At heart, what is this blog about? What ideals is it driven by?
One of the nice byproducts of being an overthinker who spends a considerable amount of time crystallizing their thoughts in writing for years on end is that you start spotting recurring patterns in your output that can teach you a lot about yourself.
I've been doing this in one form or another throughout my twenties, and thanks to this corollary effect of compounding self-knowledge, I think that I am now able to condense down my most fundamental ideal in just two words: universal agency.
It is my deepest moral conviction that there is something sacred to consciousness, preferences, and agency. Both on an intrinsic level and as the avenue for the individualized pursuit of fulfillment. Agency carries slightly different meanings to different people, so to be clear, what I'm talking about here is authentic, personal self-determination: the ability to own and pursue one's deepest aspirations and values.
Further, I hold that this sanctity is distributed universally across individuals, following an egalitarian model rather than a hierarchical or meritocratic alternative. Thus, to me, moral progress is achieved through the maximization of the population's median agency and fulfillment level and the minimization of their varianceIdeally their average and mode should also map onto said median..
For the less statistically inclined, this means I view a repartition model where an elite class drives up the average value by hoarding all the agency for themselves whilst leaving the masses deprived to be unethical and undesirable, regardless of the criteria of selection or the means used.
That is not to say I disregard personal responsibility. Disparities in fulfillment are fine so long as they result from the consequences of personal choices and actions rather than the discriminatory impediment of agency by a monopolistic force.
To sum up, everybody's needs and preferences matter: that's why we should strive to compromise and find ways to coexist harmoniously that maximize the fulfillment and well-being of everyone.
Defining the precise delineation of consciousness and its implication on moral patienthood (i.e. the eligibility for moral consideration) could be a very deep rabbit hole in its own right, and I haven't fully settled my mind on the matter. For now suffice to say that it definitely applies to human beings and, in my view, probably also in some form to most other animals and living organisms.
I'm not particularly interested in trying to justify this stance. It's an axiomatic prescriptive belief, and as such, it lies beyond reason. That's another rabbit hole of its own, but to keep things short, trying to justify your fundamental values funnels you back into a Munchausen's trilemma epistemic trap. You can either set an arbitrary cutoff point that you assert as true without justification (foundationalism), tautologically define them as true (coherentism), or get stuck in an endless recursive chain of justification that keeps shifting the fundamental goal post with turtles all the way down (infinitism).
With that being said, let's consider a few corollaries we can deduce from this moral assumption. You ought to strive to:
- Respect the consent of others (i.e. their preferences and agency).
- Minimize the harm you inflict on other beings, as it overwhelmingly runs contrary to their preferences. Self-defenseIn French, it's called "legitimate defense", which is a better name in my opinion (if a tad tautological), seeing as it doesn't always entail defending oneself. The "legitimacy" of this type of violence comes from its protective intent and its reactive and mitigating nature, compelled by the instigation of an external aggression. is also included within this principle of harm reduction as a defensive countermeasure against aggressions on agency.
- Avoid deception through denial, dishonesty, and manipulation, seeing as it impedes people's ability to make decisions and wield their agency from a place of informed consent.
- Avoid intolerance in its many forms, such as prejudice, dogmatism, and tyranny. There are many differing preferences and thus paths to fulfillment. These should only be constrained on the basis of thorough justification, such as failing to respect these corollaries.