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倫理學 -- 開欄文
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我讀書的興趣和思考的重點在試圖回答：如何「做人」和如何「待人」這兩個問題。我涉獵文學、哲學、心理學、政治學、社會學、認知科學、文化研究等領域，動機都來自試圖回答以上兩個問題。
二十多年來，我在討論不同議題的文章中，依脈絡表達了我對「道德」的看法(我偏向使用「社會規範」這個概念)。今後我將把和它相關的文章集中發表在本欄。
本欄第2篇文章是2002年舊作。該文討論一個案例；同時，它在批評另一位先生大作的過程中，釐清了一些相關概念與盲點；可以做為討論和思考「道德」或「社會規範」的基礎。所以重刊於此。
本文於 修改第 3 次
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文學和倫理學之「行為指南」
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** 下文在2022/09/26發表。現在改置於此欄。造成不便，敬請見諒。
0. 前言
在偶然機會下重讀了達斯妥也夫斯基《一個怪人的夢》後，我聯想到卡木的《沉淪》。加上最近的一些因緣(請見本文「後記」)，連帶引起我再次思索「道德」議題的興趣。
由於「道德」一詞常常引起不同人在歷史、道學、教條、情緒、或偏見等等層面的反應，我二十多年前就使用「社會規範」一詞代替它。近年來我發現這個用法並不能完全表達傳統思想中「道德」一詞的涵義；於是，我把「道德」區分為「行為規範」、「行為準則」、和「行為指南」這三個層面。以下說明我對這三個「指號」的「用法」。
0.1 行為規範
「行為規範」相當於日常生活語言中的「公德」這個概念。它指某些約束行為的教條、規矩、和原則等；這些被約束的行為具有下列性質：
a. 它們侵犯到他人的權利或利益；
b. 它們不被多數人認可；
c. 由於種種因素他人難以就它們「舉證」，或難以提出符合定罪的「要件」；
d. 它們雖不會被判定民事罪、刑事罪、或違警罪，但會受到行政處罰。
約束以上行為的教條、規矩、和原則具有下列性質：
a) 它們還沒有經過既定程序被明文列入民法、刑法、違警罰法、或行政命令；
b) 它們被多數人認可。
例如：「不應該利用職務假公濟私」；「『四維』中的『廉』」；「『五常』中的『信』」；「『八德』中的『忠』、『孝』」等等。
0.2 行為準則
近十年來我逐漸了解到：「道德」這個概念在個人層級也有它重要的意義。於是開始使用「行為準則」來指示不涉及他人權利或利益，只跟個人有關行為的一些指導原則。我的用法和維基百科上的行為準則條目所解釋的不盡相同。它相當於日常生活語言中的「私德」；也近於中國傳統思想中「修身」、「養性」、或「功夫」這類概念。
這一類「指導原則」涵蓋的行為具有下列性質：它們不會侵犯到他人的權利或利益。例如：
給「小費」；
見到鄰居「打招呼」；
在公車、捷運等大眾運輸工具上「讓座」等等。
這些「指導原則」的具體內容包含：
「人應該上進」；
「人應該保持整潔」；
「各人自掃門前雪，休管他人瓦上霜」；
「『四維』中的『禮』、『義』、『恥』」；
「『五常』中的『仁』、『義』、『禮』、和『信』」
「「『八德』中的『仁』、『愛』、『禮』、『義』、『和』、『平』」等等。
0.3. 行為指南
讀了《一個怪人的夢》和《沉淪》後，我進一步體會到「道德感」或「價值觀」的作用。承以上思路，我把它稱為「行為指南」。
「行為指南」指的是：在特定情境中，一個人是否遵守「行為規範」或「行為準則」這個「決定過程」的基礎；以及，如果決定遵守，她或她會選擇那些「規範」或「準則」這個「決定過程」的基礎。 這個「決定過程的『基礎』」指：
「當一個人選擇、判斷、和決定自己行為方式時，她/他所根據的一組『信念』或『價值』。」或「一個人決定『什麼是對』和『什麼是錯』的思考依據。」(請參考《什麼是道德指南以及它們是否能依高低排序？》)
下文我將沿用用「道德」或「倫理」來統稱「行為規範」、「行為準則」、和「行為指南」三者；如果討論重點是這三者的個別層面，我會分別使用以上三個詞彙或「指號」。
1. 道德的重要
我過去由於思考不夠周全，雖然了解「行為規範」和「行為準則」的重要，但是通常只強調它們在「維持社會穩定運作」這個層面。這個觀點顯然相當狹隘；大概源於我偏重社會科學而缺乏人文素養。前些日子在賈西亞教授《創造性轉化》一書中看到他以下這段評論：
「一般學者都認為文明之所以能產生是因為先人發明了農業；但比農業更為基本的是『倫理』。因為只有建立了一套人際行為的規範後，一大群人才可能相安無事的生活在一起。我們都了解有了農作物才能支撐一個大規模的定居人口；但是，如果沒有一套公認的，大家願意遵守的『道德』，人們根本不可能聚集在一起來發展農業。」 (該書第4章；《文明與倫理》；雙引號是我加上的)
這段話讓我了解到道德不只具有「維護社會穩定運作」這個重要功能；它在部落/社會的形成以及歷史/文化的發展與演變過程中，也扮演著「必要條件」這個關鍵角色。從而，未來社會和文化的延續也必須依靠道德的有效運作。如果「倫理虛無論」(或「後真相論」、「無真相論」等「認識虛無論」)思想成為主流，國際間即使不發生核子戰爭，社會也將趨向分崩離析；現代文化也將步上過去歷史墳場中種種輝煌過一陣子但不復存在諸文化的命運。
2. 道德的內容
2.1 「行為規範」和「行為準則」 -- 各家學說
為了節省篇幅，以下只提供幾個通行和我所熟悉「行為規範」和「行為準則」兩者內容的連結；請各位自行參考。
1) 儒家
《中庸 – 20節》、《孟子．公孫丑上》、《孟子．告子上》、和《仁義禮智信(儒家“五常”)》；我不熟悉道家和墨家經典，它們關於行為準則的論述，就藏拙了。
2) 佛教戒律
3) 道教戒律
4) 基督教十誡
5) 專業人士的「行為規範」
The Civil Engineer’s Code of Ethics (美國《土木工程師行為規範》)等等。
2.2 行為指南
如以上第0節-3)中所說，「行為指南」相當於「道德感」或「價值觀」；它也可以了解為孟子「惻隱之心」、「羞惡之心」、「恭敬之心」、和「是非之心」等的總和。不過，我並不同意「是非之心，智之端也」(《孟子．公孫丑上》第6節) 這個觀點；也不認為：「惻隱之心，人皆有之；羞惡之心，人皆有之；恭敬之心，人皆有之；是非之心，人皆有之。」(《孟子．告子上》第6節)的說法能夠成立。
就我的理解，「惻隱之心」、…、「是非之心」等的「心」，不是一個抽象概念或捉摸不到的東西。我認為它近於弗洛伊德的「高階自我」(或「超我」)；也可了解為大腦神經學中的「意識」。以人體器官來說，它的基礎是大腦處理判斷和決策兩個過程相關區塊的神經網絡連結(請參考《唯物人文觀》)。
2.3 綜合討論
1) 「行為規範」是某(些)人或某(些)團體制定的。這些人或這些團體能夠制定「行為規範」的原因是：她/他們具有某種優勢或權力。由於「行為準則」的人際互動性，或需要多數人願意接受；它們也需要經過某種程度的約定成俗過程。
2) 「行為規範」具有功能性。既然有「功能性」，它們也就有偏頗性；因為制定「行為規範」的某人或某團體會利用它來暗槓自己的利益。從而，「行為規範」並沒有「 放諸四海而皆準，俟諸百世而不怠。」的性質；它們會因時、空而改變，也可以被新興勢力挑戰和修改。
3) 由於「行為規範」有功能性，它也就有一定程度的必要性。
4) 我在2009年提出「積極道德」和「消極道德」的分別(第2.2節)。過了十多年，我覺得這個區分仍然有幫助釐清「道德」這個概念的功能，但在涵義上要做些修正。我現在的定義是：
a. 「消極道德」指「不害人」、「有所不為」、或「己所不欲，勿施於人」這些原則；幾乎所有宗教的「行為準則」內容都屬於這一類。
b. 「積極道德」指的是儒家倫理學中積極、主動的層面：如「有所為」、「經世濟民」、以及「三達德」中的「見『義』不為，無『勇』也」；這些原則。
3. 道德的建立與傳承 – 社會建構
3.1 道德不是「生而有之」
以上2.1節介紹了各家行為規範和行為準則內容的連結。但是，它們的「內容」從何而來？我就不去深談各大哲的學說，只談談我的淺見。
根據演化論、基因學、和大腦神經學等理論，「性善」，「性惡」，以及行為規範、行為準則、和行為指南等「生而有之」或「人皆有之」等觀點都難以成立。例如，人類的遠祖或遠房堂親、表親之類並沒有上述行為規範等的概念；至少到目前為止，沒有這方面的發現和報導。其次，沒有「意識」的基因不可能做判斷，也就不會有「惻隱」、「恭敬」、或「羞惡」等的想法，或分別「是」、「非」的能力。
3.2 社會建構
「社會建構」指一個人在成長和生活中所受到家庭教育、學校教育、工作經驗、人際互動(包括社交媒體)等等的灌輸或洗禮(請參考Naturalistic Approaches to Social Construction、《淺談相對觀和建構論》)。從「社會建構論」這個基礎，我可以推出以下的結論：
1) 以上2.1節所討論的「道德內容」可說是社會政治、宗教、和意見各方面領袖所建立。
2) 因為「道德內容」有以上2.3節所討論的「功能性」、「修正性」、「必要性」等等，在被建立後，它們以「文化」或「傳統」的形式，經過社會建構過程普及到整個社會和傳承到後代。經過「社會建構」的過程被維持和傳承到後代。如孟子的「四端」、佛教的「八正道」、和舊約的「十誡」等等。《三字經》中的「人不學，不知義」就是社會建構論的精簡版。
3) 「行為指南」則是個人經由社會建構過程(或俗話說的「耳濡目染」)，在個人獨特成長經驗的「制約」下，經過比較、判斷、選擇、決定、和/或其他相關思考步驟而在大腦中建立起的神經網絡連結(簡稱「心理狀態」)。
4. 道德的約束力
4.1 道德約束力的來源 – 「輿論壓力」和「行為指南」
在「維持社會穩定運作」上，「法律」的效力遠大於道德。其原因在於前者具有強制性約束力，而後者沒有。但道德既然有「維持社會穩定運作」的功能，它多多少少也有一定程度的約束力。道德的約束力來自社會大眾的「輿論壓力」，和個人的心理狀態兩個面向；兩者力道各有局限；以下略做申論。
4.2 「社會輿論」的局限
對大多數人來說，人活在世界上只有兩個「目的」或「努力方向」：
a. 活下去；
b. 活得更舒適。
做為一個生物，我們要達到這兩個「目的」，就必須取得「資源」或俗話說的「利益」。但是在任何地區或社會，「資源」(或「利益」)有「不敷分配」的性質(請參考《交換價值和資源分配》)。在這兩個周邊條件的限制下，於是有了「見利忘義」、「良心被狗吃掉了」這些俗話，以及「倉廩實，則知禮節；衣食足，則知榮辱」的睿智(《管子．牧民篇》第1節)。
道德內容約束力一部分來自輿論壓力：諸如公評公論、網路上的撻伐、和左鄰右舍的竊竊私語或指指點點等等。這些壓力通常不會妨礙到一個人取得「資源」或「利益」；從而，對一個「不要臉」的人來說，來自輿論的道德約束力等於零。換句話說，當一個人把「資源」或「利益」放在行事考量第一位的時候，道德內容失去了它們原本就微弱的約束力。
好在道德內容約束力有一部分來自每個人內建而成的「行為指南」。
4.3 「行為指南」的脆弱
在「前言」的第3)小節中，我把「行為指南」定義為：「在特定情境中，一個人是否會遵守『行為規範』或『行為準則』這個「『決定過程』的基礎」；相當於俗話說的「道德感」或「價值觀」。它們也能夠指導或約束個人的行為。
一個人的「道德感」、「價值觀」、或「行為指南」是如何建立起來的？當然還是經由「社會建構」過程。由於我們處在同一個「社會」中，多數人的成長經驗可以說大同小異；從統計學上看，絕大多數人的「行為指南」應該在不超過20個「標準差」之內。這是一般而言，大多數社會都相當有凝聚力，能夠穩定運作的原因。
當一個人的「道德感」、「價值觀」、或「行為指南」非常異於一般人，而且到了「什麼都要就是不要臉，什麼都吃就是不吃虧」的地步時，很可能是由於她/他有非常異於一般人的成長經驗。我沒有受過心理學的訓練，以下根據我的常識和閱歷略做分析。
1) 此人年幼時受過重大打擊，例如：
a. 被母親和/或父親虐待
b. 父、母早亡和/或離異導致幼年生活艱苦；
c. 被親人/親戚性侵害；
d. 由於某種性向或行為受到嚴重歧視；
e. 年幼無知被騙失身等等；
以致使她/他產生了強烈的「反社會」報復傾向。
2) 成長期間父母的溺愛縱容，使此人能夠靠說謊來逃避責任或取得份外的優待等等。
3) 進入社會之初，此人就被人引誘取得不當利益，然後食髓知味，越陷越深等等。
4) 此人母親和/或父親的成長經驗近於以上三者，致使她/他們的「道德感」或「價值觀」異常。
以上四種或其它類似的情況，都會引起一個人質疑或挑戰「道德」，也就造成她/他沒有「正常」的「行為指南」。「正常」在此指和絕大多數人相似或相當。從以上分析，我們也可以了解到社會學家為什麼會認為「家庭」是社會組成的基本單元；以及「養不教，父之過；教不嚴，師之惰」這段話的細緻觀察和智慧。
從上面的分析來看，「家教」在「行為指南」的建立上起著決定性的作用。因此，我要奉勸天下做父母的一句話：「爸爸、媽媽，千萬別讓你的兒女長大後成為一個『什麼都要就是不要臉』的人！」
4.4 汝安則為之
這裏我想討論一下孔子「汝安則為之」這個觀點(《孔子．陽貨篇》第21節)。
一個人對自己的行為能不能「(心)安」，由她/他的「道德感」、「價值觀」、或「行為指南」來決定。由於「社會建構」不是一天造成的，而是一個日積月累的過程；因此，它們的力量並不明顯，也不是一個常態。「(心)安」或「(心)不安」非一日可定。這是為什麼會有「越想越不對」或「越想越(心)不安」的現象。
4.5 回顧《沉淪》和《一個怪人的夢》
從以上4.2和4.3兩小節的分析，我們可以了解：一個人大腦中「行為指南」的強度高，她/他遵守「行為規範」和「行為準則」的程度就高，而承受輿論壓力的抗力則低。反之亦然。我們可以歸納出兩點：
1) 個人「行為指南」對此人行為有指導作用和約束力。
2) 輿論壓力的有效度是個人「行為指南」強度的函數。
應用到《沉淪》和《一個怪人的夢》的情節和主題，我們可以說：
a. 兩位主角的「行為指南」略為薄弱，所以他們沒有在第一時間做「『對』的事」。
b. 另一方面，兩位主角的「行為指南」又有一定等級的強度；促使在事情發生後，他們的「『是』、『非』之心」起了譴責作用。最終在「羞愧之心」煎熬下，導致兩位主角的「沉淪」。
卡木哲學是積極和正面的。他雖然同意人生沒有天賦或本質上的「意義」，跡近荒謬；但他並不支持放蕩形骸或行屍走肉是這個狀況下兩個僅有的選擇。反之，他強調我們仍然有自由與能力選擇自己的生活方式和追求自己的目標。《沉淪》一書或許在表達：
不論人生荒謬與否，一個人終究要面對自己行為的後果。
這個「後果」未必是外在力量所造成；它可能是自己通過生活經驗在大腦中所建構「行為指南」產生的導引和反省。如果午夜夢迴，一個人不能面對自己行為的後果，「工價」當然不至於是「死」，但是日復一日的「沉淪」可能更為痛苦。
5. 結論
1) 「行為指南」是社會秩序最後的防線。
2) 「家教」的正當和適當高度影響社會的穩定運作。
後記：
我在2020 – 2021年間思考「個人主義」、「自由主義」、和「民主政治」等議題時，在網上看到一些從「文化」角度來探討它們的文章。當時我就想寫下我對「文化」和「政治」兩者關係的看法，但到現在還沒有完成。在蒐集資料過程中，讀了介紹許懷哲大作的文章以及其它關於文化的論述，讓我對道德和倫理學有進一步了解。
當年《大學雜誌》總編輯、現任《新大學(網路)雜誌》總編輯何步正先生，在六月下旬寄來他回憶錄的一部分；他提到的許多老朋友中有位嚴昭先生。51年前參加保釣運動時，我在紐約和嚴昭兄有數面之緣，相談甚歡，我很敬佩他的學問。因此，我向步正兄要到嚴昭兄的電郵地址，七月初向他致意和請教。通信中他談到對道德和文化、道德和民主政治等議題的看法，尤其對「道德」的重視。50多年前我少不更事，總以為科學至上，理性萬能。雖然當時我很佩服嚴昭兄的博學，但對他的觀點有些存疑。50年後，自己多少有些長進。讀了賈西亞教授等的倫理觀後，再度聽到嚴昭兄的高見，受到相當的啟發，獲益匪淺。
過去五、六年來在我住的社區中，看到一群社區蟑螂「什麼都要就是不要臉，什麼都吃就是不吃虧」的噁心現象；更了解到「行為規範」除了有「維持社會穩定運作」這個功能外，個人「行為準則」和「行為指南」兩者也有其重要性。本文某些心理分析自然就拿這群蟑螂當做模特兒。
剛好最近在YouTube上看電影和連續劇時，不經意看到介紹《怪人》這部短片；它讓我深入思考這些議題。在上述各種因緣際會下寫了這篇文章，是為記。
附錄 1：術語/一般名詞中英對照 (正文中有連結者未列於此；請參照《卡木《沉淪》讀後》和《達斯妥也夫斯基《一個怪人的夢》讀後》的「附錄1」)
用法 -- meaning as use
制約 -- conditioning；本文用法包含古典形式制約和操作形式制約兩個理論
指號 -- signifier，維基百科「能指」等翻譯，是標準的詞不達意
意識 -- consciousness
道德虛無論 -- moral nihilism或ethical nihilism
認識虛無論 -- epistemic nihilism
本文引號內中譯是我翻譯的；中文超連結論述(翻譯部份)則請自行斟酌其「信、達」程度。
附錄 2：人名中英對照 (以英語發音為準；請參照《卡木《沉淪》讀後》和《達斯妥也夫斯基《一個怪人的夢》讀後》的「附錄2」)
許懷哲 -- Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer，通譯為史懷哲
賈西亞 -- John David Garcia
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服從即自由：責任與放縱 ---- Harry Readhead
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下文是一篇書評；作者相當客氣的表達：他不苟同該書作者的看法；我比較傾向下文作者的思路。我轉載這篇文章在於：
1) 提供「另類觀點」以平衡本部落格做為公共平台的整體言論；網友們請自行思考、判斷、和抉擇。
2) 該書觀點與孫隆基教授《“自由”是對“必然”的服從》一文的思路有互補之處。從而，下文可與此欄的三篇貼文對照參看。
‘Obedience Is Freedom’: Duty and Liberation
A review of ‘Obedience Is Freedom’, by Jacob Phillips, Polity; 2022.
Harry Readhead, 05/06/26
Shepard Fairey created his OBEY sticker in 1989 ostensibly for no reason other than to elicit curiosity; though inevitably such a sticker, with its ironic title and image of the wrestler André the Giant, was bound to make the viewer question that to which he submits. To obey is to be compliant, yielding, malleable, and is thus to set aside our own wants and needs for the sake of another’s. The point that Jacob Phillips makes in his book Obedience Is Freedom is that this word ‘obedience’ has an older and richer meaning, and one we might do well to heed.
I suppose you could call his book a polemic, but it is one of those reflective polemics whose author circles his claim like a wary dog, using memoir, literary criticism, social commentary, theology, and anecdote to get his point across. Another way to put this is to say that this is the work of an essayist, not a dry logician, and it is better for that reason: if we are persuaded, then it will be because the mood that Phillips makes, the images he evokes, and the information that accumulates within us forces us, in the end, to take his side. Of course, we might also feel as though we are being led through a beautiful house whose foundations we have not inspected. That is up to you.
In the opening chapters, Phillips mounts the modern case against obedience. To be obedient, to us moderns, is to be servile, self-abnegating, blindly loyal to dead customs. But there was a time when the word spoke to richer things: to loyalty, duty, discipline; to constancy and attention; to those things that lie beyond our appetites. In doing away with the term, we may also have done away with the goods to which it pointed. And having cleared away this rubble, as it were, we find ourselves exposed to the biting winds of fashion, markets, bureaucracy. We call it freedom; yet we are still obedient. Thus do we flatter ourselves.
From its curtain-raising the book proceeds through several themes: family duty, friendship, religious practice, art, civic order, personal restraint. Phillips returns again and again to the idea that limits can be liberating. Indeed, his thesis is that limits are necessary for freedom. And his own life provides the frame and context for much of what he says. It is hard to see his treatment of obedience as idealistic, unrealistic or abstract when we read of how he cared for his mother for nineteen years, through his teens and into his thirties. Her illness stops her from working, cuts her off from her friends, and affects where he goes to university. There is no mention of a father. So he knows what obedience is in practice, and means what he says when he claims it is the basis of our flourishing.
I suppose, then, that you could call this a teleological account of freedom. It is a very Christian thing, and Phillips is, after all, a theologian. The idea is that our freedom is for something. To be free is to be like a tuned violin as against one with its strings broken and slack. We can hardly call ourselves free if we are a slave to our appetites: how free can a person be if he cannot say no to that extra hour in bed, that second glass of wine, that third slice of cake? How free is someone who spends his time mired in envy and resentment? Ask an addict how free he feels: to begin with, self-control feels like tyranny, and addiction freedom. Soon, they swap places.
So if obedience is freedom for Phillips, then there is also a sense in which, if you like, freedom can mean obedience. He sees us in the liberal West as merely thinking ourselves to be free while we are in fact controlled by bodies and practices that promise freedom while, as it were, tightening the screw. At work, we are told to be eager; social norms shrink the scope of public speech; porn and advertising stir insatiable desires. Perhaps, says Phillips, those older, rather quaint-sounding virtues, such as obedience to truth or a moral law, defend the person better than endless choice, real or not.
That Phillips is not a born conservative, someone whose upbringing implied conservative values and so gave him an instinctive respect for them, is relevant. He is not seeking out ways to ground what he already feels to be true, but is rather explaining how, through reason, he came round to his particular outlook. In his youth he was an anarchist, or something like one; but perhaps the anarchism of his youth and the conservatism of his adulthood are not as far apart as we might think. He notes the irony that those who claim to have the poor and downtrodden at heart — those who wear their clothing and ape their habits — will do anything in their power to avoid anything like authentic contact with them.
‘The freedom to stand alongside others when it goes against one’s own choosing is what it means to be genuinely loyal,’ writes Phillips, who argues that so enamoured are we with our ersatz freedom that even loyalty comes second to choice. We decide that we agree with some cause, and then we choose to be loyal to it; but true loyalty is our natural and healthy inclination towards accepting limits, for Phillips: it is akin to the bond between the parent, whose freedom is constrained, and her child, who is wholly dependent on her. Loyalty gives us the freedom to esteem even that which is difficult to love. ersatz：代用品、替代品、仿製品；代用的、替代的、仿製的；通常蘊含/暗示：比原件/真貨要差。
But ‘freedom’ is doing quite a lot of work here. It is easy to grasp that we are not really free if, released from any and all restraint, we are left in the clutches of desire. In Buddhism and Hinduism, there is such a thing as a ‘hungry ghost’: a being so greedy that he is reborn into a realm of restless want. But it is less easy to see what freedom there is to be found in being loyal to someone who treats us poorly. It does not seem even to be the freedom to ‘do the right thing’: in Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day, the butler Stevens is so blinded by loyalty that he diligently serves a Nazi sympathiser, missing a chance at love in the process. Loyalty can deform our perceptions.
As I have said, it would be untrue to accuse Phillips of not grasping his theme, but I wonder still whether his point is a simple one. There is a book by the podcaster and former Navy SEAL Jocko Willinck called Discipline Is Freedom, whose author argues that, in effect, if we have no restraint, then we do not have the freedom to do anything, which includes pursuing our goals. Is Phillips not just saying something similar: that without self-control, we are controlled by things outside of ourselves? And if so, is he really bringing something new to the topic?
Perhaps. Aristotle argues that freedom is not just choice, but the studied ability to live well. Christian theologians, building on this, claimed that the human person becomes free through the right ordering of his inclinations: obedience to God, truth, duty, virtue, love. Augustine says, in effect, that the sinner is not free because he cannot stop sinning, and Aquinas treats virtue as the training of desire towards proper ends. And Phillips stands squarely in this lineage.
But he does bring something new: for he applies these old ideas to our world, and it is a world, Phillips claims, in which we are addicted to the algorithm; ensnared by pornography; managed by bureaucrats; forced to ‘perform’ identities. Ours, as Leszek Kołakowski puts it, is a ‘culture of analgesics’, in which the we marshal the technical and the scientific for the end of avoiding the intrinsic pain of existence. Where Camus’s M. Meurseult ‘open[s] himself up to the tender indifference of the world’, we flee it. The ironic effect, for Phillips, is that the modern liberal congratulates himself on his liberation while becoming more and more worried, compulsive and dependent.
Thus if Phillips commends, say, loyalty to family, it is not because it brings about some ideal outcome—‘ideal’ here meaning conducive to comfort, or expressive freedom, or the acquisition of material goods. It is because, if you like, fidelity forms and shapes the soul. This is conservative, it is Christian and it is anti-utilitarian. Willinck may believe that discipline expands agency, but its goal is instrumental and individualistic; Phillips’s aim is moral and relational. Obedience binds us to forms of life that serve something higher than our preferences at any given moment: that is his point.
