[Read part one]

We need to begin by addressing in more detail the philosophical objection we alluded to in the preceding discussion before we proceed too far into a discussion of meta-ethics. As we saw, some people fundamentally object to this type of philosophical analysis on the grounds that they know perfectly well what they mean by terms, that there is a `common-sense’ view that they are happy with, and that no amount of philosophical speculation is going to change their minds. We can see parallels in the study of metaphysics, where amongst other things, the physical reality of the universe is questioned and sometimes even denied. It is argued that since the only information we have about the universe comes through our senses, we have no `direct contact’ with it, and thus may be fundamentally mistaken as to its nature. The most extreme cases are those when we could imagine ourselves to be `brains in a vat’, where some (presumably malevolent) scientist is merely pumping sensory data into our brains which are entirely convincing, and causing us to believe in a physical universe which is entirely imaginary. Others suggest that although our reality is `real’, it is not physical, and that the idea of a universe which consisted of pure consciousness and nothing else would be equally consistent with the observed evidence.

It is argued that this kind of speculation is useless and futile, that there `seems’ to be a physical universe, that regardless of what its nature might be it acts just like a physical universe would act, and that this type of speculation actually has no effect at all on how we live our lives, so that at best it’s an academic point. There is certainly more than a small amount of validity in this type of position, but it does not cover all philosophical inquiry altogether. In particular it does not extend to ethics and morality.

People may claim, for instance, that they know perfectly well what they mean by statements such as `murder is wrong’, and that no amount of philosophical speculation is going to change that. They may argue that, even if it is accepted that a study into the nature of what we mean by `morality’ is not entirely devoid of merit, such a study has little practical application, since we appear to have a well-developed `moral sense’ which functions perfectly well regardless of what the underlying `reality’ of morality might appear to be.

One of the key questions within meta-ethics is whether `morality’ has any objective existence outside of the minds of people, in other words whether `right’ and `wrong’ are independently existing qualities in the same way that mass or velocity are. The `argument from queerness’ presented by Mackie argues that such qualities would be exceedingly strange, and of a completely different order to other qualities which we believe to exist in the universe. Therefore, it is argued, morality is not `real’ because it is essentially impossible to imagine what kind of `stuff’ it could possibly be made from. However, to argue for the non-existence of morality on this basis alone would be premature, as there are plenty of other concepts — such as politeness, courage, beauty, and honour — which are equally devoid of physical `reality’, and which arise purely as a result of consciousness and the interaction between people, but which nevertheless are perfectly sensible and meaningful qualities. It is perfectly widely recognised that beauty, for instance, is not something inherent in an object, but a reaction of an observer to it. The phrase `beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ states this explicitly. Yet there is nobody who would argue that beauty `does not exist’ for this reason, despite the universally accepted fact that one person might find something beautiful, and another may find it hideous. Read the rest of this post »

Ethics may be defined broadly as the study of values as they relate to human conduct. The subject matter is extremely broad, and the field has historically been divided into through main categories:

• Normative ethics is the study of what should be done, the study of what it is that makes an action `right’ or `wrong’. This study could be described as the search for a moral framework within the context of which moral judgments can be made.
• Descriptive ethics is the study of the moral choices that people actually make. It is a `value-free’ approach in that it makes no attempt to evaluate the actual `morality’ of any given action, merely to describe how people make moral decisions. We may include under this heading the study of how people come to make moral choices in the first place, including fields such as evolutionary ethics which attempt to understand to what extent moral behaviours may have evolved as a result of natural selection.
• Meta-ethics is the study of what ethical terms actually mean, and attempts to address the question `what does it mean to describe an action as “good” or “bad”?’

The question of values as they relate to human conduct is fundamental and exerts a significant influence on the human experience. From purely individual concerns such as questions of `what should I do in this situation?’ through to social policy matters including enshrining an ethical code of conduct in a legal justice system, the effect of ethical judgments, whatever their nature, is felt everywhere. It is therefore a subject with which the student of the human condition needs to be familiar.

