Right and Wrong as language constructs

Earlier today I made the claim on my Twitter (@anthalus) that without religion there would be no such thing as evil. Of course that brought about a lively debate and many attempts to tell me I am wrong. And of course it lead here.

To put a sharp edge on the discussion, my position is this: that without the burden of religion good and evil simply would not exist. They can be viewed as a non-cognitive extension of right and wrong, which are cognitive (Hume, Moore). Yes, this is meta-ethics. Normative ethics are simply flavors that compose meta-ethics, much like the differing branches of religion are just different sects of Judaism.

So, that out of the way, on to the fun. A Biblical claim is that it is evil to covet a neighbor's wife, to lust for her. Now let's toss away the concept of evil. If one does covet one's neighbor's wife, what is the meta-ethical stance? How do we define "covet"? Is it wrong?

To covet one, we must desire one. That one "belongs" to another does not mean we can not covet this one. Our need to procreate is ingrained into our own RNA. By denying our desire we desire our own genetic drive. We do wrong by our own selves. From an Existential standpoint we deny our own genuineness.

A more extreme take could be that of killing another. Again it is an evil in religion. In some instances it is a forfeiture of one's mortal soul. But is killing another, taking a life, always evil, wrong? If it isn't then religion exists only at a normative ethical level.

So is it possible to kill someone and have it be right? The death penalty itself supports this position. So does vigilantivism. Is it more wrong, evil, to allow a serial killer to operate outside the law, or to find this one and take one's life? Or is it right?

The major difference between religious good/evil and meta-ethical right/wrong is the interpretation of the actions. Theoretically, in religion there is no interpretation. One does good or evil based on one's wants/needs. As is the case of non-cognitive ethics. But my argument is such: the actions of one is soley owned by the one, makes one genuine, and what one does is not subjective. The action itself draws the label. The reasoning/desire behind it are arbitrary.

We do what we do. It is either right or wrong. But it is always both good and evil because religion is ambiguous.

Davidsonian Primary Reason vs Kant's Moralism as applied to love

Donald Davidson's idea of a Primary Reason can be summed as a reason causes an action. The prototypical example is you want light so you turn a light on. And sure it can be pared down to multiple reasons, such as being afraid of the dark or staying in a place that you can't navigate in the dark. But even then, Occam-wise you turn the light on because you want light.

Kant believed that for a thing to be moral (action), one must not benefit from it because that destroys its value. Giving a beggar money then is not moral because one could benefit from it because one feels better about one's own condition. Basically altruism does not exist, as argued earlier (http://thewhyquestion.blogspot.com/2011/03/altruism-aka-lie-we-tell-ourselves.html).

Love is defined as having affection and personal attachment for something. We can love bacon (reason) so we cook and eat it as often as possible (action). But we benefit from it because it fulfills our need to satiate our need to eat the bacon.

So how does this apply to what is considered a love between two persons?

Let's assume that love between two humans follows the standard definition. Person 1 and 2 love each other because each provides affection and a feeling of personal attachment for the other. They can be considered "in love". Love then is the action.

From the Davidsonian standpoint, what are the reasons for love? If we desire affection and personal attachment, then love is a Davidsonian "thing". What we do gets us what we want. There is no Existential angst involved.

But as far as Kant's morality goes, if we desire love and affection, love is not moral because we benefit from it. Our reasons cause an action that gives us what we desire and is therefore immoral. We must love without expectation of any kind to satisfy Kant.

And that brings us back to Davidson. Can we love without any expectations?

There are no instances of love that do not invoke actions. We can not love for the sake of love because even then the action of love is caused by the action of loving. And because we benefit from this it is not Kantian moral.

The conclusion then is that love is both Davidsonian and Kantian. Love is not moral and benefits us. Love is never altruistic and always beneficial. Love is simply something that benefits us.

To not play the game of life

To paraphrase a friend, "the real us is never shown as we embrace the illusion, the game." I have to ask whether this is actual truth. Do we show each potential mate/partner/friend the make believe version of ourselves? Do we play mental and emotional chess with them? Is there a dividend that we earn that makes the deception worthy?

Historically people have fallen into cliques. Whether it is man v. woman to ivy league educated male v. coal mine supervisor male, there are cliques and they are always in opposition to other ones. To break this idea down further, are we our own clique? Do we selectively allow others to see the more "real" us, as opposed to making others "earn" their way into our own clique?

From the earliest we are taught to protect ourselves against all others, whether it is the subconscious lessons we have learned from our parents to the outright lessons of childhood. We learn to hide within ourselves. We must not be different. We must be what society expects us to be. And this is bullshit.

We look within and know we are not the personae that we pretend to be. We are the source of our own existential angst. Society expects "x" and we deliver. This is why homosexuality is taboo and still kept "in the closest" in many societies. It is why the religious cling to outdated idealism like marriage being between man and woman.

Nietzsche brought the idea of the Superman forth with Zarathustra. It complete defiance of social "norms" of being what one is expected to be. Nietzsche reminds us that if we wish to be something/someone that is known for all time, to be something other than a sheep, that we need to abandon the preconceived notion of who society thinks we need to be. We will be as we will be. Fuck society.

