This Manifesto proclaims the universal principles of objective ethics. Purpose and meaning of the activities of a free man is to maximize common good. Common good is freedom from any determinism, both natural and social. Common good is achieved by cooperation of all free people. Everyone brings their own personal creative contribution to this common cause. Recognition of the contribution by others is the only objective source of its value. Natural determinism is needs, threats and any limitations imposed by nature on man. This includes physical needs (favorable habitat conditions, including movement in space), biological (destruction of sources of fear, hunger, disease), psychological and cultural (satisfaction of curiosity, boredom, the need for variety, knowledge and beauty). Overcoming natural determinism requires changing the world. Social determinism is any kind of violence, coercion, pressure and injustice, which may affect the creative result of a person. In the process of cooperation, free people, by consensus, develop formal rules that allow them to overcome social determinism. Consensus is reached on the basis of openness, trust and honest account of the interests and opinions of all people, each of which is the same party in common contract. Those reasonable people who deliberately withdraws from the contract are considered by others as part of the natural environment (natural determinism). Formal rules govern the activities of people in the public sphere of society, which includes the interaction between strangers. Morality of personal relationships is informal and out of place in the public sphere. Free man draws a clear line between the spheres. He prohibits any conflicts of interest between personal and public. Personal sphere of everyone is completely closed to strangers. Possible types of violence, prohibited by objective ethics: 1. Physical, both individual and collective (including violence of power and majority), including indirect (threats, orders, creating dangers to life and health). 2. Economic and financial: - Fraud, cheating, theft, misappropriation; - Exploitation, vandalism; - Use of market power, unfair competition; - Inequitable distribution of shared resources; - Manipulation of value of money, speculations, shifting risks to others. 3. Informational: - Deception; - Distortion, imposition, withholding information; - Overflow by information, ignoring, silencing; - Generation of confusing terms and meanings; - Imprinting brands, slogans and symbols. 4. Moral and ideological: - Imposition of moral norms, traditions and customs; - Evoking feelings of guilt and responsibility; - Calls for a universal brotherly love, for sacrifice in the name of "thy neighbor"; - Indoctrination, brainwashing, subjection. 5. Psychological: - Blackmail, harassment, molestation, intimidation; - Reference to authority. 6. Emotional: the deliberate evocation of feelings of pity, shame, complicity, desire, sympathy, hatred, resentment. 7. Propagation of the morality of personal relationships to the public sphere: - Corruption, collusion, bribery, kickbacks; - Clanship, friendship, kinship and other personal relationships in public companies or institutions; - Concealment, mutual service; - Tips, handouts, rewards for "personal" service. 8. Group morality, the opposition of "friend or foe" and discrimination on this basis: - Nationalism, racism, regionalism, patriotism; - Ethnic and cultural bonds; - Moral and religious superiority; - Professional and class solidarity. Free man is not only guided by the described principles, but he also looks for ways of their widespread practical implementation through education and promotion of non-violence and universal equitable social contract. The present manifesto serves this purpose. Only ethics makes people free! (source: "Cult of Freedom & Ethics of Public Sphere")
Isn't that what we have in most countries today? There are laws that spell out most of the things that you stated so what is your point?
Law, society, retribution by means of legislation. All of these things are the refuge of the man with no means.
Hi Marquis! Been awhile, and it's good to see you. Do elaborate on this. It is unclear what you are saying. Are you saying that law, society and justice are the refuge of a man with no means? We aren't born with means... how do we attain them? I just want to be clear.
So do I. I'm not terribly good at it, though. Being clear. I always think I am; or think I am at least being clever. Most of the time, I understand I'm often rather being viewed as obtuse. Patience is a virtue, they tell me. I am, unfortunately, markedly bereft of virtue. "Tis so much to be a king, that he is only so by being so" Michel de Montaigne You'll find it in there. That quote is merely an excuse for being unable or unwilling to elaborate... yet serves as a point of understanding for those who already do. And yes, I do feel obligated to apologise for leaving you with a quote. If there were others present who might put my thoughts into words, I'd welcome them. They're all gone, though, aren't they. The Kings. Caesars, cut down by a hundred knives rather than one. I'm feeling terribly sad tonight.
They are almost all gone, aren't they? We are down to the peasants who want us all to be the same, think the same. Agree with them or be stoned. No innovation in this lot, mostly just regurgitated old ideas. I am sorry that you are sad. I'll drop you an email. On topic though; I do agree with the tenant that you are what you are being. That's a very apt observation but one that hinges on the freedom of thought and personage. While slavery isn't legal anymore, it is immoral and most of the population of the planet is a slave to the ideologies that you stated. Law, society and retribution by means of legislation. I would add religion to that as well, but that tends to get everyone's hackles up. The trick is to find a way of being that skirts all the slaves rules and regulations while being true to oneself, no?
I'm not sure that being a part of society and abiding by laws is such a bad thing, most of the time. I don't see why one necessarily needs to put oneself on the edge of society to be true to oneself. One person's idea of being true to herself may well differ from another's, of course.
If one can be apart of society without forethought and fear of retribution of said laws, then they are not a slave. But if you live by those laws and in fear of retribution by stepping even slightly out of those lines then you are locked down. Just serving the needs of that society to maintain order and governance over it's peoples. I'll use Freegans as an example; The interesting thing about Freegans, is that they eat only discarded food from restaurants and grocery/department store garbage dumpsters. This practice is actually against the law, because the items in the dumpsters belong to the establishment until such a time as the governing body picks it up as trash to take it to a dump site. They could wait until it gets to that dump site, but they actively choose to take the items from the dumpsters in order to eat. As a society in the US, we discard > 50% of the goods produced while they are still useable, and that excess is disgusting when you consider that there are inner city adults and children who routinely go to school or work hungry for lack of food. If they chose to they could, like everyone else, visit a food bank and receive enough food to feed one person for one week. That's how food banks work and they have plenty of food on their shelves and are almost never empty. But you can't get things like a loaf of bread, or a bag of coffee or fresh fruit and things that are perishable. So going to the food bank is free and legal, but is guided by what society deems is good enough for people who can't afford food. For most of society who uses food banks, they do not know that they have other choices and they just keep coming back week after week like worker bees and they never get to have an apple, or have bread and butter. They would not be free. So Freegans choose to eat what they want, where they want despite the law because living by someone elses idea of what is adequate is so limiting. There is a girl I work with that is a Freegan. Her clothes are better than most, she is happy and healthy and she has plenty of savings for retirement because of her lifestyle. She hasn't paid for a lunch or clothes in over 9 years now and is one of the happiest people I know. We have tons of really stupid laws as well to "guide" and "protect" individuals that are complete crap and so limiting it actually hurts society. Forcing people to live by laws designed to keep them reliant and in-line with the government plans is scary when you consider how fast a political environment can change in the throws of a revolution. We think it can't happen here because we are the US and everything here is perfect. Until you lift a corner of the carpet and realize that all that shit they've swept under the carpet is a mountain of crap based on lies and half-truths and like the housing market, can be blown away with a strong wind and we'd be left with nothing. Because of the big banks and all the laws they lobbied for and against, millions of families lost their homes and livelihoods. Writing laws does not make a just society. Teaching people to be just, does.
Shouldn't this be titled "Objective Morality" or "Moral Objectivism" or "Robust Moral Realism"? Why propose a new discipline?
