Category Archives: Ethics

Willing vs projecting

Ethics, Philosophy, Pragmatism

Dewey (from Freedom and Culture):

The present predicament may be stated as follows: Democracy does involve a belief that political institutions and law be such as to take fundamental account of human nature. They must give it freer play than any non-democratic institutions. At the same time, the theory, legalistic and moralistic, about human nature that has been used to expound and justify this reliance upon human nature has proved inadequate. Upon the legal and political side, during the nineteenth century it was progressively overloaded with ideas and practices which have more to do with business carried on for profit than with democracy. On the moralistic side, it has tended to substitute emotional exhortation to act in accord with the Golden Rule for the discipline and the control afforded by incorporation of democratic ideals into all the relations of life. Because of lack of an adequate theory of human nature in its relations to democracy, attachment to democratic ends and methods has tended to become a matter of tradition and habit — an excellent thing as far as it goes, but when it becomes routine is easily undermined when change of conditions changes other habits.

Were I to say that democracy needs a new psychology of human nature, one adequate to the heavy demands put upon it by foreign and domestic conditions, I might be taken to utter an academic irrelevancy. But if the remark is understood to mean that democracy has always been allied with humanism, with faith in the potentialities of human nature, and that the present need is vigorous reassertion of this faith, developed in relevant ideas and manifested in practical attitudes, it but continues the American tradition. For belief in the “common man” has no significance save as an expression of belief in the intimate and vital connection of democracy and human nature.

We cannot continue the idea that human nature when left to itself, when freed from external arbitrary restrictions, will tend to the production of democratic institutions that work successfully. We have now to state the issue from the other side. We have to see that democracy means the belief that humanistic culture should prevail; we should be frank and open in our recognition that the proposition is a moral one — like any idea that concerns what should be.

Strange as it seems to us, democracy is challenged by totalitarian states of the Fascist variety on moral grounds just as it is challenged by totalitarianisms of the left on economic grounds. We may be able to defend democracy on the latter score, as far as comparative conditions are involved, since up to the present at least the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has not “caught up” with us, much less “surpassed” us, in material affairs. But defense against the other type of totalitarianism (and perhaps in the end against also the Marxist type) requires a positive and courageous constructive awakening to the significance of faith in human nature for development of every phase of our culture:science, art, education, morals and religion, as well as politics and economics. No matter how uniform and constant human nature is in the abstract, the conditions within which and upon which it operates have changed so greatly since political democracy was established among us, that democracy cannot now depend upon or be expressed in political institutions alone. We cannot even be certain that they and their legal accompaniments are actually democratic at the present time — for democracy is expressed in the attitudes of human beings and is measured by consequences produced in their lives.

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Nietzsche:

“Whoever does not know how to lay his will into things, at least lays some meaning into them: that means, he has the faith that they already obey a will (principle of ‘faith’).”

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1) Is ethics (as a branch of philosophy) the practice of learning how to lay one’s will into things?

2) I still consider my typology of behavioral disciplines (morals, moralism, ethics and behavior aesthetics) valid, but my (ethical?) attitude toward them may be shifting.

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(Much of what I’ve written below is based on second-hand information on Leo Strauss, and it very well might be wrong. I’ve only read one essay by Leo Strauss, and it was a non-political one. It was actually pretty amazing.)

As I understand it, the fundamental conflict between the Straussians (the school of philosophy upon which Neoconservatism was founded) and the Pragmatists (the school of philosophy upon which Progressivism appears to have been founded) boils down to attitudes toward Natural Rights, the conception of human rights that sees them as metaphysically belonging to human nature within the natural order in general.

I believe both sides agree that Natural Right is a mythical feature within American culture, but they disagree on the practical value of the belief. My understanding is that the Straussians believe the myth is a necessary one, required for the continuance of America as we know it, culturally and politically, because the masses require a metaphysical externalization of morality in order to accept it as valid.

The Pragmatists on the other hand consider the belief an obsolete superstition that must be overcome and replaced with a truer and more resilient concept – that we choose to uphold democracy and freedom simply because we – Americans, in particular – experience it as good and worth preserving for its intrinsic value and the intrinsic value of the constellation of values associated with it. This value needs no further metaphysical validation.

A very important consequence of belief in natural rights is the belief that democracy is simply what happens when obstacles to its realization are removed. When democracy is offered, human nature kicks in and the choice is automatic. The Pragmatist believes that democratic values are cultural, and even the desire for democracy must be cultivated. Further, the continuance of democracy depends not only on the absence of tyrants and democratic political mechanisms and institutions, but most of all on cultivation of democratic attitudes and skills.

What is unnerving about the Straussians is their (reputed) willingness to propagate myths in which they do not themselves believe (or to put it more nicely, telling “noble lies”). Which of the Neoconservatives were actually Straussians, speaking disingenuously (nobly lying) about Freedom, and which Neoconservatives were noble dupes of Straussians? Which Republicans really believed Democracy would be embraced in the Middle East despite the nonexistence of a supporting cultural context, and what were the ones who knew better trying to accomplish over there – or over here?

I’m strongly considering reading Strauss’s Natural Right and History to see if I have Strauss anywhere close to right.

 

“Metaphysics Precedes Ontology”

Ethics, Phenomenology, Philosophy

If you’re curious about what’s wrong with me here’s a clue: I’ve been struggling with the same passage from Levinas’s Totality and Infinity since the middle of last week.

A sample:

The primacy of ontology for Heidegger’ does not rest on the truism: “to know an existent it is necessary to have comprehended the Being of existents. ” To affirm the priority of Being over existents is to already decide the essence of philosophy; it is to subordinate the relation with someone, who is an existent, (the ethical relation) to a relation with the Being of existents, which, impersonal, permits the apprehension, the domination of existents (a relationship of knowing), subordinates justice to freedom. If freedom denotes the mode of remaining the same in the midst of the other, knowledge, where an existent is given by interposition of impersonal Being, contains the ultimate sense of freedom. It would be opposed to justice, which involves obligations with regard to an existent that refuses to give itself, the Other, who in this sense would be an existent par excellence. In subordinating every relation with existents to the relation with Being the Heideggerian ontology affirms the primacy of freedom over ethics. To be sure, the freedom involved in the essence of truth is not for Heidegger a principle of free will. Freedom comes from an obedience to Being: it is not man who possesses freedom; it is freedom that possesses man. But the dialectic which thus reconciles freedom and obedience in the concept of truth presupposes the primacy of the same, which marks the direction of and defines the whole of Western philosophy.

The relation with Being that is enacted as ontology consists in neutralizing the existent in order to comprehend or grasp it. It is hence not a relation with the other as such but the reduction of the other to the same. Such is the definition of freedom: to maintain oneself against the other, despite every relation with the other to ensure the autarchy of an I. Thematization and conceptualization, which moreover are inseparable, are not peace with the other but suppression or possession of the other.

…

A philosophy of power, ontology is, as first philosophy which does not call into question the same, a philosophy of injustice. Even though it opposes the technological passion issued forth from the forgetting of Being hidden by existents, Heideggerian ontology, which subordinates the relationship with the Other to the relation with Being in general, remains under obedience to the anonymous, and leads inevitably to another power, to imperialist domination, to tyranny. Tyranny is not the pure and simple extension of technology to reified men. Its origin lies back in the pagan “moods,” in the enrootedness in the earth, in the adoration that enslaved men can devote to their masters. Being before the existent, ontology before metaphysics, is freedom (be it the freedom of theory) before justice. It is a movement within the same before obligation to the other.

The terms must be reversed. For the philosophical tradition the conflicts between the same and the other are resolved by theory whereby the other is reduced to the same — or, concretely, by the community of the State, where beneath anonymous power, though it be intelligible, the I rediscovers war in the tyrannic oppression it undergoes from the totality. Ethics, where the same takes the irreducible Other into account, would belong to opinion. The effort of this book is directed toward apperceiving in discourse a non-allergic relation with alterity, toward apperceiving Desire – where power, by essence murderous of the other, becomes, faced with the other and “against all good sense,” the impossibility of murder, the consideration of the other, or justice. Concretely our effort consists in maintaining, within anonymous community, the society of the I with the Other – language and goodness. This relation is not pre-philosophical, for it does not do violence to the I, is not imposed upon it brutally from the outside, despite itself, or unbeknown to it, as an opinion; more exactly, it is imposed upon the I beyond all violence by a violence that calls it entirely into question. The ethical relation, opposed to first philosophy which identifies freedom and power, is not contrary to truth; it goes unto being in its absolute exteriority, and accomplishes the very intention that animates the movement unto truth.

The relationship with a being infinitely distant, that is, overflowing its idea, is such that its authority as an existent is already invoked in every question we could raise concerning the meaning of its Being. One does not question oneself concerning him; one questions him. Always he faces.

Moral anxieties

Ethics, Phenomenology, Philosophy, Pragmatism

Some catch-all mystical categories seal what is beyond I in glass, where it glows silently and harmlessly and provides evocative mood-lighting to an undisturbed world.

In regard to one another, we are beyond.

