On the "That" and "What" of Abortion

I

In the High Middle Ages, esse was routinely distinguished from ens. While the latter refers to a being, the former concerns the "to-be-ness" of that being. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) famously argued that God is wholly esse, and that all things that are share esse with God. An ens is a determinate limitation of pure esse.  Accordingly, to be at all is to have some of what God wholly is.  Aquinas further claimed that God's essence is God's esse. 

Duns Scotus (1265-1308) did away with Thomas' Neo-Platonic-inspired understanding that individual things participate in esse which God wholly is.  Accordingly. being became for Scotus simply the most general and abstract of concepts applicable to both the finite and the infinite.  Any possible thing either is or is not.  

While this spelled an end to the "degrees of being" model of the earlier tradition, Scotus was, like his predecessors, very interested in being, particularly the "thisness" of things in comparison to their "whatness."  For Scotus, haeccitas is the primoridal thisness of a thing that is not deducible from a thing's quidditas or whatness. While every ens participates in esse for Thomas, Scotus' haeccitas is logically irreducible to quidditas. God grants and values the particularity of being. Particular things have particular essences. Over and against Thomas, the divine essence does not entail existence.  

The separation between thatness and whatness was enshrined by Kant (1724-1804) in his critique of the ontological argument. The ontological argument, classically stated by Anselm (1089-1152), had argued that since God is that which none greater can be thought, God must exist because it is greater to exist than not to exist.  Accordingly, the conceivability of God entails the existence of God. Famously, Anselm had offered a second argument claiming that since God is that which none greater can be thought, God must necessarily exist because it is greater to exist necessarily than merely to exist contingently.   

Kant, though likely not reading Anselm, would have none of this reasoning, for while one can derive three-sidedness from the concept of a triangle, one cannot derive existence from the concept of God. Why? The reason is that although the concept of God's perfection might include the concept of God's existence, God's actual existence is a different matter entirely. The concept of an existing God does not an actual existing God make. One must distinguish the instantiation of any concept from the concept itself.  If one allows existence to be a predicate, then one is stuck with saying, "there is an x, such that x does not exist." But this is nonsense.  Accordingly, no amount of determining what, can issue in an actually existing that.  

Once upon a time the western tradition widely accepted Augustine's (354-430) notion of creatio ex nihilo, the claim that creation itself emerges from nothing. It knew that no amount of moving the deck furniture around upon the ship of existence could produce through that moving a newly existing ship.  A causally efficacious God was needed to create and sustain the universe.  A divine being with efficient causality was necessary in order for there to be created things. Being is not merely an inversion or unexplored side of nonbeing, but rather stands out from being on the basis of divine fiat. Existence is not a move in the unfolding of the Absolute Idea. 

Lamentably, the West has been busy forgetting this insight. Human beings, we are told, are co-creators with God.  We envision, construct, paint, compose, and otherwise bring new things out of old, believing that God also engaged in ordering the chaos. We forget the old ways because we have forgotten what Heidegger (1889-1976) called the fundamental question of being: "Why is there something and not nothing at all?"  We dream of quantum cosmology where a multiverse contains all possible ways that the universe might go, including the actual way it went, and thus we attempt to make less jarring the fact of the existence of the universe by pointing to the essential structure of that from which existence flows. But we lose the point of Heidegger's question, for why does the multiverse, which grounds every trajectory of existence, itself exist? Why is this something there and not merely nothing? 

Our modern logic presupposes the distinction between that and what. We express the what of anything through monadic and polyadic predicates which take as their values names for existing entities. We might say, for instance, that the whatness of the subatomic world is found in the spins, charges, and mass that particular entities possess. But theories of particle physics are accordingly committed to the existence of those entities that the fundamental theories of particle physics quantify over.  Quine's (1908-2000) famous quip applies clearly here: "To be is to be a value of a bound variable." The value of the bound variable is the that which exists, and the properties and relations that the that which exists sustains constitutes the what of the properties and relations exhibited. The early Wittgenstein (1889-1951) taught us that we cannot reason from the fact that something exists with determinate properties, to the existence of some other existing thing. After all, following Kant, existence is not a predicate.  

The rejection of the ontological argument and the acceptance of the gap between essence and existence is standard fare in philosophy. So how then are these insights forgotten in a small region of a subdomain within philosophy, the ethics of abortion?  Why is it the case here that certain arguments seem to forget the incommensurability of existence and essence, and accordingly assert that the existence or nonexistence of something can justifiably be derived from the particular way other things are?  

II

Arguments about the permissibility or nonpermissability of abortion sometimes suffer from a loss of precision between the what and the that of a thing. In what follows I want to be precise in exploring the structure of  common consequentialist arguments allowing abortion. I shall here not try to prove abortion is always wrong, or even determine under what conditions abortion might be permissible.  I am only concerned with arguments that regard the existence or nonexistence of the fetus/baby as derivable from a description of the happiness of agents within the wider context in which that fetus/baby is ingredient. In simple language, I am interested in exploring arguments that claim that "the baby would be better off not existing than be likely existing in a situation like this."

Imagine female f and partner p who decide that it is morally justified to terminate f's fetus/baby b because of the likely liabilities that f, p and b would suffer were b to exist.  Let us assume, for instance, that f is living in poverty, that f's relationship with p is unstable, that f already has three young children, and that f will like descend into substance abuse to mitigate the tensions in her life. One might, given this scenario, simply do the calculation about what the likely collective utility or disutility be to f, p, and b would be were b to exist or, alternatively, were b not to exist.  Included in this utilitarian calculation might be the putative rights f has for self-determination, and how carrying and delivering b might intrude on the exercise of these rights. Arguments like this, while structured as purely consequentialist in nature, might thus include an element of deontology, as suggested by f having rights. In what follows, however, I am interested only in the consequentialist argument.  

The question before us is this: Can a description of the what of f, p, and b's pleasure or happiness entail either that b should exist or should not exist? More to the point, should the calculation of f, p, and b's total possible happiness on b existing or b not existing justifiably affect the existence of b at all?  

There are perhaps reasons to say it should. After all, don't we often argue from the whatness of an organism's physical condition to a determination to end the thatness of an invading virus, bacteria, or parasite? The bacteria s exists and this eventuates in the suffering of the agent a in whom the bacteria is operating, and the family of friends of that agent. Is not the existence of fetus/baby b analogous to the existence of parasite s?  

Perhaps we are in need of a functionality argument here. While having baby b is within the proper function of agent f, the having of lethal parasite s is not within the proper function of agent a.  While the natural organism a has its function optimized in not having s, it is arguable that f's function is optimized by not terminating b.  To see what is the proper function of a thing it is necessary to know the nature of that thing.  

It is clearly the case that some no longer would regard birthing b as part of the nature of f. They might say that b is no more determined to come about given f as s is determined to come about given a. Accordingly, there is no natural tie between f and b.  

But it is difficult to claim that there is no natural tie between f and b when f is clearly the sine qua non of b occurring. Clearly, if b, there must be f, and without f there can be no b.  (I am going to avoid for now the question of b being produced in a laboratory.) Functionality arguments will likely generate controversy, and I will not attempt to develop a fully defensible one here. I avert to them only because I am cognizant that some way must be found to argue for the preciousness of b existing and not s or myriad other things not existing 

So let us assume for purposes of this paper that we can disarm arguments that make s like b with respect to a and f, and simply look at calculating the goodness of b's existence given the possible scenarios for f and p on both b and ~b.  How would such a calculation work?  How could one assign a value to the existence of b or nonexistence of b given that the happiness or pleasure of f, p and b is incommensurate with the existence of b?  What I am suggesting is that since there is no rule or recipe tracking from whatness to thatness, there can be no rule or recipe from a description of likely or unlikely consequences of having b to the actual existence of b. While it might be possible at the conceptual level to think that b should or should not exist given the pleasure or happiness of f, p, and b, the actual instantiation of b is as logically disconnected from f, p, and b, as the actual instantiation of God is from a consideration of God's putatively perfect attributes.  When it comes to denying the ontological argument, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.  

Many more considerations can be added to this argument suggesting that b has a fundamental right to exist, but I am not adding them here. I am merely claiming that one cannot derive that it is morally permissible to terminate b's existence on the basis of the happiness of f, p, and b. In fact, the ease by which some would reason to the morally permissible of terminating b given the likely happiness of f, p, and b, might remind one of the Dasein ohne Leben reasoning of certain German doctors in the 1930s. They reasoned that the life of a person might be at such a low level of development and thus happiness, that it is morally permissible to end the fact of that person's existence to save him/her (and their families) from what that existence might likely be. Dasein ohne Leben thus assumes that existence (or non-existence) can somehow be derived from essence. If existence is not a predicate, that is, if existence is not a property of a being, then there is no way to argue to it (or away from it) by considering the relational and non-relational properties of that being. 

III

Mary is considering terminating her pregnancy because the total amount of happiness for her, her family, and her fetus/baby will likely increase were she to terminate. She reasons to this in facile ways widely accepted by our culture.  Clearly, the fetus/baby is at the stage where its immediate happiness or unhappiness is not a profoundly relevant consideration in comparison with Mary's own happiness, her partner's happiness and the happiness of her family.  She aborts the fetus/baby on strictly utilitarian grounds, seemingly including the happiness of the fetus/baby in the calculation.  How does what we have discussed concern Mary's concrete decision?  

I am saying that consequentialism must respect the distinction between the whatness and thatness of the beings which it is considering. The consequences of events concern the existence or non-existence of properties instanced by the beings impacted by the event.  Accordingly, the consequences of Mary's abortion concern which properties Mary, her partner, her family and the fetus/baby instantiate.  One reasons here from whatness to whatness.  The happiness, pleasure, and total human flourishing of all engaged may indeed increase on the termination of the pregnancy. What I am arguing, however, is that no amount of consideration of whatness can entail that any of the morally relevant beings not exist.  The fact of existence is of a different order entirely than the how or what of existence. One cannot derive a that from a what.  

This is not to say, however, that consequentialism should not be employed when comparing the that of the mother's life with the that of the life of the fetus/baby.  Here considerations of the what of both mother and fetus/baby are relevant.  What-talk can be helpful when comparing one that with another.  It may well be that the consequences of not-aborting are decidedly worse for the mother facing possible death in delivery than for the fetus/baby.  After all, the mother is conscious in a way that the fetus/baby is not. In addition, the mother has other children; she has a family who have known her for decades and love her. Given the choice between the existence of the mother or fetus/baby, one could likely construct consequentialist arguments showing that it better to abort than not abort.  I am not, however, claiming this here. I am only pointing out that while consequentialist arguments might be helpful in the adjudication between two or more thats, they nonetheless fail when comparing whats and thats.  

But what about rape or incest? Does not the distinction between that and what mean that a fetus/baby can never be justifiably aborted?  I am not claiming this here.  What I am arguing is that a consequentialist argument cannot legitimately be employed to derive the justifiable non-existence of the fetus/baby from considerations of the happiness of the mother and her family and friends. This does not mean the deontological considerations are not ethically relevant. Not everything in complicated issues of abortion can be decided on the basis of consequentialist thinking. What I have argued is only that for a certain class of moral judgments based upon the likely consequences of aborting the baby/fetus for the happiness of the mother and her family/friends, it is unjustified to move from the what of their happiness to the that of the fetus/baby's existence.  

Clearly, a full defense of this view demands that one can distinguish degrees of goodness with respect to the thatness of a person, fetus/baby, pet, cricket, tree or mountain.  While the that cannot be directly derived from the what, our moral reasoning oftentimes is concerned with questions about whether or not something justifiably should exist given the consequences of its likely existence. But considerations of degrees of goodness or rightness cannot be themselves based upon consequentialist reasoning. Here we have entered the province of deontology. My argument here is simply that consequentialist reasoning cannot justifiably conclude to the existence or non-existence of fetus/baby b based upon sum total of happiness of agents f, p, and b.  

Sorting Rules and Acts in Climate Policy

In 1959 Richard Brandt (1910-1997) clearly distinguished rule and act utilitarianism in his book Ethical Theory.  In the sixties he further developed the distinction and responded to his critics in a series of essays which were later collected and published in his 1992, Morality, Utilitarianism and Rights. What is the distinction between the two types of utilitarianism and why should it matter in thinking about contemporary climate policy? 

One might put the distinction as follows: 

• Act Utilitarianism:  Do act A if and only if doing A will conduce to the greatest happiness.
• Rule Utilitarianism:  Do act A if and only if A is an instance of rule R which, were it universally followed, would conduce to the greatest happiness.

Sharp eyes see that much is still vague in the distinction.  For instance, what does "greatest happiness" mean?  We can for both act and rule utilitarianism distinguish hedonistic pleasure from total human flourishing conceived as the development of our intellectual and moral virtues.   

