Book Naught
Transcendental Ethics

0. No action without, on the one hand, a transcendental object, i.e. a coordinated movement & its consequence (or the prevention of such movement & its consequence), and, on the other hand, a transcendental subject, i.e. a possessor of conscious intent, who is the source of behaviour, accommodating desire, free will and reason.
00. The minimum necessity for a possible ethics ? Coordinated movement and free will.
000. If free will is the initiator, then coordinated movement is the sedimentation of intent in terms of action, deed or behaviour.

1. No transcendental object without goals (to be realized through coordinated actions, deeds or behaviours, i.e. culturalizing states of matter) and/or values (exercising an attraction, prompting action from both passions and cognition).

1.1 Eliminate the transcendental object, and ethics is no longer about certain coordinated movements and their impact on the actor and his/her environment.
1.2 The transcendental object of ethics guarantees movement, and allows the coordination of movement to actually happen.
1.3 The object is necessary, for without it, there is nothing to justify, nothing ethical ever happens, and values & goals are non-existent.

2. No transcendental subject without free will (slipping through the uncertainty-margins of nature) and its power of choice.

2.1 Eliminate the transcendental subject, and ethics is no longer about actual coordinations based on conscious meaning. Without coordinated changes in position and/or momentum, ethics is (a) that part of physics which describes certain classes of movements deemed important to organize social formations in terms of goals, values and norms and (b) inherently devoid of its principal actor, namely : the human.
2.2 The transcendental subject of ethics is another formulation of the irreducibility of the First Person Perspective (FPP), the sole guarantee of coordination, or the meaningful, conscious manipulation of objects and signs (signals, icons & symbols), thus allowing for a definition of action, deeds and behaviours.
2.3 The subject is necessary, for without it, there is nobody to do justice to and ethical intent is non-existent.

3. No justification of action without, on the one hand, objective goals and/or values and, on the other hand, the subjective power of indeterminism, i.e. the exclusive privilege of the First Person Perspective (FPP).

3.1 Ethics functions in accord with the transcendental principles of thought as defined by transcendental logic (cf. Clearings, 2006). To answer the question : "What must I do ?", develop, by means of duality, the dual structure of thought into a fourfold of norms exhausting the possibilities of theoretical ethics.
3.2 The object of ethics is a sedimentation of action, deeds & behaviours, while its subject is the intent driving the coordinations of movement implied by values and goals.
3.3 Free will & coordinations are put together to avoid impairing ethics by confusing its principles and hence clouding its decrees.

   Book 1
Theoretical Ethics

01. Ethics as a normative system.

4.  The moral norms uncovered by critical ethics answer : (a) how good actions and their propagation are possible and (b) how ethical judgments must be performed. They take form as a necessary division, a quaternio or fourfold of critical ethical factors, developing the dual structure of the logic of ethics : "I" versus "not-I". In-between subject and object, actions are at hand.

4.1 The subject of ethics is either confirmed ("this is I") or denied ("this is not I"), yielding the difference between subject (affirm) and object (deny). To define, from without, this inner distinction further, it is made to balance (a) subjectively and (b) objectively.
4.2 Identify the subject of ethics with conscious intent and its object (the other beings) with duty. Then the first (subjective) harmonization involves conscience and its second (objective) harmonization is calling. Intent, duty, conscience and calling form a quaternio of necessary ethical factors.
4.2.1 The first harmonization involves a stable but transient trinity of factors : intent, duty & conscience. It represents the Order of Fairness.
4.2.2 The second harmonization, stable and enduring, integrates intent, duty & calling. This is rightness.
4.2.3 Goodness is fairness with rightness.
4.3 All beings belonging to the kingdoms of nature are possible objects of ethics. Water, Air and other crucial chemical compounds are objects due to their life-sustaining capacities. Minerals by virtue of the geometrical architecture between their molecules. Plants in terms of photosynthesis and the ecosystem. Animals because of their capacity of motility and affectivity. Humans in view of their conscious thought and, as minimum minimorum, the ability to create new and better circumstances for all sentient beings on planet Earth.
4.3.1 All objects of ethics are sentient, i.e. derived and/or based on natural light, luminosity and the photon.
4.3.2 For all sentient beings, the path of action is coercive, and so ethics necessary.

5. The architecture of normative ethics must be in tune with the transcendental conditions of thought and with the dualism of the selfsame conditions of action, deed & behaviour, encompassing both the objective, teleological (consequential), as well as the deontological, subjective (universalizing) perspective on ethics as defined by these traditional systems.

5.1 The transcendental conditions of thought state that both object and subject of thought are necessary and irreducible (cf. Clearings, 2006).
5.2 An exclusive focus on the transcendental object of ethics generates consequential systems (exclusively judging the consequences of action in terms of goals & values), whereas positing the ideal subject implies a universalizing ethics (exclusively judging the intent and the rules of duty in terms of a generalization of the outcome of action).
5.2.1 Consequential systems of ethics define objective conditions and classes of coordinated movement. They measure the final goals of action. They eclipse the importance of free intent as well as the influence of conscience on action. Focusing on the immediate and the direct, they lack an overall perspective. Statute-law is avoided.
5.2.2 Deontological systems work out (inter)subjective rules of valid generalization and focus on the intent of action. They avoid the circumstantial and deny context, locality and probability (chaos) to enter into the equation. Casus-law is ousted.
5.3 Critical ethics tries to harmonize both intent (consequence) and duty (rules). It does so by bringing the extremes back to the "middle path" and linking fairness with rightness.
5.3.1 Fairness is applied justice. Here, the formal side of goodness is realized. This is the justice of equality, the application of the "letter" of the law. It is only fair to expect justice. Rules, consequence and conscience lead to fairness. This is what must be done.
5.3.2 Rightness is applied goodness. It has broken out of the limitations of the letter and is able, through wisdom, to witness both sides of the balance, take into account all relevant elements and pronounce "the spirit" of the law. This is what care does.

6. Objectifying, teleological ethics posits the empirico-formal rule of gratification & usefulness. In subjectifying, deontological ethics calls free will to obey the rule of reason.

6.1 Consequential ethics elaborates upon the spatiotemporal relativity of statistically significant needs & goals, and this without integrating personal happiness (private self-regard) and the specificity of ethical issues. However, in an insentient universe, good and evil have no status. No physical fact is better than another.
6.1.1 Gratification is satisfaction nourishing personal happiness. Limited by time, place and person, it forms unending longings. Objective ethics have no idea about internal, intimate & private matters.
6.1.2 Usefulness extends from one person to the planet as a whole (and may -theoretically- encompass the whole universe). In practical terms, it reflects the common good cherished by the ruling class. Thus, to control the access to this good is the principal cause of conflicts, disputes and wars.
6.1.3 The utilitarian law dictates that under any given circumstance, the action which produces the greatest amount of happiness on the whole (taking into account all whose happiness is touched by this), is objectively right. Extend this consequential law by judging any favorable consequence of an action, moving beyond happiness or pleasure.
6.2 Deontological ethics cannot escape the laws devised to regulate intersubjective contact. Being statute-laws, they address the existential nature of intersubjective contacts in terms of duty. This is the respect for the "pure" moral law, dictating that we must treat others as the persons we ourselves are, even if this thwarts our inclinations to gratify ourselves and make other humans useful to ourselves. Duty humbles self-love.
6.2.1 Agreeableness, the active ingredient of satisfaction -even the promotion of the happiness of others- does not, in this scheme, consist in the conception of the moral law in itself, for it would not require the will of a rational being conceiving the moral law.
6.2.2 Moral value cannot depend on the reality of the object of the action at hand (values or goals), but merely on the principle of volition in the assumed total absence of any activity of desire.
6.2.3 The moral law demands that "I" must never act in such a way that "I" could not will that my ethical norm should not be a universal law, and this for the sake of the law (morality) and not by mere compliance to it (legality).
6.2.4 The moral law thus defined is never in touch with the desires, but only with thought. Unable to understand the full implications of goodness, namely fairness and rightness based on desire, free will and reason, exclusivist deontology, by lack of care, does not exclude cruelty nor mild psychopathy.
6.3 Teleological ethics, based on either a higher good or on the principle of utility, accommodate desire and its principle of pleasure or happiness. The happiness principle holds that actions are good, right or just when they promote pleasure. Classical utilitarism concludes : as some kinds of pleasures are more desirable and valuable than others, a scale of goodness is possible, with the greatest good to the greatest number on top. Preference utilitarism tries to bring about the fulfillment of preferences and is called consequentialism.

