From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: RE: global elites...and Goodness
Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2002 06:21:22 -0600


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Hugh wrote:
 
 
**Kant had no knowledge of Darwin.  He may have considered the
categorical imperative to be God-given.  Today, on the Internet, mystics
are latching onto "quantum evolution" in what seems to be a new
theology.
 
Hugh,
 
Let me respond to your postings in the context of this message.
Certainly ethics has ties to religion, but a post-religious,
post-Darwinian ethics is possible as well.  Conscience is not merely a
vestige of a previous time we carry within us like an appendix, but a
open judgment that can be made in any place at any time.  Badiou makes
this point well I think, using the camps as an example of an ongoing
attempt to dehumanize inmates. 
 
"We are dealing with an animal whose resistance, unlike that of a horse,
lies not in his fragile body but in his stubborn determination to remain
what he is - that is to say, something other than a victim, other than a
being-for-death, and thus: something other than a mortal being."
 
What I find intriguing here is the use of quasi-religious language for
what is not a religious context and the use of the concept of ethics
that does not require the belief in some supernatural deity.  
 
Certainly I am familiar with interpretations of "quantum evolution" that
link it with theology; however, what the issue comes down to for me is
this.  The essence of the traditional concept of God seems to be tied up
with teleology, the idea that there is a predetermined, overarching
plan, some final end towards which all creation moves. The earlier
physics of Newton could still inscribe itself safely within this
metaphysics.  The break seems to come with relativity, incompleteness,
complexity, and quantum theory whereby a new universe is ushered in; one
the is fundamentally indeterminate and which thereby makes the concept
of God in the old sense incomprehensible because that is simply not how
the universe now appears to work.  
 
God still remains with us, however, in some sense as the voice of moral
obligation.  As Lyotard points out in the beginning of his chapter on
ethics in "The Differend" the dilemma is that we are never intrinsically
sure whether the voice is that of God or that of madness.
 
That said, I do think some kind of religion remains defensible.  Kant
wrote a book entitled "Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone" and,
for me, something like that remains true.  My understanding of
Christianity, in the 'good' sense, comes down this.  
 
We are not merely animals, but becoming human is an option, not a
necessity.  Ultimately, it is a matter of choice.  As the Gospel of
Saint John puts it: "Unless a man is born again, he will not enter the
Kingdom of Heaven."  This rebirth is our elevation to becoming a human
subject, one that is disinterested in the sense that it acts not merely
because these actions are good from a pragmatic or utilitarian
standpoint, but because they are the right thing to do.  In discovering
our humanity, we become universal subjects who treat one another as
ends, not merely as a means, because that is what our duty requires and
because we have come to respect the innate humanity of our neighbor.  To
love our neighbor as ourselves becomes for us a universal maxim.  
 
Something like this religious message must endure if we are to remain
human and I certainly didn't intend to devalue charity on its own terms.
I recognize that the people giving have good intentions.  My whole
argument is that these good intentions are often co-opted for the needs
of the state and that good intentions are used against them.
 
eric
 
 

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