• Hedonistic Act Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if doing A will conduce to the greatest pleasure.
• Hedonistic Rule Utilitarianism:  Do act A if and only if A is an instance of rule R which, were it universally followed, would conduce to the greatest pleasure.
• Flourishing Act Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if doing A will conduce to human flourishing.
• Flourishing Rule Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if A is an instance of rule R which, were it universally followed, would conduce to human flourishing.

But too much ambiguity remains. One must specify the extension of the set of individuals to which the properties of pleasure of human flourishing might apply. Are we concerned with global or merely regional happiness?  We are left with these distinctions: 

• Global Hedonistic Act Utilitarianism:  Do act A if and only if doing A will conduce to the greatest pleasure for the greatest number. 
• Global Hedonistic Rule Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if A is an instance of rule R which, were it universally followed, would conduce to the greatest pleasure for the greatest number. 
• Global Flourishing Act Utilitarianism:  Do act A if and only if doing A will conduce to human flourishing for the greatest number.
• Global Flourishing Rule Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if A is an instance of rule R which, were it universally followed would conduce to human flourishing for  the greatest number. 
• Regional Hedonistic Act Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if doing A will conduce to the greatest pleasure for the set of people in which one has interest.
• Regional Hedonistic Rule Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if A is an instance of rule R which, were it universally followed, would conduce to the greatest pleasure for the set of people in which one has interest. 
• Regional Flourishing Act Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if doing A will conduce to human flourishing for the set of people in which one has interest. 
• Regional Flourishing Rule Utilitarianism: Do act A if and only if A is an instance of rule R which, were it universally followed, would conduce to human flourishing for the set of people in which one has interest. 

Now let us consider contemporary climate policy and the current demand upon the developed countries to limit carbon emissions to slow the greenhouse effect even though developing countries, and India and China, likely will not limit such emissions for several decades and maybe not until the end of the century.  On what ethical basis is this made? 

While currently the heating of the earth seems to remain much slower the many climate change models have projected, I will not deal with this factual question in this short reflection. I will simply assume that there is some global warming, and that carbon emissions are the main culprit in this warming.  (Although I am not a climate scientist, I don't there is universal consensus that climate science has conclusively shown that high CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere actually cause global warming. There is, in fact, data suggesting that there has not been a consistent correlation in earth history between elevated CO2 levels and high temperatures.)

So let us consider Germany's cultural and governmental penchant toward deeply reducing carbon emissions.  On what ethical ground might a judgment deeply to reduce CO2 levels stand?  

Since we know that draconian cuts in CO2 levels will have virtually no effect on global climate -- perhaps .02% of one degree -- over the next century, justification for such cuts cannot rest on an act utilitarianism of any kind.  The Germans can either deeply cut use of fossil fuel, or not deeply cut the use.  Since there will be little effect on global climate whether they cut or not cut, the decision to cut cannot be due to application of an act utilitarian yardstick.  

So if we are interested in consequences at all in climate policy, we must point to a rule utilitarian basis.  But what kind of basis is this?  

Since most advocates of draconian carbon cuts talk about saving the planet, appeal is being made to a global rule utilitarianism: We must move to cut emissions in such-and-such a way, because were all people to cut emissions in such-and-such a way, the greatest happiness for the greatest number would eventuate.  

But is the rule utilitarianism to which appeal is made of the hedonistic or flourishing variety?

While one could argue this either way, I think it most natural to think that the ability of human beings to flourish by cultivating their intellectual and moral virtues would be inescapably negatively impacted were temperatures to rise significantly.  After all, temperature increases will eventuate in the melting of polar ice and the rise of sea levels, a situation which will damage or destroy coastal cities. The concomitant cultural loss of these cities being destroyed would clearly impact total human flourishing even if governments were somehow successful in evacuating people from areas of flood.  While I can even imagine a scenario where governments might somehow make it pleasant for their populations to migrate away from the coast, I can't imagine a scenario where the destruction of these cities is a artistic-cultural good.   

So Germany ought to reduce CO2 levels because acting to reduce such levels is in accordance with a general rule so to act that, were this rule universally followed, would conduce to the greatest flourishing for the greatest number of people. Notice that since the reduction of CO2 levels by Germany will have virtually no effect on global warming, the decision to reduce such  levels is quite abstract.  One must have a philosophical bent, I think, to be convinced by this abstraction.  I suspect, however, that the fact that most Germans are so convinced does not mean that most Germans are philosophical, but simply that most Germans have only thought about the benefits of such reduction were all countries to reduce as the Germans are, and have not thought about the concrete downsides of their own reduction.  

What happens when act and rule utilitarianism come into conflict? Will the German population opt for the abstract benefits over concrete losses? 

Imagine, as seems quite likely, that the German desire to end fossil fuel consumption, and their continuing commitment to eschew atomic energy solutions, eventuates in much higher energy costs and an increased reliance on other countries in the importing of their energy needs. This seems actually quite likely because Germany does not get much sunlight and it is in general not very windy.  Clearly, it is likely that the renewable energy to fuel the German economy will likely have somehow to be imported. Under these conditions, it is quite probable that people in Germany will have radically to cut their consumption of energy. They can do this by not heating or cooling their buildings to previous levels, living in buildings that more efficiently heat and cool -- big apartment complexes rather than individual homes -- and not consuming processed food or manufactured goods to previous levels.  

If this happens, the German population will likely grasp that from a regional hedonist or regional flourishing act utilitarian perspective, one ought not to have acted to lessen CO2 emissions. Why would one do that which lessens their own pleasure or human flourishing? From an abstract global flourishing rule utilitarian perspective one must cut CO2 emissions but from a concrete regional hedonistic or flourishing act utilitarian perspective one must not cut CO2 emissions.  So what to do? 

Jeremy Bentham famously argued that the principle of utility was not finally an abstraction at all, but that it is simply part of our nature.  Since we do act so as to bring about our pleasure, we are allowed to claim that we ought to act to bring about that pleasure.  (I have never found this part of his argument convincing.)  However, I do believe that Bentham has his finger on something important.  When human beings are confronted with a choice between an abstraction potentially benefitting many and a concrete course of action that actually benefits themselves, they will likely take the latter.  What else would the sinner do, the sinner in which concupiscence runs deep?  

Speaking theologically -- I must do this sometimes because I am a theologian -- I would point out the spiritual pride and hubris of well-sated populations holding abstract positions that they believe will never be put to the test.  It is quite easy to dream about CO2 reductions when such reductions do not have concrete effects on the dreamer.  But the minute the dreamer is profoundly affected all bets are off. 