7. In critical ethics, happiness, fairness & rightness are possible by allowing, as much as possible, both subject (intent, duty) and object (conscience, calling) of action to participate in our ethical deliberations and in the moral or practical organization of our lives. In this way, one decides what to do and what not to do, and this, as much as possible, in every instance of coordination.

7.1 Happiness is the fruit of gratification or the repetition of agreeable experiences. All sentient beings seek happiness.
7.1.1 As long as the pursuit of happiness, fairness and rightness is made to root in wrong desires, wrong volition and wrong thinking, human beings are immensely dissatisfied and so suffer.
7.1.2 Wrong desires feed the impulse to attach or dislike. Wrong volition drives action exclusively towards personal gain. Wrong thinking considers subjects & objects as inherently existing substances.
7.2 Fairness is the outcome of conscientious justice, transcending legality into morality out of sheer respect for the moral law.
7.3 Rightness is the outcome of the "turning of the wheel" of ethics. It is the response of care to a calling acting as a transcendent observant disabling any attempt to by-pass the fundamental horizon of all possible human action : to do the good for all sentient beings, meaning to be fair and care.
7.4 Goodness, encompassing happiness, fairness & rightness, is impossible without the total transformation of the actor. To not complete one's own Self-realization (or the actuality of right mind, right action & right desire) is to strand the project of ethics on the shores of egology.
7.4.1 Self-realization is not to acquire something which is not already present, but to be fully aware of who one truly is in thought, desires and volitions.
7.4.2 To remove the mental clouds shielding the Sun from casting its rays of awareness is the crucial metaphor.

8. If there is no actor to exert free will, it is impossible to say what someone ought to do or not to do. He who says "ought", should at least accept the other in his or her strangeness. Only dictators do not.

8.1 Ethical models based on symmetry & homogeneity between moral actors lack true equanimity resulting from difference & asymmetry. They reflect the solitary ego and extend its existence to all other human beings.
8.1.1 Nobody has "my" spatio-temporal coordinates and overlaps the sentient being "I" am.
8.1.2 Because of the lack of symmetry between "myself" and the "others", there is the possibility of genuine goodness and not just the common good necessary to organize the traffic.
8.2 The fundamental fact of ethics is the irreducible difference between all moral actors hand in hand with their interrelatedness.
8.2.1 Difference does not exclude comparison, but all comparisons fail to satisfy the conditions of right thinking, positing the uniqueness of every sentient being.
8.2.2 Interrelatedness is (a) physical and (b) psychological. Non-locality determines that all things emerge from the underlying universal quantum field which connects every particle of the observable universe at speeds exceeding that of light. A subject of experience is always part of an intersubjective environment and hence in constant communication or exchange with others.
8.2.3 A solipsist subject would be a closed monad with no windows to exchange anything. It would be a super-object posing as a subject and hence not a subject at all. With self-regard maximalized, communication is impossible.
8.3 To leave an open place at the table (space), to never close one's door for a stranger (time) and to accept the otherness of sentient beings (person) are the three fundamentals of any ethical process between human beings.

9. The living core of ethics is the reciprocal acknowledgment of the fundamental asymmetry between ethical actors.

9.1 The moment "I" am not identified with "You", there is an ethical continuum in which exchange is possible and novel coordinations of movements may emerge.
9.2 Theoretical, discursive, cerebral, centrifugal thought destroys otherness and its secret. It cannot conceive the intimate, and therefore annihilates its possibility. Science seeks to dominate through universals, not to serve this other in particular.
9.3 Practical, symbolical (hieroglyphic), centripetal intelligence "of the heart", invites the stranger as he or she is, and negates any attempt to reduce otherness. Hence, otherness is the revelation of unicity and brings into existence new coordinations of movement.
9.3.1 Only if my own-Self is deemed a stranger to me can there be moral development beyond fairness or excellence.
9.3.2 When the actor knows, feels and expresses his or her own sentient core, fairness couples with rightness or sublimity.
9.4 In the case of a Cartesian ego or a Leibnizean monad, the "I" is a permanent, substantial, essential, unchanging entity that exists in itself, independent and disconnected from the "not-I". Such substantialist egology is left when "I" and "not-I" mutually imply each other and cannot be alienated from one another (either by reduction or by exclusion).

10. Satisfying either desire (hedonism), volition (utilitarism) or reason (deontology), traditional ethics is unable to cause both happiness, fairness and rightness for all sentient beings in concert. These ethics may, at their best, bring satisfaction, fairness & justice, which is not the same as goodness, adding concern, care & rightness.

10.1 To view ethics as a normative discipline, implies unweaving the crucial ethical factors of what is a good action and has always been the necessary architecture of an example of goodness. This is like finding a treasure of which one was not aware that it has always been there.
10.2 Normative disciplines such as epistemology, ethics and esthetics, do not describe the true, the good and the beautiful, but lay bear the principles, norms and maxims which have always been used to think true thoughts, do good actions and produce beautiful sensations. Not the question "Quid factis ?", but "Quid Iuris ?" engages them.
10.2.1 The sociology of goodness counts, compares and formulates empirico-formal laws. It describes the actuality or absence of goodness. But the principles, norms and maxims of goodness decree and engage. They prescribe what must be done in order for goodness to be actual.
10.2.2 It is a fallacy to move from a mere description of goodness to what is necessary for goodness. Descriptions are the casus-law of ethics (morality), whereas obligations are its statute-laws.
10.2.3 Statute-laws are uncovered within. They were, are and will always be there to assist critical ethics. Casus-law are identified without and are altered hand in hand with the actor and his or her history. They help the development of applied ethics or morality.

02. The subject of action or the freedom of initiation.

11. In order to act on intent, the actor must exercise his or her free will, i.e. be able to move in the absence of external impediments.

