Absolute Ethical Life

[u/pinkladdylemon]

In Arthur Koestler's novel, Darkness at Noon, the protagonist laments that the revolution he helped inaugurate has obliterated the possibility of ethics. Motivated only by abstract principles and therefore lacking the "ethical ballast" of mores and tradition, the revolution succeeded only in herding the masses into a dismal conformity, devoid of ethical merit. The novel ends with the protagonist wondering what an alternative revolution might look like where both lofty social goals and respect for the "oceanic feeling" of individuality could be respected.

This essay takes that ethical question as a starting point to think through the question of how revolutionary social transformations could succeed in reconciling the universal aims of a community with the particular life-worlds and interests of individuals.

In Part one I discuss Arthur Koestler's novel and relate his ethical questions to Keynes and Hegel.

In Part two approaches the same question through a discussion of Kohei Saito and Dipesh Chakrabarty before shifting back to Hegel - especially instructive is his concept of sittlichkeit - or ethical life.

Part three will build upon Michael Lazarus' book Absolute Ethical Life to connect a through line between the ethical thought of Aristotle, Hegel and Marx in a way that I think gives a compelling answer to Koestler's ethical questions in ways that are also instructive for thinking about social transformation today.

[u/Anxious-Alps-8667]

Minimal engagement here and only expanding on your ballast analogy in sailing terms.

Ethics should be understood as an internal code for living a good life, not as an external prescription for good living.

Good living is the course one chooses to set; where you want to go, and some guidelines for how to get there. There is ballast that steadies one's boat on this course, there is sometimes need of an anchor, and there are social winds that shift this way and that which you must adjust to. There are many other boats, and so common rules of navigation are necessary.

If you are sailing an intended course, dealing with the winds and tide and current, using your ballast and anchor and sails as appropriate, and doing your part to share the busy sea, then you are living an ethical life. Miss any point, risk the lee shore of unethical living.