Man death ethics

Further, it is necessary to clarify the following statement of Aristotle: «But a certain difference is found among ends; some are activities, others are products apart from the activities that produce them. Where there are ends apart from the actions, it is the nature of the products to be better than the activities.»

It is not clear why Aristotle defined goals in two ways: as activities and as results. In theory, only activity leads to result. Can there be an activity in itself as a goal that does not need the result generated by it? Probably, but then, if the result of such an activity-goal is still generated, can it be undesirable in the sense that such an activity-goal should always be unfinished or never ending? And wouldn’t it be easier in this case to call activity-goal simply goal, and efforts that do not allow it to result – activity? At least then we won’t have to mix the concepts together. When Aristotle mentions goals that exist separately from activity, what goal can we achieve without doing anything for it? Do we need a goal that does not need to be achieved in any way? Neither by physical actions, nor by thoughts – meaning, even desire. After all, in this case, we would rather call it not a goal, but a given.

In future work, Aristotle still makes an attempt to deal with goals and activities more constructively, but since the starting point is chosen incorrectly – the desire for good as a non-existent goal – then he does not logically come to understanding the problem, repeatedly returning to happiness, then to being as an activity.

«…For even if the end is the same for a single man and for a state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete whether to attain or to preserve; though it is worth while to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for city-states…»

So, trying to naturalize the good, Aristotle brings us to the concept of the good of the state, which can be interpreted as the good of society for the good of man, as the goal of any activity. But, as we found out earlier, if the good in itself does not mean anything, but is only a parameter or a guideline in the process of achieving some goal, then Aristotle, making a cross-linking of the good and the goal, gives a false goal in his presentation of ethics. Actually, he even understands this himself, «…And goods also give rise to a similar fluctuation because they bring harm to many people…»

After a few sentences, we see another glimpse of the thinker’s consciousness, «…because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action.» – that is, in this place, Aristotle sees an understanding that good and harm are only guidelines for activity to achieve something, pointers for activity, but not the goal itself. However, later on, Aristotle tries again to define good as something in itself, equating it with happiness, but immediately making sure that happiness is very relative, internally and externally contradictory, therefore in this context it cannot be a goal.

Here is a good point in the reasoning: «…but the term «good’ is used both in the category of substance and in that of quality and in that of relation, and that which is per se, i.e., substance, is prior in nature to the relative (for the latter is like an off shoot and accident of being); so that there could not be a common Idea set over all these goods.» Here it concerns the relationship and this is exactly what is needed. The parametric dichotomy of positive and negative expresses an attitude towards a certain goal as an entity. It remains only to find the most important thing, the being to which the attitude is expressed.

Here Aristotle, after wandering a few paragraphs in arguments that do not have a point of reference, still gives out a sober thought again, «Are goods one, then, by being derived from one good or by all contributing to one good…?» – yes, that’s exactly the point, I want to answer him, it’s just a pity that the source is located in a completely different direction from where Aristotle is looking for.

As a result, Aristotle relieves himself of the concern of searching for a single source, saying, «But perhaps these subjects had better be dismissed for the present… And similarly with regard to the Idea; even if there is some one good which is universally predicable of goods or is capable of separate and independent existence, clearly it could not be achieved or attained by man; but we are now seeking something attainable.»

Now let us turn to the part of Ethics in which Aristotle still touches the subject we are looking for, which on one hand does not allow him to achieve harmony in his ethical constructions, and on the other, this subject itself could serve as a solid core for any ethical search, if it were taken as a starting point. He says, «Now death is the most terrible of all things; for it is the end, and nothing is thought to be any longer either good or bad for the dead.» – indeed, but death is exactly what only man has understood so far, …but we are seeking what is peculiar to man. And it is death, according to Aristotle, that nullifies good and evil. If we are talking about good and evil as a relation to death, is not all the source of specificity of man here? Yes, that’s right, – the whole phenomenology of human is generated through his attitude to death.

How a human considers life and death, and how nature consider it, are fundamentally different. Nature has no categories of relations at all and there is no good and evil in nature. But a human has these categories, they give him a unique specificity. Therefore, if we understand the reason for the existence of these categories for human, it means to be able to define the phenomenon of human itself.

