If I had to condense my ethical beliefs into a few sentences, I would point to the song Body by Briston Maroney where the chorus goes, "Someday my body will be just a body and a big white light before me lets me know these days will end. But I've got today and the only plan I've made, is to love like I might never get to love someone again."
Over the past few years, I've grappled with the ideas of life, death, the soul and what truly happens once we die. I've strayed away from my childhood beliefs that we get transported to a magical land in the sky where everything's sunny, nice and perfect, and, that if we don't get there, Big Mr Loving and Friendly is going to make me burn and suffer with Hitler for the rest of eternity. My conclusion was simple. I don't know. You don't know. And I no longer care. Very anti-climactic I know, but removing some doubt from our very unpredictable existence is key to being as fulfilled as possible.
The unethical life
I would like to firstly outline why I don't believe in the (what I would refer to as) communal ethical systems, for instance Kantian Ethics where our sole duty on earth is to fulfil our duty to others or utilitarianism where we are told to seek the greatest happiness for the greatest number. The issue with these is that we as individuals are not put on earth to fulfil happiness for others as the happiness of society isn't always at our own benefit. Perhaps these ideas would work in the state of nature or in the tribal times of humanity where the success of the tribe (the capacity to hunt, gather resources, fend off adversaries) were directly tied to the survival of the individual. Communal ethics where the focus is on the grand idea of eudaimonia or a structured society are no longer relevant where individualism has taken over. This is the reality of the modern world where people are more self-reliant than ever before as one persons chances at life and survival are no longer tied to that of their neighbours or family. I believe this is the licence the individual has to pursue pleasure, simply because society is no longer at a disadvantage. I have three layers of rebuttal regarding communal ethics and the following of ethical systems as a whole in the following deductive argument.
Premise 1 - Our actions hold no relevance now
Premise 2 - Our actions will hold no relevance in the future
Premise 3 - We have no prior knowledge of the causes of our actions
Conclusion - Our actions don't matter
The first is self-explanatory and was discussed earlier. The second is the existentialist part that our life as no meaning. I like to ask people to think of themselves, then the room, then the city, then the nation, then the continent, then the world, then the Milky Way and so-on and so-forth until they fully understand their insignificance. Think of all the people who came before you and who will come after you till our planet meets its appointed end. Do you genuinely believe that your decision whether to stay in or go out on that random Wednesday night is going to matter in the grand scheme of things, probably not right. We can only name a few thousand people who have genuinely changed the course of humanity, whose actions have truly impacted the world as we know it. People will spend their lives worrying about legacy and image when in reality you'll be forgotten about just like everyone else. The book of Genesis epitomises this nicely with the phrase, "for dust you are, and to dust you shall return." The third premise was worded kind of weirdly to make it sound better. Basically I'm attempting to mitigate the benefits of teleological ethical systems by saying that in all decisions we make as humans, our lack of ability to tell the future means that we can't know the outcome and we should stop trying to pretend we can do so. Humans are social creatures and one decision we make will mean that another individual will have to make a decision. For instance, take the example of the trolley problem. A lofty act utilitarian would claim to look at the final result and claim that killing one would lead to greater happiness for a greater number compared to allowing the train to kill the five. Now, what if I told you that amongst the five individuals we had the young reincarnations of Jeffrey Dahmer and Adolf Hitler who went on to become a mass murderer and tyrannical dictator, a hypothetical I know but very effective in the portraying the existence of prediction based ethics. It's impossible and I don't see why they should be taken seriously.
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| Greek hedonist thinker - Epicurus |
The beauty of life
Hedonism is somewhat of a dirty word whilst Aesthetic Hedonism is unknown to the uninformed majority. I would like to add a few innovations. I can buy into Bentham's original arguments revolving around humans being purely hedonistic creatures but not at the level he suggests. Bentham suggests that people only want to do pleasurable things, these pleasurable things, in his mind, are intrinsically good. Of course a blind pursuit of pleasure is not always going to lead to an objectively good outcome for the individual or the community. This idea degrades humans to the level of apes where reason, plans and goals play no role in the shaping of our mental state. The manner of life I can get behind is from the so-called Surrender Experiment. This idea was brought to me in a video by Reece Daniels and has basically shaped my decision-making over the last couple of years. It tells you to be carried away by the beauty of life and derive happiness from its meaning. Put it practically, say yes to everything and don't care about it. The reason I find this increasingly powerful is that it accepts the pointlessness of ethics, we can't make correct decisions so accept that we will make mistakes and enjoy that good that comes from it. Aesthetic hedonism is a branch of hedonistic thought which instructs the individual to seek pleasure through physical beauty, to experience all the eye-appealing art and all the perfect music that one can listen to. This is a much more modern way of seeking fulfilment than the vagueness of pleasure seeking and helps us to truly appreciate the physical world we have at our disposal. The Surrender Experiment also accepts that we will make, what some would call, objectively incorrect decisions, however, once again life is worth living and you the risk of a life unfulfilled is a far greater risk to take.
My extension to aesthetic hedonism is simple. It's to incorporate the aesthetic value of love into our reasoning. What is the best way I can love the world, others and, through extension, myself. For me the definition of love is malleable. To love as a general act is to deeply appreciate and cherish to the point of obsession. To love life is to give everything to experience it to its fullest point. Aesthetic value can be taken from things internally as well as externally, aesthetic value is perceived through our senses and the experience of love is a clear sense experience, something our body can tell and recognise. Love shouldn't be ignored when discussing aesthetics as the most beautiful things created were done by those who loved something or someone, whether it be their craft or other people. They weaponised this love into creating masterpieces which were and will be loved for generations to come. An individuals only role this planet is to experience this feeling of love at every opportunity. Live more life and only good things will follow.