Because we are interested in the ideas underlying the concept of ethics, we will focus in this essay mainly on normative ethics and meta-ethics, although we will make some references to descriptive ethics as we proceed. To begin with, we will look at some normative ethical theories to provide a groundwork of understanding and example which we can then use to proceed to an examination of meta-ethics.

The search for a framework

As we mentioned, normative ethics can be seen as the search for a framework under which moral choices can be made, and a fundamental assumption is this search does indeed exist and can be found. The soundness of this assumption will be examined later, but for now we will let it pass unchallenged for the sake of illustration. The nature of that framework, or of this principle or set of principles, is what lies at the root of the fundamental disagreements between various schools normative ethicists. We can begin by examining a number of these schools to illustrate the differences. Read the rest of this post »

The Christian position on “sin” is best summed up in Romans 7:14-25:

For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

The first ten verses of chapter eight immediately following this are also instructive:

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is the enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

Before we begin analysing what this all means, we must first lay out some of the Protestant ideas of sin and salvation, since these are the ones we are currently examining. For our present purposes, the distinguishing factor of Protestantism is the idea of justification by faith alone; that is, “salvation” is a freely given gift of God, and not something which needs to be obtained through good works, but simply through faith in Jesus Christ as messiah. Without for the moment considering the meaning or import of any of the terms, the essential idea is that mankind is inherently “sinful” and therefore incapable of “saving” itself. As Martin Luther said in his commentary on Galatians:

The foolishness of man’s heart is so great that then he rather seeketh to himself more laws to satisfy his conscience. “If I live,” saith he, “I will amend my life: I will do this, I will do that.” But here, except thou do the quite contrary, except thou send Moses away with his law, and in these terrors and this anguish lay hold upon Christ who died for the sins, look for no salvation. The cowl, thy shaven crown, thy chastity, thy obedience, thy poverty, thy works, thy merits? what shall all these do? what shall the law of Moses avail? If I, wretched and damnable sinner, through works or merits could have loved the Son of God, and so come to him, what needed he to deliver himself to me? If I, being a wretch and damned sinner, could be redeemed by any other price, what needed the Son of God to be given? But because there was no other price, therefore he delivered neither sheep, ox, gold, nor silver, but even God himself, entirely and wholly “for me,” even “for me,” I say, a miserable, wretched sinner. Now, therefore, I take comfort and apply this to myself. And the manner of applying this is the very true force and power of faith. For he died not to justify the righteous, but the un-righteous, and to make them the children of God.

In other words, the sacrifice of Jesus would have been simply unnecessary if man was able to redeem himself through works, leading to the natural conclusion that man is not able to redeem himself through works, and redemption is solely a gift of God, to be given at God’s sole discretion to whomever he chooses. This gift, as the theory goes, is not caused by faith, but received by it; redemption is a gift given freely by God to all, and the only thing man needs to do to be saved is to receive that gift. Read the rest of this post »

In a comment to A damnable heresy recently, I stated that:

The problem really is that people study this subject for a short while and then quickly conclude that they basically know what they’re doing. Sure, they’ll often claim that they’re humble, and that they know they’re still a beginner, and that they’ll never stop learning, but from very early on they assume that they’re basically on the right track.

and that:

What a lot of people do, instead of looking past the self-image, is just to polish it. They make actions as if they are trying to genuinely “assess” the self-image, but the problem is that they’re trying to assess it from a position of valuing their self-image in the first place, and that’s going to distort their perception.

By a startling coincidence, a prime example of both mistakes has just appeared over on Lashtal.com.

“IAO131” or “Aum418” will be familiar to readers of this blog as a classic example of a newcomer to Thelema rapidly getting ideas above their station and a vastly overinflated perception of their own understanding.

A recent thread over at Lastal.com has dealt with, amongst other things, the nature of the “true will” and the question of distinguishing fantasy from reality, which we have often covered in depth on this site. In one post, “IAO131” asks:

how would one know whether one is acting out of one’s ‘real/true nature’ anyhow?