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It is hard to tell if hostility to God is what makes us hostile to one another, or hostility to one another is what makes us hostile to God. Maybe one day when my theology liberates itself from liberalism I’ll see a difference. Meanwhile, I am going to look for a conservative who has come even that far. (First up: Frithjof Schuon.)

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I am beginning to suspect that “overcoming metaphysics” is a euphemism for solipsism.

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It is possible to acknowledge the existence of the metaphysical and even to orient one’s life by the metaphysical while remaining a solipsist in practice.

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When I am offended by someone invariably an examination of that offense leads me back to where I have committed that same offense against another.

Buber’s “Elements of the Interhuman”

Ethics, Judaism, Philosophy

I scanned Buber’s essay “Elements of the Interhuman” and put it in my wiki. It is hard to convey the feeling of satisfaction I’m enjoying right now at the fact that this essay exists. It is essentially a summary of my own ethic. When I say that I “feel Jewish”, this essay is an example of what I mean by Jewishness.

I say this essay summarizes my ethic, but that doesn’t mean it summarizes what my ethic was prior to reading the essay (which I read for the first time early this year). I’m not sure exactly how much I was persuaded by this particular essay the first time I read it, but I can say that the process of reading most of Buber’s writings this year did change me ethically. It wasn’t a persuasion away from my earlier ethic, but it was a persuasion beyond it. Also, it was my first experience of sharing this species of ethic-ethos with another soul – and considering that the species of ethic-ethos is an ethic of sharing ethic-ethos, that was a major life event. Sharing this ethic-ethos was an actualization of something that had before existed as mere faith. The fact that Buber existed to me only as an author makes little difference. (If you understand why I would say this, you’ll understand my hostility to all pomo “death of the author” talk. If an author is dead to you, you are dead to humanity. A person who rejoices at the announcement of the author’s death fears and hates authentic love. Love is fearsome especially if you know what it is, but this is what courage is for: love is the root of courage’s undeniable value. All people admire courage, whether they want to or not, even if they cannot love. Courage points to love, even if it seems to point into nothing.)

The standout idea of this essay the first time I read it was the distinction Buber made between the interhuman and the social. It made such an impression on me that it’s possible I noticed no other idea in the essay. A brilliant insight can blot out all surrounding ideas with its glare. In the last several days I’ve re-read several of the sections multiple times. Even on adjacent days the same passage can read entirely differently. Key personal insight: I am sensitive and effective in the interhuman sphere, but half- or three-quarters-blind and paralyzed in the social sphere. I need the social.

Nietzsche, Buber, Amor Fati, and Thou

Ethics, Hermeneutics, Philosophy

I started a new “Amor Fati” theme in my wiki, and was struck again with the idea that Martin Buber could have saved Nietzsche’s life.

This, however, does not mean that Buber could have told Nietzsche something that Nietzsche did not already know. It means that Buber could have gone to him… entered and shared Nietzsche’s world with him. He could have liberated Nietzsche from the plain-sight solitary confinement that finally crushed him, which Nietzsche always knew was fated to crush him, which he chose as his fate. Nietzsche would not abandon his cell:, the exit was sealed, but the entrance was open.

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The moral thrust of Nietzsche’s philosophy:

Following his liberation by skepticism, and subsequently his liberation from skepticism, newly freed to affirm and to will, a philosopher “goes under”: he immersively, forgetfully, participates in everyday life for the sake of learning.

The purpose of his learning at first appears to be to elevate himself as an individual to ever-new visions of life, but soon (and too late) the philosopher’s philosophy brings him to the realization that the substance and purpose of his vision extends far beyond the individual and individualism. However, this overcoming of individualism is, above all, not a retreat to contemporary collectivism. He finds another vision of both the individual and the collective that radically transfigures the meaning of both. That vision, from which the world is seen – both as a whole and in part – in a very new and better way, is height.

(A note on depth and height: The dimension of philosophical depth is existential and transcendental. It has to do with being, and being is outside the domain of memory. We cannot remember a state of being, per se, essentially; we only recall it. We call the state back to mind through recollecting the images in which the being was originally reflected. To know being, one must actually be there. “Going under” means being under, and being under means forgetting, no longer being at the height, no longer seeing from the height. All one can take with him is the mere surface fact of the height, a conceptual image of the height that at best serves to orient our movement, like a map, driving directions, or snapshots of landmarks.)

So, in going under, essential height is sacrificed for a time for the sake of comprehensive knowledge, which includes most of all knowledge of the “inward experience” of every “elsewhere”, of limitation and error. The pursuit of knowledge of the inward experience of “elsewhere” is sublimated justice: the capacity to experience all things as necessary, innocent and ultimately beautiful, which is what is meant by Amor Fati. The fully-seen, fully-affirmed inner-elsewhere is the knowledge acquired in the depths and carried back to the height. The learning of many kinds of being and many kinds of overcoming is the purpose of the forgetful participation in the everyday, but this is also another stage; the overcoming points to an eventual enduring overcoming: a stabilization of height.

Nietzsche said repeatedly that his own greatest danger was pity. Knowing solitude and the experience of suffering alone, he found it excruciating to know someone was suffering, much less suffering in solitude and he was overwhelmed by the desire to relieve that suffering.

His self-prescription, after several personal catastophes, was finally to go under only with his mind, but to keep his heart bound to the height. What does this mean, practically? It means that one must overcome the notion that the ideal of pity – of “suffering-with” – is the highest ideal, and to recognize a higher compassion, which Nietzsche called “joying-with“: “Fellow rejoicing, not fellow suffering, makes the friend.”

Joying-with can appear to be a form of detachment, but it is a detachment only from a reflexive emotional response that undermines the long-term good. It is the opposite of indifference.

Skepticism and probability

Ethics, Hermeneutics

Some people, when faced with uncertainty, weigh all the factual and interpretive possibilities and respond to the one that seems most probable. Sometimes they’ll cycle through a whole series of possibilities, one at a time.

Others generate multiple possibilities, and weigh the degree of uncertainty of each, looking for overlap between the most plausible possibilities. They then respond practically to the whole probabilistic cloud as a single situation.

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The latter approach is optimal for hermeneutics, for concepting, for psychology, and for pretty much any situation involving extreme indeterminacy or doubt. There’s the facts and there’s the interpretive arrangements, and each modifies the other. Knowing how to dismantle an interpretation (which can look for all the world like reality itself) into bits of data and then to reassemble them into multiple divergent interpretations, when combined with an active imagination and a nuanced recall results in the capacity to generate a vast array of persuasive possibilities. Everything is left liquid to some degree. It’s a gift and a curse.

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For a skeptic, no knowledge is complete until it includes the meta-knowledge of ground of certainty. To lose track of this is to lose command of the knowledge.

Pragmatist inkling?

Ethics, Hermeneutics, Holarchy, Metaphysics, Phenomenology, Philosophy, Pragmatism

I’m beginning to suspect praxis is knowledge viewed from the inside… the essential counterpart to what is apparent when knowledge self-reflects or presents itself as knowledge. Consider this possible developmental process: 1) knowledge begins as an instinctive response to a novel situation, 2a) then the response is iterated and refined within the same and similar situations, 2b) and the refined response is demonstrated and imitated between subjects who participate in the interation and refinement process, 3) then the response is reflectively stabilized through analogies and models, and becomes a verbally communicable practice then finally 4) vocabulary is developed for the practice.

I’m sure I’ll see this in Rorty once I start him, because practically I began thinking like a pragmatist back in 2005, when I had to imitate Bernstein’s manner of thinking in order to follow him (learned the steps of his intellectual dance). That is the only way to understand philosophy as such. Since then I’ve applied Bernstein’s ideas and style to many problems – including design problems and political problems I’ve encountered at work. I’ve also found that same style of thought in Wittgenstein and the smattering of pragmatist thought I’ve read. Now I am interested in learning the vocabulary and the ethics of the pragmatist community.

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I’ve worked intensely and uninterruptedly for 40 months, to be able to say this (relatively) clearly: Hermeneutics is spiritual pragmatism. By spirit, I mean the intellect, but not the intellect that is the mental dimension of an essentially corporeal reality. Spirit is intellect acknowledged as the ground of reality.

Reading hermeneutically is navigating the author’s subjectivity by the objects of his inquiries. The real goal of hermeneutics is not to acquire facts, nor even to uncover the structure by which the author orders his factual reality, but rather to learn to think with the author through his work, and eventually to be able to approach problems as the author would approach them. Such practical knowledge cannot be transferred mind-to-mind across the membrane of individual subjectivities as reflective theoretical knowledge can. It requires gradual merging of wills, until one’s intellectual movements spontaneously mirror or at least play off the movements of the other, and understanding flows in without sharp anomalies or blurry romantic notions.

Hermeneutics is intellectual dance; it is spiritual pragmatism; and it is trans-subjective transcendental phenomenology. It all takes place in the borders between whole and part, mastery and tentative participation, insidedness and outsidedness, in knowing how to know when you do not yet know, and knowing the kinds of knowing one might have or not yet expect.

I set out to account for what it was exactly that Nietzsche did to me. He taught me the dance of dances.