11.1 Suppose, ad absurdum, predestination, fate or destiny to be true. Then, all movements, actions, deeds & behaviours are determined by the complex of anterior determining factors like causality, the Fates, Providence or the Will of God or Gods. If so, there is no uncertainty in nature allowing the subject to freely choose between two possibilities, except fictionally. Ergo, there is only movement and no coordinations of movement, and thus no action and no actor. With the moral actor reduced to a mere mover, ethics becomes the object of a closed Newtonian physics.
11.2 Besides being in contradiction with the probabilism of contemporary physics, determinism (the modern version of predestination) faces a major logical problem : if all things are determined, then how can this determination be described without in some way, in the very act of description, transcending it ? How to avoid the contradictio in actu exercito ?
11.3 Epistemologically, one may wonder how the subject of knowledge can be eclipsed hand in hand with a description of this "fact" ? Behold the contradiction : although refusing the subject of knowledge any independence from the object of knowledge, the former is necessarily implied in the refusal.
11.4 All movement is external and the outer world knows of many impediments. Linear and non-linear movements constitute the process between the four physical forces & the numerous, photon-based particles constituting the architecture of the observable universe.

12. Besides (a) the negative side of liberty (i.e. to be free from internal dependences of external determinations) and (b) its positive side (i.e. the active possibility to be autonomous, independent and self-conditioning), free will is a nondetermined choice, or the actual physical possibility to escape the probabilistic determinism of matter.

12.1 The approach of both momentum and architecture is probabilistic, for Newtonian determinism has been superseded by relativity, quantum, chaos and string, revolutionalizing cosmology, nuclear physics and mathematics. The margin of error allowed by these equations is the principle of indeterminacy of Heisenberg.
12.2 Exerting free will is a highly complex operation, involving the seeking & finding of the small interval or isthmus of uncertainty within probable processes surrounding its manifestation.
12.3 Without free will, there is no difference between the coming of goodness and the manifestation of the physical universe. In this case, ethics would be one of these manifestations. Instead, critical ethics lays bear the necessity and possibility of making excellent and sublime use of certain physical margins of error.

13. In order for "me" to exercise "my" free will, the individual "I" am cannot be reduced to anything else. Egoism, or the humanism of the ego, dictates that nothing is more to "me" than "myself". Hence, "I" must be able to act as "I" like to act or not to act. The freedom of initiation is wholly rooted in the "I".

13.1 Ad absurdum, maximalize egology, and make the ego absolute. By taking the owner serious, the ego is the ultimate ideality. It accepts the presence of other ego's, but must treat them as if they were objects. Hence, all value put on those objects are creatures of the ego, who acts as their sole Lord.
13.2 The egoist, pursuing no other goal, considers only the actors’ own welfare.
13.2.1 As the egoist has degenerated reason, the actor's own welfare is the satisfaction of desire in terms of one's own emotions and physical kicks.
13.2.2 In mythological terms, the animal nature of the egoist has been sullied by a degenerated reason and has turned the human into a Beast.
13.2.3 Beasts in the wilderness, the "war of all against all", and the hierarchy of might are the outcome of egology. Insofar as the Beast must love suffering, it always creates its own downfall.

14. In order for "my" actions to escape the "war of all against all", "I" must consider every possible "other" as "I" consider "myself". Altruism, or the humanism of "the other", as given by reason, dictates that nothing will humanize "me" more than to participate in the humanization of "the other" and live in accord with this reciprocity.

14.1 There is an "I" because there is a "not-I" and vice versa. Thought cannot escape its own necessities.
14.2 The "war of all against all" is replaced by the "contract of all with all". Neither in duty will ethical tensions resolve.

15. The reciprocity of altruism is the recognition of "You" as "myself".

15.1 To observe the "I" is to realize its momentum. Although taken as a piece of architecture, the "I" is more like a stream. This movement is seldom perceived, but has diurnal, nocturnal, monthly and seasonal fluctuations.
15.2 The impermanence of identity brings the various interrelationships between subjects to the fore. Instead of scattered pieces, subjects & objects are modules which are part of communicational networks and their energy. As in dissipative systems, they are defined by their connectivity, redundancy and complexity.
15.3 Although the "I" is not a substance existing inherently, it does funtionally exist as the seat of free will. Although its existence is more like a fluctuating but coherent pattern of coordinated movements though space-time, it is the more or less fixed continuum of this pattern called "I" which initiates action, gives meaning to movements and manipulates the margins of nature.

16. Formal, universalizing ethics, of which the three forms of deontological ethics, imperative, contractual and righteous, are transgressive sublimations, makes reason dictate the free will.

16.1 Insofar desire is the sole lawgiver, reason has to be degenerated. Insofar reason is the sole lawgiver, free will has to be willingly handicapped.
16.2 Deontological ethics are transgressive because they run against the principles of transcendental logic. By eliminating the object of ethics, an indifferent and imperative system of rules is deduced. These are sublimations resulting from the unconditional within reason, in this case eclipsing the object of thought.

03. The object of action and physical determination.

17. Actions are either done to realize a goal or to implement a value.

17.1 A goal is an objective state of affairs to be realized now or in the future.
17.2 A value is a subjective merit considered worthwhile or desirable.

18. Goals limit action by resisting intent with their own-form.

18.1 Physical limitations (inertia) slow down the realization of intent and are overcome by enduring repetition.
18.2 By eroding inertia, a new set of coordinations is introduced, co-sustaining the mental operators of process and emancipation.

19. Values co-determine action by imposing their own-form on intent.

19.1 Merit requires free intent.
19.2 Values presuppose a relative intersubjective stability of desires and reasoning or traditions related to creativity and growth. Hence, negative values presuppose destruction and decay.

20. Insofar as goals and values are of desire, they are objects of teleological ethics and generate the "war of all against all". Insofar as they are objects of reason, they appear in deontological ethics as imposed by Operation Duty, feeding the shadow of guilt.

20.1 Operation Duty, the contrary of egology, is forced humanism. The egoism of the individual is compromised by and relinquished for that of the collective, in whatever form.
20.1.1 The moment, by giving "my" violent response away to the state, "I" loose the possibility to kill whenever "I" like and whoever "I" like, egology can no longer be lethal in an acute sense.
20.1.2 "My" violent response is replaced by the monopoly of violence held by the state. This causes conflicts between states, as well as within the fabric of Operation Duty itself (killing is wrong but necessary in war).
20.1.3 Because of the inherent imbalance between desire and reason, the corruption of Operation Duty is inevitable.
20.1.4 Better a corrupted, guilt-striken sense of duty than no duty at all.
20.1.5 Conscious (ethical) egoism is preferable to covert (bourgeois) egoism pretending altruism (i.e. hypocrizy).
20.2 In the equation of the Order of Fairness, desires are bound to overturn reason, degenerate it and feast in the wilderness. Hence, the "contract of all with all" is also the "lie of all against all".
20.2.1 The human body is rooted in primate desires, urges and volitions. The thinking capacity is limited and untrained. What more is needed to conclude most humans feast like Beasts ?
20.2.2 Although contracts help to regulate the tragedy of egology and fairness, they can be broken. Feeding a cold sense of justice, contractualism fosters the blind workings of dossier-logic.

21. The realization of a goal engenders a new goal. The recognition of value entails another value. Is there an end to the sliding scale of goals & values ?

21.1 Human undertakings based on egoistical & intersubjective goals and values produce more suffering than pleasure, happiness, fairness or rightness.
21.2 Suppose our actions succeed, which is not necessarily the case. Then we either :
(a) realize our success after again losing it ;
(b) are bound to seek a new object as soon as fulfillment is actual ;
(c) witness the atrophy of the mere pleasurable after repetition and
(d) are driven into the despair of boredom which eliminates all goals and values. Thus the human Beast suffers more than the animal.
21.2.1 The necessity with which a second object arises after the elimination of the first in the fire of desire and excellence, is given by the conditioned origination of all sentient activity.
21.2.2 The satisfaction of pleasure causes the quest for a new object to annihilate, prompting yet another search, etc.
21.3 Goals and values form a circle of dependent causes. Success and fulfillment generate new goals and values, allowing for the repetition of the pleasurable, the desirable and the excellent.
21.3.1 The pleasurable, the desirable and the excellent are prone to swift decay and demand, to maintain impulse, an exponential rise of input, which is untenable. Saturation of wants (diminishing returns) and decreasing marginal value rule.
21.3.2 Excellence can be consolidated into traditions by thought and its signs (signals, icons & symbols). These last longer but their trace runs deeper. Over time, any original mistake is enlarged. The result being a cacophony of conflicting traditions.

22. Affective, consequential, teleological ethics, in its two forms of eudemonic (producing happiness and well-being) & utilitarian (serving immediate utility), is a goal & value-oriented transgressive sublimation making desire becharm reason and free will.

22.1 Because it appeals to desire, affective ethics overpowers the rationale of deontology.
22.2 In the trinity of factors covering the Order of Fairness, namely intent, duty & conscience, desire unleashed by free will exceeds the rationality of duty, except in mediocrity and the dulling of intent.
22.3 The transgression of affective ethics lies in its neglect of reason and the universal principles, norms and maxims of thought, action and sensation.
22.3.1 A priori. Without a subject of ethics (a someone striving), objects have no meaning.
22.3.2 A posteriori. If all goodness depended on pleasure and utility alone, the "war of all against all" would not be the bestial fact of human history. Bestial behaviour would lead to peace, not to the rule of shared pain.

04. Moral science, moral philosophy & critical ethics.

23. Moral science observes, analyzes, systematizes and explains what is present in society in terms of moral phenomena. Moral science also "tests" the latter by way of logic, observation and pragmatism. Here justice is an option, never a must.

23.1 When carefully applied, moral science is multi-disciplinary and integrates crucial data of biology, anthropology, psychology, sociology, economy & philosophy.
23.1.1 In mammals with long memories, primate ethics, based on kinship & reciprocity, exist.
23.1.2 Humans are special animals able to manipulate natural selection and develop culture.
23.1.3 Sensation, desire, volition, reason and consciousness drive the psyche of the human.
23.1.4 Not consanguinity nor race, but shared norms, goals & values, consolidating a fertile process of communication, produce lasting social bonds.
23.4.5 A planetary economy commands respect for all living creatures on planet Earth and brings into effect the social, just & caring ideals of planetary participationism, allowing for the satisfaction of most desires within the framework of detachment, transformation and the sanation of reason by a new humanism.
23.4.6 Spiritual hedonism does not exist. 
23.2 Insofar as moral science is also multi-cultural, the wisdom of common sense may come into focus. This is not the wisdom of goodness.

24. Moral philosophy, acknowledging the crucial data offered by moral science, tries to approach moral phenomena in a reflective way.

24.1 Insofar as moral philosophy is constituted by trans-empirical concepts, it is but a precritical attempt to formulate a mere metaphysical justification of actions, deeds & behaviours in terms of an explicit or presupposed, realist or idealist ontological scheme.
24.2 Religious ethics have abused precritical logic by clinging to revealed dogma, brewing various onto-theologies of the Abrahamic Deity, afflicting free will with predestination and direct mystical experience with the stake. Facing self-refuting statements deemed irrefutable (axiomatic), nothing else is left than to posit another option.
24.3 When atheism backs statements with realist or idealist presuppositions, like the existence of a solid world "out there" or the presence of a substantial Self "in here", it is precritical. Critical atheism needs to refute the arguments backing the existence of the Divine (cf. Does the Divine exist ?, 2005).
24.3.1 Atheism denies the existence of the Divine in all possible denominations. Has this denial had any influence on the religious attitudes of most Westerners educated by the atheist elite ?
24.3.2 On the crucial issue of Divinity, agnosticism remains indecisive. Only superficiality & mediocrity are able to treat something important as trivial.

25. Critical ethics is a moral philosophy constituted by the transcendental conditions of coordinated movements and free will, implying conscious intent, design, meaning and a nondeterminated choice. Thinking intent, duty, conscience & calling, it makes moral valuations in terms of the goodness of actions, deeds & behaviours. Here, fairness & rightness are a necessity, an ought called to be a good choice, i.e. free, happy, fair and caring.

25.1 Free because the subject of ethics is endowed with free will.
25.2 Happy because desires can be transformed & satisfied.
25.3 Fair because the conditions of reason are fulfilled.
25.4 Caring because it enacts the unconditional core of charity.

26. Critical ethics opts to combine the truth-core of both earlier deontological and teleological approaches. On the one hand, justification of action depends on the rationality of intersubjective duty (implying generalization) and, on the other hand, on the quality of the goals or values intended and by which desire is objectively gratified (implying consequentialism). A priori, critical ethics is a two-tiered system of statute-law and case-law.

27. Conflicts of interest between duty and intended gratification demand an ethical evaluation by conscience, seeking a balance between both.

28. With the addition of conscience, the conflict between afflictive egoism and legalistic altruism achieves an unstable closure. Project Fairness is able to increase material wealth, but not for all and not without the iron cage of alienation, mass-manipulation, hypocrisy & mediocrity.

29. Critical ethics draws the line between personal & transpersonal ethics.

29.1 Personal ethics involves intent (goals and values of desire), duty (a rational free choice) and conscience (or the inner organ of ethical evaluation between, on the one hand, the affective ethics of intent, and, on the other hand, the formal ethics of duty). It culminates as fairness in all matters.
29.2 Transpersonal ethics involves a calling or vocation, the outer organ attracting a renewed conscious intent, causing (a) Self-realization, (b) Self-annihilation and (c) Self-recollection in Radical Otherness.
29.2.1 Self-realization is the constant awareness of the true own-form of consciousness, which is of the nature of transparency, light, brightness, clarity and luminescence.
29.2.2 The own-Self is burned in the fires of unconditional charity.
29.3.3 The own-Self is reborn in every fair act of rightness, positing just compassion for all sentient beings, teaching by example the antidote to afflictive affects and uncontrolled desire.

30. The horizontal plane connecting intent with duty defines the divergent interconnectedness between ethical subjects. The vertical plane connecting conscience with calling defines the convergent evolution of a person's ethical sensibilities. The horizontal calls for fairness, the vertical calls for rightness.

30.1 Theoretical ethics is regulated by the idea of an ideal community of intelligent & sensitive communicators, a body of sign-interpreters constituting the horizontal plane. In practice, the vertical plane is put into place by "filling in" calling with super-ego and its constant sublimations. When thus manipulated, calling is wishful thinking.
30.1.1 To be called does not belong to the nominal process of ethical evolution. The unstable closure at this level is caused by the pull of desire and the feebleness of reason. The tragic truth is hidden by display and the repetitive re-confirmation of pointless excellence.
30.1.2 Placing the transpersonal factor of our ethical equation between brackets leads to unwholesome fossilizations.
30.1.3 Taking calling aboard is witnessing the gap leading to absolute thought, a brief opening for man to forsake his Beast.