Leaving aside the rather odd spectacle of a self-professed “authority” on Thelema (although not the sole authority on Thelema, in his own words) apparently not having the first clue as to how one would determine whether or not one was acting in accordance with one’s actual nature, we can examine the source of his confusion, which he conveniently supplies for us:

Most fantasies dont have ‘facts’ to contradict them.

What we have here is a great example of “polishing the self-image”. What IAO131 wants to do here is compare fantasies with other qualititatively similar phenomena, and somehow judge between them. Read the rest of this post »

In chapter 43 of Magick Without Tears, Aleister Crowley dealt with the question of what order of existence “angels” belong to, and particularly “whether they are liable to accident, misfortune and the like.” This chapter has caused some of the most mischief in terms of encouraging fanciful and supernatural interpretations of Crowley’s work than almost any other.

As soon as we reach the second paragraph of that letter we are instantly hit with a problem we have discussed several times on this site, that of the distinction between “subjective” and “objective”. This distinction can have many shades of meaning, and it is important when dealing with this subject not to confuse those shades; in other words, not to take a statement couched in those terms in the context of one shade of meaning, and then inappropriately extend it to falsely cover others.

Crowley says that:

for the purposes of this letter I propose to use the word “angel” to include all sorts of disembodied beings, from demons to gods—in all cases, they are objective; a subjective “angel” is different from a dream only in non-essentials.

Let us first not get too caught up in the term “disembodied”, particularly let us not make the mistake of thinking that this necessarily entails the existence of actual living beings without bodies in the sense that Christians believe their god to exist, for instance. For illustration, let us take the example of Zeus. Zeus fits the description “disembodied being” – in the first place, he is known to be the King of the Gods in Greek mythology, who rules the sky, consorted with Hera, had at least two elder brothers, fathered children, and performed all manner of other individual acts consistent with, well, being a “being”. In the second place, he is clearly “disembodied”, if for no other reason that the obvious fact that he doesn’t actually exist in a physical sense.

So what means “objective” in this sense? Simply that anybody so inclined can independently discover any number of qualities, characteristics and stories about Zeus by simply consulting a large body of literature. Regardless of the fact that he doesn’t physically exist, in this sense he has “known” characteristics and there are relatively definite legends about some of his antics. The same can not be said of Crowley’s “subjective angel” which is “different from a dream only in non-essentials” and is accessible only to one particular individual. Read the rest of this post »

In The Ethics of Thelema, we stated that Liber OZ:

does not grant rights; it lists rights that are available to those who are able to enforce them.

It may seem ironic to some that many Thelemites – claiming to adhere to “the law of the strong” (AL II, 21) – should exert so much effort clamouring to be handed their “Liber OZ rights” on a plate, when one might expect that a more consistent course of action would be to just take them, and indeed it is. A popular topic that has been doing the rounds on various blogs, news outlets and business journals is the concept of the so-called “generation entitled”. In a nutshell, this concept suggests that the current generation feels that they have a right or a claim to something, and generally it is supposed to be an unreasonable feeling. This might range from a feeling that one has the right to be treated as a de facto member of royalty by any waitress in any culinary establishment that one might happen to wander into, through a feeling that one has the right for one’s psychological needs and creative outlets to be fulfilled through one’s employment, to a feeling that one has the right to have that parking space because one believes that one saw it first.

It should not be difficult to recognise this sense of entitlement as essentially a childish urge, and it accordingly should be of little surprise to find that Thelemites – the “Aeon of Horus” being the “Aeon of the Child”, of course – should more than proportionately succumb to it. Taken at face value, Liber OZ reads like a juvenile tantrum to end all juvenile tantrums – “you will give me absolutely everything I want, right now, or I’ll kill you!”

What constitutes the sense of entitlement in this context is not the simple desire to satisfy all ones whims, or even the actual act of satisfying them, but the idea that one has a right to be accorded that privilege by someone or something else. This sense of entitlement, this feeling that one has a right to be handed privileges by others, is at the heart of most of what passes for “Thelemic political discussion” these days, as commentators search for a political system where they can be given the right to “do their wills”, whatever they might mean by that.

