Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

existing independently of human reasoning. But we are less inclined to believe in ‘a morality’. Our narratives with regard to ethics and morality do however demand some kind of justice to be played out. We look for fair play and just deserts in all of our dealings and this probably has a greater hold over the human mind than searching for truth. We have more ‘skin in the game’, as it were, when it comes to human behaviour, than when thinking about abstract ideas around truth.

It is very difficult to see how there can be a perfect form of a moral act, such as courage. Courage and other moral values, it seems, can only be known through individual acts in the real world. Courage means little by itself. We need to be courageous for the sake of something. Likewise, the brave do not seek out brave things to do and the modest do not seek situations where they can practice their modesty. The exception is justice. The just will directly seek occasions to practice justice and see justice done. Does this somehow put justice in a higher category? Well, it’s notable that all of our moral theories could be described as theories of justice — based on what is fair. So this seems to lead us toward the notion that some moral principles are foundational, or ‘constitutional’, like justice, whilst others are derivative, ‘regulative’ or ‘executive’, and thus the outworking of the more foundational morals. So courage, bravery and modesty are derivatives — executive — morals of the wider, constitutional, values.

A moral act and the value that lies behind it are not two separate things. So we need the underlying values, meanings and purposes in

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