Navigating Ethics

Ethics is the science of ‘doing good’. Speaking both developmentally and anthropologically, our earliest encounter with the concept is rules based: 

The 613 mitzvoth of Torah

The Code of Hammurabi

English Common Law

The rules Dad just posted on the fridge

Our earliest concept of ‘doing good’ consists of nothing more, or less, than obeying orders, following rules: “The law of the Lord is his joy.” (Psalm 1: 1 - 3)

Against this background various reform movements (in families and in society) have attempted to shift the moral emphasis from action to intention: “I didn’t mean to do it, it was an accident,” or “I was speeding but only because my wife was in labor.”

An effort was made to find a simpler set of moral principles at the foundation of our ethical intuition. In that spirit, the Decalogue (10 Commandments) came to be regarded as a Cliff’s Notes version of the Torah.   

Later, the so-called Great Commandment designated two of the 613 mitzvoth of Torah as a summary of the other 611: Love God and love your neighbor! The Cliff’s Notes version of Cliff’s Notes.

Then Jesus of Nazareth entered the fray: “I give you a new commandment: love one another.” (John 13: 34) Several modern humanists have proposed Be Kind as a universal statement of the ethical intuition. John-Paul Sartre, with some support from Pope Leo XIII, suggested Freedom as the ultimate value.

But at the beginning of the 16^th century, Machiavelli stood Western Ethics on its head. (There’s a lot of head-standing in the Intellectual History of the West, e.g. Mark & Hegel.) He suggested that the Good lies not in conformity, nor in intentionality, but in consequences: ends justify means!

The term ‘Machiavellian’ retains a slightly pejorative connotation even today, but the concept has long since been rehabilitated under the different-seeming guises of Utilitarianism (Bentham, Mill), Liberalism (Adam Smith) and Pragmatism (William James). 

If we adopt Gregory Bateson’s meme (a difference that makes a difference) as our ontological standard, ‘good’ behavior is whatever produces, or is likely to produce, ‘good’ results: e.g. ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ (Mill), ‘the wealth of nations’ (Smith) or ‘redistribution of the means of production’ (Marx).

Of course, this Enlightened sense of ethics assumes that we are able to distinguish ‘favorable’ outcomes from ‘unfavorable’ alternatives. By what measure? On what scale? Over what span? From whose perspective? (Hint: We can’t!)

It also assumes a certain causal, i.e. predictable, link between events: A leads to B or at least A makes B substantially more likely. Either way, the ethical content of an event now lies in its actual (or projected) consequences. 

Ethical systems based either on rules (Moses) or on results (Machiavelli) appear to constitute a spectrum ranging from Absolute Despotism to Eternal Utopia. As we now know all too well, the invisible hand of Adam Smith is no less heavy than the iron fist of Pharaoh. 

Consequences are commands viewed backwards. Wage slavery is just plain slavery, minus Spartacus. La Technique (Jacques Ellul) replaces Written Torah (613 mitzvot) and Oral Torah (Natural Law) with Mechanical Torah (now AI). 

This leaves us with just two alternatives: (1) an ethics that is focused solely on actions themselves (virtue is its own reward) or (2) an ethics grounded entirely in the subjective experience of others (or another). 

Ethical systems broadly compatible with Triple-M (Moses, Machievelli, Marx) focus on the proximate: obey a command, weigh a consequence. Conversely, our alternative systems focus either on the hyper-immanent or on the totally transcendent.

But first, are there Values, manifestations of the Good, that apply to everyone, everywhere, in every circumstance and in every possible universe? Elsewhere on this site, we have proposed Beauty, Truth, and Justice as Values that satisfy these conditions. I have even called them the Divine Values; they are the essence of the Ineffable (God). 

Of course, no two people agree on what is beautiful, true or just: no matter! Everyone agrees, theoretically or not, that these are the values that characterize the Good, aka God. Everything any actor does is ultimately motivated by one of these Super Values, however distorted it may have become in the mind of its executor. 

This ethical system holds that any act is ‘good’ precisely to the extent that it creates, discovers, disseminates, or restores Beauty, Truth, and/or Justice, not as a remote consequence of the act (which are always alienated from the act itself), but as the act itself. 

For example, the actions of the Good Samaritan are just in themselves; in fact, they are Justice per se (mishpat, understood as a verb: “Do Justice!”)

Ironically, the alternative post-Machiavellian ethic also finds a home in this Parable. According to this interpretation, whatever we do to relieve the suffering of others is good. This concept of the ‘ethical’ links us with Mother Theresa and through her to the Buddha himself.

In one parable we see both sides of the post-Machiavellian coin. Either Value is immanent in the act itself, regardless of its intent or consequence, or Value transcends both the act and the actor and rests entirely on the experience of the Other, the indirect object of the act. 

The ethical universe of the 3M’s is flat. Rules → Intentions → Actions → Consequences. The Good Samaritan flips the script. Now we look beneath the plane ↓ to focus on the acts themselves or beyond the plane ↑ to focus on those acts as they appear in the experience of others.

Riddle: If a ‘good’ act is performed in the absence of an ‘other’, is it still a ‘good act’? Maybe, maybe not: 

If I spend three years studying for a PhD in psychology so I can better help my future patients? Then yes! If I write articles for a local newspaper in the hope that they will amuse, entertain, enlighten or console someone other than myself? Also yes! If I admit the existence of a ‘collective other’ (God, Gaia, or Geist), then yes again. But otherwise, no!

So we have found that ethical systems tend to congregate around 4 cardinal points, the nodes of a diamond, and along two perpendicular axes: 

T

↑

R      ↔       E

↓

I

The horizontal axis is a continuum spanning Rules and Ends. Cause and Effect live here! The vertical axis, on the other hand, is perpendicular to the plane of ‘daily commerce’. It allows us to focus ‘off plane’ on acts themselves (Immanent) or on others’ experience (Transcendent) of those acts.

From the perspective of Immanence acts are stochastic, airlocked, islands in the stream, knots in the thread of fate each act has its own independent moral value. On the other hand, from the perspective of Transcendence the moral value of acts lies ‘off grid’ in the experience of others. 

Remarkably, these radically different perspectives intersect, as witnessed in the concrete behavior of the Good Samaritan. When we foster Beauty (peace, harmony) we ‘lighten the load’ of the other. Likewise, when we discover Truth and correct falsehood (gnosis); and most dramatically of course, when we practice Justice (including charity, community, and mercy).  

We are striving to graduate from the ‘nursery notion’ of rules and results. Happily, we have found a new ethical home in the content of our actions per se and in others’ experience of those actions.  

***

Norman Rockwell’s The Golden Rule (1961) unites people of many races, faiths, and ages beneath the words “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Painted in luminous, realistic detail, it transforms a moral principle into a shared human moment of empathy and equality. By portraying kindness and respect as universal, Rockwell turns a private rule of ethics into a public vision of global goodwill.