30.2 The first closure, the Order of Fairness, ends with unfairness. The gravitational pull of a free will deeply entrenched by afflictive affects fed by a degenerated reason, is too great to allow for anything else but sublimation & unscrupulousness.
30.3 Only if the human hears his or her call, can the fluctuations caused by desires be reduced and put to rest. The sand cannot sink to the bottom as long as the glass is being stirred.
30.4 To perceive the Order of Fairness may give rise to great pessimism. This awareness of possible suffering is a great teacher and leads to a concerted effort to carefully listen to the call and realize one's true nature.
30.5 The only purpose of suffering is to trigger the quest for the own-Self and beyond.

05. Teleological and deontological transgressions.

31. Consequential ethics make the goodness of an action exclusively depend on the object (goals and/or value) desired by the free will and/or rationalized by the mind. When thinking goodness, they eliminate "pure" reason a priori. Universalizing ethics understand, in accord with the transcendental subject of ethics, good behaviours in terms of the rational imperative of duty. They eliminate goals and values as sources of goodness.

31.1 The transgressions mimic the perversa ratio or ontological illusion as given by critical epistemology (cf. Clearings, 2006).
31.1.1 The conceptual mind (defined by anterational, rational and critical thought, affects & actions) is dualistic and works with the difference between object & subject.
31.1.2 Foundational epistemologies aim, by reduction of the dyad to the monad, to eliminate the necessary concordia discors or armed truce of the mind. Either objectivism, in the guise of subject-less realism, or subjectivism, as object-less idealism, thus serve the aim of grounding knowledge outside knowledge.
31.1.3 The duality of the conceptual mind must not be eliminated. To use this tool well is the object of normative philosophy. Abuse its architecture and the empirical-formal propositions of science cannot be fully argued, tested and reargued, slowing down the development of knowledge.
31.2 When the theoretical connotations of observation are not accepted, the object of knowledge is as it appears and a one-to-one relationship can be established. The error of realism is to consider knowledge without the knower.
31.2.1 Realism is apparent in ethical systems reducing the ego's own-ness to values and goals. The ego's privatim is not a generatim.
31.2.2 The objects & states aimed at in consequential ethics never represent the "common good" (which is not a reality but a regulative limit-idea), for not the good of all private values & goals is realized, but merely a pleasing idea invented by the ruling classes (the wealthy, the intellectuals, the politicians, etc, representing usually only ca.10% of the population).
31.3 When the symbolical creativity of the human is made to constitute reality, the subject of knowledge thinks reality and the laws of mind reflect those of being. The error of idealism is to consider the knower without the known.
31.3.1 Ethical idealism dictates us to act as if the Kingdom of Ends is with us now, although, in fact, this is not the case.
31.3.2 Deontological systems lack the capacity to consider what is needed to bring the Kingdom actually about. These elements are considered "impure" and circumstantial, although universal thought is only appropriate if it can be applied as local compassion & care.

32. Critical ethics, being in accord with its own conditions of operation, cannot eliminate the object of ethics (goals & values), nor the subject of ethics (categorial imperative) without a contradictio in actu exercito. This it wants to avoid.

32.1 One extreme. Suppose there are no moral values & goals (the object of ethics). These are the sedimentations of generalized intent. How to define ethics without someone acting ?
32.2 Another extreme. Suppose ethics has no subject. Without free will, all choices are defined by the laws of physics. How to define ethics without freedom (and thus responsibility) ?
32.3 The middle ground accepts the dual conditions of conceptual thought and the limitations both entail, thrusting the moving, conceptual mind out of the worn pantheon of Platonic or Peripatetic eternalization.

06. Moral science :
the genesis of a sense of justice.

33. Moral science does not derive "ought" from nature or imperatives from indicatives (naturalistic fallacy), but describes the moral phenomenon without the necessity of goodness, the latter being an option, not an imperative.

34. Moral science focuses on facts, trying to produce an empirico-formal, scientific theory dictating scientific moral laws. Moral laws, being relative and historical, are not moral imperatives.

35. Because of its limitations, moral science is unable to articulate ethical goals and values, nor give way to the irreducible necessity of freedom in a possible critical moral philosophy. A series of facts is not a goal. Merit is not a description of virtue. So can moral science be a reliable foundation to erect a just political system ? No.

36. In accord with natural selection & sociobiology, moral science discovered primate ethics involving kinship, sexuality & reciprocity. It also made clear the crucial difference between the animal and the human kingdom : human can rise above the exigencies of natural selection, other species of animals cannot.

37. Relative genetical epistemology, moral science describes the sense of justice found in each and every Homo Sapiens sapiens as a cognitive phenomenon evolving in six universal stages of growth, involving three major reference-groups are crucial, namely family, school and peers.

38. According to moral science, the highest moral stage is reached when moral choices are determined by personal conscience, encompassing both intent & duty.

38.1 Insofar as the Order of Fairness is concerned, the conclusions of moral science and critical ethics overlap. The deficit of this order is the lack of enthusiasm and engaging intent. After a lot of work, the meaning of life still remains unclear. The bravest persevere in fairness and do the right thing.
38.2 The Order of Fairness is an unstable closure, leading to turbulence and calamity. The latter invite the creative impulse to secure planetary survival and the rise of a new humanism.

07. Moral philosophy :
ego & intent as sources of ethics.

39. Traditional moral philosophy gave transempirical and/or ontological grounds to what ought to be done to be good, i.e. happy, fair and caring. Critical moral philosophy operates a quaternio of ethical factors based on the transcendental conditions of coordinated movement and free will, of which the first one implies ego.

39.1 Traditional morality never tried to find the middle way between the extremes of freedom and necessity. In more than one way, if preferred necessity to freedom. To think freedom is to curtail the gods, God or nature.
39.2 The necessity of the fourfold of theoretical ethics is given by following the ethical process and recording the logic of its foundational & pivotal moments : initiation (subject, intent), confrontation (object, duty), first unstable closure (subject, conscience), second stable closure (object, calling).

40. Action is exclusively initiated by the actor. There must be a someone doing the something which ethics must evaluate. To relinquish this evidence is to cripple ethics and turn it into a face, as happens in some religious ethics and in totalitarian systems.

40.1 In religious ethics, the role of the individual is to serve his or her Deity at the expense of personal freedom. The problem of desire is abrogated by trying to eliminate desire by repressing its passions. In this way, the shadow is fed and projected on the adherents of other religions (following "false" Gods) or on the unbelievers. This procedure is disastrous.
40.1.1 History holds the dramatic record of the tragi-comic failures of religious ethics. Insofar religions are moral systems rooted in the so-called transcendent, irrefutable, permanent substance, entity or ground, morality has been elitist, unjust and against the human. How difficult is it to remain backward ?
40.1.2 The failure of religious ethics is the failure to truly connect the human with the Divine. Revelations (of the so-called "holy" word of God), canonizations (of texts, people and institutions) and religious traditions fail to deliver their promise and do not liberate their adherents, on the contrary. The latter are chained to manmade institutions and the slavery continues on a more abstract register.
40.1.3 Religious fundamentalism makes the point of these deductions : turn religion into a simplistic death-loving (neo) fascism and witness how indoctrinated adherents are willing to take their own lives in addition of those of innocent children or fellow believers.
40.1.4 Humanism, disguised as egoism or altruism, cannot renew the human spirit. A new, pan-humanism is called for.
40.2 In totalitarian systems, the collectivity (ruled by an elite) is deemed more important than the individuals defining society. Left extremism and (neo) fascism both relinquish the rights & duties of the individual for the sake of their irrationalisms. Their leaders are dictators in disguise, posing with an ideal they themselves cannot actualize.
40.2.1 Both religious fundamentalism and totalitarian systems express the rule of the Beast.
40.2.2 If one leaves the Beast to do his or her thing, life on planet Earth soon dies, the Beast included.
40.2.3 Persons are entitled to choose not to interact with Beasts, for as long as every social contact with these people pollutes body, energy & mind, their presence must be part of renunciation.

