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倫理學 -- 開欄文
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瀏覽5,541 ｜回應28｜推薦3 |
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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。
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務實道德與佛家的虛無傾向 -- Benjamin Cain
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我只花了大約兩到三年的時間讀佛經，自然不敢自稱「懂」佛家學說。雖然我一向一邊讀書也一邊思考，即使有所得，大概也就在「瞎子摸象」之列。不過，下文作者肯恩博士對佛家思想的詮釋，應該屬於：他自以為在「摸象」，其實摸到的是一頭牛或一匹馬。
別的不說，佛家的「無我」跟「自私」與否沒有半毛錢關係(1)。這也說明：從肯恩博士下文中對「涅槃」概念的理解來判斷，他大概連佛家門檻都還沒有邁過。
其次，佛家的「倫理觀」跟儒家和斯多噶學派相近，其重點在「修身養性」；嚴格的說，它並非「倫理學的『虛無主義』」。在「本體論」或「認識論」上，佛家學說，尤其「中觀學派」的理論，則跟「虛無主義」相近。
附註：
1. 我不知道佛經中的「無我」在梵文或巴利文中是什麼「意思」，或指示什麼「境界」；但是，如果它被翻譯成英文的"selfless"，則肯定不夠「信、達」。
Pragmatic Morality and the Buddha’s Nihilism
The Noble Eightfold Path is a tool you throw away when you’re awakened
Benjamin Cain, 02/25/26
When we think of a Buddha, we likely think of someone who’s spiritually awakened and thus radically different from your average egotist who suffers disappointment in clinging to unrealistic desires.
Yet our conception of a Buddha also hampers this figure since we presume that such a sage would be saintly. For some reason, we presume that the sage would renounce or outgrow selfish desires but not selfless ones, so this awakened figure would be altruistic.
Buddhist pragmatism
In the Alagaddūpama Sutta (《蛇喻經》), from the Pali canon (「巴利藏」), the Buddha points out that his teachings are supposed to be pragmatic. They’re entirely devoted to achieving the goal of attaining nirvana (「涅槃」), the release of psychological attachments or cravings. Once achieved, the awakened mind wouldn’t cling to Buddhist teachings since they’d have fulfilled their purpose.
He shows this with the famous raft analogy, in which he speaks of “the Teaching’s similitude to a raft: as having the purpose of crossing over, not the purpose of being clung to.” Someone builds a raft with great difficulty to cross a perilous body of water. Once this person crosses, what should he or she do with the raft?
Should the crosser think, “This raft, indeed, has been very helpful to me. Carried by it, laboring with hands and feet, I got safely across to the other shore. Should I not lift this raft on my head or put it on my shoulders, and go where I like?”
Or instead, should the crosser think, “This raft, indeed, has been very helpful to me. Carried by it, and laboring with hands and feet, I got safely across to the other shore. Should I not pull it up now to the dry land or let it float in the water, and then go as I please?
The second option, of course, is the preferred one. You stop using a tool when you no longer need it because the tool is no longer useful under your new circumstances.
One such tool is Buddhism’s Noble Eightfold Path, which outlines right conduct for anyone undertaking Buddhist training or therapy. Thus, Buddhists should be pragmatic about morality itself. A Buddhist-in-training emphasizes selfless conduct to counteract his or her egoistic impulses. You learn to snuff out the fires of egoism by doing the opposite of what you’d naturally do.
For instance, with right speech, the Buddhist abstains from lying, gossip, slander, and harsh language, and with right intention, he or she commits to ethical and mental self-improvement, including compassion.
Yet if the Noble Eightfold Path itself is supposed to be like the raft in the analogy, we shouldn’t expect a Buddha to emphasize right conduct in those eight ways (unless the Buddha is speaking about what’s needed for the unenlightened). Morality is what you need when you’re trying to overcome your selfish cravings. Once you extinguish that natural bias towards benefitting yourself at the expense of others, you needn’t be as moralistic as a Buddhist-in-training.
For Buddhists, morality is a tool that’s supposed to destroy egoism, the selfish clinging to myopic desires that don’t take into account our existential standing in life. Once that goal is achieved, morality is as useless for the awakened mind as a boat on land.
