demythologizing morality (part i.)

writing borne out of a recent conversation:

there are several issues at hand. they build upon each other and so we may as well begin sensibly. many of the following thoughts will feel like tautological statements, but I maintain that many of them pass beneath the vision of everyday life and should therefore be pointed out. moreover, many nearly definitional observations (most notably dostoevsky's 'without immortality..') still find considerable opposition among the supposedly educated.

i. the vacuity of morality. (or, ethics and criteria as expressions of preference) (or, the non-Value of a priori reasoning)

ii. totalitarianism as insight. (or, the corporate realization of non-binding ethics)

iii. ever-present idolatry. (or, the fundamentally religious expression of behaviour)

iv. the necessity of the ubermensch. (or, the contrasting roles of arbiter and Arbiter)

v. perilous choice. (or, why honest discussions between Christians and non-Christians employ the same data)

vi. the hope of Christ A. (or, the Absolute call to love)

vii. the hope of Christ B. (or, Salvation from the underground of the arbiter)

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i. the vacuity of morality.

a. individual human conduct is self-governed by what we describe as either the ethical or the Ethical*, depending upon what the individual appeals to as the source or Source of its governance. this largely constitutes a definition with the additional note of free will; in other words, behaviour is either truly self-governed or bears the volitional appearance of self-governance. conduct which does not bear the volitional appearance of self-governance (an obvious example is a seizure) is not considered to emerge from the e/Ethical.

b. the criteria for evaluating behaviour/thoughts/emotions/et al are contained within the e/Ethical.

c. the ethical is an expression of preference alone. in other words, there is nothing binding about a particular ethical system. the selection of "first principles" from which a person derives his conduct is entirely up to the individual and summarizes this expression.

-> example: the governing value of science and modern philosophy is that self-contradiction is fatal, whether in a model for physical interactions or in the reconciliation of a person's values with their behaviour. but this principle must be proposed as an axiom rather than a piece of knowledge deduced from the cognito. the notion that a self-contradictory ethical system should be discarded relies upon a statement that is either axiomatic or flows from an axiom. that axiom embodies at least a piece of the preferential nature of a person's ethics.

d. the transition between any two ethical systems is therefore an expression of a change of preference and nothing else (my rhetoric is harsh here for a reason: romantic and 'progressive' idealism conceals this fact with words, and so with words the fact should be revealed so that it is seen clearly).

e. however, the transition from the Ethical to the ethical requires something more than a change in preference (for the presence of the ethical indicates preference). the transition should also be described as a rejection, for it also requires such a rejection of the Source that belied the Ethical. this rejection is more than a preference if and only if the Source exists in the Absolute sense. in either sense it constitutes an act of metaphysical rebellion against the (real or perceived) Absolute.
f. in either event, we have the possibility of a fundamental distinction between the ethical and Ethical: the absence or presence of rebellion against something larger than individual preference, in particular against the Absolute.

g. ethics does not have the capacity to find anything more than its own suppositions when confronted with any other ethics or Ethics. this applies at the level of theory and evaluation. it therefore hopelessly circular.

h. the same is true for Ethics if and only if the Source does not exist in the Absolute.

i. therefore only Ethics has the possibility of saying something Meaningful about anything. ethics and therefore morality are vacuous notions when they are taken to mean anything more than an individual's choice of supposition.
j. up to this point I have defined Ethics in relation to the perceived Absolute. we note that Ethics in relation to a false or nonexistent Absolute bears a precise resemblance to ethics. in other words, idolatrous Ethics are an expression of the ethical.
k. the statements above about non-idolatrous Ethics do not depend upon the human capacity to establish precise knowledge of the Absolute; at no point did they invoke epistemology or the question 'how do we *know* if the Absolute is True?' these matters are important but nonetheless secondary.
l. (summary) we find that the fundamental (existential) distinction between e/Ethical systems is a distinction between the Ethical rooted in an existent Absolute and any other e/Ethics. the latter represents preference, the former an expression of the True Absolute; transition between two systems of the latter reflects a change of preference, while transition from the former to the latter would be an act of rebellion against the Absolute in addition to such a change.
-> extension: this section is essentially tautological, but often rejected at the level of the question in (k.) that rejection is not a logical refutation but rather a statement of "it doesn't matter." this is fundamentally unilluminating and reflects a preference: that the Absolute must be confirmed Absolutely in order to be relevant. this statement must be recognized as an axiom and its products therefore suffer from the flaw of a priori reasoning. then the question is, why bring up this series of definitional statements in the first place? the answer: in order to maintain a clear understanding of human behaviour, we need to begin by demythologizing ethics/morality (thus the title of this piece). the use of the term is deliberate: any last vestige of importance other than preference assigned to the ethical bears the psychological function of a myth, one that must be recognized in order to see the regulation of conduct clearly.
-> extension 2: in this sense, this section is an exposition on Ivan Karamazov's summary "without immortality, everything is permitted."

* here and throughout I take the convention of referring to qualities (innate, derivative) of the Absolute (i.e. God) as capitalized nouns.

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section ii will come as soon as possible. possibly monday evening after our hot qcd project is complete. maybe sooner. anything's possible.

ad majorem gloria Dei.