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on ethics
Having [defined free will]({{< relref "/theses/metaphysika/on free will/definition" >}}), I can now discuss about the ethical.
Before I do so, I first want to explain in depth why free will is a necessity for ethics to exist.
Assuming a system with either only determinism, only random outcomes, or a combination of both, there is no adequate mechanism of choice, for there to be a capacity to commit an action. There is no possible way to define a person as anything more than a process that acts as an input/output method, much like a rock, or a drop of water. These objects, bereft of agency as they are, are unable to make a decision, and so do not deserve to be morally labelled. For what does it mean for a stone to be immoral or unethical? Should we accuse water of falling too harshly when rain turns to hail? No, for there to be an ethical consideration, the subject must uniquelly be able to make a choice, and to act based of its own volition. For ethics to exist, [free will must exist]({{< relref "/theses/metaphysika/on free will/existence" >}}).
There have been many and there will be many more attemps to define ethics and morality in an objective sense, however most fail due to their flawed attempts to define good and evil in an objective manner, which requires an objective arbiter who decide which acts are good and which acts are evil, and hand out reward and punishment respectively.
The above necessity forms the basis of many modern religions. Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and Jews have a clear seperation of a Heaven and a Hell, where people are sorted into based on merit (Some Catholics also admit into their faith the notion of a Purgatory. Protestants don't form a cohesive, centralised group, and are therefore inconsistent. These are discussions for another time.). Tibetan Buddhism seperates reality into seperate levels, with the human level being the 'ideal', neutral point, and reincarnation moving the individual up or down the levels based on the merit of the last life, with the capacity to remove oneself from the cycle and join the Buddhas. Hinduism teaches a similar idea, that one reincarnates as a being of lower or higher 'standing' depending on their behaviour in the past life, without necessarily making a distinction of different tiers of existence, but rather of quality of being, again with the capacity of breaking the cycle of reincarnation and liberating the self (Liberating implies that the individual is trapped in "earthly shakles" (the body) which is also a position taken by the neoplatonists. This is also a discussion for another time.).
All of this to say that throughout history, the prevalent mode of defining an ethic was by defining 'good' as something that brought one closer to 'the divine' and 'evil' something that had the opposite effect. This obviously is deeply flawed. Not only do you need to ignore the underlying circular reasoning of "good is defined as not being evil and evil is defined as not being good", but you also need to define what and why the divine considers it to be so, which varies amongst cultures and locations. An example of this is that various mesopotamian civilisations, most notably the Phoenicians, considered it moral and good to sacrifice infants to their deities, most prominently Baal, which the Romans of the same time period considered to be a barbarous atrocity. Another example of the dynamic and therefore subjective nature of this type of ethics is the fact that the arbitrary concepts of good and evil in the current era, with the various ideas and practices that are currently tolerated by the majority of the population, vary wildly from the same concepts of good and evil from a few decades ago.
This does not imply that ethics are destined to be subjective, or that morality cannot exist, but rather it necessitates the foundation of a new concept of ethics.
A friend of mine asked me to think of this as a person placing their hand in of an open flame. Irregardless of any subjective pleasure or displeasure one might derive from the event, there is an objective process that happens, the hand burning, and the natural response to this which is to pull the hand from the flame. Exactly because of the existance of a free will and a capacity to choose, one might choose to maintain their hand in the flame, or remove it from it. Therefore, one can define as a good thing to remove their hand from the process. While it may or may not be subjectively good for the person, there is an objective process, the burning of the hand, that can be defined as 'not good', because it damages the individual. This is the objective basis for ethics.
Since the above holds for the individual, we must extend this to interpersonal relationships. Such a task is easy; knowingly putting another person's hand in the flame, or leading them to do so, counts as an unethical action. Of importance is to note that the action is unethical, not the person. This is thusly because a person has the capacity to act in both an ethically good and an ethically bad manner. At the same time, a person might regret their past actions and seek forgiveness; this cannot be seen as anything but atonement, and therefore since a person has the ability to regret, there can not be a universal, permanent ethical alignment of the individual, at least up to and until the point of death.
Because of the effective societal pressure in interhuman interactions, there is an additional claim concerning objectively ethical actions. Any attempt to nonconsensually interact with a person, violating their capacity to voluntarily engage, can be labeled as a malicious act; even if the person acts unknowingly, they have deprived the other indeividual of their free will and have therefore commited a bad act.