miscellany (4)

on sin and the Idea of the Good, ontogeny & phylogeny, and the ethics of eating meat according to Peter Singer and more generally

on sin and the Idea of the Good

Traditionally, “sin” has been used to translate the Greek harmartia (ἁμαρτία), which was a term that Aristotle borrowed from the context of archery and literally meant “missing the mark.” In Aristotle’s concept of tragedy, hamartia is the “tragic flaw” that leads to the destruction of the protagonist through the inexorable grinding of the wheel of fate. The early Christian writers appropriated the term harmartia again to refer to actions that are imperfect before God.

The word “sin” itself shares a root with “sunder,” which means, of course, “to detach” or “to separate.” As I have noted before,¹ Diabolos (διάβολος) even means “casting asunder.” It’s interesting to compare this to the words yoga and religion which both mean '“to join” or “to bind.” The first is a cognate with “yoke” and the second with “ligament.”

The Old Testament spirit sustains an approach that, in contemporary terms, might be conceived as deontological. Sin, in this context, would have been conceptualized as a transgression of the Law. The New Testament, by contrast, if it were necessary to categorize it, would belong in the fold of virtue ethics, for Christ is essentially an embodiment, or technically, “Incarnation,” the the Idea of the Good, from which all virtue flows like rivers from Paradise. Paul writes that the new law is inscribed “not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.”²

In an essential sense, sin can be conceived as a word or deed that is incompatible with the end that the agent wishes to achieve. In the Christian and Platonic view, everyone axiomatically seeks union with (the) Go(o)d, and yet we do things all the time that prevent this. “Satan” is, fundamentally, the power that distorts our Ideas of the Good so that we pursue things we perceive to be good but which in fact destroy us.³ The quintessential example of this is when Satan comes as the Serpent and talks Eve into desiring the Forbidden Fruit in spite of God’s command to avoid it. God’s command to them represents a perfect Idea of the Good. Into this perfect Idea of the Good, Satan implants a distortion into it by inception, as ripples might distort the mirror of a still pool. The more sensitive our conscience, the more we can attune to the Good itself and, as it were, calibrate our Ideas of the Good to its standard in the manner akin to correcting for the declination of a compass needle from true North. If we resolve to do this, it will make the Devil sad.

Our own lives are embodiments of our Ideas of the Good. The great Platonic and Neo-Platonic philosophers and theologians conceived of the Good-beyond-Being as something so great that it overflowed, like a cup that “runneth over,” and poured itself out as Creation. Similarly, the Idea of the Good only appears as an abstract contemplation to someone who hasn’t really grasped its nature. Conversely, to the one who has, it can be seen that just as the Good pours itself out as the life of the Macrocosm, so our Idea of the Good does the same in respect to the Microcosm of our own lives.

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ontogeny and phylogeny in ethics

I still remember the exhilaration I felt the first time I tried to envision, in my imagination, the phylogenetic emergence of ethics out of instinct. It can be seen as a sort of diachronic individuation of agency as the behavior-structuring power present on behalf of a species and distributed among the minds of its members in instinct is progressively concentrated into individual minds. This is the nativity of moral reasoning from the womb of instinctive life. It struck me then that many of the typically patriarchal religious forms represent the beginning of this individuation, since the impulse is experienced neither as mere instinct nor as personal decision, but rather as a mandate, commandment, or prompting from a divine authority. It leaves me with a sublime sentiment to see myself as part of this unfolding.

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on the Utilitarian Peter Singer’s conclusion that we should all become vegetarians

While I find Singer’s manner of conceptualizing these questions inadequate and somewhat distasteful, I am somewhat sympathetic to his abstract conclusion that we should curtail our consumption of meat. More concretely and essentially, to me this means divesting ourselves of our involvement in the industrial agriculture operations that provide the bulk of the meat that people consume. Singer’s argument is that

—pleasure is the only good in the universe; pain the only evil
—these things are calculable
—anything with a nervous system can experience pleasure and its opposite
—not being a vegetarian drastically tips the scales to utilitarian balance to evil
∴ everyone should become a vegetarian

Again, I am generally sympathetic to his conclusion even if I think the argument is specious because utilitarian logic is sham logic.

The way I have thought of this question is to frame the moral obligation in terms of dependence and care. The perception of an infant’s total dependence on adults will evoke a commensurate impulse of care and protection in them (provided the adults in question have a healthy ethical sense). That’s not a question of “liking babies,” per se, but of recognizing that they need us.

We should consider the question of domesticated animals in this light. Their robust instinctive life has been bread out of them by us and as a result, they are entirely dependent on us, just like infants. If they could save themselves from all of the ills that beset them, from society and nature alike, then we might not have the same moral obligation to them. But they cannot save themselves for the reason mentioned and for others, and so we should extend our care to them and resist the pull of industry to round them up into concentration camps for eventual slaughter.

It’s not a question of becoming a vegetarian, necessarily, but of attempting to take a stand against the obvious atrocities that are perpetrated every moment in industrial agriculture operations. Of course, even if somebody refrained from consuming all animal products, he is still implicated almost of necessity in this karma through membership in this civilization so it is not a purity test. “We are all guilty before God” anyway, as it is sometimes said, so we shouldn’t be condemning people. It’s just a question of calling a spade a spade and not pretending there is no moral issue with our civilization’s abuse of our non-human brethren.

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1. Cf. the first comment here:

2. cf. 2 Corinthians 2:3:

Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.

3. cf. Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust:

Ich bin ein Teil von jener Kraft,
Die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft.

“I am part of that power/which wills continual evil and which does continual good.”