Spiritual pride comes when we think we can divorce our "higher part" (reason, sound judgment, empathy, altruism, etc.) from our "lower part" (body, feelings, needs, self-preservation, etc.).  I am not saying that thinking as a rule utilitarian is not a good way to think, but only that such thinking, when unbuckled from life itself, can tend to make one quite arrogant an unwieldy in one's judgments.  

Thinking philosophically is hard work; one must look at all sides of things.  Unfortunately, in the current politically charged arena of public opinion, looking at all sides appears to be a moral failing.  

Climate Policy and the Generalization Argument

In July of 1955, Marcus Singer discussed in Mind (Vol. 64, No. 255: 361-375) the so-called "generalization argument in ethics."  The argument's general form is this: "If everyone were to do that, the consequences would be disastrous (or undesirable); therefore no one ought to do that" (361).  An instance of the argument is this: "The consequences of no one doing x would be undesirable; therefore everyone ought to do x. The question for Singer is this: What are "the conditions under which the fact that the consequences of doing x would be undesirable provides a good reason for concluding that it is wrong for anyone to do x" (361)?

Singer believes that determining these conditions links to the basic principle underlying generalization arguments.  The generalization principle states that what is right or wrong for one person must be right or wrong for any similar person in similar circumstances" (362).  In the Mind article Singer defends the validity of the generalization argument, leaving open the question of its soundness, that is to say, there is nothing in the form of the generalization argument that determines whether or not the consequences of everyone acting in a certain way are, in fact, undesirable.  He is not concerned with the "desirability or undesirability of a certain set of consequences" (375),  but only with the hypothetical 'were the consequences of x undesirable were all to do x', then no one ought to do it.  

Because he is not concerned with the truth of the assertion, 'were everyone to do x, the consequences would be undesirable', he does not take seriously the popular objection to the generalization argument: "Not everyone will do x."  Singer claims that the objection "is irrelevant because the argument does not imply that everyone will" do x.  What it implies is that "if A has the right to do something, then everyone else (or everyone similar to A in certain respects) has the same right in a similar situation," or alternately, "if it is undesirable for everyone to have this right, it is undesirable for A to have it" (374-75).  Singer believes that while it might be undesirable for A to have a certain right, this does not entail that the consequences of A acting in a particular way are themselves undesirable (375).  

While Singer does not find the objection 'not everyone will do x' relevant to evaluating the validity of 'if the consequences of everyone doing x are undesirable, no one ought to do x,' in the actual application of generalization arguments it nonetheless seems quite important.  

Take a standard example, 'If everyone were to engage only in homoerotic activity then there would be no children and the human race would end, then no one ought engage only in homoerotic behavior'.  Is this valid?  

One might say that it is formally valid, but point out that the antecedent simply does not in fact obtain.  It is simply not the case that everyone will engage only in homoerotic behavior. Clearly, if it is false that the antecedent in fact holds, then the first conditional is vacuously true.  

But it must be admitted that if the disaster conceived on the supposition of exclusive homoerotic behavior will not in fact obtain, then the very motivation to cast the homoerotic behavior argument as a generalization argument resting on the generalization principle disappears.  If, as a matter of fact, only 5% or less of the population engages in exclusive homosexual activity, then correct application of the generalization principle must take this fact into consideration in determining what is to count as "similar circumstances."  

Imagine Molly is deciding how to apply the generalization principle when determining whether or not to initiate sexual activity with Myrna.  She thinks, "what is right or wrong for me must be right or wrong for similar people in similar circumstances."  Thus it is, thinks Molly, that my desire to engage with Mryna must be judged acceptable if people having the particular psychological orientation I have are deemed acceptable in pursuing homoerotic relationships with others who, like Myrna, are open to them.  

Clearly, Molly's thinking has drifted far away from an application such as this: Molly is similar to every other woman in being a woman, and since if all women were to have only homosexual relationships is disastrous for the human race, then Molly having only homosexual relationships is disastrous for the human race.  Obviously, everything depends on what one understands "similar" to mean. How does one rightfully apply similarity here?  

How does generalization in ethics affect contemporary thinking on climate policy?  Is such policy committed to a generalization principle that is, in fact, misapplied? 

The default position of many of the North Atlantic countries on climate policy seems to be this:  If the situation of no countries doing anything to limit greenhouse emissions is undesirable, then all countries should limit greenhouse emissions.  Or alternately, if every country ignoring greenhouse emissions has disastrous consequences, then no country ought to ignore such emissions.  Again, one might grasp that the generalization argument rests on this principle: what is right or wrong for one country with regard to greenhouse emissions must be right or wrong for any similar country in similar circumstances.  

Those convinced of the general validity of this principle are obviously convinced that the fact that not every country will limit greenhouse emissions is irrelevant to what ought to be done, for clearly, if every country were so to limit emissions then disaster might be averted.  

But does this situation not call for an investigation of what motivates the application of the argument in this context?  Clearly, the presupposition is that it is in the power of every country to limit greenhouse emissions.  

Compare this to the situation of Molly.  Can it be said that it is fully within the power of Molly simply not to be predisposed to homoerotic activity?  In one sense, of course, Molly might reasonably be said to have the power to do other than what she might otherwise want to do with Mryna, but does this mean that she has the power not to have the general psychological orientation she has?  Given her psychological orientation, and given the psychological orientation of others similar to her, and given the relative infrequency of her psychological orientation among the general population, could it be said that acting in accordance with her psychological proclivities actually lead to disastrous consequences?  

It might be similarly argued, that while every nation may have the abstract power to limit greenhouse emissions, many would not find it in their best immediate interest so to, and might even find it almost impossible to limit such emissions given the current socio-economic conditions obtaining in their country, and the happiness of the actual populations of that country! What I am suggesting is simply this: Just as it seems that 'not everybody will do so' is ethically relevant to the application of the generalization argument to homoerotic behavior, so is it relevant to that argument's application with respect to greenhouse emissions. 

Take, for example, the country of Germany having the fourth largest GDP in all the world. Many in Germany are convinced by the generalization argument.  Since every country ignoring greenhouse emissions would lead to disastrous consequences for the future of humanity, it is not morally permissible for Germany to ignore such emissions.  Presumably, German citizens hold this even knowing that were they completely to eliminate fossil fuel consumption, such elimination by itself has virtually no effect on global temperatures over the next 100 years.  The actual consequences of Germany eliminating fossil fuels is irrelevant, we are told, from their ethical mandate so to eliminate these fuels, for "if everybody continuing to burn fossil fuels has disastrous consequences for the earth, then it is not allowable that Germany should continue to burn such fuels."

