• jambaugh
    36
    I am an atheist in the sense that I have a deep and abiding faith in the non-existence of god(s). More precisely, I believe I can objectively argue for agnosticism (one cannot empirically prove or disprove the point) and so either belief for or against the existence of deities is a leap of faith.

    I am not alone in this belief and I've seen many discussions trying to argue and synthesize a uniform ethic e.g. secular humanism, for an objective moral standard we can all live by in a post theistic society. Having found too much sophistry in these debates I tried to formulate my own and have come to the conclusion that, at a fundamental level, no such moral standard exists.

    And yet morality does exist and in and of itself cannot be eliminated except through the death of the moral agent. What else is ethics if it is not the value system by which we rank order our possible behaviors and choices.

    In a seemingly independent line of thought I consider the arguments of the anarchists, specifically my moderate exposure to anarchistic philosophy through the character of Professor Bernardo de la Paz in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress who described himself as a rational anarchist.
    It recently occurred to me however that the anarchists are arguing the same conclusion I have drawn in my ethical pondering but limited specifically to the role of governments.

    What I am seeking to relate here is that the anarchists arguments are not occurring at a low enough level. It should start at ethics rather than politics. In one sense politics is the use of force, but in another broader and more fundamental sense it is the collective expression of individual ethics. People of common values band together to actualize those values. They conflict with other coalitions and war or negotiate or debate. They simplify their affiliation with identity symbols such as "Party" or "Nation" or "Peoples" or "Tribe" depending on the specific individual values they are collectively promoting.

    Nietzsche's warning about the violence which would ensue when we, by killing God, lose the presumption of a unifying ethic, have painted the 20th century in crimson and we cannot disregard his vision in that he so accurately predicted his future. But we must step off that runaway train or ride it to our common doom. I believe the first step is to acknowledge that ethics starts and stops at the individual level. All social actions be it wars or market bubbles or whatever, reduce down to individual actors (although of course there are emergent phenomena in their group interaction).

    The question then before (each of) us is how to negotiate the best path forward (in each of our own value systems) in a world of individuals each with their own flavor of moral value. With whom is there no chance of compromise and with whom our only option is war. With whom can we compromise without compromising away all that we value? With whom can we exchange quid pro quo so that each of us gain more of that which we value than we could have alone? And for what are we willing to sacrifice our own personal interests because we value and love that ideal above all else we might hold dear?

    I don't think we can move forward except from this morally agnostic position. But I would make one last point that our ethics, our system of values is an organic developing and self reflecting system. It contains its own "meta" in some sense and we must account for this also when we seek to influence the behavior, knowledge, and opinions of those other moral actors we meet in the world.
  • Frank Apisa
    2.1k
    Lot to digest here, Jam, and I'll take some time later to chew more thoroughly.

    But one thing mentioned rang a bell that I have no interest in unringing.

    I have mentioned on several occasions in other fora that American Libertarianism seems to be a slippery slope to anarchy. Freedom is great...but freedom leads to demands for greater freedom...and inexorably leads to demands for license. Civilization cannot function if everyone "can do what they want." Oddly enough, freedom demands that each of us give up significant areas of personal freedom in the interest of allowing civilization and society to function.

    Anarchy, in any form (supposedly rational or not), can never be allowed to prevail. Government IS the moral collective...whether predominantly religiously motivated...or as a purely secular construct.

    Just wanted to get that out of the way for now.

    More later or tomorrow.
  • NOS4A2
    8.3k


    Good read, thanks for writing that.

    A lot of morality is traditional. The wisdom of generations attest to their merits and faults in a process that develops an ethics over time, a sort of historical trial and error. In that sense it is organic. There is an effort at the individual level to act out these ethics whether by habit or societal pressure, but there is still this traditional relationship between the dead, the living, and the yet to be born. For the individual it might be best to cultivate rather than destroy these traditions.

    I suppose to avoid all out war one ethics may best supersede another through leading by example rather than imposing an ethics by force.
  • jambaugh
    36
    I agree. We should not start from scratch. In my mind we play "salvage" not assuming the traditions of the past are "junk" because we can see they have obviously gotten us this far over a very very long and winding road. But we should, in our repair and rebuilding, not assume any one part is intrinsically "right" just because it's attached to he vehicle that brought us here.

    This process of moral transformation is the most delicate of surgeries. It is not to be performed (at the societal level) with a meat clever but rather with the meticulous care that the surgeon's scalpel allows. Cutting out only the malignant or inconveniently inert portions but leaving the vital function intact.

    The key heuristic virtue in this endeavor is humility and key sin is hubris.
  • khaled
    3.5k
    The question then before (each of) us is how to negotiate the best path forwardjambaugh

    Yes, but I see no answer in this post or others. Any path forward we negotiate risks being demolished by a new collective ethic. There won't be a "final answer", just many answers that seem final.
  • jambaugh
    36
    Yes, this is a good point. I don't mean this to be an expression of an ideal to strive toward. It is rather a truth (if I'm correct) to be acknowledged to illuminate a forward path.

    As I see it, for example, the tyrant is not wrong in his own ethic, to oppress the public and maintain his power. But I also see that it is most certainly wrong for the oppressed to let his efforts succeed. Then, when we work it all out, the freedom supporting chartered constitutional democracies are best for me and you and most living under its framework for the very pragmatic reason that it is stable and allows (most of) us to maximally actualize our personal paths of virtue. Even the would-be tyrant is better off in such a system trying to talk his way into power rather than fighting his way there. We others who would not be king nor suffer one must thus also be vigilant in preserving and maximizing our own most virtuous mode of living by recognizing and undermining the would-be tyrants or rather the other would-be tyrants as I won't presume to exclude you or I from valuing that ambition.

    (I should have been German for my love of three paragraph long sentences!)

    [Edit Addendum:] From the position I am taking, when I speak of wrong or right, I'm evaluating that in the ethic of the actor. I will say it is wrong of me to support a tyrant who himself is right in suppressing my opposition of her.
  • jambaugh
    36
    To qualify further. As a moral anarchist I am likewise, at the very least, a moral agnostic. I cannot truly know your personal ethic. I can only guess. But, of course, that can be an educated or qualified guess. So too also I speak agnostically of any common or absolute ethic.

    I am agnostically amoral in this sense just as I am agnostically atheistic in my faith. But that "amorality" is at the global level, it is exactly what I mean by moral anarchism. I have a personal ethic, and a pretty strong one which is a surprise to me when it has been tested. There are things I won't do and things I won't refuse to do because I think it is wrong/right for me to behave as those choices dictate.

    who woulda thunk?
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