What these commentators really need is a healthy dose of reality to bring them back down to the ground. Read the rest of this post »

There’s an interesting thread going on over at LAShTAL.com right now about “praeternatural intelligences” and supernatural claims in general.

“Gurugeorge” suggested that the time may be coming soon where “science” may be able to “definitively decide about the Magickal theory” either way:

The Magickal theory of the Universe is a bold punt. If it’s true, then it really opens up our knowledge, it’s potentially a huge prize. It is not entirely without empirical support, it’s just that the empirical support is still weak (and remember, we’ve only been at this science thing for a few hundred years) – it’s still largely anecdotal…I’ve think that in the next hundred years or so, with advances in science going at the pace they are, it will be possible to definitively decide about the Magickal theory. That is to say, either we will have pinned down brain mechanisms that give rise to strong illusions of real entities, etc., that kind of thing, OR we will have discovered that actually, somehow the fugue/trance state is like a kind of “radio” for communication with entities the existence of which had always been believed in, but couldn’t be definitively tested for.

My response was as follows.

You strike me as a pretty reasonable guy, and a long way from being an idiot. I do note that you say below that you “personally don’t give belief to Magick stuff” but I have to take issue with the above paragraph. Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether or not there is a “magickal theory of the universe” at all, let’s take a look at what those who make various “magickal claims” would have us believe. Read the rest of this post »

Over on LAShTAL.com, a discussion thread has been started by a fellow calling himself/herself “PropriaDeus93” asking “what Thelema says about animals or what happens to them in death”. The following bizarre response was received:

My condolences for the loss of your feline companion. He/she will be with you always, so long as you are bound in love. Pay close attention to your dreams, you will find your companion has not left you and will show up at crucial moments with direction and information, and occasionally warning.

Outside of the occult/newage arena, one would expect such a post to be relatively quickly followed up with comments along the lines of “if you seriously think your dead cat is providing you with ‘direction’ and ‘warnings’, then frankly you’d be well advised to seek immediate medical attention”, but true to form the occultists have outdone themselves again, hailing “I hoped to hear something like that”, “Cats are totally underestimated”, “Wholly agree…This isn’t some new age flakery…I’ve posted here many times about ‘extraterrestrial’ connections and such [apparently, not a hint of irony intended here – EH]”, “cats ONLY do their will. They’re possibly the most Thelemic creatures on the planet!” and “myself have seen the proof : ghosts of dogs, owls showing up in peculiar places at daytime, and cats following in line at mass and ritual”.

It’s like some kind of hideous subconscious game – one person says something utterly boneheaded, stupid and flaky, and every occultist within earshot jumps in with a game of one-upsmanship, trying to say something even more pathetic and daft.

On a slightly less outlandish note, in the same discussion the question of whether or not animals constitute “stars” under AL I, 3 came up, and “Los” offered the following:

Each star has its natural orbit, just as each of us has a natural course of action

to which the original poster replied:

I don’t realy see how stars have their “natural orbit” since that would be a way that is predetermined and according to “do what thou wilt” we should find our own way in our galaxy of life…amiright?

We’ve discussed this previously on this blog, but it warrants repeating, since so many people apparently don’t bother to read Liber II:

From these considerations it should be clear that “Do what thou wilt” does not mean “Do what you like.” It is the apotheosis of Freedom; but it is also the strictest possible bond.

“Do what thou wilt” is fundamentally and categorically not equivalent to “choose your own path”. It is, in fact, about as completely opposite to that notion as it could be. The will represents the natural course of action for the individual, as “Los” quite correctly states, and to “do one’s will” entails adhering to this course of action and doing nothing else. If you choose any other path than this one then you aren’t doing your will. Period. If you choose any path at all, the odds are billions to one against choosing one that coincides with your will.

One has no choice what one’s will is. If you start trying to judge what course of action to take, or if you start trying to be “virtuous” or “spiritual”, then you aren’t doing your will. If your conscious mind is deciding what you’re doing, then you aren’t doing your will. Of course, you don’t have to do your will if you don’t want to. But if you want to chase after a hippy dream of pride in your volition and “doing your own thing”, then please, don’t call what you’re doing Thelema, because it isn’t.

From private correspondence. The correspondent has been working with some of the ideas on this web site, but remarks:

I’m still finding signifacant frustration with getting any kind of grasp on my will … When I try to just be quiet and look at my desires without trying to analyze them, I tend to find that I really don’t have any desires at all in one direction or another.

This entry was the bulk of my response.

The fact that you’re feeling “frustration with getting any kind of grasp on [your] will” still suggests to me that you’re looking for something to guide you in a much more conscious sense than the will actually does. A lot of people seem to be under the impression that if they “do the work” for a long enough period of time, if they sit doggedly in their asanas and assume the godform of Anubis for long enough, then one day this big glowing red arrow will pop up out of nowhere, pointing to the phrase “it is thy will to research theoretical cosmology at the Aspen Center for Physics, now go forth and do thy will!” but unfortunately, that’s not how things work at all.

The will can be found in any moment. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you’re in a job that you dislike, and that you’d prefer to get out of, but for whatever reason, you’re doing that job right now. You’re driving on a several hour journey to see a client, and half way through that journey you stop to think: “what is my will, right now, at this point in time?”

For the sake of simplicity, let’s exclude options such as pulling a pistol from your center console and shooting yourself in the head, reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards at the top of your voice, driving straight into the back of that truck in front of you, and all the other completely random and arbitrary things you could do at any given moment. We find that there are essentially two non-silly choices: to continue towards your destination, or to go somewhere else. Once in a great while making a sudden change, just deciding “that’s it, I’m done with this job, I quit, I’m going off to North Dakota to farm tomatoes” will be the appropriate choice, but the vast majority of the time continuing towards your destination will be.

Now let’s look at that. You’re in a job that you hate, that you want out of really badly, but I’ve just said that it’s your will to keep doing it. How can this be? Nobody likes to hear this. They want to hear that their will is something that’s going to deliver them from their misery, something that’s going to lay a path to the place where everything is just how they want it. Saying that it can be your will to keep on this same old track you want out from doesn’t sound like it can be right, but it only doesn’t sound that way because of a misunderstood idea of the nature of will. Read the rest of this post »

Executive Function wrote:
If I were constantly to live in the now then I would have developed absolutely no ability to communicate nor make practical improvements to my life. I like my freedom too much to constantly *just* live in the now. There’s a place in the now for consideration of narrower and more limited thoughts, such as planning for the future, and considering what can be learned from the past.

You are by no means unique in this respect, but probably the biggest problem facing any student of this subject is a woeful failure to understand the simplest elements of it, along with a corresponding complete conviction that they do, confidently trotting out trite and meaningless platitudes, which leads to stifling and blind restrictions such as the one gripping you in the above paragraph.

When you “plan for the future”, when you “consider what can be learned from the past”, when you “make practical improvements to [your] life”, all these things are happening in the now. It is perfectly possible to do all these things while “living in the now”. One can “live in the now” just as easily by paying attention to what is happening inside your head, right now, as one can by paying attention to what is happening outside your head, right now, and to suggest otherwise demonstrates that you don’t understand what “living in the now” means, although as I said you’re in good company on that point, including the individual you initially responded to.

The important element is to pay attention to something real. The pictures that your thoughts generate are not “real” in the sense that they are representations of the world, not the world themselves, but the thoughts themselves are real, and the process of having thoughts is itself real. When you think, there is a real thought, whether or not you believe there to be something real that is having that thought or whether that thought is existing by itself. To imagine that one can only “live in the now” whilst in some mystical non-thinking trance is just that, an imagination, and a belief in it – in other words, a failure to pay attention to what is real, and to instead pay attention to what is unreal – will make it all but impossible for you to achieve success in this subject.

You don’t need to banish thoughts altogether – you only need to cease believing in the reality of the world they create. “Living in the now” is perfectly compatible with paying attention to a real thought about the future, and it’s perfectly compatible with acting on that thought. It’s only when you start mistaking the thought world – the imaginary world – for the real world that you run into problems, because then you’re not paying attention to reality. Read the rest of this post »