Ethica Ultima

Ethica Ultima or "Ultimate Ethics" is the name given to the perfect ethical and ultimate moral framework. While a perfect ethical system that maximizes morality and outcomes in theory exists, we can only approximate such a system with higher degrees of precision.

While Ethica Ultima can be approximated using simple moral principles, the most accurate approximation would require the utilization of mathematical methods intended to provide the most robust moral framework for determining ethical actions.

Ethical Sum

One mathematical approach to rigorous ethical evaluation is to utilize a similar process as those used for calculating path integrals in Quantum Field Theory (QFT). This is not so much a quantum ethics, but rather a reflection that both QFT and this sort of rigorous ethical analysis both deal with a similar problem: infinite possible paths and uncertain outcomes.

In QFT, Feynman's path integrals are a way to calculate outcome probabilities, or a probability amplitude, by summing over all possible paths.

When applied to morality, the result can be called an Ethical Sum: an integration over all possible consequences for a given action where each path contributes according to its probability and its moral weight.

Moral Weight

As an analogue to the phase factor in QFT, the moral weight tells you how much each possible path or outcome for a given action contributes as a quantitative measure of ethical value (positive or negative).

In other words, the moral weight tells you how virtuous or harmful an outcome is assessed to be. This value can then be summed across all possible outcomes.

While it cannot be known with absolute certainty, the more accurate and rigorous all Ethical Sums are calculated, the closer one should get to the true Ethica Ultima.

See Also

 ➤ Infinite Journey: Ethical Sum

 ➤ Wikipedia: