The ethos of searching

It was a work of critical reason, articulated by the brilliant philosophers Plato and Aristotle to accomplish the leap from "daimon" (a basic ethical perception) to "ethos" (a rational system of principles). With this the great intellectual adventure began under whose reign, though waning, we still live. Two millenia hence we are trying to understand it cold, to get the relevant points and identify the basic profile of the ethos of our civilization.

Ethics followed the line of reason. The nature of reason is to seek and the ethos would be one of searching. Reason stops at nothing and therefore is essentially demystifying. It achieves its fullest expression through instrumental/analytical reasoning whose main product is science and technology and the now globalized civilization they have created. It has an immense reach but also has limits.

In the first place, it forgets the Being (the All) and concentrates on the entity (the part), deeming it "reality" outside of which nothing exists. This was reflected in ethics when the inner voice (downgraded to the psychological superego, of classroom interest) was no longer listened to — just the external voice of law and order, now internalized.

Second, as entities are unlimited, so too are the ways of knowledge — forgetting that they are parts of a whole. A fragmented reality gives birth to fragmented knowledge and ethics fragmented into innumerable moralities — for every profession (deontology), for every class, and for every culture.

Third, it separated what has always been united in reality — God and the world, reason and emotion, masculine and feminine, justice and law, private and public. Ethics were divided into private and public, aims and principles, means and ends.

Fourth, knowledge was put at the service of power and power used as domination. Ethics became a tool for the standardization of the individual, forced to inject laws to insert itself into the dynamics of the social process — laws under which he is criticized and even punished. Society is based less on ethics and the law than on the legalization of certain socially-accepted personal and social practices.

Fifth, as it is based only on critical reason, ethics does not achieve a minimal level of consensus acceptable to all. Categorical imperatives such as Kant’s — "treat the human being as an end, never as a means" and "work in such a way that most of your actions can serve as a norm for all" — remained abstract. They are principles of enlightened reason, not the common logic of the majority.

Sixth, as it was kept solely within the scope of reason, ethics lost its transcendental dimension that comes from the spirit and its fruit, which is spirituality — that dimension of awareness that allows the human being to feel part of the Whole and to open himself to It. Without spirituality, ethics easily becomes moralism and law, legalism.

Seventh, ethics lost its heart and "pathos" — the ability to feel the other deeply. It is solipsistic, focused on itself. Ethics arises and is renewed when the other emerges with which it lives. It does not offer internal tools that allow us to respond to the current challenges concerning the future of life and humanity. We need an ethos that not only seeks, but also loves and cares.

Free translation from the Spanish provided by AnneFullerton@mybluelight.com. Done in Arlington, VA in cooperation with Refugio del Rio Grande, Texas.