The Two Dimensions

 

There are likely several dimensions which could comprise the philosophy of moderation, but here I am going to concentrate on two of them: the epistemological dimension and the ethical dimension.

 

If one was an epistemological dogmatist, one would announce to the world, with supreme confidence, that one has absolutely and necessarily discovered and captured in conscious thought, what is the truth, and that one has the concepts, terms, and words to communicate clearly, concisely, and determinatively, to others outside of oneself, what that truth is.

 

I have many deeply held, cherished metaphysical and religious beliefs that I hold dearly, but I do not claim that my version of what is metaphysically or religiously so is true for sure, but I claim that they are probably true.

 

That is a moderate epistemological stance, one of modest optimism that one has discovered, knows, and can act based upon what one has determine is true and factual.

 

A mora entailment that flows from that is the dictum that no good person, who is but modestly confident about his beliefs and his truth claims, ever has the right to take up the sword, threatening disagreeing opponents, threatening them with annihilation, imprisonment or tortue on the rack for their continued defiance of and expressed opposition to his beliefs and principles.

 

Accepting and living with this dictum will deprive him of true-believing anything, and his will be morally sensitive enough, when and while abiding by this dictum, that his conscience and good will, will prevent him from ever coercing anyone to his point of view, nor allowing any other intolerant, authoritarian zealots to coerce his obedience to their will and beliefs, no matter if their beliefs are sound. Each person is an individual, and each must change her own mind, if she wants to, when she wants to, if she ever wants to.

 

I want to push the second dimension of moderation, the ethical one, a little farther. Suppose someone is a fanatic that is supremely confident that he knows the truth, the whole truth and all the truth, as provided him by his guru, that guru’s holy cause, its accompanying totalistic doctrines, with a mass movement to back the guru up.

 

The fanatic will often assume that his intellectual infallibility authorizes him to coerce others to his point of view, to liberate them from sin, ignorance, suffering, sinful rebellion, and willful blindness by force if necessary. He may feel forcing them to adopt his ideology and beliefs is for their own good, and for the good of humanity. He is mistaken and is morally wrong if he proceeds as he is tempted to do.

 

Let me create another scenario: Suppose some hyper-brilliant genius 30 years from now, a modern day Albert Einstein, was so exceptionally skilled a linguist, a logician, a philosopher and a mathematician, that he was able to use natural and formal language, and mathematics, to lay out for lost and searching humanity, what is the certain truth, what is absolutely infallible knowledge describing how natural law and supernatural law work to make the world function and operate.

 

If we know everything about everything, it will seem, by logical entailment, that we should know how to live well, and how all humans should then act and behave. Would the knowledge ascertained by this intellectual giant morally justify for him that he could use force (violence, murder, beatings, torture, and imprisonment) to compel others to obey without question or hesitancy, the ethical corollary, that perfect objective morality, which would logically flow from knowing everything about everything? Absolutely not.

 

The ethical law of moderation is that we are to live as individuating individuals. We think for ourselves, adopt the values which we like, and we freely choose how to act, and then, as honest adults, we are willing to accept the consequences of choices made.

 

We never coerce others to our beliefs (No matter how infallible they are or seem to be.); we never allow others to force us to their beliefs when we really do not want to live by these alien beliefs, for now, or perhaps forever.