The Ethics of Independence 3/4

Ethics is born in a thousand ways; it comes from different universes and finds its true
realization in its independence from both the subject who elaborates it and the object
to which it is applied. And yet, in the name of that very independence, its full rigour
must be applied – independently – to both its subject and its object. We have seen
how ethics must be applied in the domain of the sciences (its object), and how it must
give them a meaning, guide their orientation and establish the limits beyond which
they must not go. This is now a matter of urgency in the fields that pertain to our
continued survival, including the climate, genetic engineering, discoveries and
advances in the arms industry, and, more insidiously, the systems that keep
individuals under surveillance. The field is vast, the challenges are many, and the
demands are very strict.

It is not, however, stating the obvious to recall that ethics also applies to the
individual. Scientists must, for their own sakes and in their professional lives, respect
a strict code of ethics. Objectivity, transparency and intellectual probity are minimal
requirements, and the demand for them will increase as the sciences in question and
their fields of study become more complex. These requirements inevitably affect the
exact sciences, both experimental and human: scientists, specialists and thinkers are
expected to respect their sources by citing them, faithfully translating the objects of
their observations and trying to remain as objective as possible (or, failing that, to
state clearly where their subjectivity, or ideological and political prejudices, begins to
intrude). The ethics of the scientist or researcher consists in trying to make their
object of study as objective, transparent and honest as possible. What is disturbing, for
instance, in the conclusions Sigmund Freud claims to have drawn from his scientific
practice obviously has to do with the inexactness of his accounts, which were written
a posteriori. Despite what we are told in the Studies on Hysteria and then in Five
Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, the case histories, Dr Breuer’s patient Anna O. (Bertha
Pappenheim) was never really cured of her illness (her long-standing hydrophobia) by
the psychoanalytic sessions she herself described as a ‘talking cure’. She sought
refuge in crises, anxiety and alcohol, even though she was, as Freud reports, able to
identify the origin of her traumas. This example, like many others from the domain of
the experimental and human sciences, does a lot to discredit the conclusions that have
been drawn and casts a shadow of a doubt over scientists’ intellectual probity and
capacity for objectivity.

This rigorous ethical attitude towards scientists allows us to go further and to
try to circumscribe the conditions under which it applies to the subject, and to each
one of us in our day-to-day lives. The question is at once explicit and difficult: what
can be said of ethics in relation to the subject when the subject becomes its own
object? In other words, what role does ethics play in my relationship with myself, or
in the relationship between my conscience and my actions? This question and this
stage are determinant because they influence every other field of human action. A
rapid survey of all the teachings of ethics – from the oldest African, Amerindian,
Asian or Australian (Aboriginal) traditions to Hindu or Buddhist spiritualities, from
the monotheistic religions to philosophy from Socrates to Heidegger, and from
Descartes to Schopenhauer – reveals one constant: ethics is always, and basically,
simply a matter of an appeal to the individual conscience to ensure that the values and
principle we have chosen (for reasons of faith, reason or imagination) coincide with
the actions we are about to perform, or for which we have to assume responsibility.
The same is, as it happens, true if we regard the action in question as immoral; if, as
Nietzsche suggests, there is no reason to grant ‘truth’ any greater value than ‘lies’, we
have to conclude that someone who lies is, basically, acting in accordance with the
pre-established principle that lies have a value that must be respected. Even the
immoral or amoral Nietzsche therefore asks of the superman-artist that he respects the
principles he himself has established ‘beyond good and evil’. We can never escape the
principle of consistency.

Between me and myself, the critical mind develops. It is simply a matter of evaluating our actions by the standards of the principles we have adopted. As Kant notes in his necessary postulate, the first precondition is that we must be free in terms of our choices and actions. The conscience then has to move, in a constant dialectic, between values and actions: I then become my own object of study, and the principles of my ethics allow me to evaluate my being and my actions. I can neither evaluate the state I am in nor commit myself to reshaping my being or harmonizing my values and my actions unless I become as independent as possible of myself. The appeal to conscience, be it a moral conscience or not, is a constant feature of all religions, spiritualities and philosophies, and it calls upon the critical consciousness to distance itself. Such work on oneself, such critical work – even though it involves liberating ourselves from ourselves, and in ourselves setting free the forces of the unconscious imaginary or of art – is a precondition for the quest for meaning that is incumbent on all of us, whatever choices we may make. We must distance ourselves, observe ourselves independently, carefully examine our values and our daily lives, draw up a balance sheet of our hopes and commitments, and draw, for ourselves, a somewhat externalized self-portrait that has at least some objectivity. Once again, there is no escaping the few universal principles of the common ethics that belongs to no one, probity, transparency and justice – the paradox is merely apparent – if we are to be able to evaluate the extent to which our choices are consistent with our ability to choose dissimulation and injustice. Indeed, we have to go even further, as we saw in the case of Nietzsche: the man or woman who has chosen disorder and incoherence as a principle and a way of life must still refer to the principle of consistency to discover if he or she is being consistent with his or her ideal of inconsistency.

