I think it is interesting that so often when responding to the possibility of there being an ultimate absence of some sort of absolute moral system, whether that be religious or legal, the initial reaction tends so often to be one of despair in the face of vacuum. Whereas, I tend to have proportionately the inverse reply, which is one of hope of the possibility of actual ethical tension. The idea that I would like to explore is whether or not religious and legal systems actually act in such a way in which both society and the individual abdicate living ethically in consideration of the other.
One of the classical philosophical questions has been; how do you define justice. Or rather what makes something just or unjust? What defining quality unites all things just and inversely its opposite: injustice? Many philosophers over the centuries have debated this and have yet to come to a consensus. However, one thing indeed has been, I think, made clear; namely that something cannot be just merely by virtue of being legal. There exists a parallel relationship between the religious and the ethical. This is an incredibly important delineation due to the fact that the fallacious conflation of these two are so common. This distinction was beautifully explored by Soren Kierkegaard in his seminal work Fear and Trembling. Regardless however, these systems, legal and religious, in the minds of the masses are all that constitutes living ethically in so far as their mandates are strictly adhered to.
In the presence of such systems as absolutes, ethics are reduced to precisely following the letter of religious or legal code. This requires the banishment of living within the tension between what is legal and ethical or what is religiously pious and ethical. Inversely, in the absence of these systems, as absolutes, in the presence of the alterity of the other we are forced into the dialectical tension of how to relate ethically. There are undeniably sacrifices that accompany this symbolic move; namely the feeling of having a peaceful conscience void of existential turmoil.
This move in many ways signifies the grasping release of holding what is ethics and in turn opting for always pursuing what is ethical. This means that we no longer know but are on the path to knowing. Furthermore, the most unethical thing to be done is to get off of the path.
