Morality and ethics.

I freely admit that my interest in morality is unusual, as it’s not exactly a hot topic. The idea of evaluating moral action on the basis of values and personal principles doesn’t really exist any more as far as I know. Well, except for the Objectivists, but the less said about them the better: they’re not even anarchists, which doesn’t bode well for an ideology supposedly based on rationality.

Anyway, the little discussion that takes place on the subject is usually centered around utilitarianism, which is not really a moral topic but rather an ethical topic. When I talk about morality, I’m specifically talking about personal, individual evaluation, ethics being of course about the rules established by society as a whole or some group within it. The whole purpose of utilitarianism is to eliminate morality altogether; if every action we perform can only be evaluated by how they impact others, and there is no way for us individually to measure our impact on others, then this destroys the possibility of personal evaluation, and by extension of personal knowledge.

It also make every individual completely subservient to the hierarchies of authority in his society, since the hierarchies will inevitably declare themselves as having the only proper way to measure everyone’s impact on everyone else. And why not? Since the State is a fantasy, and comparing utilities from mind to mind is also a fantasy, why shouldn’t a fantasy be more habilitated to calculate another fantasy? Ultimately, the nuclear bombs used to kill 200 000 innocent Japanese people represent the nadir of this ideology: even murder is deemed acceptable if it “spares more lives.”

Why should morality be eliminated? No doubt some of the opposition to morality (especially from other anarchists) comes from a sense that people are too individualistic. As I’ve discussed before, I think that comes from an unclear definition of individualism. It’s not the emphasis on individual values that are the problem, but rather not putting enough emphasis on them, a failure to recognize society as a whole as an integral part of one’s life. Human values do not contradict anarchism, rather the contrary. Otherwise we wouldn’t need constant indoctrination in order to distract people from their own values and enforce belief in hierarchies. I think I’ve proven that well enough on this blog.

For most people, morality is also despised. This can be easily understood when we look at the travesty of morality which has been promoted by monotheistic religions for millennia. We know that these rules are a combination of regional common sense turned into dogma and blatant hierarchy-building. Nowadays, of course, people have dropped the former and kept only the latter. No one believes eating shrimp or wearing mixed fibers is evil, but they still believe in subjugating women, paying tithes, preparing for the end of the world, and killing homosexuals and witches, all of which are hierarchical issues (although to be fair they only kill witches in third-world countries now, which is somewhat of an improvement).

If we look at this from a more general perspective, we can come to the same conclusion. Morality is innate and mostly intuitive. Therefore, complex elaborations upon it are most likely to be wrong than right, to err on the side of untruth and attempts at controlling others. This means that eventually all moral systems will be perceived as untruths and attempts at controlling others. This is not surprising at all.

Ethics, on the other hand, seems to be flourishing. Not only do the ever-present social issues always provide fuel for that fire, but every new technology seems to bring with it ethical challenges. As I mentioned, most moral considerations are rejected in favour of ethical considerations. What is good, so goes the argument, is what helps others or maintains the social order.

But human values are foundational. Suppose we posit that freedom is a desirable social feature, that people should be free. But the question arises: why should people be free? Answering something like “because a society based on freedom brings the most happiness for the most people” only pushes the problem further, since we have no justification for using that standard over any other. Why not base society on what brings the least suffering for the greatest number? Or the greatest happiness and least suffering? Or the greatest happiness for the smallest number? Or, for that matter, any other number of possibilities.

Ultimately we have to come back to the source, the human will, which is deployed within the principles of human nature. If no individual human being sought to be happy, then preaching happiness as a guiding principle of society would be pointless. The existence of society is predicated on the existence of shared values and principles which each individual decides to agree with.

Setting aside individual values necessarily sets aside the individual, period. Without the realization of how basic freedom is to the individual, personal freedom necessarily becomes secondary to some collectivist consideration (such as “the happiness of the greatest number”). Human lives are objectified, turned into statistics, pigeonholed in categories and killed for being in the wrong one.