41. Determinism, predestination & fatalism contradict critical ethics. One cannot judge an action, deed or behavior if the actor is not free to act as he or she wills. This freedom may be called a free movement of the subject (i.e. psychological or anthropological), but also a co-relative, ongoing slipping through the margins of the principle of indeterminacy of physics.

41.1 The system of Nature operates matter, information and consciousness. Matter knows uncertainty, information redundancy and consciousness ignorance (of the nature of mind).
41.2 Consciousness, constantly interacting with (and supported by) matter and information, is (a) able to make beneficial use of the conditions imposed upon forces & particles (hardware) and (b) to redefine terms and/or select other axioms (userware) for its expert-systems (software).
41.3 Neurophilosophy and neurotheology (cf. A Spiritual Mindbrain, 2003) differentiate between 3 interlinked neurological computers (original hardware uploaded with specific software).
41.3.1 Differentiate between (a) the reptilian brain : brain stem, midbrain, hypothalamus ; (b) the mammalian brain : thalamus, hippocampus, amygdala and (c) the human brain : neocortex of cerebral hemispheres of cerebrum & angular gyrus.
41.3.2 Various functions have been attributed to each of these three parts of the brain, characterized by a different structure and chemistry, yet extensively interconnected.
41.3.3 The human brain computes all higher functions. Its prefrontal lobe processes identity, whereas (in the right-handed) the left hemisphere involves analytical higher order approaches (language & speech), usually dominating the right hemisphere (or lateralization). The latter computes synthetical approaches and is a gateway to the emotional brain.
41.3.4 The mammalian brain computes emotional states. This involves an elaborate emotional circuit, fairly isolated from the human brain and its conceptualizations. Its task is to flavor incoming & outgoing data-streams with affective coloration.
41.3.5 The reptilian brain computes all basic survival needs. It acts as filter and master modulator of all cerebral activity and defines basal neurophysical activity.
41.4 Interactionism upholds the irreducible operational distinction between consciousness, information and matter, and posits a constant interaction between the brain (as a hardware/software-unit) and consciousness.
41.4.1 Consciousness is not caused, produced, secreted or created by the brain. It acts through and with the latter. Its natural station is beyond time and space but reflects in its conditioned states.
41.4.2 The logical set characterizing consciousness is not identical with that of information and/or matter. The numerics of consciousness are complex, those of information natural and those of matter unreal.
41.4.3 Each operator interacts with the other as a function of its logical possibilities. Consciousness slips through the margins of quantum physics. Information standardizes states of matter into glyphs ("0" or "1"). Matter solidifies both meaning and expertise by computation, processing and the ongoing play of architecture and momentum.

42. The intent of an ego possessing desire, super-ego, shadow, free will and cognition is the source of all action & so the initiator of whatever human beings do to themselves, their direct environment, society, the world and the Divine (insofar as this is possible).

42.1 Depth-psychology pictures the waking ego as a small candle wandering in the vast, dark storehouse of the psyche. Driven by desires dictating passions (lust & unlust) & feelings, the ego needs to adapt to the realities of its milieu. It introjects the goals & values of its parents, teachers & peers (super-ego) and rejects conflicting impulses (shadow). Its free will is constantly torn between afflictive affects (feeling) and unreal projections & conceptualizations (thinking).
42.2 The confused, ignorant pool of rationalizations (feelings into thought) and emotional thinking (thought into affects) is the swamp to be cleared. Humanism leads to psychoanalysis.
42.3 A clear and strong intent sustained for as long as needed initiates.
42.3.1 Clarity is achieved by balancing the five components of the human : sensation, feeling, volition, reasoning & consciousness. Strength is achieved by the disciplined, diligent practice of the actual harmony or natural health of the human.
42.3.2 Identification with or rejection of objects of desire cause the degeneration of reason.
42.3.3 Desire causes change in feelings and triggers volition.
42.3.4 In the Homo normalis, desire usually outlaws reason.
42.3.5 Only with great effort can the incomplete closure offered by Project Fairness bring about an unstable good.

43. The humanization of the ego is the ego taking care for what pleases the ego and avoiding what displeases it. To act for one's own sake alone, inevitably leads to the "war of all against all", to authoritarianism & the culture of slavery.

43.1 The hierarchy of the Beast is one of fear, domination and pain. The Beast is conscious of what it does and causes. Its catechism is one of might and control.
43.2 Although aware of the other, the egoist tries to objectify the someone into a something.
43.3 Although aware of the ego, fake altruism rarefies it to the point of hypocrisy and personal despair.

44. The ego is its own. Imprisoned as an abject slave owned by a master, the ego is present to itself. This own-ness or egoism is the creator of new freedom.

44.1 It is pointless to try to eliminate the ego. In doing so, only super-ego is affirmed and these "higher values" of the Beast are worse than its circumscribed activities.
44.2 Hellish cultural forms degenerate our youth, damaging their ability to communicate and interact. This nullifies any attempt at spiritual emancipation. As so many satans stuck in ice, the moral development of the low life is halted.
44.3 Egoism is a necessary factor in the equation of ethics. It is the starting-point which needs to be superseded by duty, conscience and calling. Ego cannot be a slave, even not when caged as one. Only in physical death is the ego broken.

45. Insofar as freedom is conquered by the ego, it creates new boundaries to be conquered, etc. Freedom can be taken away, own-ness not. own-ness is not an idea but is everything owned, or a description of the owner. To the ego, own-ness is more important than freedom.

45.1 As far as the egoist is concerned, the others are objects to be owned. To seduce properly, to find the adequate chain and a way to bind, constitutes the art and science of personal gain.
45.2 Own-ness points to the exclusivity of "my" space-time and the FPF. This does necessarily invoke a substantial ego (as in the present ethics), but generally it does. Egoism turns ego into an absolute. In that case, ego = God prevails ...

46. Historically, humanism, working in liberalism as well as traditional socialism, separated the "idea of man" from "my" own-ness. Creating a fiction, man became an idol worshipped in terms of the religion of the Free State. Privatim was turned into generatim, and "my" own-ness or fundamental egoism was lost.

46.1 Liberalism has advanced the ego under the flag of individuality, but without introducing libertinism, its natural ally. Thus it does not lead to the true freedom of the ego, but to the minimal version of altruism, conflictual contractualism.
46.2 In repressive communism, the fiction is "the People". In socialism, the "working classes". In both cases, the egoism of the human (on all sides) is not taken seriously.
46.3 Fed by the myth of the Golden Age, both systems have no eye for their long-term impact on the eco-system. Ravishing Earth, they ultimately destroy the conditions of life itself. At this point, the nations are called to intervene.

