Sila and Soul (Part 9)

I'm pretty sure I said at the beginning of this talk that there are many possible approaches to ethics, many different perspectives we can bring to bear on that whole domain of our concern, of our existence. And there are different systems of moral philosophy. So for example, there's utilitarianism. Some of you will know this. It's originating with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. And in that kind of approach, the 'goodness' or 'what is good' is what has utility -- in other words, what is useful. That's how you measure and adjudicate actions and behaviour. So behaviour and actions are chosen for their usefulness, or rather for the usefulness of their consequences. So you have an eye to the consequences, the likely consequence of an action, and you kind of measure its usefulness. Usefulness in that system, utility in that system, is usually thought of as maximizing pleasure over pain for the greatest number of people, maximizing pleasure, minimizing pain, maximizing 'happiness' -- whatever exactly that means -- and maximizing well-being of the greatest possible number of people. Note also, as in so many moral systems of thought, the anthropocentrism there. It's usually focused just on people and not other species.

So there are variations within utilitarianism. There are different variations of that kind of approach. And like all approaches, it will have its particular strengths and weaknesses, and its particular sort of difficulties that it encounters or not. So you could hear when I was saying that, how exactly do you measure happiness? What exactly do you mean by well-being? How do you try and assess these things? Also, what is the radius of concern, if you like, in terms of, "Which greatest number of people, where, and when?" So for example, some of these Extinction Rebellion actions involve blocking roads or bridges, and the traffic stops, and people are held up who are part of the traffic, trying to get somewhere, go to work, or this or that. So there's a kind of inconvenience for some people. Or for a certain number of people, there's an inconvenience and maybe other -- maybe financial loss, who knows what.

So some people would critique, "Oh, you're being selfish by blocking the traffic that way. You're being self-indulgent, etc." But widening the concern, obviously, it's like, okay, there are these people in the traffic jam who have been inconvenienced, who may experience some loss of profit or some hassle, or whatever, a decrease in their happiness for some time. One could widen that sphere to the whole of society or the whole of humanity; or the whole of humanity, also including future species, so it's in future generations; or including not just all that, but all species. And then, when you start weighing it up that way from a utilitarian perspective, if there's some chance that that kind of action has an effect globally on government policy and corporate policy, etc., then the net reduction in pain, net increase in likely well-being and happiness may be justified, may be measured to be -- make it worthwhile. But you know, you run into all kinds of difficulties in terms of measurement, etc., there.

Anyway, we have been approaching and discussing ethics and questions about ethics from, I guess, mostly what people would call a perspective of virtue ethics, where the emphasis is less on the consequence and more on the subject: the moral subject, the person, and their virtues and values, and what they're investing in, and what they're energizing, and what they're working towards, and what they're sensitive to. And here, in that perspective, there's a shift in emphasis, as I said. And as values, moral values are not regarded as dependent on or proportional to -- their value is not proportional to, as John Findlay says as he summarizes Hartmann's approach, is not dependent

on the amount or degree of the lower values they [actualize] or ... aim at: they are [moral values are of a different,] higher ... better [order than the lower values].^[1]

So he gives an example. For example,

the value of active justice in [a] moral [agent -- so a person working towards or implementing a situation of justice -- let's say, adjudicating two parties, people, or communities, whatever. The value of that active justice] is ... much higher than the ... goods-value of the apportionments they effect.

In other words, someone comes in -- let's say it's a judge or someone else -- and reapportions money or property or whatever. However much or however little the goods-value of the money or the property they redistribute -- justly, according to the measures of justice -- however little or great the goods-value is, the moral value of the justice stands above that. It's much higher. It's on a completely different level.

So it's a different emphasis, but I also said that, you know, we can think sometimes, and most people, often, nowadays, what's more popular, I think, is to think, is to consider in terms of the efficacy of one's actions: the consequences and what will work. So when we approach something like climate change, species loss, these kinds of huge, almost overwhelming problems and issues, crises we face -- yes, we need something that's efficacious, we need something that's going to make a difference, and of course that's the case. So there are two possible ways in: (1) the way of emphasizing virtue or considering virtues, values, and (2) the way of considering efficacy. And I pointed out earlier that if there's too much of an emphasis on virtue, or only an emphasis on virtue, disregarding a consideration of efficacy of our actions, then that overemphasis on virtue is itself not a virtue. It's what one might call a 'disvalue.' It's not a value; it's a disvalue. One has been, in a way, so narrowly concerned with the virtue, and neglectful of the efficacy.