Buddhist nihilism
More than that, a Buddha would obviously have no psychological basis for favouring selfless goals over selfish ones. If the Buddha learns to avoid clinging to selfish goals, why would he or she make an exception for selfless ones? The Buddha himself said that his very teachings shouldn’t be clung to. His very teachings are supposed to be like the raft, and his teachings include the Noble Eightfold Path of right thought and conduct.
Friedrich Nietzsche said the Übermensch is beyond good and evil. I see no Buddhist reason for thinking that the state of nirvana would be otherwise. Nirvana is supposed to be freedom from cravings. That must include moral, altruistic cravings.
And for the very same reason that a Buddha would lack selfish desires, he or she would lack selfless ones, because a Buddha regards all selves as illusory, empty, inessential clusters of passing mental states. Instead of clinging emotionally to any of them, a Buddha (awakened one) learns to passively watch his or her mental states flow by. Again, tha must include moral thoughts and feelings.
Just as a Buddha may nevertheless have selfish desires, he or she may have moral ones. But none would matter much to this sage. A Buddha would appreciate the existential tragedy that all things come and go because they dependently arise from other conditions. Moral desires would pass just like selfish ones, and since the self is metaphysically inessential (since there’s no immaterial, immortal soul in foundational Buddhism), we too come and go.
Why obsess over helping someone else, then, when that other person is inessential? If you’re enlightened, why cling to the fear, shame, or disgust that might make for a moral impulse to sacrifice yourself to help someone else in need? Even if it’s a family member in need, why expect a Buddha to help this other person out of love? How could love be anything other than a selfish or moral craving that a Buddha is supposed to have outgrown?
We should imagine that a Buddha’s condition of nirvana would be transhuman, not defined by unenlightened preoccupations. Again, as Nietzsche said, common morality is a “slave’s” way of rationalizing resentment towards the dominant, master class. Slave morality is for an underclass that’s locked in a culture war, whereas a Buddha would be free of tribal attachments, including familial ones and the duties of wannabe superheroes who tirelessly sacrifice themselves to aid precious victims.
No one is precious in the Buddhist picture, which is why the ninth-century Zen master Linji Yixuan (臨濟義玄) said in the Record of Linji, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” If even a Buddha isn’t precious, because everything is transient in the field of becoming, surely an unenlightened victim of circumstances isn’t so important that his or her plight would force a Buddha to act. If a Buddha has no mental attachments, nothing could psychologically compel a Buddha to take action, not even a moral principle.
How to escape Buddhist nihilism
We must keep in mind Buddhism’s purpose, which is to relieve us of pointless suffering by changing our erroneous perspectives. For Buddhists, we’re the causes of our most absurd suffering, the kind that we needn’t endure. We disappoint ourselves because we’re selfish, so we always want more than the world is likely to provide. Modern existentialists would later call that mismatch life’s “absurdity,” and the point of Buddhism is to undergo therapy to relieve us of our naturally evolved myopia and biases.
Once we broaden our minds and train ourselves to think and feel selflessly, we’re awakened to our existential condition. How would a Buddha, or an awakened one, be expected to behave in response to that understanding? Morality might seem to enter the picture in two ways.
First, a Buddha might be altruistic because selfless feelings somehow replace selfish ones. From a neutral observer’s standpoint, morality might become a simple utilitarian act of measurement: the plight of the many outweighs the plight of the few or the one, so what a Buddha wants for himself or herself is outweighed by the suffering undergone by the slumbering masses.
The problem with this is that emotions don’t easily attach to alienated calculations. Sure, there may be more non-buddhas than buddhas, but so what? Why would the greater quantity outweigh anything in a normative sense? Why would anyone’s suffering matter, from an awakened standpoint in which there’s no emotional attachment to any outcome?
Indeed, the utilitarian calculus would be dwarfed by the cosmicist one, which would note that most of the universe doesn’t suffer because it’s not alive. So would that entail that lifelessness is more important than life’s existential condition? Should a Buddha give more credence to inanimate things than living ones because the former greatly outnumber the latter?
Second, there’s the more cynical question of promoting and even selling a religion or philosophy by presenting it in the best light, meaning one that doesn’t alienate potential adherents. Here, the role of a moral interpretation of Buddhahood is straightforward. Potential adherents to Buddhism care about morality because they have mental attachments. For instance, they may suffer, so they want a hero to rescue them, or they’re emotionally attached to their family members, so they deem those individuals to be more important than everyone else. If Buddhism is promoted as being consistent with morality, this religion or therapy won’t threaten non-Buddhists or Buddhist initiates.
We can call this the Leo Straussian interpretation since he emphasized the intellectual’s need to hide what are typically the antisocial, countercultural implications of his or her philosophy. This would have been especially true in premodern, illiberal times, in which you could have been killed for heterodox thoughts. But even in the late-modern period, unenlightened Buddhists have a clear incentive to appeal especially to moralistic Westerners by portraying Buddhism as an inoffensive bit of self-improvement. Buddhism wouldn’t threaten social conventions, but would merely allow Buddhists to be their best selves.
The moralistic presentation of Buddhism would be akin to neoliberal propaganda, an ideology in something like a Marxist sense, one that secretly prioritizes economic factors, as in the earning of profit with rationalizations of gross economic inequalities.
Again, the alternative is just that Buddhism is countercultural because enlightenment is a scary business, one that threatens all exoteric compromises. What lies at the other end of philosophical and developmental awakening might be horror.
If that’s so, Buddhism should be supplemented with something like secular humanism, cosmicist existentialism, or aesthetic pantheism, a philosophy that acknowledges the horror of our existential predicament while independently motivating a progressive course of conduct to stave off nihilism.
Further reading
* Buddhist Nirvana and The Consolation of Nihilism
* The Incoherence of Basic Buddhism
* Buddhas are Nihilist Observers, Not Compassionate Saints
* Buddhas Aren’t Slaves to Saintliness
Written by Benjamin Cain
Ph.D. in philosophy/Knowledge condemns. Art redeems. /https://benjamincain.substack.com/https://ko-fi.com/benjamincain/ benjamincain8@gmailDOTcom
Published in Philosophy Today
Philosophy Today is dedicated to current philosophy, logic, and thought.
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行為「對」與「錯」的來源 -- Rational Badger
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下文從宗教信仰、社會互動、和生物演化三方面探討：行為「對」、「錯」之分的原因和源頭。值得參考和進一步釐清。
Where Does Morality Come From?
Tracing the Roots of Right and Wrong
Rational Badger, 03/23/26
0. 前言
My interest in this topic is rooted in my instinctive reaction to people like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro invoking the phrase "Judeo-Christian values" to argue that morality, particularly in Western and American societies, is somehow a special brand above all other moral frameworks.
But this claim simply doesn’t hold up. Even just intuitively, without research, a few strong arguments come to mind.
Firstly, morality existed long before Judaism and Christianity, and it has evolved independently in virtually every religious and cultural tradition. We can certainly compare moral frameworks and debate their strengths, but no tradition holds a monopoly on goodness.
In fact, it makes far more sense to speak of an evolving human morality, a long journey shaped by culture, empathy, power, and reason, than to locate a complete ethical framework in any religious system. After all, both Judaism and Christianity, at various points in history, have tolerated or endorsed practices we now find morally abhorrent: slavery, genocide, religious wars, the subjugation of women, capital punishment for adultery or homosexuality, and the persecution of dissenters.
And here’s an irony: Christianity, in many ways, shares more ethical and theological common ground with Islam than with Judaism. I don’t hear much talk of a Christian-Islamic tradition.
It should be obvious that the term “Judeo-Christian values” isn’t a religious or philosophical category. It’s a political invention, most commonly used in American culture. When figures like Shapiro use it, it’s usually to construct a unified moral identity between Jews and Christians, distinguish the West from secular or non-Abrahamic cultures, and — this one is interesting — criticize progressive values as eroding moral tradition.
But let’s put the punditry and politics aside for now. The real question that interests me is far deeper:
1. Where does morality come from?
How did humans develop a sense of right and wrong? Why do so many cultures converge on surprisingly similar moral principles despite beliefs with vastly different origins, structure, and contents?
Let’s dive in.
We share a strong sense that some actions are right and others wrong. We praise kindness and condemn cruelty. We prohibit murder, unjust murder without cause. We strongly oppose taking what’s not yours — stealing. We enforce protections for children and the vulnerable. We value fairness and keeping promises. Lying is frowned upon, especially if deceit causes harm or betrayal. We value hierarchical respect for elders, leaders, and traditions.
But why? Is it cultural learning, biological instinct, or rational reflection? Was conscience taught to us by the gods, or did the gods arrive after the conscience?
2. The Religious Perspective
It is true that for much of history, people have believed that morality ultimately comes from the divine. God sets the rules. Moral obligations are duties owed to God. The classic example is the Ten Commandments in the Bible. Believers see these not as human conventions but as divine instructions.
Religious advocates often argue that without belief in God, moral rules would lose their foundation. Dostoevsky famously expressed this fear with the line that if God does not exist, “everything is permitted”. In fact, The Brothers Karamazov, reflects Dostoevsky’s position expressed through one of the characters, that in a world without God or immortality, concepts of good and evil would have no binding force. This is the typical theist argument — if moral laws are merely human opinions, then who’s to say murder, for example, is truly wrong? Objective morality, they claim, requires a higher authority. Our conscience — the inner voice telling us to do good and avoid evil — is seen as the voice of the divine within us, or at least a God-given faculty. In short, morality comes from above.
Scriptures and religious teachings thus play a central role in instructing moral behavior. A devout Muslim, for example, looks to the Quran and Hadith for guidance on ethical choices in daily life. A Christian may ask, “What would Jesus do?” Religion also promises ultimate accountability: a divine Judge who sees all our actions and will reward good and punish evil, if not in this life then in the hereafter.
Of course, religious morality is not without its complexities and controversies. Without going into detail, different faiths (and even denominations within a faith) often disagree on exactly what God commands. Still, the core idea remains: morals come from God.
Religion’s contribution to morality is not just theoretical. Historically, religious teachings have inspired profound altruism and reform. On the other hand, religion can also instill problematic or outdated morals, as it has. Acts of cruelty have been done in the name of religion. The spectrum is complex. And this very complexity, at the very least, does not allow us to conclude that religion is, indeed, the sole source of morality.
3. The Secular Perspective
On the opposite side of the argument are secular theories, which hold that morality is a human construct. That it is a product of our own reason, emotions, and social interactions, and has evolved as such, rather than being handed down from above. Morals come from within. They emerge naturally from our human nature and our lived experience. We do not need divine tablets of commandments. We can work out (or feel out) right and wrong for ourselves using our minds and our empathy for others. We learn from millennia of human history and human thought.
There are various secular traditions in ethics. Immanuel Kant’s ethics are based on the foundation of universal moral law, or the categorical imperative. Basically, you should act only according to principles that you would want to become a universal law for everyone. David Hume rejected rationalism and contended that humans did not use reason alone to decide whether an action was right or wrong. Instead, moral judgements depended significantly on sentiment or feelings. For Hume, there is no morality without feelings. Baruch Spinoza viewed morality as based on rational self-mastery and on an understanding of the natural order. John Stuart Mill and other utilitarians proposed that morality boils down to maximizing happiness and minimizing suffering — what is best for the majority of the people. Proponents of virtue ethics (inspired by Aristotle) suggested that morality originates in human aspirations to live well and flourish. Virtues like courage, honesty, and compassion are cultivated because they lead to a fulfilling, admirable life for individuals and communities.
A special mention of Stoic morality, my personal favorite. Stoics argued that virtue — not pleasure, wealth, or social status — is the only true good. Human beings are uniquely capable of reason and self-awareness, and thus have a duty to cultivate virtues such as wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. A central principle of Stoic ethics is the idea that we must distinguish between what is within our power (our thoughts, actions, and attitudes) and what is not (external events, other people’s behavior, fortune). Moral responsibility lies only in the former. This has later been referred to as the dichotomy of control. Another important concept is sympatheia — the idea that everything is interconnected, and because of that, we should work for the common good and treat others with empathy. Stoicism offers a rigorous and antifragile moral code rooted in reason, self-discipline, focus on continuous growth, and a profound sense of interconnectedness.
One can see, then, that secular thought provides multiple sources for morality: reason, emotion, and social utility all play a role. Often, these intertwine. For instance, our empathy might tell us that hurting someone is wrong because we can feel their pain. Our reason might independently conclude that if we wish to live in a peaceful society, we’d better have a rule against harming others. And our experience shows that societies respecting that rule tend to prosper. None of these requires a deity. They arise from common human capacities and interests.
A simple way to appreciate the secular perspective is Hitchens’ challenge. I have seen Hitchens often ask his opponents in debates to name a single moral action that only a religious person could perform and not an atheist; he offered that no such uniquely religious moral act exists, whereas plenty of immoral acts (like holy wars or inquisitions) have been done explicitly in the name of faith.
Of course, secular morality is not without its weaknesses. Critics often point to atrocities committed by the likes of Stalin, Hitler, and Mao as evidence that removing religion leads to moral collapse. The argument goes like this: without belief in God or a divine moral order, nothing restrains human cruelty. Ideologies that rejected religion — like Soviet communism or Nazi fascism — became totalitarian and murderous because they lacked a transcendent ethical anchor. From this perspective, lack of religion leaves a dangerous moral vacuum.
But the secular response is that these regimes didn’t fail because they lacked religion — they failed because they replaced it with dogmatic, authoritarian ideologies that functioned like religions themselves. Stalinism and Nazism were not grounded in free thought or reasoned ethics but in cult worship, suppression of dissent, and absolute power. Secularism, rooted in human rights, open inquiry, and ethical reasoning, opposes such tyranny. The real danger isn’t secularism or religion per se — it’s any unchecked ideology that places power above people and silences moral reflection.
4. Evolutionary Perspective
Which brings us to the evolutionary perspective. Many contemporary thinkers — biologists, psychologists, anthropologists — argue that the roots of morality lie in our evolutionary past. In this view, morals come from nature, crafted slowly by natural selection. It is, essentially, an adaptation: a set of social instincts and learned norms that enabled humans to cooperate and coexist, and therefore, survive and thrive.
Modern evolutionary scientists have fleshed out and supported this idea with abundant research, essentially confirming that humans are hard-wired for certain moral emotions. We are born with the potential for ethics, though how it develops depends on culture and upbringing.
How exactly could being “moral” help our ancestors survive? One key mechanism is kin selection. The basic idea is that if an organism helps its relatives, it may be increasing the chances that genes identical to its own are passed on. While no animal does this conscious math, evolution may favor a predisposition to protect and care for kin. We see this in nature: social insects like bees will sacrifice themselves for the hive (all are close genetic kin), and mammals fiercely defend their offspring. In humans, blood ties often create powerful duties — “family first” is a common moral sentiment.
Another extremely powerful mechanism is reciprocal altruism — essentially, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. If individuals can remember past interactions and are likely to meet again, helping someone now might result in them helping you later. Indeed, human society is steeped in reciprocity: we feel obligated to return favors and to express indignation toward freeloaders.
Reputation-building (being seen as generous brings social rewards) and signaling (showing off one’s ability to give as a display of strength or status) are some of the other mechanisms, and along with reciprocity and kin selection, these can make helping others strategically advantageous in evolutionary terms. For example, an individual known for kindness and fairness might attract more allies, mates, or cooperative partners — a payoff for moral conduct.
These evolutionary processes could have endowed humans with genuine moral emotions that feel instinctive. We inherited, it seems, a capacity for empathy — to viscerally feel something of what another feels — which makes us capable of compassion. We also have a sense of fairness; even children and monkeys exhibit outrage if they see others getting an undeservedly larger share of goodies. We feel loyalty and righteous anger, which likely tie into our primate heritage of living in coalitions and needing to defend the group. All these emotional instincts form the raw material of what we call morality.
In our evolutionary past, individuals who lacked these prosocial tendencies may have been ostracized or left fewer descendants, whereas those who balanced self-interest with social interest succeeded. Over time, natural selection didn’t just shape sharper claws or bigger brains — it also shaped social instincts.
Beyond individuals, evolution operates at multiple levels, and some scientists argue that morality has also been shaped by group selection. The idea here is that groups of early humans with more cooperative, altruistic norms could have outcompeted groups driven by selfishness and strife. This group advantage hypothesis is debated among biologists, but the general sense is that human morality reflects a balance between individual-level selection (which rewards selfishness) and group-level selection (which rewards altruism within the group). Psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes that humans are “90% chimp and 10% bee.” By that, he means we are mostly like chimpanzees — driven by individual goals and kin loyalties — but we have a dash of hive-like nature, a capability to become supersocial. Under certain circumstances (think of mass rituals, patriotic fervor, or communal endeavors), our “hive switch” can flip, and we behave like bees in a hive, subordinating self-interest for the sake of the group. This analogy suggests that morality has an almost tribal or collective dimension ingrained in us. It binds us into teams and tribes, enabling large-scale cooperation. As Haidt puts it, morality binds and blinds — it binds people together around shared values, but in doing so, it can also blind them to alternate perspectives.
This insight reveals how our evolved moral psychology has both glorious and troublesome potential: it yields group loyalty and self-sacrifice, but also inter-group conflict and self-righteousness. Our species is capable of incredible unity and kindness within groups, yet also distrust or hostility toward perceived outsiders and other groups, which likely stems from evolution in a world of competing coalitions.
Haidt’s research identifies several core moral intuitions — what he calls moral foundations — that seem to be part of our natural equipment, shaped by evolution. These include care/harm (compassion for the vulnerable), fairness/cheating (justice and reciprocity), loyalty/betrayal (group solidarity), authority/subversion (respect for hierarchy and rules), sanctity/degradation (a sense of purity or sacredness), and liberty/oppression (hatred of tyranny).
Crucially, different cultures emphasize different foundations, but all cultures have them in some mix. If you want to dig deeper into this, I highly recommend Jonathan Haidt’s excellent book The Righteous Mind (my takeaways here).
So, having examined (briefly) the religious, secular, and evolutionary perspectives, what is the conclusion?
5. Morality = Evolutionary Foundation + (Culture and Religion)
One point of conclusion is that our minds appear to be predisposed to feel certain things are right or wrong before we ever read a holy book or attend a philosophy class. In that sense, morality is as much a part of us as language or music. Culture (versions of religion or secularism mixed with a local moral framework) then builds on those innate foundations, creating the rich mosaic of moral codes we see around the world.
Richard Dawkins, while deeply appreciative of evolution’s explanatory power for our moral tendencies, observes that humanity has been gradually moving beyond some of our evolutionary baggage. He notes that over our history, humans have widened our “moral circle” — we now apply moral concern to people of other races, other nations, even to animals, much more than our distant ancestors did.
Religious thinkers, unsurprisingly, push back on these secular claims. Christian apologist William Lane Craig, for example, contends that if atheism is true, we have no reason to trust our moral intuitions as valid, since they’re just products of survival, not aimed at truth. He maintains that only if God created us with a moral purpose can our moral convictions be more than subjective feelings. Plus, of course, the vast majority of people worldwide continue to derive moral guidance and inspiration from their faith traditions.
Ultimately, the origin of morality is likely PLURAL. Human morality is woven from our genes — the empathy, biases, and social instincts shaped by natural selection — AND from the cultural stories, religions, and philosophies that we ourselves have spun over millennia to make sense of right and wrong. It’s both innate and learned. A newborn child arrives with potential for compassion and anger; how those impulses are cultivated into adult virtues or vices depends on family, society, and personal choices. Religion has certainly been a major influence, carrying crucial ideals such as the “Golden Rule” (which, one can argue, is nothing but a version of reciprocity). At the same time, secular thought has refined moral principles through reason, giving us concepts like human rights and universal dignity that transcend any single faith.
One useful way to think about morality is as an ongoing conversation. A conversation with ourselves, where we bounce between our evolutionary instincts, which shape our emotional responses to fairness, or suffering, or cooperation; religious or spiritual traditions that frame morality in sacred terms; and rational reflection, where societies reconsider inherited norms and adjust them to new knowledge and circumstances. We, human beings, are therefore actively shaping our moral landscape.
Morality is a mishmash of biology, culture, religion, philosophy, and lived experience. It is a living, dynamic system. However it began, morality today is a shared human project, continually refined as we strive to live better together. Which means the question, “Where does morality come from?” is not only a backward-looking question, but also a forward-looking one.
So, there isn’t a simple answer. Still, here is my version of a one-sentence response: Morality comes from being human.
Ah. Almost forgot. Let’s now, in light of this broader exploration of morality’s roots, get back to the term “Judeo-Christian values”. It is not a moral foundation and is more of a recent cultural shorthand. It obviously and selectively highlights elements of two faith traditions. It overlooks both the differences between them, as well as the global, evolutionary nature of ethical development. While Judaism and Christianity have certainly contributed to moral thought, they are only a part of a much larger picture. Framing morality as uniquely or primarily “Judeo-Christian” ignores the moral insights of other traditions, and politicizes ethics in ways that exclude rather than unite. Morality is a shared human project. It has been shaped by biology, experience, and reason. And that being the case, no one (or two merged into one) tradition owns it. The phrase “Judeo-Christian values” is a meaningless moral category. A rhetorical tool. Cultural gatekeeping. Morally questionable. Even immoral. Not because the said values are inherently bad, but because the phrase is deployed to claim moral authority while ignoring other (secular or non-Abrahamic) perspectives.
When you cloak a narrow identity claim in the language of virtue, and use it to divide, I am going to call this IMMORAL USE OF MORAL LANGUAGE.
If you enjoyed this read, be sure to visit my homepage for articles on philosophy, learning, self-improvement, literature, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and more. Here are some you may be interested in:
* On Power. A Stoic Reflection
* My 7 Takeaways from The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
* Leadership Without Rank. Lessons from Ellen Ripley, Aragorn, and Optimus Prime
* Service: The Purpose of Power
* Advice from Your Future Self. Applying a Japanese Social Experiment to Personal Growth
* My 7 Takeaways from Awe by Dacher Keltner
* It Is Supposed To Be Hard
* Rise Above Daily Drift
* My 7 Takeaways from Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
* Carpe Diem Revisited
* My 7 Takeaways from Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
* My 7 Takeaways from the Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday
* My 7 Takeaways from Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
* My 7 Takeaways from Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Written by Rational Badger
I am a humanitarian worker fascinated about helping people reach and exceed their potential. I write about learning, self-improvement, BJJ and much more.
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年輕一代缺乏「道德」的原因 – J. S. H. Riley
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下文作者有他見解不俗之處(該欄2026/04/29)。由於我對「倫理學」和「道德」議題很感興趣，在看到此文標題後，想從它得到一些啟發。讀過之後，甚是失望。不過，還是轉載於此；以便日後拿它當做「方法論」反面教材的個案。
Why Does the Younger Generation Lack Morality
The hollowing out of civil society and the death of meaning, love and family
Jonathan Stephen Harry Riley, 03/30/26
Quote by Jill Blakewat Dnevnik 一段話
When it comes to any sense of right or wrong and where that comes from, it is not something we are just born knowing; it does not arise from a vacuum; it comes from the society we are raised in, from our parents, or even from our faith.
What the younger generation lacks is a sense of right and wrong and morality that extends beyond the self. For the younger generation, there is no sense of right or wrong or of the public good; there is only good and wrong applied only to the individual.
As for how that works in our day-to-day lives, it is that doing the right thing has been replaced with boundaries, or if you are in a bad relationship, there are no longer words there to describe the wrongness of the situation, because we live in a society where we are told that we must not judge people.
Morality in society is possible only if society provides an implicit definition of what is good and what is bad. If there is no morality in society, then there can be no social norms or boundaries, for lack of a better word.
It means it’s harder for a woman to say no to sex on a first date, or that it’s not okay to wait before having sex because sex did have a meaning, now it means nothing anymore because the language of sex being special has gone due to social change, which we had no choice in or say.
If you are from the generation born after the 1960s and 1970s, we don’t know anything different.
