January 22, 2020
Agnes Callard, Associate Professor in Philosophy, University of Chicago, with a BA from the University of Chicago in 1997 and a PhD from Berkeley in 2008, and with primary areas of specialization in Ancient Philosophy and Ethics, recently said the following (Agnes Callard: Who wants to play the status game? The Point. January 16, 2020, the twelfth of a series of columns on public philosophy; https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/who-wants-to-play-the-status-game-agnes-callard):
‘There is a philosophical conundrum at the root of all this: morality requires we maintain a safety net at the bottom that catches everyone—the alternative is simply inhumane—but we also need an aspirational target at the top, so as to inspire us to excellence, creativity and accomplishment. In other words, we need worth to come for free, and we also need it to be acquirable. And no philosopher—not Kant, not Aristotle, not Nietzsche, not I—has yet figured out how to construct a moral theory that allows us to say both of those things.’
What about this proposal, combining ideas from Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche and Evolution. According to Schopenhauer and agreeing with the philosophical core of Buddhism and Hinduism, we (i.e. all organisms) are in essence one (Tat twam asi). Therefore, when you harm others, you harm yourself. It follows that compassion with others, whether human or animal, is the foundation of ethics. In other words, Schopenhauer’s philosophy provides “the safety net at the bottom that catches everyone” and not only humans but animals as well. – Nietzsche postulated in his idea of eternal return (ewige Wiederkunft) (also suggested by various religions), that each of us will re-appear over and over again in the universe, because time and space are infinite. Our aim should therefore be to make these potential other returns as livable as possible. Evolution suggests that we can achieve this by making conditions in the present ‘reincarnation’ as livable as possible, since improved conditions now will improve conditions in all later returns. This is the “target at the top which inspires us to excellence, creativity and accomplishment”.
Klaus Rohde 