So how do I answer the friend about hiding the real us as part of the game?

When we lower ourselves to play the game, to be who we are not, to leave vague clues for others to puzzle out, we cheapen who we really are because we allow ourselves to become common, to become sheep. When we are able to hold ourselves above all others, without excuse, we attract those who are our equals, those who understand that we must rise above the mundane and be true to our own spirit/will. To be Zarathustra.

Integrity

"One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised." ~ Chinua Achebe

Let me preface this with stating that I am a former chef-restaurateur (though always a chef).

Had that thought mulling around my mind today. Being active on Yelp (http://www.yelp.com/) I've known all along that one day that someone would take offense to a negative review and contact me. And today was the day. The reason that I mention this is because the person that contacted me (marketing person doing damage control) offered to have me come back to the restaurant and eat for free.

So integrity was on my mind. I knew full well that this person was only interested in damage control. In fact I was a bit offended that a marketing person reached out and not the actual chef and/or owner. Purely an attempt to "fix" things. But my thoughts on accepting a free meal would not have been swayed had the latter occurred.

Integrity means to stand behind one's words and convictions no matter the consequences, as quoted above. I could have accepted this person's offer, had a free meal, and still stood by my review. But that would have lessened my integrity. How? Because I was willing to accept money/food for my opinion. Even if I wrote another damaging review of the restaurant I would no longer have the same integrity because I had accepted what was essentially an attempt at a bribe.

I politely informed the person that I appreciated the attempt at damage control, but because of my integrity I had to refuse this person's offer. For Sartre it is "values derive their meaning from an original projection of myself which stands as my choice of myself in the world." I chose to be genuine, to maintain my integrity.

Sartreian Freedom

As an atheist, Sartre denied that man is born with certain values, that man is born with universal ethics. As such, man must define freedom through his own actions. Freedom, in a classical definition, is to be without restraint. Sartre attempted to expand that definition by asserting that man was a prisoner of his own freedom, and that freedom was the only source of values. In short, man decides his values as he discovers his freedom.

As such, it matters not what side of a battle man sides with, so long as man acts with "good faith", chooses the good of an action. Man, being his own source of freedom, establishes his own values. To deny introspection, to not choose to act for the good, leaves man in anxiety and acting in "bad faith". Man must not act as others act, in a universal good, because that would remove introspection, would render the decision bad.

Being born without a hierarchal system of values, man continually builds his own. As such, man is able to destroy the hierarchy with each choice and establish a new one. Man, realizing that he is the source of values, the fount of freedom, will only choose to adhere to his freedom. Man then, with a god removed, is his own judge. Sartre was emphasizing that freedom is subjective, in that, man and man alone is capable of understanding his own freedom.

Sartre believed that most men hide from their freedom, in denial of it, and adopt the deterministic values of society and/or theology. Attribution to external sources is utter denial of inherent freedom. Things influence things, but man, as an actor, is not a thing. Man is responsible for himself. To act differently makes man inauthentic, and man renounces his humanity.

To further extend freedom, no man has rights, as rights are external things. Rights are determinism. A ruler has the right to rule because the citizens deny their freedom in a Nietzscheian slave-morality as they accept passively the values set before them. Rights have no ability to guide one's action, to determine conduct. Man, being aware of his freedom, creates his own values, his own hierarchies. As such, even a revolutionary, one who battles for the freedom of all, denies his own freedom, as a revolution carries its own values and rules of conduct, ethics.

Sartre has established that man being free determines his own values, and as such, those values are mercurial, changing with each situation. A man who must choose between family and country can not rely on established values, but must determine his own action. Man must act for the good. How each man determines the good is man's freedom. Freedom then is an active form, is not in stasis. Man who resists freedom is in a continual form of anxiety, as he must determine to act for the good, to create his own values with each situation.

Destruction

So I am thinking recently, I am my own destruction. And then the logical side has to ask: if you aren't who is? Of course we all are our own destruction. This does not go against what I have written before: "I know me. I do not believe in me, nor do I have faith in me. Either one cheapens me."

It is what Nietzsche laughed at when he wrote "He who cannot command himself shall obey. And many a one can command himself, but still sorely lacketh self-obedience!".

We all do the things that we know are stupid, things that bring our downfall. And we do it knowingly, and yet we still do. Why? Natural selection has given us survival skills that go beyond most animals, and yet we willingly do things that go against saving ourselves.

Is it a flaw in basic human character? Is it some macabre dance with death? Are we programmed to seek riches and such, yet aspire to nothingness? Do we seek Heidegger, even though we don't understand him?

Maybe the Existentialist crowd was right, and life is a struggle to be genuine. But even so, what is really genuine? Being tools of destroying ourselves? Was Davidson right in questioning the reason a person turns on the TV? Does that person do it to watch TV or is that person looking for meaning in life? Does that person know that he is destroying himself no matter the answer?

We are our own destruction. We embrace it; we become it. But can we avoid it, can we command it? I know me. I know I am my own destruction. I don't know if I can avoid it.