đ° Gilles Deleuze: Ethics and Morality
Author: Christos Marneros
Full Title: Gilles Deleuze: Ethics and Morality
URL: https://criticallegalthinking.com/2019/01/04/gilles-deleuze-ethics-and-morality/
Yes, establishing ways of existing or styles of life isnât just an aesthetic matter, itâs what Foucault called ethics, as opposed to morality. The difference is that morality presents us with a set of constraining rules of a special sort, ones that judge actions and intentions by considering them in relation to transcendent values (this is good, thatâs badâŚ); ethics is a set of optional rules that assess what we do, what we say, in relation to the ways of existing involved. We say this, do that: or say through mean-spiritedness, a life based on hatred, or bitterness toward life. Sometimes it takes just one gesture of word. Itâs the style of life involved in everything that makes us this or that [âŚ]
The ethical is manifested as something that does not rely upon âfixedâ or âeternalâ norms â âYou should do as I say because itâs the right thing to do!â âThatâs wrong, donât do it!â Instead, it is a matter of evaluating or assessing each situation and each encounter in their specificity â âHow does a particular situation or a particular encounter with an external body or an idea affect me?â
Deleuze calls transcendence âthe poisoned gift of Platonism.â As a consequence, a hierarchy of beings is formed, where some beings hold âmore realityâ than others depending on the beingsâ proximity to an Idea. For example, something will be judged as good or bad according to its proximity to the Idea of âthe Good.â
According to Deleuze, this transcendent mode of life dominates Western philosophical thought and Western society more broadly, since the days of Plato. This happens because we are still thinking in terms of a hierarchy and a primacy of a Being (e.g. God) or beings (e.g. âthe rational humanâ) among other beings, a primacy of values or ideas among the rest (e.g. fixed notions of âjustice,â âthe Law,â or âhuman rightsâ).
Admittedly, then, there is an âan-archicâ (without an archÄ, a grounding or a primary principle) element when we refer to Deleuzian ethics, in the sense that they do not rely on any form of hierarchy and authority of âhigherâ Being or value in order to be defined or to be judged.
An ethical way of living, in the Deleuzian sense of the term, will not turn to higher values in order to âshapeâ its ways of existing according to the command of such values. It is rather, as Deleuze states, a matter of forming âa style of lifeâ according to âoptional rules.â
Even in our so-called âsecular,â (post)modern age, we are yet to be freed from the âshadowsâ of a transcendent morality. Instead, what we witness is a rise of the calls for âhigherâ principles, such as âthe nation,â ârace,â âthe stateâ and so forth.
On the other hand, what Deleuze defines as ethics, possibly, leads towards a new way of creative thinking and living in an ethical, expressive way that could do away from dogmas and hierarchies.
Such a way of life, though, presupposes that we have to take a âriskâ because creativity presupposes experimentation and experimentation does not guarantee absolute ends. Our, potentially, new inventive ways of living may lead to some peculiar results, and thus we have to be prepared to accept that we have to seriously re-evaluate any values that are considered to be âsacred.â