack, 2006).…”

Creating Complexity in the Elementary Mathematics Classroom

“…Me: Your perspective prompts me to consider a shift in the traditional research focus from the individual students and teacher in the classroom toward a more systemic view of the classroom as a network of student-student and student-teacher relationships (Bai & Banack, 2006). In any classroom there are a variety of networks interacting with each other to create the entire learning system.…”

Shapeless Listening to the More-Than-Human World: Coherence, Complexity, Mattering, Indifference

“…Perhaps the wild doesn't care how I feel. I turn to Bai and Banack's (2006) invocation to tread lightly and respectfully in my encounters with the patterned reality in the MTHW: Complexity of our being, including inescapable impermanence, precludes absolutes, such as moral imperatives. Instead of prescriptions of absolutes, we recall creativity inherent in our awareness of complexity and celebration of pattern.…”