Skepticism And Morality

 I was riding the bike this morning in the basement when I got a flash of intuition about my bedrock first principle that moderation is how reality is to work, and immoderation or extremism is how the world and people in the world can operate, but that is not how they should operate, and that is not how the world is to work.

To live in obedience to the natural law (that the middle is the way) is to also practice epistemological and ontological moderation concurrently.

To believe in God and enjoy some sect is to make theological and moral statements, even claims of infallible correctness is to make a human error. Even if one possesses such infallible status, or near to it, one must remain humble and not act the true believer role, championing one's tribe and favored cause as the one true tribe and the one true faith that, unless all neighboring tribes, adopt, believe, follow, and conform to wholly, they are working for Satan, and are to be put to death. Convert or die. 

Fanatical, violent, intolerant treatment of rival tribes and their customs is to transpose one's faith and moral code into what is false, cruel, vicious, and rejected by God, and its zealous adherents may well burn in hell for hurting innocent neighbors refusing to kowtow and obey.

Let me try to be clearer about what is this tricky first principle of moderation, and how it is to be managed and understood if we are to follow God, be good, live well and do good things. 

To get as close as possible to all this moving, altering centers of Being, we must practice the right epistemology: we are not to be dogmatists, completely, just mostly; then, at the same time, contradicting our primary epistemic option, we are to practice some skepticism about our solutions, or the solutions offered by anyone. This secondary but critically necessary cognitive orientation allows us the remain moderate: to believe is important, but to doubt is a useful corrective. 

If we come to doubt everything, we end up nihilistic. Nihilistic people head right for true believer-ship, tribalism, mass movements, war, conflict, and totalitarianism against any rival group.

If our belief is purely dogmatic or totalistic, we are pure fanatics, and a more vicious, cruel, violent, unjust group of people cannot be imagined. They are an active army of Satan and Lera on the march to take over the world, and ultimately kill everyone and everything, even themselves.

We need to believe, but a little doubt is important lest we abandon our moral sense, our common sense, our self-restraint and our sense of decency, kindness and fair play against others and ourselves.

Our praxis of moderation applied to skepticism (modest skepticism) allows or makes realizable, our virtuous ideal (moral moderation or a life approach of calm reasonableness). Extreme skepticism begats extreme dogmatism of the true believer variety. Gentle skepticism about everyone, everything, and all value statements--our own included--leads us to knowledge and virtuous behavior of high quality and near absolute certainty.