The relationship between ethics and the future is widely discussed—a subject I have often questioned and continue to confront.
While I was at university I encountered the thoughts of Hans Jonas, a twentieth-century German philosopher who, in his work The Imperative of Responsibility, argued that the subject of ethics must become “the man of the future.” He shifted the axis of reflection from present reciprocity—me and you, here and now—to an asymmetric responsibility toward those who cannot yet claim rights: future generations and the bios, life in its entirety. That text left a lasting impression on me, and I have revisited it often over the years.
I have always found the idea of a code of conduct independent of laws, norms, and morality to be comforting; an impersonal, superior—and therefore “just”—source to which one could refer. I therefore felt a strong need to intuit that code, to sense its correspondences, and to develop an ethical education that is both shared and shareable. I imagined the possibility of a universal ethics, precisely because it was pre-cultural, supra-human, and transpersonal: an ethics inherently directed toward the common good, precisely because it remains independent of any preference, prejudice, or private interest.
In any case, I took it for granted that such a code already existed. Following Plato, I imagined an invisible world parallel to our own, founded on values; I thought that the primary task of humankind was to recognise them and infuse every aspect of life with these values, striving for an alignment between action and its inspiring principles. This is the position of Cristina Campo, a poet I love dearly, who—being extremely sensitive to disharmony and ugliness—used to say: “Two worlds—and I come from the other.”
But one day I asked myself: “What if this weren’t the case?”
What if there were no Hyperuranion, no place beyond Heaven, no world of values, no a priori ethical code to refer to? What if, as Sartre argues, there were no essence preceding existence? What if we were truly thrown into the world, as in Lord of the Flies—the novel in which, with the absence of authority, the naked necessity emerges to choose between barbarism and order—and if we had to proceed by choosing, time and again, how to act, who to be, and consequently, what kind of society to build? What if humanity became ethical through this very movement of freedom and agony—by imposing rules upon themselves based on what they choose to value and elevate?
What if, as Nietzsche suggests in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, humans are called to become creators of values in the vacuum left by the twilight of old truths? If the Übermensch is the one who has the courage to exercise a will that no longer submits to an inherited morality, but instead posits a new one, assuming the weight of a Good that is no longer discovered in the heights of the heavens, but invented on earth?
Perhaps it is in this movement of self-determination that humans become masters of themselves and of their relationship with the world. What if the ethical act were the question itself? What if our ability to adopt a “vertical” posture came not from an external order, but from the very will to seek an action not dictated by instinct, convenience, automation, convention, or expediency?
These are two positions that seem mutually exclusive, and I, as often happens, find myself in agreement with both. It seems to me that inhabiting these questions clarifies the centrality and complexity of the issue, and how a reflection on ethics implies a contemplation of the human condition.
I haven’t yet decided which side I am on, but the more I think about it, the more I get a glimpse of a common ground: whether through fidelity to a wise world that precedes us or the desire to be the origin of our own righteous action, the ethical attitude challenges us to embrace discomfort. It compels us to ask, again and again, whether to say yes or no. This is the very idea captured in the opening pages of Camus’s The Rebel: rebellion is a “no” that affirms a common value, a human solidarity that arises the moment we refuse what is absurd to us. It is a “no” to contingency that implies a “yes” to something higher, to a deeper possibility of being ourselves; it is a transpersonal “yes.”
I wonder if ethics lies in the courage to choose one’s “no’s” and “yes’es,” and in the necessary resolution to sustain this form of rebellion.
If ethics is truly rooted in this effort, I feel compelled to say that it is important to resist. We must resist, first and foremost, one of the strongest temptations presented to us, which technology risks exacerbating: the idea that comfort, the absence of effort, or the avoidance of pain are values to be pursued.
As Byung-Chul Han, the South Korean philosopher and interpreter of our contemporary age, suggests, we live in a “society of palliation.” We try to expel every form of negativity and conflict, transforming life into a smooth, trauma-free surface. But if we eliminate conflict, if we erase pain and effort as if they were system errors, we end up numbing existence itself.
I agree with this analysis, and I believe that Jonas, Plato, Cristina Campo, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus would agree too. Looking at the relationship between ethics and the future, I lean towards the idea that ethics is primarily about the choice to traverse life by adopting an upright posture—a posture of rebellion—to be maintained with vigilance, integrity, and persistence.
Chiara Gadotti