But why exactly?  Why should Germany and the North Atlantic countries limit emissions over the next century when, as a matter of fact, most of the developing countries will increase emissions dramatically?  Why must Molly act like the rest of the women who are unlike her?  What makes Germany unlike countries like India and China that will likely raise carbon emission levels through the end of the century?  How should we apply the criterion of similarity here?  

I would argue that while Molly is unlike 19 out of 20 women, (but like 1 out of 20), Germany is more like China and India than it likely believes.  Undeveloped, developing and developed countries share overarching similarities.  They are all comprised of people who want to have enough food to eat, clean water to drink and air to breath, and energy to heat and cool their days and get them from one place to another.  

Right now there is general acceptance that undeveloped and developing countries do not have the requisite socio-economic structures that would allow them to eschew consumption of all fossil fuels.  Prohibiting such consumption would wreak havoc within their societies with concomitant suffering of their populations.  It would lead to the profound unhappiness of their populations.  Is Germany ultimately more similar or dissimilar to these countries? Does Germany find herself in similar or dissimilar circumstances with respect to these other countries?  How does the generalization principle rightfully get applied?

I believe that the fact that not all countries will limit emissions is ethically relevant to the generalization argument with regard to climate policy.  Given that Germany has a population that wants many of the same things that the folks of India and China want,  how does the requirement that Germany's population suffers by deeply limiting their carbon footprint find ethical justification when the other populations will not in fact limit fossil fuel emissions, and that Germany's reductions will likely have no discernible effect on temperature and sea-level measurements world-wide?  

The answer might be more surprising than we originally imagine.  Perhaps it is because the plausibility of using the generalization argument in climate policy is based on a presumed dissimilarity between Germany and the developing countries.  Just as Molly might get a pass from the ethical requirement of exclusive heterosexual behavior based upon her dissimilarity from the rest of the women, so does the requirement that Germany achieve all fossil fuels emissions ultimately rest on its dissimilarity from the populations of the undeveloped and developing countries. While China and India are exempt from the requirement to limit fossil fuel use based upon the sufferings of their populations were such fuels not used, so is Germany not exempt from this requirement.  After all, the German population has already developed and has no right to claim an exclusion from general requirements of the generalization argument.  Thus, the suffering that eschewing carbon emissions will bring to German life are simply not ethically relevant the German situation.  

This is a rather startling conclusion, I think, and I shall end this reflection purposefully in ambiguity because the ethical situation underlying it is not clear.  I have claimed that the generalization argument seems to support current climate policy. The argument is this: If the effect of all nations not dropping carbon emissions is disastrous, then it is not allowable that one nation not drop carbon emissions.  This is so because what is right or wrong with respect to this issue for one country, is right or wrong with respect to this issue for all similar countries in similar situations. Thus, Germany must drop their carbon emissions even though dropping such emissions will have little to no effect on world-wide temperatures and sea-levels.  

All of this is clear enough, bur remember that that not all countries will drop their carbon emissions.  So what is Germany's responsibility in lowering carbon emissions given that lowering such emissions themselves have little effect on the climate?  Here we must look to the generalization principle itself.  What makes a country similar to another?  I have suggested that through a strange inversion of its use, the chief perpetrators of high carbon emissions are protected from moral censure on the grounds that adopting strict carbon emission policies would lead to untoward suffering to their populations.  Germany, however, (and by extension other North Atlantic countries) are dissimilar from these populations in ways that do not allow escape from moral censure.  Because of this dissimilarity, Germany is  condemned.  The fact that many countries will not lower emissions is somehow not ethically relevant to the proscription and the guilt under which Germany labors.  

I do not believe that that such moral censor ought be the case, and I would argue that populations are comprised of concrete individuals whose sufferings are morally relevant to climate policy no matter what countries they inhabit. Further, I would argue that the Rule Utilitarian yardstick simply does not work in climate policy.  Here we must be Act Utilitarians.  But this argument awaits another post.  

Grounding Ethical Vision and Mission Statements

Some of us at the Institute of Lutheran Theology will soon be engaged in consulting work to institutions and businesses to aid them in casting their own ethical mission and vision statements. The increasing use of sophisticated algorithms by companies and institutions have created new situations in which the institution or business ends up treating managers, employees and customers in new ways, yet ways that are not the result of individual people making decisions to treat these managers, employees and customers in new ways. 

People who write computer code construct algorithms that function as decision procedures. For instance, in writing an algorithm for a self-steering car, the coder has to program the car to do certain things given certain inputs. The idea is that the program will give an output as a function of the present state of the machine and relevant inputs it has while in this state. The car would not presumably move to crash into the motorcycle to its left, if it had not already been in states of danger for some time, and if this option had not been coded in as the best response to a certain sequence of danger states given some new driving inputs.   

It is very clear to me that thinking about helping businesses and institutions do ethics on the ground is a different activity than teaching ethics to students at the university. In some ways, it is much more challenging because we deal here not with hypothetical scenarios, but with real flesh and blood human beings. 

When teaching ethics at the university, I always tried to deal with the standard normative ethical theories and the meta-ethical challenges to those theories. This meant that I always dealt with Aristotelian-inspired virtue theory, utilitarianism, Kantian-inspired deontological theory, and divine command or divine will theory.  

Standardly, I treated as well the meta-ethical challenges to normative ethics: ethical subjectivism, ethical emotivism, psychological egoism, and ethical relativism. I introduced ethical intuitionism in light of the Open Question argument proffered by G.E. Moore, and discussed the non-natural intuition of the good in Moore and the non-natural intuition of the right in Ross. There is not much time in one ethics course to do all of this, however, so I made sure to cover the standard four normative ethical approaches.   

Aristotelian-inspired virtue theory is an ethics of self-actualization or realization which attempts to understand the excellence of human beings in terms of human dispositions to behave, that is human habits. In a society like ancient Athens where there was deep agreement on what the good is, there was agreement on what traits or characteristics human beings ought to have to be good. If the telos of human beings is their happiness, that is their "total human flourishing," then one should seek to cultivate those intellectual and moral virtues, that is, those "powers of the soul" whereby human beings together can profoundly flourish. To grow the intellectual and moral virtues is to increase in human excellence and to realize the good.   

