This is an article written for submission. Although this was the first time I ever submitted anything truly of my own free will and initiative (see https://yilinhut.net/2008/09/21/2750.html), it was still awkwardly written. And because no word limit had been agreed on, it is obviously too long; if it were published in some other medium, it would certainly be excerpted, and that would depend on the editor’s deft touch. Whether it is published or not, I am posting the original text on the blog; please do not repost it before the final version appears.
Why Do I Need Ethics? — An Unusual Introductory Reader on Ethics
Gu Chi
With the bestseller success of Meditations, popular books on ethics on the market seem to have become somewhat more numerous. This is not surprising. Apart from the Premier’s contribution, ethics as a topic ought in itself to be among the subjects most likely to arouse the interest of ordinary readers—of course, relative to the other specialized fields of philosophy. For example, epistemology, logic, philosophy of mind, political philosophy, and so on all seem overly specialized; the questions they address and the ways they are discussed are rather far removed from everyday life, so it is naturally difficult for an ordinary reader who has never been steeped in an academic atmosphere to take an interest in those topics. But ethics is different. What it is concerned with is precisely each person’s life and its meaning—questions that every person, whether academically trained or not, may be able, indeed may have no choice but, to ponder, especially when life encounters difficulties or is troubled by questions of life and death. In such moments, ethics is exactly what people need, even though most people will not go on to study it in any depth.
The ethics primers for ordinary readers commonly found on the market are roughly of the following three kinds:
The first kind consists of the earnest teachings, aphorisms, and pithy sayings of revered sages or “spiritual mentors,” which may leave one feeling as though one has drunk deeply of wisdom, gazed up at lofty peaks, and experienced the sublimation of the soul, and so on. Meditations basically belongs to this category.
The second kind is a properly academic introductory textbook, most often a lucid and accessible survey and exposition of the various schools of ethical thought throughout history. Some of these are suitable both for teaching in undergraduate introductory ethics courses and for reading by the general public. For example, He Huaihong’s What Is Ethics, the Taiwanese scholar Lin Huo-wang’s Introduction to Ethics, and the recently published Introduction to Ethics by Steven M. Cahn, among others, are all good works.
The third kind sidesteps or downplays the theoretical survey of ethics and instead focuses more on applied ethics books that address real-world ethical disputes, such as discussions of environmental ethics, medical ethics, bioethics, and related topics; there are already quite a few excellent readers of this sort on the market.
But the book I am about to recommend, The Invitation to Ethics, is something of an oddity; it does not belong to any of the above three kinds.
What makes this book unique, first of all, is its style. If The Invitation to Philosophy (another splendid work by the same author, also introduced by Peking University Press) is written in an “easy-going tone” (in the words of Zhao Dunhua), then this book can almost be said to be downright “slick” and “glib” — just look at the table of contents. “Chapter 1, The Origin of Ethics; Chapter 2, Command, Habit, and Caprice…” looks fairly decent, but then below that: “Chapter 5, Wake Up, Darling!; Chapter 6, Cricket Pepe Appears” — what on earth is that supposed to mean! Still, beneath this “old rogue” manner, the author has in fact written the whole book in the voice of a father talking to a fifteen-year-old child, and amid the humor there also flashes a certain fatherly severity.
But in any case, this father’s tone has nothing at all in common with any image of a “spiritual mentor” or the like. On the first page of the book, the author playfully quotes a line from the American poet Edgar Allan Poe’s “Silence”: “‘Listen, child,’ said the Demon, laying his hand upon my head.” — rather than taking this father’s speech as sacred words that cleanse the soul, it would be better to regard it as the monologue of a devil!
Then, before the preface, the author explicitly offers a “caution” — “This book is not a manual of ethics written for middle-school students; it has nothing to do with famous authors, and it has no intention of listing the major historical developments in moral theory. I do not want to indoctrinate my readers.” At the same time, “This is not a diagnostic compendium for moral problems either; it cannot answer one by one the various doubts we encounter in daily life and in our reading and observation, such as whether one should use contraception, whether one should have an abortion, or whether compulsory military service should be implemented. Ethics can provoke thought, but its function is not to settle disputes.”
It is clear that the author is, from the outset, drawing a line between this book and the three kinds of books mentioned above. However, if this book cannot cleanse the reader’s soul, nor provide the reader with relevant ethical theory, nor help resolve the doubts and disputes encountered in real life, then what meaning does it have at all? The author gives his answer: “Perhaps to teachers this book will seem to have little use, but throughout the writing process I have always held to one aim: to encourage and cultivate ‘free thinkers’ rather than manufacture ‘good thinkers’; and certainly not ‘bad thinkers.’”
The title The Invitation to Ethics is apt. The purpose of this book is not to explain in detail the history and progress of ethics, still less to teach you how to apply it in practice. The former is the task of more advanced academic writing, while the latter does not belong to ethics at all. What the author offers is only an “invitation” — an invitation for the reader to step personally into ethical reflection. Of course, all this stems from the author’s distinctive understanding of what ethics is. One might say that what this book discusses is precisely what many contemporary ethicists have ignored and forgotten — “freedom.”
