Chapter Three

Ethics, Re tiuism, and the Se

Ethics is one of the most elusive and paradoxical areas of investigation that
the human mind has ever tried to master, Ancient or contemporary, from the
East or from the West, ethics is distinctive in demanding- a clear, solid foun-
dation--but one that it simultaneously defies. Ethics demands such a foun-
dation in cntaiting principles or rules that justify or condemn our actions.
Justification requires a reason; thus, ethics requires something more founda-
tional than its rules ii it is nor going to simply beg the question of why they
are indeed obligatcsry. At the same time, such a foundation is defied by ulti-
rnatcly having to rely on a "first" principle that is stipposcd to be sclf-justi-
fying-a principle whose Moral Truth cannot be proven but is supposed to
be self-evident. This probkm of ethical hdeterminag, (PEI), the problem of
not being- able to conclusively establish that ethics has a universal founda-
tion, is discussed at length in the present chapter. As we will see, it has pro-
found implications for ethics, some of tvhich have been overlooked and oth-
ers that have not.
O n e philosophical reaction to the problem of ethical indeterminacy is
moral relativism, which, since the pre-Socratics, has offered a kind of chal-
lenge to Chc legitimacy ul ethics in one form or anolhcr in &c West. Bccausc
the truth (or falsity) of the foundational first principles of the various ethical
systems cannot be determined (by definition), they must sfmply be assumed
or taken on faith. Hence Moral E u t h is going to be relative to the founda-
tional principle one happens to adopt--in other words, relative to the princi-
ple that seems to be the most seff-justifying to a particular person, group,
and so on. 7'he moral relrtcbist cauld then safely conclude that the ultimate
justifiabiliry of any given ethical system is indeterminate, for there is no
other principle more foundational than the one taken to be self-evident.
Therefore, there is no way to establish that one intcmatly consistent ethical
system is better than anorher conflicting one of equal consistency. From this,