Utilitarianism espouses a consequentialism; it claims that the goodness or badness of an act is a function of its likely consequences. There are many kinds of utilitarians. One can be a hedonistic utilitarian who understands the good in terms of crude pleasure, or perhaps a eudaimonian utilitarian identification ing the good with higher human values.  Accordingly, the good is not simply pleasure, but the happiness of human flourishing in general. One can be a global or universal utilitarian claiming that the act should bring about the greatest happiness for everyone in general, or could be a regional or local utilitarian claiming that the utilitarian calculation should privilege some particular group or community. One must also distinguish between an act and a rule utilitarian in that while the first holds that the direct consequences of the particular concrete act are what is ethically relevant, the second argues that it is the rule that the particular act falls under that ultimately determines its goodness or badness.  

The deontological perspective claims that acts or good and bad of themselves apart from their consequences. Kant most famously argued for the categorical imperative, a formal principle by which an act's moral properties obtain apart from any hypothetical antecedents. Kant claimed two subjective maxims of this categorical imperative: 1) so act such that your act could in principle be universalized, and 2) so act such that you always treat the other as an end-in-themselves and not as a means to your end.  

Finally, divine command or divine will ethics claims divine primal intentionality determines the rectitude of an act. It is incumbent on S to do P if and only if God wills P (to be done be S). Divine will ethical theories must then give an account both of the nature of the divine will itself and of our epistemic access to it.  

But none of these normative theories work very well in our present context actually to inform ethical decision-making. The problem is that people disagree rather profoundly on the presuppositions upon which such theories are based. 

For instance, the plausibility of virtue ethics famously depends upon a basic agreement in the community about what the good life is.  Aristotle said that a good person is one that does the good and that the good is that which good people do. This makes sense if there are not competing moral visions within a society. Notice, however, that even if their is near unanimity about what the good is, the theory does seem prone always to the critique launched by Luther and others. Focussing on virtue-building places the action on the self. Cultivating our moral virtues as part of self-realization towards maximal human excellence puts the action on the side of the subject. She or he must train themselves to evince the suitable dispositions to behave, and such training is ultimately the result of what James once called "the dull heave of the will." 

But part of what it is to live morally, it seems, is to be not reflecting upon oneself all of the time.  Yet the ethic of self-realization places the focus of the self on the self as that self endeavors to cultivate the proper dispositions that constitute character,  those general habitualizations that constitute our moral excellence.  

There are deep problems with utilitarianism as well. As it turns out, calculating likely consequences from an act or rule utilitarian perspective makes many positions questionable because we really don't know what the real consequences of our actions are. Claiming that it is probable that act X issues in consequences P is not granular enough it seems.  Would we not need to know precisely what that probability is in order to do the utilitarian calculus rightly?  Moreover, discriminating what the good is, e.g., pleasure, cultivation of virtue, human flourishing, is itself not amenable to utilitarian calculation.

Recall that Bentham claimed that the Principle of Utility need not be argued for because, as it turns out, the principle objectively obtains, and that we humans simply do act in accordance with it. While this is plausible if one is a universal hedonistic act utilitarian perhaps, it is not the case if one is a regional eudaemonistic act or rule utilitarian.  We need some independent philosophical argument, it seems, to say with Mill against Bentham that it is better to be a dissatisfied human being than a sated pig.  Moreover, while the move to rule utilitarianism seems to protect utilitarianism in general from crude counterexamples, it might be asked whether rule utilitarianism does not abandon utilitarianism altogether.  Clearly, the claim that S ought to do act X if and only if X were in accordance with rule R that, if it itself were universally instantiated, would conduce to the maximum distribution of happiness is itself consistent with act X itself causing great pain or unhappiness to S. But this seems like an abandonment of utilitarianism entirely.  

Notice as well that utilitarian calculations place the moral action in our own reasoning. We must calculate the likely consequences of an act or rule, and only after such calculation can we determine how to treat the person standing in front of us. Again, it seems like this kind of moral reflection places the action within the echo chamber of our subjectivity. We do X because we have done the suitable calculus and, on the basis of the kind of utilitarian we are, we can determine that it is rational to do X.  How my doing X impacts Bob who stands before me, is relevant only insofar as I can describe the doing of X in ways that take into consideration the consequences for Bob of my doing of X. 

Our friend Kant gets us to consider the noumenality of duty, and asks us if we can conceive that one ought to do X in the absence of one's freedom to do other than X. We are then told that we should treat others as ends in themselves and not as means because others are denizens of the same kingdom of ends we ourselves occupy. He argues that we must not act in ways that end in moral contradiction. For instance, if I were knowingly to lie, then I must accede that it might be a general moral law that people could lie. But if this were a general moral law, then dissimulation itself could not be specified, because there would be no institution of truth-telling from which lying diverges. This is all pretty heavy stuff, but it is what pure reason does when it is concerned with the practical.  Pure practical reason is human reason set free to investigate what we ought to do mostly unimpeded by historical and cultural conditions.  

Finally, there is divine will theory of either the static or dynamic variety.  Since the latter is demonstrably incoherent, this leaves the former, and clearly it is a matter of reason to discern what the divine command is, and whether we have a duty to do it. One cannot in our post-Christian context simply assume that there is a divine being whose primal intentionality on creation is objectively the case, and whose intentional objectivity is epistemically accessible to human beings.  

In other words, if we want to cast ethical mission and vision statements in the business world by getting people to affirm the objective reality of the ethical and getting them to see that it is rational to accept that they have epistemic access to it, then we shall have a very steep hill to climb in accomplishing our ethical work. 

In Lutheran fashion, one might think that ethical theory provides the light by which the law confronts us as a curb on what we would otherwise want to do, a mirror by which to apprehend our own moral inadequacies, and a guide as to how we should comport ourselves. The light clearly is where the action is. In classical theology it is the primordial divine intentionality manifesting itself in the eternal law, the light of the universe itself. One can connect this light to Wisdom as it was prior to the creation of the world and ultimately to the logos.  

When I was a graduate student, I studied meta-ethics because I already did not believe one could do normative ethics without first getting clear on the sources, grounds, and methods of ethical adjudication.  My meta-ethics class one summer was with an excellent professor whose constructive contribution to the course was to point out that the only motive one could possibly have to do X from a meta-ethical standpoint was that the doing of X was conceptually tied to the desire to do X. From the standpoint of analytical ethics, he might be right. In other words, we are left with a psychological egoism functioning underneath meta-ethical reflection.  

I think I was a pretty good ethics teacher for undergraduate students because I could generate scenarios quite easily on the spot and I was able to keep their attention. The problem, of course, was that normative ethics is unfortunately today in many respects a fool's game. I don't mean that the theories are necessarily wrong, but rather they are all inadequate either when confronting complicated ethical situations we presently face or when they are placed against our moral intuitions. The longer I taught ethics, I found myself actually asking students to consult their moral intuitions as a way to test the normative theories we introduced. I straightforwardly suggested to them that their moral intuitions should function as data for ethical theory-making.  