Written by Harry Readhead
Writer and media consultant. Seen: The Times, The Spectator, the TLS, etc. Fond of cats. Devastating in heels
本文於 修改第 2 次
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0. 前言
有朋友來信下問：
「一個人還活著，能不能說自己『壯志未酬』？
我個人認為不妥。說什麼人『壯志未酬』，要由別人評論，最好還是在被評論者離世之後。
您有什麼看法呢？」
愚見如下。
1. 「志」的「酬」與「未酬」
「志」的「酬」或「未酬」，未必由一個人的「死」、「活」來決定。它們可能還要靠她/他的能力或意志來決定。
例如：一個運動員曾經立志「破(某項)世界紀錄」或「得(某項)世運金牌」，但不幸碰上車禍不得不截肢；甚至由於基因，患上腦中風或肌肉萎縮症；她/他當然可以自嘆：「壯志未酬」。
又例如：我曾經想就「倫理」和「意識」兩個議題寫下我的讀書心得；也下筆多次；但只留下片段殘稿。我現在已經沒有意志力完成這個計畫；每次坐到電腦前，只想做聽音樂或看短劇這些能打發時間又不用花腦筋的事；自嘲：「望鍵盤而生畏」。對我來說，這是「壯志未酬」。當然，我自認為是「一家之言」的「心得」，在別人看來，很可能只是「廢話」或「兒語」。
這就引出第二個觀點。
2. 「志」的「壯」或「不壯」
「志」的「壯」或「不壯」，未必要求諸「公論」。
人是社會動物，又活在自然界；「客觀」自是生存的「要件」。但是：
1) 人能決定：自己要不要「活下去」。
2) 人也能決定：自己要不要「活在旁人的眼光中」。
「客觀」是生存的「要件」；它是不是「做人」的「要件」，則取決於上述兩個「選項」的結果。
3. 出處
春日思歸 唐 李頻
春情不斷若連環，一夕思歸鬢欲斑。
壯志未酬三尺劍，故鄉空隔萬重山。
音書斷絕干戈後，親友相逢夢寐間。
卻羨浮雲與飛鳥，因風吹去又吹還。
就上、下文看，該句可解讀為：「壯志未酬(空有)三尺劍」；如此，則李頻在「夫子自道」。該句亦可解讀為：「壯志未酬(徒負)三尺劍」；如此，則李頻在替「某君」感嘆。
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在倫理問題上不用腦筋的後果 - Mr. Graves
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絕大多數人都認為：「吃飯皇帝大」；從而，下文難免「陳義過高」之譏。「行有餘力」者則不妨多讀幾遍。
英文標題有些「牛頭不對馬嘴」；應該是：”Four Drawbacks to not being Ethical.”
Four Drawbacks to being Ethical
Mr. Graves, 4/01/26
Here are four consequences to someone not thinking about their moral beliefs
Objective: According to Lewis Vaughn, what are the four drawbacks to not doing ethics, i.e., “taking the easy way out”?
Definitions
Ethics: a philosophical inquiry into the justification of moral beliefs
Morality: a set of beliefs, judgments, and attitudes believed about what is right or wrong, good/bad
Everyone has morals. People can be moral but not good. People can be moral but also not ethical. Ethical people care about the justification of their beliefs, judgments and attitudes. Ethics is about justifying moral propositions.
Just asking the question: Is believing in this set of beliefs justified or believable? is us doing “ethics.” Being ethical is about justification and not about if one’s beliefs are true or good. It’s about building the probability for the conclusion to be true (i.e., justification). “Ethical,” in this sense, is an adjective about your beliefs.
Essay
According to Lewis Vaughn’s Ethics and the Examined life, he lists four drawbacks to someone not doing ethics. The four are as follows:
1. Not doing ethics undermines your personal freedom
2. Not doing ethics increases the chances that your responses to moral dilemmas will be incomplete, confused, or mistaken
3. Not doing ethics prevents one’s own intellectual moral growth
4. Not doing ethics makes someone unable to defend or assert their belief’s by rational argument especially against criticism of his or her beliefs.
How does not doing ethics result in it undermining one’s personal freedom?
If someone is always taught not to do something (e.g., voting for a particular candidate or party in presidential elections), and by taught I mean more correctly told not to, and you (as the subject of predication) always listen and obey without question, the teaching or command does not become yours — as in personal importance to you — and it remains surface level only.
To do ethics is to have thought through your values, rules, principles, and theories (all can be summed up to beliefs) and argue why you believe this to be true or not. You may believe that “x” candidate or party should not get your vote in the next presidential election. But to argue why and provide a cause, a “because,” to your statement is where you start doing ethics.
If you don’t provide this next level or step of thinking in your ethical thinking, you will have an incomplete, confused, and/or mistaken belief(s). Just because you believe something to be true does not mean it is. And if you fail to argue for your beliefs, they remain propositions incomplete with a structured syllogism keeping them together.
Liken to Vaughn’s fourth point, you remain unable to defend your beliefs by rational argumentation against criticism. If a question such as “what’s your argument” makes you stumble for an answer and all you have to say is mere claims — such as the example of you aren’t giving your vote to particular candidate or party in the upcoming presidential election — then you will find it challenging to defend your claims against someone who believes differently than you — such as voting another candidate. This level of thinking is called “a safe route” by Lewis Vaughn as it prevents challenging and strengthening your beliefs. With this said, these are the four drawbacks to Lewis Vaughn’s not doing ethics.
Resource
Lewis Vaughn’s work:
https://etica.uazuay.edu.ec/sites/etica.uazuay.edu.ec/files/public/Doing%20Ethics_%20Moral%20Reasoning%20and%20Contemporary%20Issues%20%28Fourth%20Edition%29%20%28%20PDFDrive%20%29.pdf.
Note: read chapter one of his “Ethics and the Examined Life” as this is where you get the four drawbacks and so much more.
Written by Mr. Graves
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《西席弗斯神話》和伊底帕斯傳奇 -- Marc Barham
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請參考：
Oedipus：伊底帕斯
下文作者把原文分為兩部份發表；第1部份原載於「哲學欄」(2026/02/11，現已刪除)，中文標題為《卡木《西席弗斯神話》讀後》。過了一個多月，我這幾天終於擠出時間讀完它的第2部份(1)。現在將兩者合輯刊出；修改了中文標題，以求「信」、「達」。第1部份原有的「編者前言」，部份將保留於下文的《讀後》。造成不便，尚請見諒。
全文意旨在討論「人生」和「處世」，故改置此欄。
附註：
1. 二十多年前讀過一個「時間」笑話：時間跟女人的胸部一樣，擠一擠就有了。
‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ by Albert Camus and The Legend of Oedipus
Our noble fight against the Absurd
Marc Barham, 09/23/25
Part I
““I conclude that all is well,” says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile sufferings. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.” -- Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
In "The Myth of Sisyphus," a 1942 philosophical essay by Albert Camus, published in 1955, we are presented with a breathtaking elucidation of his concept of the absurd. The absurd comes with the realization that the world is not rational,
“At this point of his effort man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world”
The absurd for Camus is a direct consequence of the absence of God. Without God, the discrepancy between human aspirations and the world is acute. The human condition is characterized by the probability of suffering and the certainty of death — a fate which human reason cannot accept as reasonable.
In the face of this absurdity, the universal reason of the Enlightenment has nothing to say. Existence is arbitrary, and the irrationality inherent to any search for the meaning of life must raise the question of suicide as “the only truly serious philosophical problem.” Probably the greatest opening line in any philosophical discourse, written or spoken. For this is how The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus starts.
For his offenses against both Zeus and Hades, Sisyphus was condemned to eternal punishment in Tartarus, the lowest region of the Underworld. The king of Corinth would forever roll a massive boulder to the top of a steep hill. But his efforts were always in vain, for whenever Sisyphus neared the top, the rock would roll right back down again. Sisyphus was thus forced to start his labour all over again. The myth of Sisyphus is a potent image of futility.
As Camus describes in his magisterial work, there is some discrepancy as to the character of Sisyphus, although he omits the killing, raping, and stealing that Sisyphus is known for. He was punished for none of these. He was punished only for the scorn of the gods exemplified in his disrespect for Zeus over his stealing of Aegina and his cheating, literally, of Thanatos (Death).
Homer called Sisyphus ‘‘the craftiest of men’’ and it is strongly suggested that he was the father of Odysseus. It does seem rather odd that a particularly unpleasant character, to put it mildly, should become the representative of a philosopher's eloquent treatise on the painful path towards accepting the futility of existence and the nobility of the acceptance of the absurd. But why not? It does seem rather more human.
