On the ethical perceptions
How a man sees the world determines how he will act in it. Perception is the first step of an action, decision or speech after factual information. The perceiver will see, hear, smell, taste or touch a factual object, or he will make use of logic to solve conclusions from premises.
Along an action’s journey, a perceiver will become an interpreter, an assumer, a concluder and then a believer. When this is done, a man will then act or choose or speak according to his beliefs. And so, a man will ultimately do what he believes is best for him.
However, beliefs can appear to be advantageous without truly being advantageous to the individual. On the one hand, murder is often described as an evil per se. On the other hand, few will complain against the murder of a malicious tyrant.
When we speak of ethics, we speak of human interaction with the world.
Bearing this in mind, there are three ethical schools of perception: ideology, nihilism and natural law. We call ideologists believers in assumed knowledge of absolute truth. We call nihilists believers in the lack of meaning, purpose or value in facts. We call natural lawyers believers in the revelation of nature to instruct purpose in life. Let us examine the three perceptions in turn.
The first ethical perception is ideology. There are two species of ideology: the hedonistic and the legalistic. Hedonistic ideology aims for the maximisation of pleasure. This is the ethics of Jeremy Bentham, act utilitarianism, which aims for the greatest pleasure of the greatest number. It is also the ethics of Dionysus, the ancient Greek god of wine and debauchery. Hedonists wish only to maximise their pleasure, in particular their bodily pleasure, and for this reason are often described as intemperate. For hedonists, the pleasure of indulgence clouds their judgement. It is for this reason that hedonists often receive criticism for their indulgent behaviour. The petty aims of hedonists, their self gratifying needs and base actions are determined by an illogical perception which tarnishes their characters. And so, by assuming hedonism is the absolute truth of life, and the route to happiness, hedonists fail to understand the full meaning of life, and thus hedonism is a weak ethical perception.
In addition to hedonistic ideologies, legalistic ideologies are another way of perceiving facts. Legalism assumes certain moral codes exist separate to, and supreme to, perceptible fact; with these moral codes being absolute truths. Disciples of this ideological school include Plato, Kant, Marx and Mill — and the feminists and post modernists in our times — who value their moral codes before common sense. By relying on their assumptions, like hedonistic ideologists, legalists are guilty of sophistry through fallacy of logic. At best, ideologists are ignorant. At worst, they are fanatics who invent religions that seek to ostracise, to destroy all who disagree with their perception of life; so often succeeding with their aims with ruthless cruelty. Relying on assumption, legalistic ideology is also a weak ethical perception; disadvantageous to the common interest.
On the contrary, nihilism opposes the ideological positions of ethical perception. Nihilists believe nothing factual is meaningful, valuable or with purpose. This is, perhaps, best seen in Buddhist philosophy and the early work of Friedrich Nietzsche. It is the position that so many at their wits’ ends find themselves in; when the strain of life overcomes its value so that this value once loved of objects becomes a painful chore in this confused state of living. The result of nihilism is often melancholy, and for some further still suicide and murder. Nihilism is fuelled by excessive resentment and deficient affection, and so nihilism is, after all, an assumption of life much ignorant of the facts of nature. And so nihilism is, like ideology, a weak ethical perception.
Above ideology, and above nihilism, is the natural law. The natural law begins with fact, and comes to conclusions of assumptions based only on fact. It is a fact that the interior angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles in the same way a man can observe the competencies of another man. Furthermore, a man can learn the purposes of an object, understand the mean between excess and deficiency and imitate other natural objects for his absolute or relative advantage simply by observation. Teleological beliefs that come from the natural law accept and agree to facts in life as they are, rather than how ideologists or nihilists wish them to be. In this way, natural law is the strongest ethical perception because it uses general truths for specific ends, and not assumed truths for general ends.
The natural law, therefore, is the strongest ethical perception. Ideologies grovel in admiration at the feet of logical fallacy, whilst nihilism bluntly assumes there is no meaning or value in fact. And yet it is quite true that certain objects of nature behave in certain ways, and these may be imitated for meaningful ends. A tree that has plenty of water survives, whilst a tree that lives in drought or is over fed will die from deficiency or excess. So too is it in relation to man’s health, and objects conducive to it. By following the natural law, a man will learn to become competent, and use his actions to grow himself and his neighbours. Those who follow ideology and nihilism follow a dangerous lie that leads to the dungeon that neglects the health of the state as much as it does the individual. Reject ideology, reject nihilism and use the natural law to let happiness smile upon you.