But I knew that this gets it all wrong. Isn't normative ethics supposed to tell us what is the case? Ought it not trump moral intuitions altogether? Should it not function pedagogically to teach us what moral intuitions are worth having?  We don't form ethical theories in order to be applicable and adequate to ethical data, but rather to give us the principles by which we might act and value.  

Towards the end of my teaching of ethics I developed a rather elaborate way to think about normative ethics, replete with suitable defeaters. Additionally, I would argue that when there was a conflict between utilitarian and deontological perspectives, one had to go outside theory and evaluate the situation from a standpoint external to either theory.  Of course, here one could not help but privilege one's own moral intuitions again. If such a view from above the normative ethical conflicts is not to be a view from nowhere, then that view must be informed by something concrete.  But what could this be if not our moral intuitions? 

Often in teaching ethics, I would discuss G.E. Moore's famous Open Question argument that purports to show that any analysis of the good in terms of natural properties -- actually any properties -- leaves us in the situation of asking with sense if it is good that the good is so analyzed.  G. E. Moore was an ethical intuitionist because of this argument, and I do confess to believing that his comparing the instrinsicality of yellow with the the intrinsicality of the good a first-rate philosophical move. Just as we can identify yellow without conceptually stating its necessary and sufficient conditions, so we might identify the good without being able to give an analysis of it in terms of something more basic.  

It strikes me today that a new approach is needed if we are ever going to get outside of the philosophy classroom when contemplating the ultimate grounds for corporate ethical vision and mission statements. Emmanuel Levinas' notion of the immediacy (and transcendence) of the Other, despite its philosophical complexity, might actually be able to be explained simply to people today-- people within institutions and corporations alike -- who have lost their way among the endeavor to justify what it is that is good and right.  Most of the people we shall speak with in framing corporate ethical vision and mission statements will not seriously ask for the philosophical grounds why the torturing of children is wrong. They will already know it wrong.

Levinas' notion of the exteriority of the ethical, the demand of the Other upon us through the immediacy of the face can provide a way to adjudicate simple ethical questions like the torture of innocent children. Looking into the face of a child and torturing him or her is for most people simply unthinkable. One does not need to plunge into one's own subjectivity -- Levinas called the self and its ontology the realm of the same, the realm of totality -- to ground a demand not to torture. The demand needs no grounding in ethical principles that themselves presuppose ontology, rather the demand is simply given in the face and eyes of the Other.  

Maybe the light we seek in the doing of ethics can be found in the face of the Other, the face which places a demand upon all of us, including managers of algorithms and writers of code. Maybe we don't have to get much deeper than that with people with whom we work. If pushed we can say we are committed to the view that the social situation with its concomitant primacy of ethical demand needs no further justification.  Wittgenstein said, of course, that the spade must stop somewhere.

We can use Levinas' starting point and build defendable, albeit somewhat superficial, but ultimately communicable ethical positions for institutions and businesses. In certain contexts we can do what Levinas does: connect the face of the Other with God through the notion of a trace.  We can always say we could go deeper if we have to. By emphasizing the exteriority of ethics we guard ourselves from falling into some totalizing project of justifying the very nature of ethics to ourselves or whoever might listen before we can deal with the concrete person standing before us. This will get us to the practical much more quickly, and give our audiences a sense that we know what we are doing as consultants without taking them through a 300 level class in philosophical ethics.  

At the end of the day in phenomenology generally one either sees the phenomena described or one does not. If the face of the child before us does not move us out of our own freedom to a position of responsibility for that child, then it is doubtful that an appeal to normative ethical theory will do so. At the end of the day, it seems, the demand of the Other upon us cannot be given an analysis in terms of some set of necessary and sufficient conditions.  While the word 'Infinite' would not have been used by Moore to characterize this non-natural intuition of the good, his claim of the irreducibility of the Good is of the same spirit as Levinas.  Both were, after all, inspired by Plato, whose Good was the presupposition both of the forms and our access to them.  

Plato's Good constitutes, with Levinas, the priority of metaphysics over ontology. The latter is ultimately an affair of the self, but the former points away from the self and towards the divine.  Levinas and Plato document that "invisible desire" towards that which is other than the self, a desire not born of a need or lack within the self, but an ecstatic desire to transcend entirely the self and its machinations. Ultimately, both knew that salvation consists not in a being otherwise, but rather in that which is otherwise than being. 

Curb, Mirror and Light

I

Lutheran theology has always been interested in the usus legis ("uses of the law"), and has argued passionately as to whether there are two usus legis or three.  

Luther oftentimes limits the law to two uses, its civil use in curbing sin, and its theological use in showing one's sinfulness and driving one to Christ.  In later Lutheran theology a third use was highlighted, a use consonant with some of what Luther sometimes said about the law.  In the second edition (1535) of his Loci, Melanchthon explicitly suggests a third use, one that functions as norming the contour of the believer's sanctified life.  

But while what I have thus far said sums up what many say about Luther and Melanchthon on the uses, neither theologian actually standardly employs the terminology of usus, preferring instead to use other phrases, e.g., Luther's use of officium legis in the 1537 Smalcald Articles connoting "office" or "function."  As a matter of fact, it was only in the wake of the Formula of Concord that usus legis became standard language in Lutheran theology.  Generations of theology students, both Reformed and Lutheran, have since learned the usus legis in this tripartite way: The one law functions in three ways: (1) to curb sin within civil society, (2) to mirror to us our sinfulness before God, and (3) to light our way in living out the sanctified life. 

Controversy about the putative "third use of the law" within Lutheran theology has centered on the issue of whether the law whose essence it is to accuse can remain law while yet being being properly employed as a guide. If the law as God's left hand always accuses, then how can it function in the grace of God's right hand to guide Christian living. One can freely adopt rules of thumb for Christian living consonant with Gospel proclamation, but these rules are not the law qua law.  

While the controversy between two or three uses of the law in Lutheran theology seemingly continues unabated, it is not my desire here to engage the historical issue further. I am rather interested in appropriating  the metaphors of curb, mirror and light spawned in the usus legis discussion for use in the context of establishing and justifying ethical standards and positions.  