Then, Aristotle plunges into cyclical discussions of the golden mean, repeating the same thing over and over again, «… implying that excess and defect destroy the goodness of works of art, while the mean preserves it…» If you think about what is said here, it is possible that the main thing is not that it is excess or lack, but rather disastrous or beneficial. When Aristotle judges good or evil, the thought boils down to whether the subject (person, society, or state) perishes or continues to live. This question constantly appears in any reasoning, as if this is all that is being discussed, meaning the same thing in different formulations. To show this, Aristotle says, «…as we see in the case of strength and of health… both excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength, and similarly drink or food which is above or below a certain amount destroys the health, while that which is propo tionate both produces and increases and preserves it…; … temperance and courage, then, are destroyed by excess and defect, and preserved by the mean…; …and if one did the action they were to be saved, but otherwise would be put to death…» And so, time after time, almost about the same thing: to be or not to be, that’s the question. So, isn’t that really the question? Yes, it is.

Now, let’s repeat, «Now death is the most terrible of all things; for it is the end, and nothing is thought to be any longer either good or bad for the dead». It is attitude towards death. That is the source of good and evil. It turns out that Aristotle, discussing anything and from any angle, repeatedly comes to the problem of death and destruction. It is death in Aristotle’s reasoning that generates unexpected, sometimes paradoxical, transformations of happiness and good into misfortune and evil so that Aristotle cannot grasp the situation of absolute good anywhere. Only death is absolute and unambiguously existential for Aristotle. And it is death that has the very ability to reset the good and evil that we mentioned previously in the object-search game. So, what kind of item should we find? What could be the result of the ethical exercises of human?

My answer is: overcoming death. Let’s consider this overcoming from different sides, what overcoming death can be in the life for a human: tactically and strategically.

It is interesting to see in Aristotle about the specifics of natural reactions, «…nature seems above all to avoid the painful and to aim at the pleasant…» – so it is said about the biological dichotomy, which directs the actions of animals in the form of instincts and behavioral programs. In the absence of reason, pain and pleasure are what guides the actions of animals. Therefore, it is correct to say, and Aristotle said it – nature does not overcome the problem, but rather avoids the problem. Pain is negative, and pleasure is positive. But neither pain nor pleasure pose a task. Therefore, of course, pain and pleasure are in no way a method of solving problems. So, Aristotle found only a natural analogue of morality, and this is absolutely accurate. If human has a moral dichotomy of good and evil, then nature has a biological dichotomy of pleasure and pain. The specificity and effectiveness of human is that the dichotomy of morality, unlike the dichotomy of natural selection, sees the result of all obstacles and all problems for life – it is death. Nature does not see obstacles but rather uses them to select only those options that avoid the obstacle without touching it. It is possible to draw a parallel with the effect of systematic survivor error, when only correct answers are saved. It turns out that the experience of contact with the frame of death does not physically exist in nature because this experience is dying. For this reason, living nature does not and cannot have any abstract or physical knowledge about death, therefore, there is no relation to it.

We can easily find examples of the difference in approaches to the problem in humans and animals. A man can endure the real pain of treating the disease only because he knows about the death that the disease will bring. The ethical method of relation towards death allows a person to neglect the negativity of pain, preferring the category of good because it leads to overcoming death, and not because it is physically pleasant or lead to happiness and pleasure. Similar to how a human can directly refuse any number of pleasures, labeling their consequences as evil by an ethical method if they lead to death, for instance: drugs, extremes, and imbalances (lack of a golden mean according to Aristotle). The animal will not tolerate pain, since this is one of the levers of instinct, and will avoid treatment at all means if he has such an opportunity. And all this is only because the animal does not know about the disease, or even about death in general. Just as an animal will enjoy as much as possible – even if it is just an electrode sewn into a specific area of the brain, and not a real pleasure.1 Such examples can be cited as a tactical solution to the problem of death.

«Professional soldiers turn cowards, however, when the danger puts too great a strain on them and they are inferior in numbers and equipment; for they are the first to fly, while citizen-forces die at their posts, as in fact happened at the temple of Hermes. For to the latter flight is disgraceful and death is preferable to safety on those terms; while the former from the very beginning faced the danger on the assumption that they were stronger, and when they know the facts they fly, fearing death more than disgrace…» – here we discuss the moment when individuals give their lives for the sake of the life of their society. In this case, it is clear whythe mercenaries are fleeing: they are not connected with the protected society, and for them their own death is more terrible than the death of some foreign society or state. Contrary to the civil militia that is connected with the protected society. They have their material and spiritual values, their children, parents and relatives, that is, everything that is part of themselves, and will exist much longer than them in the historical perspective. Thus, the phenomenon of History and Culture can be cited as an attempt to overcome death strategically.

One of the types of culture is Ritual and Religion, which gives us another example of a strategic, but imaginary, overcoming of the problem of death in the form of postulating life after death..

«But we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more does it in power and worth surpass everything.» – this thought of Aristotle fits perfectly into the context of our hypothesis. If Aristotle speaks of overcoming death as a problem purely hypothetically, then with the development of science this goal can be quite specific and unambiguous for any activity that together make up the same general idea, «Are goods one, then, by being derived from one good or by all contributing to one good…» Yes, that’s the whole point. The only source is the understanding of death, and not only good, but also evil, and they both serve the idea of overcoming the problem.

It is necessary to clarify that it is the understanding of the problem that leads to the solution of the problem. If this is the case, then all the benefits and all the harms listed in the treatise Ethics, are reduced to solving the most common problem – death. This is partly revealed to us in reality. Today, in developed countries, the average life expectancy is at least twice the biological and anthropological norms, and that is a lot.

Conclusion: everything that a human does in all its diversity (individually, in society, and in humanity) to overcome death is good, blessing, and virtue. Everything that leads an individual, society, and humanity to death or decay is evil, harm, and vice.

At first glance, this essence of ethics seems too simple. It’s too obvious to be anything more than what we already see around us. But in fact, the opposite is true: yes, the principle is simple, but the tangle of interconnections, and the whole abyss of problems of the physical world around us, the social world is not at all obvious until now, and the manifestations of good and evil must be constantly identified by an ethical method.

In the process of cognition in nature and society, the more interrelations we identify, the more difficult it is for us to establish unambiguously which action and in what ratio with other actions will lead Humanity to the prosperity of life, and which ultimately, as a result of multiple interactions, will destroy it. And, nevertheless, the advantages of such a principle are also obvious. We have the most constructive system for assessing and predicting the path that humanity is following. Let the decisions made be hypothetical, but the criterion with which the result can be compared is clear. This is how morality works as an experience of evaluating the results of previous decisions.

It is necessary to make one more important point: the locality of development as opposed to global development. Historically, societies have developed locally, which gave rise to the well-known phenomenon of different good and evil. Friedrich Engels noted, «Ideas about good and evil changed so much from people to people, from century to century, that they often directly contradicted one another.» It was the locality of development that generated contradictions between societies and different interpretations of morality, since divided societies are situationally perceived as threats, therefore, problems for each other.

If the idea of overcoming death being implemented on a global level, when one part of humanity does not threaten to destroy another part of it precisely because both these parts equally need all possible development options, then the idea of overcoming death may well become a global Idea of Human Development.

Wittgenstein’s Guess

…if a man could write a book on Ethics which really was a book on Ethics, this book would, with an explosion, destroy all the other books in the world.

– Ludwig Wittgenstein, A Lecture on Ethics (1929)

«Now instead of saying Ethics is the enquiry into what is good I could have said Ethics is the enquiry into what is valuable, or, into what is really important, or I could have said Ethics is the enquiry into the meaning of life, or into what makes life worth living, or into the right way of living. I believe if you look at all these phrases you will get a rough idea as to what it is that Ethics is concerned with.»

At the beginning of a Lecture on Ethics in 1929, Ludwig Wittgenstein came quite close to understanding ethics, putting aside the generally accepted essential approach, and proposing ethics as research. A little more, and he would have come to our line of reasoning: ethics as a method of development based on an attitude to the problem (…what is really important…). Unfortunately, he does not go further in his insight, but still, the reasoning contains interesting points that can be discussed.

«…Ethics, if it is anything, is supernatural… The right road is the road which leads to an arbitrarily predetermined end and it is quite clear to us all that there is no sense in talking about the right road apart from such a predetermined goal.»

If we are talking about the understanding of death as the essence of human, then the purpose of the development of the essence will be overcoming death. And this is undoubtedly a supernatural task. It is as supernatural as any other task: human flight in the air, going into space, wandering underwater, landing on another planet, the ability to see atoms, or to keep the solar-temperature plasma on Earth.

«… the absolutely right road… I think it would be the road which everybody on seeing it would, with logical necessity, have to go, or be ashamed for not going.»

It is convenient to illustrate this point with a religious dogma. At a certain stage of human development, the belief in overcoming death by means of an immortal soul was a universal belief, and life after death was perceived as a reality. During this period, religion becomes precisely a universal road, an absolutely correct road, and there is quite real remorse for everyone who believes in a religious solution when losing this road. It is in religious dogma that we already have had an example of the absolutely right road. It was precisely a solution to the problem of death, which was overcoming death and nothing else. This required the creation of a metaphysical and fictional world, as Wittgenstein goes on to say.