47. The humanism of the ego is the cult of egoism, mindless selfish gratifications, sensualism, passion and the use of freedom to express own-ness, eventually through slavery, i.e. the power to control and destroy what is owned. To humanize the ego is to teach the Beast how to excel in the evil it does best.

48. Selfish freedom is (a) completed in the almighty ego, recognizing the Beast it really is, and (b) secured by making the world its own, i.e. gained it and taken possession of it for ego alone, by all means : might, persuasion, petition, demand, hypocrisy, cheating, lying, tricking, etc. The ego is the father of all lies.

49. The love of the almighty ego, is the lashing whip carving the stigmata of dominion upon the torn flesh of slaves worshipping the Ego-is-God of their evil master-owners. Might is right.


49.1 The almighty ego is a fascist sadist, while the masochistic slave perverts this sadism, turning it against the humiliated ego.
49.1.1 These hyperbolic expressions aim to convey the volatile and bombastic drama of the displays of the ego, in particular related to power, money and sex.
49.1.2 Power gives control and because it is confused with might and dominion leads to lack of control and unbalance. Money gives gross satisfactions numbing the senses without their subtle counterparts, which cannot be bought. Sex wears out.
49.2 Although mostly carried out to satisfy perverted pleasure (not emancipation), sado-masochism is usually moral and involves inflicting psychological and moral pain to others.
49.3 To become conscious of the shadow is being able to accept, name and integrate the demons of the ego.
49.3.1 Once integrated, mental unbalances are no longer projected upon the others.
49.3.2 The "black box" procedure involving the retrieval of the shadow is a psychosynthetic move to integrate the personality and establishing a foundation for more subtle preoccupations.
49.3.3 Shadow-work is giving to the animal (mammalian & reptilian) side of the human what belongs to the animal without creating the Beast, the "golem" or "Frankenstein" of degenerated reason.

50.  The religion of the ego is the worship of ownership, i.e. the free will choice to bow before the Beast, either as a victim or as a victimizer. Ego's religion is diabolism, the reversal of conventional goodness and the worship of evil.

50.1 Diabolus est Deus inversus. Egoism is ruled by the principle of reversal for the sake of the ego's ownership.
50.2 Egoism demands constant objectification, also of other ego's. To bind them, the egoist knows how to fake altruism.
50.3 The tragedy of the life of the ego is the reluctance to deal with this issue without being sedated by super-ego solutions.
50.4 Most ego's are too infatuated by the gross, bourgeois morality of their super-ego's to vent their bestial side overtly, giving rise of neurosis and hypocrisy. Instead, it is projected outwards, creating enemies, and/or kept inside the boundaries of their domestic lives (causing adultery, domestic violence, moral sado-masochism, child abuse, incest, etc.).
50.5 Social control and longing for the satisfaction of worldly needs (money, fame, sex, family, etc.) offer so many general values and goals enabling overt or repressed egoists to become truly unhappy in their mediocrity.

51. Because intent and free will are owned by ego, critical ethics cannot propose to altogether eliminate this source of moral evil. To acknowledge the privatim implies to make way for the Beast, not to idolize a fanciful, a priori idea about the Homo Sapiens sapiens.

51.1 Critical ethics acknowledges the ownership of the moral initiator, namely the free will of the ego, and so intent opens the possibility of a conscious or unconscious choice for evil and destruction, as dictated by desire and a perverted reason.
51.2 Only when the personal psychosynthesis of the ego is completed, can the Beast be said to be transformed from wrathful to protective.

52. The ego is a solipsist and considers the existence of other ego's only insofar as they are or will be owned, i.e. controlled and, if so willed, sold or destroyed. Egoist ethics & politics are Plutocratic, i.e. true power lies in the hands of a small, invisible, "infernal" elite deifying their egos.

52.1 In the course of human history, a small part of any population never had to work to make a living. Deriving their power from ancestors, brutal force or supposedly Divine beings, the traditional upper class mostly subdued those willing to worship them. Slavery, in so many forms and guises, is the extreme version of this situation. As a result of the worldwide changes triggered during the Age of Enlightenment and thereafter, this exploitation was abolished in most countries (although not completely).
52.2 With the advent of the democratic nations and the industrial revolution, the upper classes turned Plutocratic and invested their money & power in international corporate business, escaping the controls of individual nations. Their outdated models are responsible for the massive destruction of our natural resources. They institutionalize greed and a questionabe, limited & ultimately dangerous view on economy and well-being.
52.3 With the coming of the New Renaissance of a pan-humanism acting on a planetary scale, these invisible destructive forces will come into the light and perish. Eventually, a planetary solution to world problems will be implemented before ecological disasters eliminate our race.

53. Because the ego, at times, and this solely to instrumentalize and for strategic reasons, thinks and communicates using signs (in the form of signals, icons & symbols), other "master" ego's may be distinguished. The subsequent "war of all against all", as well as the armed truce of legalism (contractualism), hedonism, sociologism, authoritarianism and utilitarism replacing it, both imply the recognition of own-ness next to "my" own, as well as the incapacity of egoism to finds its way out of this deadlock, eventuating natural and humanitarian disasters.

54. Is this not the tragedy of humanity ? The crucial initiators of all possible ethics, intent & free will, are owned by an ego prone to revert to the way of the Beast at any moment ...

55. Passionate lust feeds the amoral Beast. Cognition is unable to make the majority of ego's capitulate, accept & acknowledge the other human being in his or her own right. The constant clash of concept and desire disables either approaches.

55.1 Consequential ethics are confounded about which goals and values to share and how to prioritize them.
55.2 Inventing perpetual growth to satisfy narcistic expansion, ego eventually destroys the very ground of its own existence.
55.3 Because of its limitations, ego battles other humans and abuses the mineral, vegetal & animal kingdoms of nature. This all ends in total futility.
55.4 The police and the military represent the ego-based and/or duty-based responses of the ruling social formations to the wilderness of Beasts.

08. The alter-ego and Operation Duty.

56. The patterns of communication at work in early family-life and at school, educate the ego to open up for the experience of the other. They transpose primate reciprocity to the level of the ante-rational conceptualization and rational understanding of the mutual acknowledgment of the asymmetry between the "I" and the "other". Where egoism cherishes this, altruism aims to harmonize it.

56.1 Egoists reveal an disinterest in others. They may listen, but continue to express own-ness. Their core privation is empathy.
56.2 Harmonization is not the same as the undoing of a difference, but more like the tuning and retuning (after play) of a string over two extremes.
56.2.1 Communication implies difference.
56.2.2 Increased difference is increased energy or the actuality of both architecture (material particles) and movement (forces).
56.3 Altruism is able to bridge the divide between people without eliminating the irreducible differences. Multiple transferences between cultures enable each culture to redefine its own, keeping it alive. More communication leads to better communication, more efficient cooperation and expanded understanding.

57. Acknowledging the frailty of the ego, being introduced to the other-as-myself, is leaving egoism behind. With this moral birth, "my name" becomes a name among other names, loses its might as solipsist singularity, and is thrown into the competition of socialization and collective merit.

57.1 To be named by the other (in his or her own right and not as owner or owned) is the beginning of the humanization of the other.
57.2 The ego, at the center of the field of consciousness, is not a substance, but the ever-changing product of the vectors (or aggregates) sensation, feeling, volition and cognition. It owns fleeting clouds.