II

Imagine a scenario in which Doctor Jack must make the decision as to whether to disconnect his patient Bob from life support.  Jack knows that Bob's recovery is unlikely, and realizes that as a rule of thumb, the hospital could likely not afford to keep patients like Bob on life support when the chances of recovery are so dismal.  Still Jack is reluctant to unhook Bob.  Why? 

When Fred later asked Jack why he did not unhook Bob, Jack grew pensive a moment and said the he was guided by the Hippocratic Oath and its admonition to do no harm to the patient. Since unhooking Bob seemed to Jack as an effecting of harm on Bob, Jack allowed Bob to remain connected.  He was surprised two days later to learn that, against all odds, Bob's condition had improved and he would likely survive. Dr. Jack was happy that he had not unhooked Bob, glad that he took the Hippocratic oath seriously, and relieved that Bob's condition did not simply worsen as anyone familiar with the relevant medical literature would have predicted.  Indeed, Jack felt like he had dodged a bullet, and the he himself was no less fortunate than Bob. 

III

The example illustrates the position that we often find ourselves within when reflecting about morality and ethics. In the concrete ethical situation we often find that we do start with some moral or ethical principles seemingly incumbent upon us even when we don't reflect upon them. These unthought principles do often strike us as something true to which we must conform. One might say that they strike us immediately as a curb upon are possible action.  

Jack unthinkingly affirmed keeping Bob hooked to life support, and only later in conversation with Fred tried to clarify why.  That which ought to be done simply confronted Jack, and Jack's actions were clearly curbed by that which stood over and against him.  While Doctor Jack is no philosopher, he experienced the principle of "do not harm the other" as something real, as something given to him and not constructed by him.  The principle not to harm came upon him in its otherness as law. Accordingly, one can imagine a code of such laws defining what is permissible, prohibited or obliged for a set of people in similar concrete ethical situations.  Moral and ethical codes do often successfully curb behavior. Social contexts in which they are present often appear better ordered and more efficient than when they are absent. 

But the immediacy of the encounter with this ethical other does not sustain itself over time. The curbing function of the code pushes in upon the self, exposing to the self that it has chosen the curb that curbs.  When this happens the curb becomes a mirror, a reflector of the self.    

In standing over and against the curb, the one curbed comes to know herself as part and parcel of establishing and sustaining the curb.  The curb for others becomes a mirror to the self; one recognizes one's own hand in the establishment of the curb and its perpetuation. After all, how could a curb be a curb if it is not permitted to be so? 

Clearly, one must afford recognition to the curb as Other in order for one to be curbed by it.  But in reflecting upon the putative alterity of the curb, one notices that the curb qua curb wears a human face.  Just as there are no self-identifying objects, properties, relations, events or states of affairs apart from human consciousness, neither are there self-identifying ethical norms governing our behavior without our cooperation and tacit agreement.  On closer reflection, the heternomony of the curb reveals itself as a posit of our own autonomy!  It is we after all who project curbs into nature. In staring at the face of this putative external curb, we come to recognize our face in the curb. Unfortunately, when we recognize the curb to be a projection of our own subjectivity, the power of the curb to curb is undercut. That which appeared to be objective has now become subjective, and with this we touch our own freedom. It is we who create the ethical world in which we live; it is we who are the rule makers.  The law in its externality has now become an expression of our own subjective desire, and the problem presses down upon us: How could that which we create come to judge the one who creates it?  

All of us implicitly realize that the efficiencies produced in codes that curb can last only as long as people grant the possibility that the curbing code is not merely an arbitrary and capricious projection of some arbitrary and capricious subject or subjects. 

IV

When the immediacy of the curb has been broken by the mediacy of the mirror, one is left with the question regnant in our time: How is it possible to use terms like 'good', 'evil', 'right', and 'wrong' without admitting that these appellations are deployed on the basis of my own desires, my own pleasure, and my own happiness?  How can saying 'John is bad' mean something more that I disapprove of John? 

It is here that the metaphor of light is necessary. Once one realizes that ethical properties are not baked into the universe in the same way that chemical interactions, one has a choice: Either admit that the subject devours any putative objectivity of ethics, or look for those deeper conditions that give rise to ethical predicates in the first place.  The metaphor of light points to the back-and-forth movement of reflection that is ultimately responsible both for the curbs and the mirroring that exposes such curbs as subjective.  The light of ethical reflection drives more deeply into the ultimate grounds for the law that binds.  It recognizes that the recognition of this law as driven by the subject is itself short-lived and ultimately irrational.  How indeed could it be that that ethical reality that seems so close to me, that reality that governs my behavior with respect to others, simply is a projection of me? 

After the heteronomy of the code is seen to rest in the autonomy of the subject, the subject realizes finally that there is no longer otherness, that the ought has been vanquished, and accordingly, that the deepest experience of human beings being confronted by what they ought to do -- and their not living up that ought -- is wholly counterfeit. What an irrational world the projecting self inhabits! The very experience of ought that seemingly separates human beings from the higher beasts is itself grounded upon nothing.  It tokens nothing deeper.  It is simply an unfortunate result of not taking mirroring seriously enough.  \While men and women can reason from what they want to how to get it, reason does not operate at all in establishing what they ought to want.

But here again the light shines forth. It is a light that takes up the immediate code and its negation into a higher synthesis.  It is a light that allows reason to operate not as a cipher of the self's desires, but as the logos speaking a divine order.  The light draws us more deeply into conversation.  It makes us ask how parts of the code fit together and for whom parts of the code are privileged. It asks us questions of moral theory and ethics. It distinguishes types of consequentialism and compares these types with deontological perspectives. The light seeks a comprehensive theory to stand behind the curb, a theory which points to the incapacity of the self to account ultimately for the experience of the curb. 

In the reflection of the light, we are drawn into the deeper questions of morality and ethics, questions that drive us to admit that we are not who we ought to be, and that we are not ultimately who we now are -- questions that cannot be entertained without entering deeply into the tragedy of our current situation of not being able to affirm deeply that Ground and Abyss that we cannot finally deny.  '

Human beings find themselves in fields of meaning, purpose and value that point to the Divine deeply hidden within the fissures of broken experience itself.  The light which lightens the curb and its mirror is a light whose reason is ultimately ontological, it pertains to the Being of the hidden God whose absence is present in a forgotten Cross on a lonely hill, a Cross in which time itself briefly nested.  And so it is that Curb and Mirror unite in that light that shows itself as Word.  The heteronomous and autonomous have both been cancelled yet preserved in a uneasy theonomy.  Ultimately, the Curb and Mirror must be understood from the standpoint of the Light, a light forever constituting itself as the divine in, under, around and beyond human life itself.