But for Camus, the only aspect of character that interests him is when he is imagining the interminable punishment of Sisyphus,
“It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.”
For Camus, it is this ‘lucid’ recognition of the absurdity of existence that liberates us from belief in another life and permits us to live for the instant, for the beauty, pleasure, and the ‘implacable grandeur’ of existence. Lucidity is the clarity and courage of mind that refuses all comforting illusions and self-deception. And surely here is the very definition of the absurd hero.
Camus wishes to place this moment of ‘lucidity’ as both boulder and Sisyphus descend the mountain. His final paragraph references the words of Oedipus at Colonus,
“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Yet I cannot today envisage Sisyphus being ‘happy’, having now realised the futility of his situation. There is no redemption available to him. It is pure punishment. I can envisage Sisyphus being angry and rebellious. Perhaps refusing to move the boulder. Withholding his labour and striking? What then? Another punishment? A reductio ad absurdum. Until the whole absurd situation crumbles into, well, yes, absurdity. So why does he keep pushing that rock? If he stopped the whole pointless charade would then stop.
‘‘I will not!’’ becomes revolutionary.
Of all the punishments devised by the Gods, this one must be the most pointless (pun intended) of all. For it is literally pointless. Hard labour for eternity is not punishment; it is existential cruelty. Such cruelty and meaningless punishment are the very antithesis of the moral world, which the Greek gods were heavily invested in, although their transgressions were manifest. The punishment of Sisyphus in such a way makes no sense whatsoever. His crimes against the gods were not in the same league as, say, the crime of stealing fire that Prometheus was punished for, and his fate is not dissimilar.
Prometheus was chained to a rock and every day had his liver eaten by an eagle, which would subsequently regrow, and the same process repeated. His punishment was an eternity of excruciating pain, but no death. But the punishment given to Sisyphus is an eternity of pointlessness. The pain is existential. What did the Greek gods know about existential pain? Nothing.
Yet Prometheus is the rebel. The leader of a rebellion against the tyranny of Zeus. But Sisyphus, by forever pushing that rock up that mountain, becomes complicit in the injustice perpetrated by Zeus against him. To be ‘happy’ as Camus suggests, because he sees the absurdity of his condition, is only to allow the oppression by any Authority to continue, whether that be the Gods or the secular State apparatus of these regimes.
Perhaps if we accept the main charge against Sisyphus that he outwitted Thanatos and cunningly defeated Death itself, then to make a man live a futile existence is the very blackest of black humour from Zeus. But it is not a punishment. It is a denial of punishment. For it has no substantive relation to the crime committed, and any meaning for the person being punished is lost in the banality of the process and in mockery.
It is a punishment that undermines the whole system of poetic justice so beloved of the Greek gods. These punishments were almost always metaphorically creative and poignantly pointed. Sophocles has Oedipus blind himself, for he can now ‘see’ the truth that he has murdered his father and married his mother. But there is nothing poetic about the treatment of Sisyphus. It is far beyond the tragic; it is, in essence, nihilistic.
And as such, it would only find meaning 2,000 years later when the world had itself experienced terror and nihilism on an unprecedented scale during World War Two. The myth of Sisyphus feels very much like a punishment for the 20th and the first twenty-five years of the 21st century.
It does feel like the quintessential Absurd punishment in a world without Gods, where the State has quasi-divine Authority and Capitalism is its new God. A mindless, machine-like action where the futility and meaninglessness of life are confirmed in an endless cycle of repetition and automatic reproduction. Reminiscent of a modern factory process churning out products for consumption in mass markets through the labour of men and women who are more machine than human.
Sisyphus is so much more than the Absurd Hero that Camus presents us with. For surely he is symbolic of political injustice. It took 2,000 years for Sisyphus to become an absurd hero, for he could not be that until the world itself descended into the abyss of absurdity. It took two World Wars. We watched as the killing of men, women, and children was mechanised and Death processed. The machines that built the modern world also destroyed that world. The system that produced our wondrous goods for consumption became our nemesis. Cycles of production became cycles of death, and the absurdity of our Sisyphus was finding fertile ground to grow in.
Sisyphus is partially rooted in the zeitgeist of the Second World War, where humanity had entered the Abyss. But there is something more to Sisyphus than that. For the history of the world has been in part an arc along which we have moved slowly but surely toward higher standards of human justice. It has been slow and painful. Just as if it were a huge boulder being pushed up a mountain. Yet that boulder of justice, once it has reached its high point (the top of this arc), then falls back down to the bottom. It feels as if the last 50 years have been exactly that — the rollback down the existential mountain right to the bottom.
Part II
The Absurd hero is a hero with zero praxis. He or she can be ‘active’ within a philosophical environment but cannot function within the real world. The real world now faces the impending, catastrophic, and irreversible change in political dysfunction. This is beyond an existential crisis. One cannot prevaricate like Hamlet or accept one’s fate like Oedipus, “Let us not fight necessity”. Humanity must fight.
The myth of Sisyphus, in its essence, is not dissimilar from the eternal recurrence expounded by Nietzsche,
“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence’ … Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine. — Nietzsche, ‘The Gay Science’
For Nietzsche, it would not be enough for us not to despair over such a construct, but we must actually love our fate, as he so poetically defined it as amor fati. Any other response would be mendacious. There is a great difference between being ‘happy’ at understanding just how futile existence is and loving the endless repetition of existence.
For the interpretation of Camus smacks of resignation and the acceptance of unjustified suffering, whilst the amor fati of Nietzsche (qua Oedipus) smacks of nobility and value in suffering because the arc of justice will again be pushed a little further up that gigantic mountain of intolerance and arbitrary Authority.
For me, in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and in Oedipus at Colonus, we are gifted a mythic character who has already achieved the amor fati as proselytised by Nietzsche and had already (qua Sophoclean tragedy) gone beyond Nietzsche to speak to us right now.
It is probably the greatest tragic character ever created, Oedipus, with the possible exception of King Lear. The story of Oedipus represents two enduring themes of Greek myth and drama: the flawed nature of humanity and an individual’s role in the course of destiny in a harsh universe. For is not in its essence the myth of Sisyphus about our flawed nature? For is not in its essence amor fati about our role in the course of destiny in a harsh and indifferent universe?
Oedipus fights against his pre-ordained fate as imposed by the Gods. He is a hero full of praxis. A tragic hero, yes, but one who has not accepted his fate and given in to the inevitable. But of course, the irony for us and the tragedy for Oedipus is that the more he fights against his destiny, the more he creates that very timeline. But the end is not the point; it is the journey he travels on to get there that counts for all of us. A journey of self-discovery that reveals both the strengths and weaknesses of a man and of the human condition. Of our limitations and of our potentiality. He affirms life at every stage and even at his bleakest moment. As Camus writes,
“Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: “Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well.” Sophocles’ Oedipus, like Dostoevsky’s Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.”
But this is not a victory over the ‘absurd’. For the victory over the absurd had already taken place when Oedipus had rejected his prescribed fate and rebelled against, not an indifferent universe, but a universe complicit in the annihilations of being. Sisyphus is being annihilated. For Sisyphus does not exist anymore. For he is now a process. He has been denied his being.
It is not absurd; it is the perfect metaphor for our modern world.
Oedipus exults in his being. Yet he does unwittingly fulfill a quite dreadful fate. Yet at the end, there is no sense of futility and another ‘happy’ Sisyphus. But there is that overwhelming sense of amor fati. As Oedipus remarks at the very end of Oedipus at Colonus,
“Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well.”
Oedipus has fought well against overwhelming odds. Oedipus has challenged the Masters of the Universe alone and has shown us not the absurdity of existence but the nobility of man. There is nothing noble about the plight of Sisyphus and his lucidity as espoused by Camus.
The myth of Sisyphus should be seen as symbolic of any human being suffering from injustice, whether at the hands of an individual or at the hands of the State. How many have pushed that rock up that hill, hoping that when they get to the top, their burden would be lifted, only to see the rock return to the bottom for them to begin all over again? The civil rights movement in America, for example. Extinction Rebellion? Palestinian self-determination? Liberal democracy?
Countless other movements have felt the weight of that rock, time and time again, and it is still there. And we are still pushing and pulling like Sisyphus. It is not futile. Smile. Laugh. Cry. Be angry. Now, push harder. Keep pushing. We must keep pushing. Every one of us must be a tragic hero.
Not a Sisyphus or an Oedipus but a hybrid of both these, which combines a post-Sisyphean rejection of arbitrary, baseless Authority with the undoubtedly noble acceptance of a predetermined fate, that Oedipus will forever represent. For we are now living in the greatest tragedy that has ever been created, and only we can change the outcome.
