EVE 21 — Of Ethics, Peirce, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein
Eve and Adam felt satisfied with their first effort but had trouble seeing an end to their labors. They felt they were embarked on a seismic effort, a project of faith.
Their thought was universal. It was Tao and Jesus. It was Peirce, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. It was semiotic in the sense that they operated from signs not merely words and signs to them were synonymous with reality.
They quickly agreed ethics, the matter of right and wrong, would be their next subject.
They talked and recorded, transcribed and edited. It was a comfortable process.
THE TRANSCRIPT 2
If a universal sense is the beginning of wisdom, surely ethics, what is right and what is wrong, is the logical next step.
It would be if philosophy was concerned with universal truth and accepted the premise that we are one. But we have a world built on obfuscation and failure to accept this truth. The world favors division and cements it with binary, either-or modes of thought.
So, schooling begins in this divided state. And that is why ethics is not considered as what it actually is, according to reality and its articulation within each living conscience.
That’s a mouthful. But it’s true that ethics has no real place in education. But how can you prove that ethics is in every living conscience and that it is the same from one to another?
It is proved by experience, observation, and common consent. It is underlined by the fact that when children are asked if they could make the world over, their answers invariably reflect the values that underlie ethics.
Do values underlie ethics? What about virtues?
Virtues are secondary. Nietzsche rightly wanted a revaluation of values. I think Nietzsche went mad because he knew what the undeniable, universal values were and they conformed with the mind of the one he set himself against.
Another mouthful. What were the values that amounted to revaluation that Nietzsche had trouble with? I can think of one — nonviolence.
Yes. He would have trouble with Jesus’ emphasis on self-giving and reconciliation. He would have difficulty with fairness and placing the needs of the hurt and vulnerable first.
So the values of tolerance, helpfulness and democracy represent revaluation, but not what Nietzsche wanted?
I think the contradiction drove him mad. He had the importance of the overcoming individual down pat. But he could not see that heroism was exactly what Jesus practiced and advocated — actually doing the work of tolerating, helping, educating, enabling and overcoming.
I think men like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X understood at the end of their lives it would take militancy to achieve justice. But they also knew that a universal perspective makes violence impossible as an option. Overcoming would be finding a nonviolent way to the good.
Bingo! Correct. Now all we need to do is introduce ethics to every schoolchild in the world along with the universal perspective we have discussed.
Yes, and we need to argue the truth that philosophy itself must go to bat for this. Not to do so is to remain happy and secure in the illusions Peirce, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein all moved beyond.
