SUGGESTIONS FOR ONTOLOGICAL ETHICS

The best view I can think of for understanding ontology is Wittgenstein's approach: "What are the facts of the matter?" This is essentially nominalist in that positioned sense impressions within a field of perception are related to each other by language. The only possible purpose for apprizing "the facts of the matter" is selfish, only one's own desires since that is the only possible starting point for thinking. One cannot rationally assess others before one assesses oneself. Also, essentially "oneself" is identical with the situation of "the facts of the matter". You project the field of perception in which they are assessed AND, as a whole, you are assessing yourself. You are observing, in fact, the parts of what you are and can never perceive how they absolutely fit together, i. e., cannot completely explain yourself, because you cannot stand outside yourself. You are the seeing of the whole per se but literal perception has no clearly perceived boundaries. In field of vision tests, there is no clear demarcation which you cease to see an object when it leaves the field of perception. It simply becomes vaguer, more obscure until its form dissolves. And there is no defined horizon event when this happens, just either you see it or you don't.

Then if the beginning of understanding is necessarily and inherently selfish, the same applies to relations to other people as being part of "the facts of the matter". Thomas Hobbes defined human nature on this basis as being ontologically a "war of all against all". That is, the "war of all against all" will always be the result of any complete breakdown of external authority. If external authority breaks down, humanity will always in every situation come into a "war of all against all." As Ivan Karamazov says, "If God does not exist, then everything is permitted." One is born with a "natural right" to act according to one's inherent desires. Therefore these are ontological statements about human relations. They always apply and need to be accounted for.

The first result of this observation Hobbes brings out is that rationally no one sane benefits from this natural situation. A thief cannot 'own' anything because there are no rights of property, no laws to protect them, and everyone has the right to be a thief. "Ownership" would essentially be a meaningless word because it has no experienced fact to support the concept. It is not "I have it and you don't" because that immediately implies the possibility that it can be taken away. "Ownership" is an agreement of mutual recognition of legal rights. This is a fictive concept based on the necessity of creating a situation of peace which all desire even more than the unbounded exercise of selfish desires. In a state of "war of all against all" no one can be happy and enjoy the desires one can exercise without immediate opposition.

To establish laws historically means two equally powerful parties come to an impasse in trying to dominate the other. So, instead of enduring fruitless struggle to no point, they agree on boundaries of rights that settle in peace "the facts of the matter". Each party gives up some of its natural selfish rights in order to freely exercise its other naturally selfish rights that do not come into conflict with the other. To do this upon an enduring basis so future conflicts can be resolved without self-damaging violence, "government" is established. In the broadest sense, "government" means associating with others in such a way that everyone acknowledges and obeys the same set of rules of association. One basic rule is that everyone has a right to make suggestions, "to have their say" about how "the facts of the matter" are. As something constraining, it is called "law". As something positive, i. e., "desiring to hear what others say" and "having others listen to what you say" it is called "politeness". "Politeness" opens a field of sensual perception so "the facts of the matter" can interact and re-arrange themselves to satisfy the desires of all the participants. Those who violate the rules of "politeness" are "rude" and become excluded from such society.

This is still ontological because this is the only way to obtain the mutually agreed upon ends. Any fundamental change would necessarily be a violation that naturally calls out retaliation and results in a return to humanity's natural state of "war of all against all".

There is also the "fact of the matter" - "What is the fundamental end of selfish desire?" The answer is a fundamental determination of individual character. What the specific determination is ceases to be ontological and becomes ontic, that is, a fact of the matter. But that this determination must occur is ontological. The primary determination is, "Does one most desire to be absolutely self-sufficient" or "Does one want things from other people?" This is the basic political situation in Aristotle when he defines man as a "political animal". Absolute self-sufficiency applies only to a beast or a god and this includes the abrogation of language itself. Either determination (not really 'choice' - it is rather you either are that way or you are not) is purely selfish. The "political" determination necessarily operates by the laws stated above. This "fact of the matter" is also exactly the same situation with which I started this discussion. The ontic "I" is the basis for the existence of the ontological, i. e., "the facts of the matter".

The best examples of the operation of all these aspects are Doctor Hannibal Lecter (the Thomas Harris novels, not the movies) and Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford). They are most relevant because they change fundamental aspects, they evolve either from being a beast or a god to being a political animal, such as is fully delineated throughout HANNIBAL and very well resolved at the end of the novel - and gutlessly left out of the movie, or vice versa a political animal gives up its human aspect as, at the end of JEREMIAH JOHNSON, Robert Redford can barely speak and has become something utterly beyond, having lost all human relations, the ordinary human mountain man that originally introduced him to living in the wild. Ontological ethics basically resolves down to this - If you want that, you must do this. The form of the statement is ontological. Filling the words with specific meanings is ontic.

Nihilism in this scheme has no place. Nihilism is based on preconceived expectations, that "meaning" already exists at hand or should exist, i. e., be given to one from an external source. Thomas Hobbes, a truly sly old devil, uses precisely this aspect and his aspect of "natural rights" to change the whole conception of Christianity completely upside down. Instead of God authorizing man, man authorizes God. The state determines the ground of its own authority. You believe in salvation because the government orders you to. The ways of God are not to be found in private inspiration from scripture but the public and mutually enforced laws of man. Few people realize that when the Arian Constantine the Great convened the Council of Nicea to finally determine the definition of orthodoxy that he was legally and fully recognized as the absolute head of the whole church, certainly not the Pope in Rome, and that NO ONE contested this fact. Constantine did not give a damn what conclusions the Council came to, so long as they came to full and firm conclusions applicable to everyone in public observance of religion. Private conscience was of absolutely no concern to him as long as it did not effect public actions, and he himself maintained his Arianism even as to the priest who gave him his last rites.