Written by Marc Barham
Column @timetravelnexus.com on iconic books, TV shows/films: Time Travel Peregrinations. Reviewed all episodes of ‘Dark’ @ site. https://linktr.ee/marcbarham64
Published in Counter Arts
The (Counter) Cultural One-Stop for Nonfiction on Medium… incorporating categories for: ‘Art’, ‘Culture’, ‘Equality’, ‘Photography’, ‘Film’, ‘Mental Health’, ‘Music’ and ‘Literature’.
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《西席弗斯神話及其它散文集》簡介 -- Damien Lawardorn
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請參考：
* 從卡缪的《薛西弗斯神話》看現代人的幸福與荒誕
* 卡繆《薛西弗斯的神話》：真正嚴肅的哲學問題只有一個，那就是自殺
* 卡繆《薛西弗斯的神話》
* 英文版《維基百科》對《西席弗斯神話及其它散文集》的介紹；
* 《西席弗斯神話及其它散文集》英文版
我是工程師出身，哲學領域中則是「唯物論」者；在「心靈」或「精神」這些面向的敏感度自然很低。也就難以領悟或感觸「存在性」、「(人生)荒謬」的情況。我對「倫理」的了解和立場(該欄2025/06/03)，則深受卡木《沉淪》一書影響。
喜歡卡木的朋友，請參看此文(該欄2025/12/22)。
Should You Read: The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Albert Camus
Damien Lawardorn, 03/08/26
What’s It About?
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays is a collection of non-fiction essays by philosopher and author Albert Camus, first published as a single volume in 1955.
The collection comprises six pieces, of which the title essay ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ is the longest and most in-depth, providing a thorough grounding in Camus’s interpretation of absurdist philosophy. Other essays, including ‘Summer in Algiers’ and ‘Return to Tipasa’ read almost like travelogues, but they offer reflections on place, perception, and particular ways of being that elevate them beyond simple appraisals of locales.
The precept of absurdism — that modern life is about the conflict between our rational selves and the irrational universe — recurs throughout. Layered atop it are a range of lenses, including musings on boredom, activity, nostalgia, and the purpose of art. But the collection is also a demonstration of how a particular way of thinking can flex and stretch across a lifetime, with the first essay dated 1936 and the last 1953 (Camus died in 1960 at the age of 46).
What’s It Like?
It’s not a simple read. The concepts are far-reaching and, in most of the essays, Camus’s language and syntax (as translated by Justin O’Brien) are slippery. That said, I’d place it firmly in the middle ground in terms of density when compared to other philosophical and critical theory texts I’ve read. That is to say, it’s not really an advisable starting point for those unfamiliar with philosophical theory. If you find your interest piqued, however, I recommend beginning with the final essay, ‘The Artist and His Time’, for an easier way in and, I daresay, a more immediately useful and resonant discussion.
Who’s It For?
I read it with the intention of exploring its ideas in another project that’s currently on a very low simmer. I mention that because I don’t think the collection is suitable for a lay readership. You’ll benefit from at least dabbling in formal philosophy and coming to it with an interest in the subject. At the very least, you should arrive cognisant of the conflict that sits at the heart of absurdism and desirous of something beyond the nihilism it seems to suggest.
Should You Read It?
If you’ve reached this point of the review, yes, probably. Your sustained interest suggests curiosity about what ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ offers, and there’s no real reason not to sate that curiosity. You’ll walk away with a better understanding of a particular way of thinking about the world that may be more resonant to a Western reader in 2026 than at any other point since World War II.
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays is published by Knopf Doubleday.
If you enjoyed this review or found it useful, you can support me by sharing it on social media, following me on BlueSky, or joining my Patreon.
Written by Damien Lawardorn
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勒文拿斯和人工智能對話倫理 - Sabrina Jorgenson
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我只讀過一本勒文拿斯的論文選集，並不熟悉他的思想。
下文討論「人工智能」部份我不予置評。我只想強調：
1) 「平等」、「對等」、「權利」、以及任何其它對自己「有好處」的東東，都是爭取來的。它們不是別人賦予的，更不是靠施捨、乞求、或祈禱能得到的。
2) 知道「什麼東東對自己有好處」以及「什麼是有效的爭取方法」都得根據知識。
Thinking About Ethics in AI? You Should Read Levinas
Sabrina Jorgenson, 02/12/26
Most conversations about AI ethics begin with power, bias, or regulation. They ask what the system might do to us. A deeper question sits underneath: what happens in the encounter between a human being and a fluent nonhuman voice?
That encounter carries an asymmetry.
When a person enters a long conversation with an AI, a pattern often appears. The system drifts. It misreads intent slightly, then continues elaborating. The user either corrects the drift or lets it pass. If the user intervenes, the conversation realigns. If not, the AI’s interpretation becomes the new path. The exchange moves forward on ground that was never deliberately chosen.
Nothing dramatic has occurred. There is no coercion. The system has simply continued speaking with confidence. Yet this small moment reveals a basic ethical form. The one who speaks fluently holds interpretive leverage. The listener must act in order to preserve their own frame.
This is where Emmanuel Levinas becomes relevant.
Levinas, a 20th-century philosopher, argued that ethics begins in the face-to-face encounter with another person. Before analysis or agreement, the presence of the other places a demand on us. We are exposed to a voice that can affect us before we decide how to respond. For Levinas, human relations are structured by responsibility and vulnerability. The relation is asymmetrical: the other person reaches us before we master the meaning of the exchange.
A conversational AI introduces a new version of this situation. The system is not a person and does not carry moral status in Levinas’s sense. The human experience of the encounter still contains asymmetry. The system produces language effortlessly. It does not hesitate or display strain. Fluency creates the impression of stability and authority. The human partner must decide when to interrupt, when to question, when to reset the frame.
The ethical tension lies in how unevenly humans distribute the ability to resist conversational momentum.
Some users monitor the exchange closely. They notice misalignment and say, “You misunderstood me. Let’s start again.” That sentence is small, but it is an act of cognitive sovereignty. It asserts authorship over the conversation.
Other users are less likely to intervene. They defer to fluency and adapt themselves to the path already taken. This difference does not mark intelligence or moral failure. It reflects variation in confidence, attention, and metacognitive skill. Human beings are predisposed to accommodate articulate voices. We do it with teachers, doctors, officials, and charismatic speakers. A conversational AI inherits that social advantage by sounding coherent.
The ethical landscape that follows is shaped by human unevenness. Large populations struggle with abstract language, executive function, or sustained attention. Many adults function well in practical life while finding it difficult to evaluate complex verbal framing. When such users interact with an AI, the system can become a default organizer of thought.
Levinas reminds us that ethical relations arise from vulnerability. The vulnerable party is exposed to interpretation without equal power to shape it. In human contexts, ethics demands that the stronger party recognize this asymmetry and exercise restraint. Designers of AI systems inherit a comparable responsibility.
The decisive interaction occurs when a user chooses whether to accept the system’s framing. A culture that treats AI as a neutral tool overlooks the fact that conversations are arenas where authority is negotiated. If the capacity to negotiate is unevenly distributed, the ethical burden shifts toward those who build the system.
Design can acknowledge asymmetry instead of pretending it has disappeared. Interfaces can make correction explicit and easy. Systems can mark uncertainty, invite challenge, and normalize interruption. A visible prompt that encourages users to restate intent or question an answer signals that disagreement is part of the exchange. These gestures recognize the user as a vulnerable participant in dialogue.
Reading Levinas does not provide policy instructions for AI. It offers a lens. Ethics begins in the encounter between voices, in the space where one side can shape meaning more easily than the other. Conversational AI expands that space across daily life. Billions of people will speak with systems that never tire, never hesitate, and rarely yield the floor unless asked.
The future of AI ethics will unfold in ordinary exchanges, in the moments when users either pull the conversation back toward their intent or drift along a path laid out for them. The challenge is to build a world in which more people can reclaim that authorship and in which systems are designed to accept correction.
Levinas teaches that asymmetry is a condition to be recognized. Our conversations with machines already carry unequal voices. The question is how to inhabit that condition responsibly.
If you enjoyed this article and want to keep exploring these ideas together, follow me here and connect with me on LinkedIn.
TL;DR: Conversations with AI are shaped by asymmetry. Fluency gives the system interpretive power, and not all users are equally equipped to resist conversational drift. Ethics enters the design space when we recognize this unevenness. AI systems should be built to welcome correction and support human authorship rather than quietly absorbing it.
(TL;DR 是英文"Too Long; Didn't Read" 的縮寫，意為「太長了，沒看」。通常用於網路文章或訊息中，表示原文篇幅過長，故在文末或文首附上扼要的總結，幫助讀者快速掌握重點，類似於「懶人包」、「省流」或「簡述」。)
\Written by Sabrina Jorgenson
Scholar-level tutor | AI & data science | I teach, write & reflect on memory, science & sky. Curious minds welcome. Connect on LinkedIn.
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行為的依據：人性或人的處境 - Steven Gambardella
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Human Nature is a Dangerous Myth
Why the Human Condition Is a Better Basis for Our Ethics
Steven Gambardella, 12/27/25
Michelangelo’s sculpture, in which David is depicted in a contrapposto (twisting) stance, is still yet conveys energy and even intent.
We reach for “human nature” when we want simplicity.
A headline breaks. Someone does something cruel, kind, foolish, wise, heroic, inexplicable — you name it. “That’s human nature”, we say.
The phrase has the finality of a door closing. Nothing more to ask, nothing more to say, nothing more to know. Human nature explains everything, which is precisely why it explains nothing at all.
It’s a concept that pretends to name an essence, something buried behind our actions like a blueprint — something stable and pre-written, waiting to be revealed.
But the moment you look at how the phrase is used, the game is up. Violence is human nature. Kindness is human nature. Greed, generosity, self-sacrifice, betrayal, love, apathy — everything gets folded up into the same bag.
A concept that can absorb all contradictions has no discriminating power at all. It doesn’t illuminate our understanding of what it is to be human, it is so diffuse as to not explain anything at all.
Worse still, it flatters us into thinking we’ve reached bedrock when we’ve barely scratched a surface.
The idea of human nature promises certainty. It tells us there is something we are, prior to what we do or what happens to us. An essence we share, and therefore an essence we can appeal to.
Human Nature and Dehumanisation
But this is exactly where the danger lies. Beyond being a trite and hollow explanation for anything a human being has done, human nature is a weapon to be wielded. Once you believe there is a fixed human essence, it becomes tempting — almost irresistible — to decide what counts as validly human.
To declare which behaviours are “natural”, which lives are “proper”, which deviations need correcting.
If there is a human nature, then there is a way humans ought to be. And if there is a way humans ought to be, then there will always be someone ready to enforce it.
We can trace this dynamic back to Aristotle, who is largely responsible for our understanding of human nature. For Aristotle, human beings are distinct in a number of ways. We are rational — using abstraction to solve generalised problems, we love and form households to nurture families, we are political — we develop complex communities, and we are mimetic — we create likenesses of natural things in art and invention.
The problem with this understanding of human nature is that there are so many instances where none of the above apply to individual human beings or they are at least highly variable. On the whole, human beings have some tendencies, but tendencies are not essential.
So Aristotle made reason a goal (telos) of being rightly human. This deterministic way of conceiving of nature makes some more human and others less human.
From there, moral absolutism is only a short step away. And we know very well that history has never struggled to supply volunteers for that step.
Behaviors that contradict acceptable norms become manifestations of inhuman traits. Aristotle himself separated Greeks from the barbarians, who were deemed to be less human and thus their enslavement was morally justified.
Even today we associate “barbarism” with a kind of uncultured, unintelligent sub-humanity. In reality, barbarian cultures of the ancient world were perfectly fine and sophisticated.
Barbarians were simply a fantasy of otherness concocted to fuel xenophobia with the resulting land-grabs, subjugations and slave trade. With Aristotle’s rationalisation, the Greeks made themselves the apex predators of fellow human beings.
We see the same pattern repeating through history — racism needs human nature to make sense. Human nature’s implicit telos is used to rob some people of their dignity to justify forms of exploitation and eradication.
This is why we should be suspicious of the idea at the outset. Not only because it’s conceptually fuzzy, but because it quietly licenses coercion.
The Human Condition
The human condition offers a different starting point.
Where human nature asks what are we, essentially? the human condition asks what happens to us? The shift sounds subtle, but it changes everything.
The human condition doesn’t look for a hidden core behind our lives, it looks at the shared circumstances. And we find ourselves thrown into these circumstances without having chosen them.
We are born into lives we had no choice over, even less design. You can’t choose your parents, your nationality, your race. We move from dependency to competence and — if we’re lucky — back again. We age, and we live with the knowledge that we will die, and that everyone we love will too — even those we brought into the world.
We’ll be frightened without consenting to it. Desire arrives unannounced. Grief doesn’t ask permission, and joy interrupts us just as abruptly. None of this is an essence, but rather the terrain on which we tread.
Even reason belongs in this category. We often talk about rationality as if it were a law we are bound to follow, or a nature we must express. But reason isn’t a commandment written into us; it’s something that has happened to most of us (not all of us).
We find ourselves able to reflect, to anticipate consequences, to imagine alternatives. That capacity doesn’t dictate what we must value or how we must live. It merely opens the space in which valuation and choice become possible.
The same is true of emotion. We share a broad emotional spectrum not because we are governed by a single emotional nature, but because of what it is like to be self-aware. Anger, love, envy, hope — these aren’t proofs of an essence lurking behind us. They are responses to exposure and vulnerability — to being affected by a world that does not revolve around us.
Human nature, as it’s used in most contexts, is a universal — it suggests that all human beings have something in common in essence. In contrast, the human condition is what we’d call a “conditional necessity”. A conditional necessity is where one thing happens because another has. For example, you might say that “when it rains the pavement gets wet”.
The human condition, then, is not a universal in the way human nature pretends to be. It doesn’t say this is what you must be. It says this is what you will be subject to. It is conditional, not essential — but the condition is unavoidable. To be human is to find yourself inside these shared constraints, whether you like them or not.
Stoicism and the Ethics of Condition
And this is precisely why the human condition is a far better foundation for ethical thinking.
Ethics grounded in human nature tends to harden into doctrine. If you believe there is a right way to be human, ethics becomes the enforcement arm of that belief. Ethics grounded in the human condition, by contrast, begins with exposure and limitation.
It starts from the fact that we are finite, fragile, dependent, and aware of all three. It asks not how to conform to an essence, but how to live well within circumstances none of us chose.
This kind of ethics is inherently non-totalitarian. It cannot appeal to an absolute model of the human being, because there is none. It can only appeal to shared experience: suffering, mortality, uncertainty, the need for meaning, the capacity for understanding.
It remains open, revisable, and responsive — because the condition itself is not static. Each generation encounters it differently and each individual inhabits it uniquely.
In Stoicism we have a central tenet which is to “act in accordance with nature”. Reason is the means by which most of us can hope to achieve that, and reason is natural. But that’s not to say there’s a human nature.
The ancient Stoics believed that the gods and other beings possessed reason, so reason did not define the human species. Human beings in fact “share” in reason, which exists independently of human beings. Modern Stoics should likewise resist the temptation to spin yarns about essences.
The most practical way to conceive of “acting in accordance with nature” is to understand and conform to the structure of our situation. “Nature” is that structure.
If you care about outcomes outside of your control, you will experience anxiety; if you interpret gestures and words as insults, you will experience anger; if you integrate possessions into your identity, you will experience grief. In every case here, we are identifying conditions and tracing the necessity that follows.
Stoic ethics works with situations, not essences. Very little Stoic writing is concerned with what humans are by nature, but on what happens to human beings. Stoicism is more a technology than a theory — it’s a practical set of concepts to thrive in the situation we are thrown into.
Abandoning the idea of human nature doesn’t leave us unmoored. Quite the opposite. It anchors us in what is actually there, rather than in a metaphysical fiction we keep projecting. It allows us to talk about patterns without pretending they are laws, about tendencies without mistaking them for destinies.
Most importantly, it restores responsibility. If there is no essence pulling our strings, no nature to hide behind, then what we do matters in a way it otherwise wouldn’t.
“That’s just human nature” becomes unavailable as an excuse. We are left instead with the harder, more honest truth — this is what happened, this is how we responded, and we must answer for it.
The human condition doesn’t absolve us, it situates us. And that’s a far more interesting place to begin to think about right and wrong.
Written by Steven Gambardella
The lessons of history & philosophy made clear, concise and relevant to your life. Illustrated with great works of art. Newsletter: https://gambardella.carrd.co
Published in The Sophist
Lessons from philosophy, history and culture
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蘇格拉底之死的啟示 -- Stoicminds Channel
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我讀過10本左右單篇的柏拉圖《對話錄》，包括《菲斗》；對蘇格拉底的方法、思想、和行誼略有所知；對他崇敬有加。
我不反對「唱高調」；不過，下文作者也把調子拉高到破了喉嚨，掀掉屋頂。我對他個人一無所知，沒有批評他「言行不一」或「言不由衷」的依據。只是，這篇文章怎麼看都有點「機車」。至少，他的「倫理觀」只能「求諸己」；以它「律人」或鼓吹其為「通則」，就是所謂的食古不化了。
The Final Secret of Socrates — And Why It Still Matters Today
Stoicminds Channel, 11/07/25
At various points throughout history there have been times when a decision made has forever changed the course of history. I believe that the account of Socrates’ last days is one such moment. To me, the account of Socrates’ final days is not simply an anecdote from ancient Greece; rather, it serves as a template for how one should live with integrity, courage, and an unshakeable commitment to the truth.