«And similarly the absolute good, if it is a describable state of affairs, would be one which everybody, independent of his tastes and inclinations, would necessarily bring about or feel guilty for not bringing about.»

That’s exactly how it was: robbers and righteous, peasants and kings, or women and men wanted to save the soul for eternal life. The society found the strength and resources to support a special phenomenon – the monasticismthat dealt exclusively with the issue of salvation, and nothing else. Everyone, regardless of their tastes and preferences tried to make an overcoming of death, but called it a salvation of the soul.

«…is a chimera… No state of affairs has, in itself, what I would like to call the coercive power of an absolute judge.»

And does life, unlimited by death, possess in itself what could be called the coercive power of an absolute judge? Again, analogies with religion suggest that you can only get eternal life by going through an absolute court.

«…the experience of absolute safety… To be safe essentially means that it is physically impossible that certain things should happen to me and therefore it is nonsense to say that I am safe whatever happens.»

The desire for safety is the imprint of knowledge about death. And, indeed, the inability to consider the entire physical world and absolutely protect yourself in it is quite reasonable. But, this does not mean that there are no high-quality transitions. This shows the supernatural, and at the same time, the reality of ethics. For example, the existence of the laws of quantum physics do not contradict the existence of the laws of classical mechanics. In the world of Planck quantities, there are possibilities for what is impossible in the physical world. Still, though, the universe accommodates both of these worlds at the same time.

«…when they said that God had created the world; and the experience of absolute safety has been described by saying that we feel safe in the hands of God.»

Most likely, the described experience of absolute security is actually the experience of absolute ignorance about danger. Rather than the experience of ignorance about death, which is still experienced by all animals or people whose language lacks a system of tenses. They are extremely rare, but there are examples such as the Piraha tribe,2 who are considered the standard of happiness.3 It cannot be said that this is a blessing, though, mainly because ignorance about the problem does not free you from the problem. But we can say that this is primordial animal happiness. So, we can make sure that happiness and morality are not interrelated. It is likely that happiness can only be just outside of death. And it does not matter in what form, whether it is beyond the knowledge of death or in the impossibility of death. So, man was banished from the paradise of ignorance, while animals remain in paradise. Even though we continue to exist together, physically, in the same world.

«…what we mean by saying that an experience has absolute value is just a fact like other facts and that all it comes to is that we have not yet succeeded in finding the correct logical analysis of what we mean by our ethical and religious expressions. … That is to say: I see now that these nonsensical expressions were not nonsensical because I had not yet found the correct expressions, but that their nonsensicality was their very essence. For all I wanted to do with them was just to go beyond the world and that is to say beyond significant language.»

As we saw earlier, ethics loses its meaning after achieving its goal. While we are moving towards the goal, good and evil exists. Once we have reached the goal, ethics itself no longer exists. Let’s assume that we have reached the state of overcoming death. And if death is overcome, then ethics no longer has a substratum. There is no need for a relationship to death insofar as there is no death itself. Thus, one can only agree with Wittgenstein that the achievement of the goal by a man, defined as a being who understood death, will mean for him to go beyond the world where he now exists. A man who becomes a New Man or a Superman enters a New World, beyond everything that defined him in his own world. Everything will fall into place, and here Wittgenstein is right.

«Ethics… does not add to our knowledge in any sense. But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it.»

Exactly. Ethics is not a knowledge in itself, but only a method of obtaining knowledge. As a shovel is not the hole, but the possibility of digging a hole, and a brick is not a house, but the possibility of building a house.

Ethics is a unique and effective method of development available only to humans. And it is for this reason that it is the driving force for a tendency in the human mind to develop.

a source of development

Would now the wind but had a body; but all the things that most exasperate and outrage mortal man, all these things are bodiless, but only bodiless as objects, not as agents.

– Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

There are no problems for inanimate nature. There is only the transformation of matter and energy. Whether it’s the planet’s loss of atmosphere, star burnout, supernova explosion, black holes, or galaxy collisions, they are not problems for the universe.

The problem can only exist for life – living things. And this problem of the cessation of life, that is death.

Let’s define the connection of the concepts used below: death, problem, obstacle, limit, and frame. The concept of the problem is reduced to the concept of an obstacle. The obstacle to life can only be something that does not allow you to continue the life. Everything that is not a problem, that is, does not lead to the termination of life, is also not an obstacle. Anything that does not stop life could be resources, opportunities, the environment – anything, but not obstacles. Obstacles can be complex: a chain of interrelated events, complexes of conditions and their correlations, environmental parameters, or natural phenomena. In general, we will call the complex of obstacles as a limit frame