What is the purpose of ethics? — Why do I need ethics? This question has been forgotten by many contemporary ethicists, or else avoided by them. For example, in a typical Western textbook on ethics recently introduced by World Book Publishing Company (Ethics and the Life, 9th Edition), it is plainly stated that we can only talk about “why people should have morality,” and not about “why I should have morality.” As for why humankind needs morality, it is because ethics and morality can calm disputes, stabilize society, and enable people to live better and happier lives. But what exactly constitutes the good life, what happiness is, and similar questions are not mentioned there at all. In the eyes of those contemporary scholars, ethics no longer needs to pursue goodness, happiness, or meaning; ethics is merely a tool for settling disputes. And it seems that once disputes are settled and everyone is at peace, then all problems are solved, and there is no need to ask again what the good life is.
Yet ironically, at the very top of the cover of that book, which is full of showy gimmickry and empty of substance, are printed these two questions: “Why should I have morality? What is the good life?” This is enough to show two things: first, that the editors of that book will do absolutely anything to boost sales; second, that even if those supposedly respectable ethics experts reject these questions, what still attracts ordinary readers most are precisely these questions.
No matter how much “ethics” can contribute to the stability and unity of society, if it is merely a practical technique, then it remains irrelevant to ordinary people. Just as we can hand architecture over to architects, electronics to electrical engineers, and programming to programmers, any specialized technique, however important to human life, can simply be left to the experts to handle — what does it have to do with me? Then must ethics also simply be left to ethical experts? As long as we hand all kinds of disputes over to ethics experts for judgment, are we satisfied? In books like Ethics and the Life, what we see is precisely this attitude: the author stands on the standpoint of the ethics expert and delivers judgments on all sorts of ethical disputes — Tom was wrong in such and such a way, John was justified in such and such a way, Mary must bear such and such responsibility…
By contrast, this makes The Invitation to Ethics all the more distinctive. Although those two questions mentioned above would be entirely fitting if placed on the cover of The Invitation to Ethics, what is printed at the top of the cover of this book is even better, sharper, and more pointed, as if delivering a direct blow to those self-satisfied ethical “experts” — “The sole purpose of ethics is to strive to improve oneself, not to go on and on denouncing others.”
I need housing, but architecture can be left to architects; I need electrical appliances, but electronics can be left to engineers; I need to use computer programs, but programming can be left to programmers… Yet there is one kind of need that absolutely cannot be delegated to others, and that is “improving oneself”! I want to live better, I want to understand myself, understand my life, understand what is good, I need to realize myself… Others may do anything in my place, but only “myself” is non-transferable — my own life can only be written by myself, my own thoughts can only be constructed by myself; apart from “freedom,” there is no shortcut. And ethics is precisely the questioning of the meaning of life; everyone must personally seek the answer for himself, just as the author says: “No one can free you from being free.” (p. 61)
“Freedom is precisely the field that ‘ethics’ primarily studies.” (p. 31) Where there is no “freedom,” there is no object for ethics. We can study the “behavior” of a shell, for example by precisely calculating where it will land; if it does not land where it “should” land, we may also say: something is “wrong,” something is unreasonable… But none of these discussions is ethics. Perhaps someone made a miscalculation, but that shell will by no means bear any responsibility as a result. For a shell, there are no questions of should or should not, right or wrong, justified or unjustified, because it has no freedom to choose. Only when, for example, I fired this shell, and I could originally have chosen not to fire it, does the discussion of right and wrong, good and evil, come into being. The object of ethics is precisely “freedom.”
In reality, many people would rather, if anything, “flee from freedom” than yearn for it, thereby avoiding their own responsibility. The author sharply points out: “In real life, there are many forces that restrict our freedom… In conversation one can discover that most people are more aware of restriction than of freedom itself. They will often say: ‘Freedom? You’re talking to me about freedom? Television spends all day trying to control our brains, rulers practice deception and manipulation, terrorists continuously pose threats, drugs lure people into becoming their captives, and I don’t even have the money to buy a motorcycle — where is there any freedom!’ If you pay a little attention, you will find that people who speak like this seem to be complaining, but in fact they are merely satisfied to know that they are not free. What they are thinking is: ‘Ah, we’ve lightened the burden a little, because if we are not free, then these things are not our own fault.’ But I dare say, no one — no one at all — truly believes that he is not free, truly believes that he will operate mechanically like a clock or unresistingly like a termite.” (p. 8) If someone still insists on denying “freedom,” the author says, “I suggest you test him by using a method once used by a Roman philosopher. Long ago, a Roman philosopher argued with one of her friends. The latter claimed that human beings are not free and can only do what they ought to do, so the philosopher picked up a staff. She struck the other person with all her might. ‘Stop, enough, don’t hit me anymore!’ her friend shouted at her. But she did not stop her hand; instead, she continued to ask: ‘Didn’t you say that I am not free, that what I do cannot be avoided? Then don’t waste words telling me to stop — I am automatic.’ Only when her friend admitted that he could freely choose to stop the beating did she finally lay down the stick. This is a good example, but by all means do not use it unless absolutely necessary, and make sure your friend doesn’t know martial arts…” (p. 8)
The quotations above also more or less suggest the book’s witty, teasing, and somewhat “improper” style of writing. An unconventional style does not mean shallow or casual thinking. What is embodied here is a certain understanding of “freedom” since Kant and European existentialism — freedom is not the conclusion of ethics, but its prerequisite.
