Repository | Book | Chapter

There are theorists who have reasoned that, if there are laws of physics, laws of mathematics, and laws of logic, it is not out of the question to posit laws of morality or ethics. Indeed, natural-law theorists took and still take this position with regards to ethics. The positive-law tradition, of course, overshadowed the natural-law tradition in Europe in the nineteenth century, with its supposed pragmatism and practicality. This pragmatism and practicality, of course, along with other so-called pragmatisms, such as Bismarckian realpolitik, exposed themselves throughout the century and beyond as mere prejudices conducive only to horror and destruction. This is because legal positivism is actually a euphemism for relativism or subjectivism, both of which, when injected into a culture, must inevitably end in such horror and destruction. Positivism and relativism, we must finally admit, are neither pragmatic nor practical, and, although theorizing has been criticized for its impracticality, we must see that it is actually far more practical than any legal positivism or ethical relativism. Maybe, however, the positivists were right about one thing: theorizing, alone, does not achieve results. Let us not, then, drop theorizing altogether, which was the terrible mistake of positivism; let us, rather, combine theory with action. "Why?," we should ask, "are relativism and subjectivism so dangerous?" The answer is simple: their number-one danger is in their promotion of complacency. If nobody's ethical claims are right or wrong, then there can be no legitimate criticism of any particular act. If Stalin thinks it is okay to imprison, torture, and execute supposed Trotskyites, or if someone of a particular group wants to subject someone else to genital or other bodily mutilation against her will, or if a government wants to commit car bombings and other terrorist attacks against civilians, or if Lot wants to submit his daughters to a mob to be raped, or if someone wants to bind a woman's feet, or if someone wants to enslave someone else because she or he is black, or if someone's religious beliefs impel her to despise all LGBTQ people, or if someone wants simply to tell a series of lies to cheat someone else out of the money he or she needs to live, then there is no legitimate criticism we can make of any of these beliefs or actions. We get stuck in the social rut of making excuses for the evils in people's cultural practices, religions, or overall views, which include, but are not limited to, such excuses as "But it is their culture," "It is their religion," or "It is the way he wants to live his life." This, of course, does not give us an excuse, for instance, to use force or violence in order to curtail such evil. In previous chapters, the reader has gotten a glimpse at those rare times when such force is justifiable and even obligatory. In most cases, however, it is discourse or mediation—not force—which is necessary. Especially as Habermas's theory has demonstrated, it would be wrong to engage in violence or coercion in order to enforce our opinions upon others. In opposition to the relativist, we have, indeed, seen that there is objective goodness and even objective bestness and, furthermore, that the summum bonum is eternal. Philosophers often implicitly deride such a view. Once again, as Railton states: "The notions of good or bad have a place in the scheme of things only in virtue of facts about what matters or could matter to beings for whom it is possible that something matter. A being for whom something can matter is a being with a point of view, a subjectivity. In a universe without subjectivity, there is no value either." This view, however, oversimplifies the issue. What do I mean when I say that the summum bonum is eternal? As mathematical laws and logical laws hold eternally, whether there are agents in the universe or not, the laws of morality or ethics hold eternally. Just as the relationship ((P → Q) → (¬ P ∨ Q)) holds whether or not there are agents, so does the relationship "Rationality is the most tendentially necessary for the teleologically comparative tendential necessity of functions' or "Rationality is the best for betterness' hold, whether or not there are agents. Few would make the bold claim, for instance, that, if all sapient beings in the universe went extinct, the earth would suddenly lose its circumference or that the trigonometric properties of radio or infrared waves would disappear. We do not, then, invent this value relationship; instead, we come to realize it. To compare something as better or worse than something else is to make a claim, not concerning some arbitrary telos, but concerning the essence and telos of betterness. Thus, if such relationships as ((P → Q) → (¬ P ∨ Q)) are the case, have always been the case, and always will be the case, then not only is rationality the summum bonum, but it always has been the summum bonum, and it always will be. Without this truth, it would be incoherent to state that, if there were no rational beings in the universe, the universe would be an abysmal and tragic place. This, indeed, is true.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-02285-7_7

Full citation: