If the human race actually does destroy itself, it is of only academic interest what we died fighting for or against. |
Perhaps we are at once the purpose of the universe and the means through which that purpose is to be fulfilled. If we are the center and focus and fulcrum of the universe through which everything is seen and understood and done, our value and our moral responsibility and religious significance are infinite. If we are the mind and soul of the universe trying to comprehend and control its own destiny, our first moral responsibility must be to preserve and improve the human species because if we do not exist, we can not direct the destiny of the universe.
The central thesis of evolutionary ethics is that there is no abstract standard by which to judge the value of human life except the quality of that life itself. If the human race actually does destroy itself, it is of only academic interest that we died fighting for or against. Since all abstract standards of value by whatever name: religion, justice, freedom; are merely human qualities and human creations, without human life, they mean nothing at all. Human concepts or inventions are only a manifestation of what we are, and without us, they are no more important than an empty icon, a hollow imitation, a picture of life. The most brilliant physics, the most compassionate religion, the most efficient politics has no more value than a stone tied to a stick compared to the sacred divinity of the race of man that created it. If the human race exists and improves, they can all be created again but without the human race, the universe is an empty void, an empty anarchy without purpose or meaning. Is there any book, any idea, any religion worth more than the existence and improvement of the human race? No! We created all these things. How can they possibly be of more value than we who created them? If we survive and improve ourselves, we can create infinitely greater in the future.
If we are, as evolutionary ethics suggests, the consciousness of the universe that must determine the destiny of the universe, then good is what improves us and evil is what weakens or destroys us. Good and evil are not myths. Good is what promotes social cooperation toward universal human improvement because that increases man's power, consciousness, control and chances of survival. Evil is putting loyalty to a human construct: nation, religion or politics; above loyalty to preservation and improvement of man because that causes conflict and decreases the chance of survival and advancement. It is not necessary that we all agree to be Christians, atheists or communists. It is only necessary that we recognize the deity that we have in common with all men; the life within our mortal bodies.