Ethics and Selfhood: Alterity and the Phenomenology of Obligation

5. An Ethics of Framing

5 ——— An Ethics of Framing Good and Evil as Ontological Categories Normally, when we use the terms “good” and “evil,” we take “good” to be what is useful or “good for” achieving some given subjective purpose or desire. The “evil” or the “harmful” is the opposite of this. It is what prevents our achieving our goals. There is, however, a difficulty in limiting ourselves to such meanings: they make good and evil relative to us. Taking such terms as “values,” the usage implies that without us—i.e., without our inclinations and needs—things are valueless . Kant exemplifies this view in his devaluation of both man-made and natural objects. The things we make, he observes, depend on us— ultimately, on our desires—to come into being. As for natural objects, they have, he writes, “only a relative value as means [for our purposes] and are consequently called things” (Kant 1964, 96; 1955a, 428). As Kant states the general conclusion: “All the objects of inclinations have only a conditioned value; for if there were not these inclinations and the needs grounded on them, then their object would be valueless” (95; 1955a, 428). The world, in this essentially utilitarian view, is intrinsically without value. Making goodness relative to us, we eliminate the notion of being good as an objective, ontological category.1 Yet, as Aristotle notes, “we do not make all our choices for the sake of something else.” If “good” always meant “good for,” then every end we achieved would point to the next. The process would “go on infinitely so that our desire would be futile and pointless” (Aristotle 1962, 4; Nic. Eth., 1094a. 2–21). 121 122 Ethics and Selfhood Kant attempts to avoid this difficulty by positing the person as an “end in himself.” The person is that for the sake of which all other things are sought. Yet as Arendt observes, such a term is either a “tautology” or a “contradiction in terms.” As the first, it applies to all ends. As the second, it points to the fact that “an end, once it is attained[,] ceases to be an end”—i.e., a goal that guides us. An end that is accomplished is no longer a not-yet, but rather “an object among objects” (Arendt 1958, 154–55). A person, however, is not an object. Given that we are already persons, it is also unclear how in a Kantian sense we can be considered as ends (or goals) to be achieved. To call a person an “end in himself” thus cannot point to his being an “end” like other objects. This is particularly evident since a person does not have “value” in the way that things do. Things for Kant have value only insofar as they are “good for” something else. Viewed in such terms, however, the person is “valueless.” As an end in himself, he is not good “for” anything else. One may with Kant assert that he has an infinite worth, but this worth is without context . His pricelessness puts him beyond any measure. In attempting to speak of good and evil in terms of value—i.e., in terms of subjective valuation —we thus face the difficulty of trying to base value on what is beyond value. We begin by saying that without the person, none of the other objects in the world have value. Intrinsically, they are valueless. We then assert that the person, as an end himself, has no value in the basic sense of having some definite worth that might function in a system of exchange. Thus, from the perspective of the things that do so function, the person is valueless. From the perspective of the person, however, such things are valueless. As is obvious, two different senses of value are at work here. Kant’s designation of the person as an “end in himself” is a “contradiction in terms,” as Arendt points out, precisely because it is their unstable amalgam. To avoid these difficulties, we have to take good and evil as ontological categories. We must see them as descriptive of the way things are, independently of whether this suits our inclinations or needs. In other words, rather than measuring goodness according to our desires, we have to measure such desires according to a goodness that is prior to them. To do so is to assert that they can be called “good” according to the categories that apply to the world that situates both our desires and their...