Meta, Macro and Micro Ethics: Essay in Honour of John van Gigch

摘要

I first met John van Gigch at an ISSS Conference in Asilomar, but this visit was brief and I had no chance to talk to him. Later another ISSS colleague contacted me to ask if I would like to write an essay in Honour of West Churchman, whose work I had been familiar with many years before. Since my long standing colleague John Friend had known him much earlier in his career I hit upon the idea of asking him about his ideas on friends and enemies and trying to put together something based on Churchman's 'making friends of enemies' theme. Gerald Midgley was regarded by John Friend as an 'enemy' as he considered systems theorists to be 'imperialistic', but became 'friends' after Gerald acknowledged John's work in a book on Community Operations Research (Midgley, 2004).