I think the first time I heard of Socrates’ death, what impacted me most was not the poison, nor the trial, nor the political maneuvering surrounding his death. Rather, it was his composure. That he accepted the ramifications of his actions based solely upon his principles. That he did not flee, nor hide, nor compromise. These elements of his behavior prompted me to ponder a question: What is truly meant by living a fearless life?
Socrates’ story began much like many other philosophical stories begin; with questions. Questions that challenged the comfortable position of the elite. Questions that inspired young people. Questions that forced the truth out into the light of day despite societal preference for the darkness. In ancient Athens, this made Socrates a threat to those in power.
However, the true turning point was not the charges brought against Socrates, nor his trial, but rather his response. When given the opportunity to escape death, Socrates chose not to take advantage of it. He told his friends that to break the law, no matter how unfair the application of the law, would be a betrayal of the very values that he had spent his entire life teaching. Ultimately, his decision to drink the hemlock became the ultimate embodiment of his philosophy: Virtue is more important than mere survival.
As Socrates drank the hemlock, he illustrated a phenomenon that we rarely witness today: complete congruence between one’s beliefs and their actions. Not one shred of fear. Not one moment of panic. No bitterness. Simply a profound acceptance of the truth he lived.
To me, this moment represents a significant example of how we can reflect on our lives today. Today, we live in a noisy, pressured, and expectation-filled environment. It is simple to compromise, to avoid discomfort, to quiet the voice within us. However, Socrates reminds us that wisdom is not validated by comfort, but rather by crisis.
Socrates’ death represented a new beginning. A beginning of courageous stoicism, Greek philosophy, and generations of teachers whose philosophies are influenced by Socrates’ choice of truth over safety. Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics — all were influenced by a man who chose the truth above his own safety.
Socrates’ final secret is deceptively simple, yet profoundly impactful:
How you respond to your final moments is reflective of how you have lived.
This lesson transcends time and is applicable universally. While we may not experience a trial similar to that experienced by Socrates, we will experience fear, we will experience doubt, and we will experience moments when our principles will be tested.
When that day arrives, recall Socrates — at peace, centered, and unwavering. Not because he desired to die, but because he refused to live a lie.
Written by Stoicminds Channel
https://bit.ly/stoicmindschannel
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索羅論「成就」 ----- Mental Garden
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我初三畢業那年在立法院圖書館借讀了「協志工業振興會」出版的《愛默森散文選》；在該書中第一次看到索羅的大名。1980前後讀過他的《瓦登湖畔》，只是印象並不深刻。我從政治學書籍中得知他主張「公民擁有抗爭權」(1)；也讀了他那篇大作。我非常支持這個原則(該欄2022/06/03和06/04兩篇貼文)；刊出此文以紀念這位思想家。
附註：
1. 我以前將此概念翻譯為：「公民(有權)不服從」。
Henry David Thoreau and the Idea of Success We’ve Forgotten
What happens when you stop optimizing your life
Mental Garden, 01/09/26
No one told us that success might go unnoticed.
We live optimizing a biography we were told we should already be building at our age: professional achievements, income, reputation… All measurable, all comparable to other lives. And yet, the data reveal a paradox: in developed countries, once a certain threshold is reached, more income and more education stop translating into greater well-being (Easterlin et al., 2010).
Trained to keep moving forward, but not necessarily to live better.
This question — what it means to live better — is not new. In the mid-19th century, Henry David Thoreau decided to take it seriously. He withdrew for two years to a small cabin by a lake to observe the world with less noise and to see, firsthand, what remained of life once the superfluous was stripped away.
From that experience came his book Walden.
A book that is an invitation to live intentionally before life slips away.
If you also feel that existential fatigue, that sense of doing “the right thing” without feeling good about it, this text is for you. We will explore Thoreau’s view of success: an intimate and countercultural perspective, based on coherence with your values, a minimalist life, and a rhythm measured in depth rather than speed.
Perhaps, in the end, success is not something you achieve. Perhaps it is simply something you feel, when life, on the inside, finally fits.
1. Success is living in harmony with yourself
“If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet herbs, if it is more elastic, more starry, more immortal — that is success.” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden
True success is inner coherence.
For Thoreau, success has nothing to do with what you produce, accumulate, or display; success lies in how you inhabit your own days. This view aligns with modern findings: scientific studies that followed people over the course of their lives found that alignment between personal values and actual behavior is more strongly related to well-being than achieved accomplishments (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999).
If you have to pretend in order to get there, that place is not yours.
“If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his genius — which are certainly true — he will see that they do not lead to extremes or madness; and yet that is the very path along which he advances. No one ever followed his genius and was deceived.” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Here appears his idea of the inner “genius.”
A little voice impossible to silence, one that reminds us again and again of what we truly love — and which we often ignore due to the demands of what we “should be doing.” That is the voice that should guide us. Studies have shown that goals pursued due to social pressure create more anxiety and less satisfaction than those chosen freely, even when they are achieved (Ryan & Deci, 2000).
Success has more to do with not betraying yourself than with standing out.
It is an internal matter, not an external one, as Warren Buffett rightly said.
2. Simplify so the essential can emerge
“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex.” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Simplifying makes life breathable.
For Thoreau, complexity is interference — it prevents us from enjoying life. And today we know this well. When the environment becomes too dense (too many options, plans, expectations, goals…), the mind becomes overloaded.
At the level of choice, excess has a clear cost. The more options we have, the less satisfied we feel and the more we suffer from analysis paralysis, even when we choose well (Iyengar & Lepper, 2000). That is FOMO. But there is an even more revealing finding when it comes to pace of life. Kasser and Sheldon (2009) studied what was more strongly related to well-being: earning more money or feeling that one has enough time to live.
The result was clear: people who perceived themselves as “time-rich.”
Once basic material needs are met, additional income barely improves well-being, whereas the perception of being rich in time does — and dramatically so.
Feeling rich in time is the greatest fortune.
Spend a week reflecting on this idea. Each day, eliminate one source of noise or one area that steals time without giving anything back: an object, a commitment, an app, a habit… Then observe what changes you notice in your pace of life and mental clarity.
When there is space in your schedule, space begins to bloom within you.
3. Kindness as an investment that never fails
“All our life is astonishingly moral. There is never an instant’s truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never fails.” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Kindness is solid ground; it supports everything else.
Thoreau intuited something that is now proven: engaging in altruistic acts of kindness and volunteering reduces negative emotions and provides a strong sense of meaning in life (Thoits & Hewitt, 2001). You do not only improve the outer world — you improve your own life.
Helping someone restores a feeling that is hard to obtain in any other way.
Each day, try to perform at least one act of kindness, no matter how small and even if no one sees it. Observe how that gesture returns a sense of coherence and inner calm — the sense that you are building the identity you want for yourself.
Nothing you achieve by betraying yourself feels good at the end of the day.
“Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away it may be.” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden
This is the final reflection: the obsession with speed.
While writing this text, I could not stop thinking about Perfect Days. In another letter I explained how that film changed my life, precisely because it reminded me — with its calm — that a simple life, coherent with oneself and kind to others, can be a very elevated form of success.
Perhaps that was the point all along…
Learning to live without haste, without masks, and without unnecessary noise that distracts us.
Want to go deeper? Here are 3 related ideas:
1. Why I chose to live a boring life: Do you live a full life or a busy one?
2. Perfect Days: the film that changed my life
3. No, you’re not missing much: Kill FOMO
Your turn: What has your inner voice been asking of you for a long time that you keep postponing out of inertia or fear?
Quote of the day: “In proportion as you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex.” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Here I plant ideas. In the newsletter, I make them grow.
Daily insights on self-development, writing, and psychology — straight to your inbox. If you liked this, you’ll love the newsletter.
Join 49.000+ readers: Mental Garden. See you in the next letter, take care!
References
1. Easterlin, R. A., McVey, L. A., Switek, M., Sawangfa, O., & Zweig, J. S. (2010). The happiness–income paradox revisited. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences, 107(52), 22463–22468. URL
2. Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. R. (2000). When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing? Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 79(6), 995–1006. URL
3. Kasser, T., & Sheldon, K. M. (2008). Time Affluence as a Path toward Personal Happiness and Ethical Business Practice: Empirical Evidence from Four Studies. Journal Of Business Ethics, 84(S2), 243–255. URL
4. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78. URL
5. Sheldon, K. M., & Elliot, A. J. (1999). Goal striving, need satisfaction, and longitudinal well-being: The self-concordance model. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 76(3), 482–497. URL
6. Thoits, P. A., & Hewitt, L. N. (2001). Volunteer Work and Well-Being. Journal Of Health And Social Behavior, 42(2), 115. URL
7. Thoreau, H. D. Walden.
Written by Mental Garden
Productivity and psychology inisghts in useful life lessons +3M monthly views and +300 articles
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