As they are discussed today, ethical considerations generally revolve around emphasis on laws and guild rules. This is why I think it is counterproductive for anarchists to argue on these grounds. Real ethics- ethics founded on individual values and human nature, which seek to establish social principles that enhance freedom instead of stifling it- are what anarchism is all about.

I’m Allowed to Rob You!

From Truth to Power.

Some entries from my blog…

Seeing how big my archive of entries has become, I thought it might be useful for newcomers to have a list of some of the entries which I consider most important. I’ve made two lists of blog entries from other people that I value, so why not do the same with my blog?

These are the entries that I refer to the most, not the ones I like the best. Making a list of entries I like best would be a dicey proposition, insofar as I’d have to read them all again, and I really don’t want to do that.

1. The manichean worldview.

This is where I detail what I called the “manichean worldview,” the view that there are “good people,” who can do no wrong, and “bad people,” who can do no right. This delusion permeates folk ethical and political thinking, therefore it is vitally important to identify it. I called it “manichean” not because of the ancient religion, but because of the word’s association with blackwhite thinking, a usage which has precedents.

2. Why religion is the product of faggotry.

Another entry where I detail a fundamental worldview, this time faggotry (that is to say, repressed homosexuality) and its perverted effects on many social institutions, and society as a whole though machoism. In retrospect, I don’t like the title that much: not for the use of the f-word, but rather for implying that religion as a whole is the product of repressed homosexuality, when repressed homosexuality is, at best, only a major influence.

3. “Anarcho”-capitalists support sexual harassment: more on Block’s lunacy…

This is the entry with which I started my attacks against “anarcho-capitalism” and property rights in general: using a quote from Walter Block, who argued that sexual abuse of an employee was justified by the ownership claim of the boss. This has led to other libsocs picking this up as well, so I was proud of that. The ancaps still don’t get it though.

4. Why minarchism is the greatest delusion.

This was such a long entry that I had to post it in three parts. I start from the four basic premises of minarchism (which would be Libertarian partyism, for most people) and then I show how each of them contradicts the others, as well as the more general contradictions in the concept. I recommend you give this link to any minarchist ready to listen.

5. Why hierarchies are immoral…
6. “Hierarchies are natural!”

Hierarchies are a fundamental concept in Anarchism, so I had to write a few entries about it. These address two basic statist arguments, being “why are hierarchies immoral in themselves?” and “wouldn’t hierarchies just form naturally?”

7. Defining individualism and collectivism

As an individualist, I am absolutely opposed to any society, system, institution or rule which tries to impose some exterior value on the individual. I have written a few entries on making the distinction between individualism and collectivism, as well as the tangible consequences of both: this is perhaps my best one.

8. Market Anarchist Theory on criminals’ rights

A pretty simple entry where I debunk some myths about criminals’ rights, including the famous “criminals surrender their rights once they commit their crimes,” and the idea that the State is justified in using force against people it declares criminals.

9. What are games conditions?

Games conditions are a way of relating to other people which is predicated on winning a game. I explain what that means, what it gives the rulers of the game, and how to identify when one is trapped in a game.

10. “Mankind must perpetuate!”

I think this is my best and clearest entry about voluntary extinctionism, where I demolish the prevailing belief that reproduction is good because it assures the perpetuation of the species.

11. Some considerations on consent part 1, part 2.

My elaboration on the necessary preconditions of consent, based on Rad Geek’s excellent work.

The problem with slippery slope arguments…

… they go both ways.

From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

Charlie Brooker – How To Report The News

The search for meaning.

“Meaning” is one of those words that people use without knowing what they mean. To say that a life has meaning would imply that the life has been given some explanation or justification beyond that of having been born. Religious people often say that their religion imparts meaning to their lives and that no one else can achieve this, although it is not clear how religion explains or justifies human life any more than, say, gardening. Even if it was true that humanity was made by God for its amusement and that those judged worthy live forever after they die, it doesn’t provide any further explanation or justification for human life, rather it merely twists the plot further.

