ABSTRACT
A number of constructivist theorists have drawn attention to the ethical and social implications of their epistemology. For Kelly (1955) ways of knowing were ultimately ways of relating. This follows from the anticipatory and dynamic nature of knowing. Kelly saw behaviour as governed, not simply from what people anticipate in the short term-but by where the choices will lead in the longer term. What we know about people bears on the ways in which we relate to them. The constructions that we make determine the nature of our interdependencies. Maturana (1988, 1991) has been clear about the ethical implications of two types of explaining and Foerster (1991) has shown how thoughts about one’s relationship to experience have ethical implications. Which is the primary cause, the world or my experience of it? Foerster adopted the position that his experience is the primary cause and the world the consequence. This ties him inseparably and inevitably to his responsibility. Finally, Glasersfeld has noted that constructivism leads to greater tolerance in social interactions. This tolerance arises when one realizes that neither problems nor solutions are ontological entities but arise out of ways of constructing. A world arises out of a way of seeing, a way of experiencing. That is not to say that we find all ways or all worlds equally likable (e.g. Glasersfeld, 1991, 1995).