Modern people, especially Chinese people, when they hear “freedom,” often think of “free and easy,” “laissez-faire,” “willfulness,” and the like. But these are precisely the opposites of “freedom.” Freedom is less a kind of entitlement than, first and foremost, a responsibility that one cannot help but bear. A shell has no freedom; it need not bear any responsibility for its “action.” When we say that human beings are free, we mean that human beings must themselves be responsible for their own actions. Human rationality condemns him to bear freedom — even if I give up choosing and willingly become a slave, I am still making a choice — the choice to give up. The author says: “No one can relieve you of the creative responsibility of choosing freely. Don’t waste words asking again and again whether it is worth taking so many detours for ‘freedom,’ because whether you like it or not, you are free; whether you like it or not, you must like it. Even if you say you do not want to know any such troublesome things, that you would like to be left in peace, you are still preferring something: not wanting to know anything, only wanting to be alone…” (p. 43)
Thus, the mission of ethics is not to create freedom, but to consciously assume freedom. The author cites the single maxim “Act according to your wishes” as the “basic principle of ethics,” precisely in order to place “freedom” before the reader in the most direct and sharp way — you must personally examine your own choices, as well as the desires and reasons that lead you to make them, “excluding all external factors that try to guide you, so that you start from yourself, from the internal judgment of your own will. Do not ask others how your life should be lived — you should ask yourself. If you want to know where your freedom can be used better, then do not from the very beginning attach yourself to others and thereby lose yourself. No matter how kind, how wise, or how respected those people may be; rather, according to the principle of freedom, you should think through the value of freedom.” (p. 42)
Thus, “the self” is the starting point of ethics, the focus of ethics. In this sense, ethics is undoubtedly “selfish.” But this of course does not mean that everyone should think only of themselves, especially only of their immediate, material interests. Here, as a Spanish philosopher, the author’s understanding of the “self” is also clearly influenced by European existentialism. “I” is not something fixed there from the very beginning, but something that is constantly being shaped — “‘Responsibility’ means knowing this: every action of mine is constituting, defining, and creating an ‘I.’ By repeatedly choosing what I want to do, I am gradually transforming and taking shape (becoming ‘I’). The decisions I make leave traces on me first, before they leave traces on the world around me….” (p. 74) That is to say, if ethics is always only about what is best for “me,” then this “me” is not the ideas and desires already present at this moment, but that “me” which is both ever the same and yet always unfinished. And my realization as a “person” cannot be accomplished on a deserted island with no one else; recognition of others is simultaneously the affirmation of myself — “to treat people as human beings, … and strive to put oneself in the place of others. To recognize someone as one’s own kind first means to understand his possibilities from within, means at a certain moment to stand from his perspective and look at the world in which we find ourselves.” (p. 86) In short, ethics that begins from the “self” by no means means being blind to others; on the contrary, it requires me to “treat people as human beings,” and even the most vicious person should be understood, sympathized with, and loved.
This book also discusses topics such as pleasure and politics; I will not introduce them in greater detail here. Going straight to the book will undoubtedly be much more interesting than reading my introductory essay here.
Finally, if needed, it may as well end this recommendation with a passage from the book’s conclusion, which concentrates the style, orientation, and standpoint of the whole work.
“Life is not like medicine, for which contraindications and dosage can be prescribed in detail. The life given to us has no prescription, no dosage, and ethics cannot fully make up for this defect, because it is nothing more than a record of the various efforts people have historically made to reconcile it. … So I give up teaching you with specific problem-solving guides, with arguments about whether abortion should be allowed, whether contraception should be allowed, whether compulsory military service should be implemented, whether this or that should be done; I do not even dare to evaluate the ‘bad’ phenomena of this world in a tone of regret or anger (the sort of thing so many people who call themselves ‘moralists’ habitually do!): consumerism, ah! disunity, um! worship of money! oh! violence, boo! moral crisis, ah! um! oh! boo! On these and other matters, I have my own views. But I am not ‘ethics’ itself, only your father; all ethics can convey to you through me is this: search on your own, think for yourself, be free and at ease, harbor no ill intent, and take responsibility for everything. I have done my best to show you how to walk, but neither I nor anyone else has the right to carry you on our shoulders and move forward in your place. So now, do you still need me to give you one final piece of advice? If you must choose, remember to choose those paths that allow you more possibilities afterward, rather than the one that leads you into a dead end; choose the roads that open toward you: other people, new experiences, all kinds of pleasures, while avoiding those options that may close you off and bury you. Beyond that, I wish you good luck! And remember the cry I once called to you in the dream that disturbed you: have faith!” (pp. 124–125)
[Xī]Fernando Savater: The Invitation to Ethics, translated by Yu Shiyang, Peking University Press, September 2008,20yuan
October 29, 2008
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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