58. The free will is a formal, moral will when, due to reason alone, (a) it is in accord with the moral law and (b) respect for this moral law is its only determining ground. The moral will does not only act in accord with the moral law, but for the sake of the moral law.

58.1 Insofar as the will acts in terms of the formal (universal) correctness of an action and with disregard for its moral contents, the letter and not the spirit of participationism has been fulfilled.
58.2 Participationism is in line with critical ethics, positing open, highly interactive, complex and constantly changing systems and subsystems. Each part having its own architecture and/or movement within the world-system(s).

59. The letter of the moral law is not a hypothetical, but a categorial imperative : act in such a way that your moral will is a universal lawgiver, i.e. do to every other as unto yourself.

59.1 The categorial imperative is derived from the autonomy of the moral law of reason. Autonomy is not arbitrary, but satisfies the conditions of moral reason reaching towards the unconditional.
59.2 The unconditional completes the edifice of reason and cannot be eliminated.

60. Righteousness is the spirit of the moral law. Then the other manifests him or herself to "me" as a totality with an aura, i.e. with the power of luminous presence. This self-revelation of the other to "me", is like being penetrated by the poverty of "our" mutual relationship. It triggers "my" need to communicate with "You" and vice versa. Only then may "we" stop being strangers to one another.

60.1 The aura of the other is a subtle emanation surrounding the living body. Unlike the face, which is a pars pro toto, the aura is an integral, bodily representation of the sentient presence of the other. It refers to his or her nakedness, and steps beyond own-ness & cultural signs. The aura is not owned by the ego. It mirrors the energy of the whole, also of what cannot be repressed, put aside or rejected. It shows the integral human as he or she is, repressions included.
60.1.1 We all read the aura's of others. They trigger either rejection, attraction or auspicious neutrality.
60.1.2 The more a human is complete, the more the aura of any other is perceived as a totality.
60.2 The aura points to the original, unique and specific qualities of the human. It invites "me" to accept the other as he or she is and not as he or she fits in "my" perceptions regarding him or her.
60.3 Not to witness the aura is not to accept the human as basically naked, fragile and without inherent existence. This is the attitude of the egoist, who wants to exists in the cage of sorrow, negativism & cynicism.
60.4 When witnessing the aura, the other reveals himself or herself to the ego as a stranger invited by "my" perceptions.

61. In the humanism of the other, the latter evokes responsibility and the desire to communicate and to sponsor individual becoming in and with a network of other individuals promoting the ideal of planetary participationism.

61.1 To humanize another human is to step outside the solitary framework invented by the ego to satisfy its desires and to realize for itself the mind of isolation & inherent, substantial existence.
61.1.1 To relinquish the egoist, the worst enemy must be forgiven and integrated. Only by giving attention to the interconnectedness between objects, events & persons, can the hardened position of the egoist be rooted out.
61.1.2 To step outside solipsism is the first step of compassion. Cherishing otherness with kindness while assisting reflourishing.
61.1.3 Restoration comes with each return of the mind to its natural, luminous state. Eventually, each state of mind is integrated with this arché or base of the mind.
61.2 As every element constituting the world is in constant communication with every other element, except for the closed & artificial systems invented by industry, the continuity of interaction guarantees the non-arising of extremism, fanatism and other one-sided approaches.
61.3 Planetary participationism underlines the interdependence of all elements of planet Earth. Aware of this interlocking, responsibility is triggered, for each and every other human is as myself, and Earth is (for the moment) all we have.

62. The moral imperative is done for the sake and out of respect of the law. Both cognition and desire participate. Operation Duty is the systematic humanization of the other. Duty is the application of the free will of the ego to accommodate, by participation, the becoming of the other, i.e. to wholeheartedly co-produce the emancipation, socialization and integration of fellow humans.

62.1 After the strong emphasis on the degeneration of reason and the will-to-power of the Beast, the integration of desire may seem difficult to maintain. Desire is indeed, more impermanent than other phenomena, but nevertheless maintains a solid fata morgana of its own projections and mystifications of reality (in all its modes).
62.1.1 Desire can and must be trained and restricted by reason. Operation Duty implies discipline, work and a joyful diligence in constant practice. In some cases, punishment is the tool of education.
62.1.2 At its rare best, Operation Duty is a cage of alienation able to sublimate frustrations by blinding itself with the excellence of its finite conditionality, forming a platform upon which the sublime may rest (as on a truncated pyramid) and correct duty.
62.1.3 Projections and mystifications maintained over time cause sedimentations like cultural forms, traditions, habits etc. These may represent excellent answers to past circumstances.
62.1.4 Only flexible architectures withstand their surrounding momenta. All extremes rapidly fall.
62.2 Operation Duty must be the extreme limitation of private own-ness for the sake of every possible other human being (in ceteris paribus), causing its downfall. The logical form of the view it posits is too rigid and unable to integrate process, flow, change and interrelationality. Without the inner correction of conscience, duty cannot be maintained.

63. Operation Duty, the acceptance of moral standards, obligations and the voice of moral reason, is giving up freedom to satisfy the conditions of the categoral imperative, bridling individual choice for the sake of and by the institutions of the group.

64. Moral value, according to Operation Duty, merely depends on the moral law never to regard another as a means, but always as an end. Chosen by the free will, it does not depend on the pleasurable objects of desire. This law "I" ought to follow even if "my" own inclinations are thereby thwarted. If an action does not occur for the sake of the moral law (by itself), but out of the necessity of duty, it has legality but not morality.

65. Despair is the outcome of the humanism of the ego. Although the altruist is posturing  to move beyond it, the humanism of the other and its universalizing ethics, encounters the lack of moral sufficiency and is plunged into guilt. A mere "doctrine of duties", a moral rationality or justice dominating the will, does not suffice. Ethics needs a "doctrine of virtues" and this reason cannot offer. A new subjective input is called for : conscience.

66. Because duty is rooted in the rational, formal and empty conception of the moral law in itself, it represses the will of all impulses to gratify "my" inclinations and give "me" happiness.

67. The horizon defined by intentions and duty is (inter)subjective and divergent. Alone with reason and its categorical imperative, the Beast, used to live irrationally, prevails in numbers. Intent and duty offer disharmony and fragility between happiness and goodness. Horizontality is tragi-comic and invites mild pessimism.

67.1 Operation Duty has given humanity excellent forms of sedimented thought. Grand cultural forms and civilizations have persisted and persist the centuries. Teachings and prayers and sciences are at work, etc.
67.1.1 Although cultural forms assimilate and transform chaos, their rigidity (at the end of one of their cycles) causes their eventual downfall. One must mind the gap. Watch and step. Constant adaptation & open communication are essential to persist over time. Enemies must be embraced. Energy saved even if it is plentiful. But to learn these simple things still takes a lot of time.
67.2.2 Ecology, poverty, the situation of children, the elderly, handicapped & excluded are good a posteriori indicators of the correct application of Operation Duty by the nations. Today, these parameters indicate that Operation Duty is ready to become a planetary exercise.
67.2 Despite the comical enthusiasm of hoping the best for the human, the equation does tend downward, although a planetary participationism (or the odd invention) could reharmonize it for centuries. Qui vivra vera !
67.2.1 Critical ethics embraces pessimism while inviting the possibility (propensity) of the positive fact.
67.2.2 Critical ethics embraces optimism without rejecting the historical failures of humanity.

09. The formation of conscience.