Furthermore, it means it’s okay for men to get a woman pregnant and not do the right thing and be there for the mother and the baby, because in our society, there is no judging anymore, and it’s seen as the woman’s fault for getting pregnant when there is the contraceptive pill.
How the Internet Ruins Young People — by Freya India 相關視頻
For me, I am not saying that an adult man and woman should not go out there and have sex as adults and that they have the right to have fun, I am talking about the context of finding love, not a woman I would like to fuck or a man I would like to fuck, romance, love and life are much more complex.
I am not a Religious American conservative or that kind of social conservative who thinks modern women are slut or that we need to bring back the chastity belts.
Jonathan Stephen Harry Riley is a classic liberal with the spirit of Benjamin Disraeli and Edmund Birk. I don’t want to wait for marriage before having sex. Only that for me, sex is not the equivalent of shaking somebody else’s hand.
I am a Patriot and believe a person should show love and respect for their country, and that, in turn, we should show goodwill and brotherhood to our fellow man/woman/human or alien overlords.
It’s just that we have a society where sex is not linked to children anymore, and where some people believe that we should be liberated from the very concept of the human body and gender.
But for me, that’s due to people spending so much time online and outside of our physical world, and that it’s strangers sleeping with strangers, and who would want to tie themselves to somebody they don’t really know or care for?
In the UK, there is a TV show called Married at First Sight, and a lot of couples, after they get married within the show, have sex straight away, then after a few days, they want nothing to do with each other.
That in itself tells us how society has got it wrong about sex and love. I am not saying don’t have sex, but at least spend 8 hours doing some serious talking to each other, and after that amount of time, you can tell if somebody is a good person or an asshole.
As for my generation, which is the generation born between millennials and Generation Z, in terms of life experience, we grew up as kids without social media, but we did grow up as teenagers with social media and the internet.
We also have the memory of actually playing outside.
I remember building dens and running in the cornfield behind my childhood home, playing hide-and-seek; now it’s a housing estate.
My small town of Featherstone is now a small city that has lost much of its feeling of being its own small world, which I can only liken to the Shire from the Hobbit movies and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books.
It’s not helped that we are getting a lot of people from the South of England and London moving to the North with their southern ways, without the Yorkshire charm and happy attitude; the Hobbit way would be the only way to describe it to a layperson.
I think for an American reader, the best way to describe it is as a transplant moving from New York or California to Texas or Montana.
People reading this from my generation and time, born between 1997 and the early 2000s, have never known a world where literally brothers and sisters are just strangers, and where our communities are long dead; we are just people who occupy the same place.
I remember talking and knowing my neighbours, now we are just a town/city of strangers, and I don’t see anybody as my people anymore. I have no love, no hate, and no feelings for my town and its people. It’s as if we are just shells with nothing inside.
As for how that impacts our relationship, and that’s all relationships are: everything has become a commodity and a convenience. It’s about getting things from other people, and relationships are not about being there with another person; it’s about how much you can take from each other.
I have felt that when I go Speed Dating in Leeds, at bars such as Lost and Found and others in the city, I sit down opposite a woman. It’s not a nice experience; it’s all about money, about work, and it’s as if I am going for a job interview.
For me, I have done that myself; I am not perfect, it’s just what our society has taught us all to value.
Everybody is doing the same on all the tables; it’s like we are all dancing monkeys.
A lot of the issues in the Western world stem from how weak family structures are; there are no longer any communities, and we are all just individuals.
It’s no wonder we have no concept of the collective good, because it’s something we have never had and only learn much later in life, and by then it may be too late, because it’s hard to break the habits and behaviours of a lifetime.
When it comes to morality from the conservative tradition in the UK, not the USA Religious Right, what was seen as being good and being an upstanding moral person, what was good, you did not just for yourself but for your community, how you treated others, and doing good for your nation.
In Britain, that’s all gone now; all we have left is liberalism that is unconstrained by society because civil society is dead.
Written by Jonathan Stephen Harry Riley
I have been writing from 2014 to the present day; my writing is focused on history, politics, culture, geopolitics and other related topics.
Published in E³ — Entertain Enlighten Empower
Putting the reader first
本文於 修改第 1 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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