At least those religious people are not racked with doubt about it. There are many people who search for meaning and who end up joining one religion, cult or guru after another. We call them “spiritual seekers.” Most of these groups are merely attempts to exploit the seeker’s willingness to become a follower if it helps him find the answers. The sad fact is, these seekers can’t find what they’re looking for until they stop looking outwards and start looking inwards. I’m sorry if this offends anyone or if I sound like I’m making light of honest hard-working people, but that’s the simple truth of the matter. No group or enlightened person can give your life any meaning if you haven’t already decided on it, simply because we are beings imbued with free will and other people can’t really do anything but try to spur you in one or the other direction.

So there’s a great deal of misdirection that exists when we look at the issue of meaning. It’s an issue which requires a lot of introspection, something which most people can’t do, so they look for easy answers. They look for other people to give them an answer they can feel good about. Unfortunately, the truth is always more complex than we’d like.

Inevitably the Christians will throw the questions in our face, “what is the meaning of life?” They think we need to oppose a pat answer to their pat answer. What they fail to realize is that truth and meaning are not the same thing. They may believe that they have the absolute truth, but this leads them nowhere closer to a “meaning of life,” because determining that is not a cut-and-dry affair.

Think about any work of art, such as a movie, a photograph, a painting. There is the intention of the artist, but there is also the meaning we, as independent individuals, impart to that work, looking at it from our own framework. There cannot be any one absolute way to interpret it. If we look at human life as a matter of history or simply a story, or the life of any single human being, how can we say any different?

One problem is the distinction between meaning and purpose. We can look at hammer and simply state that its purpose is to wield in the hand to drive things into surfaces or otherwise impart force on a small surface, but it makes little sense to talk about its meaning. The justification for its existence is straightforward and requires no further explanation. Likewise, for Christians, the purpose of man is clear: man was made by God in order to be judged at the end of his life and enter into an eternal life of service to God. No one disputes that this is an adequate, if gravely unclear, statement of purpose, but it does not impart any meaning to one’s life.

Most atheists have made the curious observation that the Christian seems to hang onto eternity as his ticket to meaning. In fact, this belief that “anything not eternal is not really true/meaningful” is merely a different flavour to the old belief that “anything not absolute is not really true/meaningful” (as I suppose one could say that what is absolute is eternal in a sense, there is some connection behind this).

But, once we remove the eternal God as foundation, there is no a priori reason to become an eternity-fetishist. Not only that, but there is no good reason to believe that eternity grants some form of meaning. Why should we think that the life of an adult mayfly (minutes or hours, depending on the species) has less innate meaning than that of a tortoise? Is an ice sculpture less meaningful than a stone sculpture, on the basis that the latter lasts much longer? But that’s obviously nonsense, as both can be made to convey the same meaning.

Is a longer human life always more meaningful than a shorter one? Are people who die young invariably less edifying? Is Anne Frank’s life meaningless gibberish, are Hans and Sophie Scholl’s actions empty of repercussions, and are Mickey Rooney or Kirk Douglas, given their age, people living lives full of meaning? That doesn’t seem to make much sense either.

Perhaps the motive can be better understood by what Christians usually say in these discussions, that the fact that a life’s impact can disappear after a time makes it meaningless, that temporality itself leads them to the conclusion that one is living in vain. If everything must have an end, they say, everything is pointless.

And yet we are obviously not living in vain, otherwise we would simply all kill ourselves. Why would anyone wish to continue to live when they know their lives are entirely in vain? The only reasonable conclusion for this argument is either that every atheist in the world is a total imbecile and fails to realize the meaninglessness of his own life, or that meaning (at least for us finite beings: I’m sure I have no idea what an omniscient god would consider meaningful) has nothing to do with temporality. While I do not dismiss the possibility that all atheists (including myself, obviously) are oblivious morons in this instance, it remains to be demonstrated. The latter conclusion seems more reasonable in the meantime.