On Ethics and Love (An Introduction)

Before we may begin on the topic of ethics, it would be beneficial if we may retrospect the nature of ethics as it is understood today.

Ethics as we know today, is greatly split into two opposing views, to which we may differentiate from their ontologically objective and epistemologically subjective interpretations. Most religions throughout this world (and to a certain degree, the layman) conventionally consider ethics as a set of moral choices that ultimately aims for goodness. What would be deemed ethical would then weighted on a ontological basis, where acts that promote the qualia of life are encouraged, and acts that bring about destruction and disdain frowned upon.

On the other hand, philosophers have often viewed ethics in a rather contrasting light. As stated by Wikipedia: Ethics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics and morality is (meta ethics), how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), how moral capacity or moral agency develops (applied ethics), how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what it’s nature is (moral psychology), and what moral values people actually abide by (descriptive ethics)

I am sure that many of us would have a certain grasp on the concepts of ethics and morality way before our address in this topic today. Ethics and morality are important, if not imperative to our lives as we live within a communal world of social interaction. Fundamentally, it is on these grounds we consider the nature of ‘doing good’ and question ourselves the appropriate course of action to be taken given a set situation. We know that it’s not ethical to kill and morally unsound if we were to show disrespect to our elders. We also know that it is good to be considerate and bad to be self-centered.

But what constitutes such responses from us? What justifies our justification that killing is unethical and wrong while preserving a life is ethical? On what grounds do we consider showing respect to the elderly a morally upright action? Beyond the superficial recognition of ‘this is because my teacher says so’ or ‘because my religion does not advocate to this’ many people find themselves at a loss to bring justification to their ethical propositions. Deep within them they intuitively know that killing is wrong, but when logical premises are brought on the table and substantially considered in turn, many a times most people would have a proposition shift from an objective viewpoint to a relativistic viewpoint.

A typical case scenario is as follows:

Take for example our nineteen year old female living in Ang Mo Kio, supposedly she is a healthy and bright student of NUS, we immediately know that it is psychologically unsound, lest morally unethical, to even contemplate killing her. Our laws of society would deem any attempt to take her life away as a murder. In this case, the ethical viewpoint is an objective cognitivist proposition. Now, do allow us to alter the premise slightly with each subsequent statement:

Is it then ethical to kill a healthy female of thirty nine years?
Or a young teenage girl with a terminal illness,
Or the woman of thirty nine with diabetes,
Or the woman of thirty nine with a terminal illness,
Or an old woman of seventy nine with diabetes,
Or the old woman with a terminal illness,
Or the young teenage girl who wishes to die, wishing somebody would alleviate her misery,
Or that old woman doomed to die wishing somebody would alleviate her misery?

Do note that as each subsequent statement is proposed, additional logical premises which advocate the action of killing are brought into the scenario, primarily through the age of the woman, as well her corresponding health status. While some combination of premises still does not justify the termination of her life, there are certain combinations that would ever so slightly shift our previously objective viewpoint to one possibly of “okay, I got to think about it”.

Such a viewpoint, in light of epistemic ethics, is now a Subjectivist cognitivist proposition.

At precisely how and when did we shift our viewpoints? Typical ethical case scenarios usually involve the use of logical analysis, built on top our basic intuitions (yes, we are back on to the moderation doctrine) on what is right. However, we now know that logic itself can be easily warped into two opposing stands, since it draws feedback from the cognitive processes, which in turn draw feedback from emotions. This leads rise to relativity, and thus the subjective nature of ethics.

Now, what is the true nature of ethics? Should it be an objective intuition (as advocated by humanists), or should ethics be another subjective argument? Conventional philosophy has substantiated both propositions extensively with various justifications- drawing reason mainly from empiricism, rationalism and intuitionism to justify the objective truth of ethics; against reason from skepticism, prudentialism, preferentialism, and ultimately, amoralism (i.e. ethics does not exist). These concepts are highly abstract and elaborate in nature, and it would be highly taxing for us to dive head-on into this domain of idealistic concepts to seek understanding of the nature of ethics.

On the other hand, from our previous faculty on identity we recall the concepts of the individual, the community, and love. From the premise of love being a form of ontological union between individuals, as well as an action-mechanism to define both personal and social identity, we get to see an objective better in terms of truthful identity identification- should that form of union exist within our world as compared to a world devoid of it. If ethics is fundamentally about the set of common goods for both the individual & the community that we value and abide by, and love is the primary force that defines both the individual and the community, how are these two related?

Interestingly enough, the concept of ethics is interlinked very strongly with the concept of ‘righteousness’ and ‘goodness’. With regard to ethics, what has been deemed rights by society naturally becomes ‘good’; and if we were to carry on with this train of thought, ethics itself becomes a cognitive justification of what is right and good. While what may be deemed right and good may come during the ‘means’ , or the ‘end’ of a moral act, it is very important to note that the human perception of righteousness, be it as an objective entity, or a relativistic viewpoint, is very intimately related to our earlier concepts of ‘love’ and ‘individuality’. In fact, be it the ‘means’ or ‘the ends’- what humanity has deemed a righteous act is actually an act that promotes love, and the individuality.

And how is this so?

It is no coincidence that the concept of love as a certain form of ontological union had persisted throughout the history of mankind. While the exact definition itself is diverse (and sometimes radically erroneous), the prevailing intuition of congeniality, of empowerment for the self, and the re-affirmation to the like-minded, have been indulged over cultures. It is from this respect, love and its derivative concepts have often been venerated as a (living) value on top of the basic drives to exist and reproduce, and to seek pleasure for oneself. And it is from this in turn love has always been seen as an act that brings about qualitative meaning to life- after all, the layman intuitively knows that a lifestyle of pleasure and gratification hardly holds any meaning (or purpose).

It is actually on this premise of love as a value that had brought up the entire faculty of ethics, and subsequently the philosophy of ethics. As stated in “On Love and Work”, it is impossible to bestow meaning and conviction based on pure reason. Similarly, we cannot mean ethics by just simply considering it in the comfort of our homes as a philosophical inquiry. For a fact that epistemic ethics have only led many into a wild-goose chase of never-ending subjectivity and relativism; and for a fact that ethics for the sake of ethics is a actually a logical-paradox, since the nature of ethics is supposed to bring about a form of purpose on top of living. Ethical questions (similar to the above postulation of our nineteen year old-girlfriend) would be never ending, with all attempts to address ethics would be no more than another attempt to debunk the opposition in a debate session. The question of the purpose of the purpose of life would thus be no more than an intelligent-folly of man.

As usual, to the philosophy of ethics must be added the basis of convicting love, can we then bring out the essence of the true ethical way of living, and subsequently the meaning of life. Now that we may finally understand the nature of ethics itself, to what are we leading to?

Indeed, the question on what exactly is ethical (and what’s not) can never be fully be answered. We may never be able to specifically point our fingers unto a given situation and objectively set an empirical justification to it. But as we attempt to break down ethical situations with a little more philosophy, or while we attempt to live what we deem as the morally righteous life, the basis of love for the self and the neighbor would be imperative in our quest for that elusive ‘good’ we have experienced, and yet never understood.