As discussion here develops, it becomes increasingly clear to me that our state of being ground ethics. The task is not to catalogue actions (which cannot be catalogued because humanly inexhaustable), nor to try and divine intent behind any given action (which is undivinable -- arguably even for the one who commits the act).
So the question at its essence becomes: "What is (or are) the mode(s) of Being that are conducive to ethical action?"
How do we prepare ourselves to receive the necessary ethical insight, and how do we prepare ourselves to act appropriately with that insight?
The world is unpredictable and vast. Death, still more unpredictable and vast. We are limited, largely (albeit not entirely) predictable, and very small.
I cannot orient towards Self -- which takes me away from the world. Still less, I cannot orient myself towards desire, which is merely Self-ness made manifest. Every want, every perceived need, feeds Self, and commoditizes (and thereby shrinks) World (early commentators referenced Buber and the I/it relationship). One begins to see the wisdom of at least limited fasting...
On the other hand, I cannot fully agree with Levinas, who places the orientation on a quasi-mystical "other" [person]. It's a step in the right direction, because it orients me beyond myself. But while that "other" is certainly humanly inexhaustable, that individual is still only the smallest step towards acknowledging the full scope and scan of the world-in-process. This is the problem of Buber's Ich/du model. As mentioned earlier, I wonder if "I am not all" does not also take us to this place, but I am frankly torn on this issue.
Nor can I resolve it with a Buddhist model of "all is truly one" -- the World is big, and I am small is binary. I merely borrow "the World" to contain my self, conflating the two, treating self as illusory. And yet I act (or choose not to act) in the world, and these actions/non-actions have consequences for my contemporaries and for future generations of humanity. I find it facile and callous to erase the human miseries of War, Oppression, and Corruption; and the "natural" miseries of Aging, Disease, and Death under the rubric of "we are all one."
I admit, I am at an impass here, before argument has really even begun. I will think on this a bit.
2 comments:
First, a nit to pick. I don’t think that "losing oneself in a single 'other'" is an accurate description of Buber's ich/du. It is not losing oneself, nor is the other single.
I want to propose a sentence that seems the equivalent of "I am not all." I am not God.
Borrowing a tactic from Ernest Kurtz, I can add a hyphen and make the statement a positive rather than a negative--"I am not-God." Kurtz admitted that this can sound more cute than informative, but I think he had a good idea. As a positive statement, the sentence asserts "I am." I am a separate, sentient being. I have purpose. I have worth. I can not think of myself as less than. On the other hand, I am (a) not-God. I have limitations. I am incapable of a complete cosmological perspective. I have (or believe and act as if I have) free will of my actions, but no ultimate control over the world. Therefore, I cannot think of myself as more than.
It is in this sense of balance between two poles--in a humility that is not humiliating and a self-esteem that is not grandiose--that I have tried to find my own sense of ethics. I know this sounds a lot like Aristotle's Golden Mean. I'm not sure if I want it to.
Of course there are many problems with this. Not the least of which is a problem of definition. But even if all our terms were adequately defined, we would still have the problem of bridging a gap between an aretaic and a normative ethics. I'm thinking of the Roman Catholic idea of the seven deadly sins--pride, lust, anger, greed, gluttony, envy, sloth. I think it easy to see why these are "sins." Each is a denial of an other. Each is a retreat into self. Each is a violation of Kant's imperative, that others are ends not means. However, I could propose a list of seven essential virtues that parallel these sins. Opposite lust, for example, I could posit passion. Opposite anger--ethical indignation.
The problem with this is that each of these polar opposites might lead to the exact same action. An action I am driven to out of lust might be the same action I would take out of a sense of passion. I'm thinking of your analogy with Abraham.
We've agreed that an ethics must be grounded in a state of being, but that opens up a host of thorny problems!
This was quite helpful. I think you will see elements of what you elucidate here in my Mode of Being post...
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