This independence, this distancing ourselves from ourselves (which is the key
to personal development) must be extended to all our affiliations. In our families, our
religious or spiritual communities, our schools of thought or our political parties, we
have to keep alive the critical mind that allows us to measure the discrepancy between
the values we claim to uphold and our actual practices. We must not confuse a self-
aware sense of belonging with compromising partisanship. Being able to say ‘no’ to
our mothers or fathers when they go against our principles or rights, rebelling against
our own society when the nationalist spirit blinds the masses and justifies the
annihilation of the other, demanding that democratic principles must apply equally to
all when racism and exclusion set in, speaking up against the excesses and betrayals
of our own co-religionists in the name of our religious principles, opposing the
exclusivist logics that may emerge within our political party and betray its ideals from
within . . . these are the natural and obvious implications of a mind concerned about
ethics and consistency and the ability to remain independent. Human history provides
many examples of men and women who have refused to compromise and who have,
in the name of their principles, their duty to remain consistent and even their religious
or philosophical affiliations, acted against their own people, their society and/or
community at the risk of being considered traitors. Wang Yangming defended his
colleague, Voltaire defended Calas, and Zola defended Dreyfus. Russell came to
Einstein’s rescue, intellectuals criticized colonialism, whilst French, German, Swiss
and other citizens disobeyed their governments and hierarchies by saving Jews from
extermination. Jewish, Christian, Muslim and atheist American soldiers refused to go
to fight in Vietnam and are now refusing to fight in Iraq. These men and women were
and are the conscience of their countries and the personification of the ethics of
independence. This appeal to the critical mind and to the founding principle of
consistency runs through all spiritualities and religions. There are no exceptions. A
Muslim prophetic tradition sums up a feature common to all affiliation: the best way
to help an unjust brother is to make him stop being unjust. That is why Gandhi went
on hunger strike: my conscience and principles have nothing to do with my
affiliations (be they religious, cultural or intellectual) and I will embrace my
independence by having the courage to be critical of those who constitute my
community of affiliation. This is a matter of belonging to one’s principles rather than
blindly belonging to a community that might betray them, or which might allow
betraying these principles.

Defending one’s principles, exercising a duty of conscience or consistency,
and asserting one’s independence in the face of all blind loyalties (be they ideological,
religious or nationalist) certainly demands an ethics, but it also takes will power and
courage. We have to face the criticisms from within, from men and women who
regard this attitude as an act of desertion or betrayal that plays into the hands of the
‘other’ or the ‘enemy’. In the new fictitious relationships between ‘civilizations’ that
are ‘clashing’, emotions run high and blindness runs deep: Jews who denounce Israeli
policies or the silence of their co-religionists, Muslims who denounce the attitudes of
countries with a Muslim majority or the behaviour of certain extremists and the
Americans and Europeans who denounce the inconsistencies and lies of Western
politicise are seen as men and women who, respectively, nurture self-hatred, act
against the interests of the umma or have a guilt complex and outdated ‘leftist’ ideals
that lead them to declare their guilt endlessly, and dangerously. The virulence of
rejection from within, by one’s own community of affiliation, is proportional to its
lack of self-confidence and sense of insecurity: a critical attitude is seen as a betrayal
from within, and as marking the emergence of a ‘fifth column’ that is working and
plotting on behalf of the ‘enemy’. When we are faced with this fear and hyper-
emotionalism, it is difficult to argue rationally that this independence is based upon a
rational ethics, and that it is not a mater of ‘playing into the other’s hands’, but of
‘being reconciled with oneself’ and one’s ideals. It is a matter of conscience and
dignity.