So this whole approach of virtue ethics is one angle, one approach. And like all these things, we can have flexibility in how we approach at different times, or even the relative weights of consideration between, let's say, virtue ethics and considerations of efficacy. We don't always have to approach a situation -- a moral situation, a moral crisis, a social situation, an environmental situation -- thinking predominantly about virtue. But it can be a part of our moral equipment, part of our moral calibration, our moral instrument. And we can move in and out of that. Virtue ethics does lend itself -- I hope it's clear by now -- does lend itself to a connection with soulmaking, in the ways that I've gone into a little bit. But even when we consider soulmaking, you know, the intention for soulmaking in life is not always going to be primary, and neither should it always be primary. There are other issues. There are other concerns. There are other demands in life. So we move in and out. In our lives as practitioners, as soulmaking practitioners, we move in and out of emphasizing or prioritizing an intention for soulmaking. And that's appropriate, the flexibility: flexibility of way of looking, flexibility of approach, perspective, etc., is really crucial. [10:23]

And so, when we consider values and virtues, there's this whole possibility of, to some extent, delineating and sensing a kind of hierarchy of values. There are higher values and lower values. And to some extent, that's possible to discern -- where things stand, where two values might stand relative to each other on that hierarchy and what Hartmann calls the 'scale of values.' And in his way of thinking, goodness is the inclination, the tendency to choose the higher value.

So like we said, sometimes this is obvious. It's obvious that this value is higher than that value among moral values; it's obvious, as we said just now, that moral values are higher than goods-values in that way of thinking. It's really a kind of sensibility, that sensibility to existence. In that sensibility to existence, that soul-sensibility to existence, moral values are higher than goods-values. So some of those distinctions are obvious, some of those distinctions of grade, of height, relative height between values. Some are much less obvious. And it also, I think, is important to realize that the rank -- or what Hartmann calls the 'grade,' the place on the hierarchy of values -- is not necessarily inherent in the value only. So to some extent it is, but also we have these other considerations, for example the fact that we might need to consider a virtue or a value as a complex of other virtues and values. So this notion of a counter-weight needed, etc. That already complicates the issue, when we consider that we're really talking about balances and spectra rather than single, cut-and-dried, black-and-white virtues.

And the second reason that the rank or grade or height of a value is not necessarily inherent just in the value itself is that also, again, when we consider it with a bit more psychological breadth and sophistication and subtlety of discernment and awareness, we also start to realize that the citta, the soul approaches the actualization of a virtue or the intention towards a virtue with all kinds of factors and perspectives. So the mind, the heart, the being, the soul brings a lot to its moral intentions, and to its working towards a value, or an actualization of a value or a virtue.

So for example, it might be that wrapped up in the citta at that time is fear, and one is actually just intending a certain action, maybe even intending a virtue or a value, but it's coming out of fear, and as such, it's a bit more narrow-minded or reactive. Or it might be working against fear. One needs to overcome a certain fear to get behind that value and cultivate that virtue and instantiate it. And so we might say that when it comes out of fear, when it's prompted by fear and that kind of narrow contraction, perhaps it has less value, less 'height,' so to speak, than when there's no fear, and it's a freer choice, a freer moral choice. It's coming more from a moral sensibility rather than the sense of fear and reactivity. And maybe, you could say, maybe some people say it's even higher when one has to overcome fear in oneself: "I'm afraid of the consequences. If I speak up courageously, I'm afraid of the consequences. I'm afraid of protesting. I'm afraid of the consequence of getting arrested. I'm afraid of the consequences of getting a criminal record. I'm afraid of what people think. I'm afraid of getting ostracized, etc." Perhaps that then can be considered a higher value or virtue.

Perhaps sometimes our virtuous behaviour and intentions come out of, actually, a narrow-mindedness. There's a kind of brittleness there, a kind of narrow attachment to some kind of code that's been handed down to us. Sometimes it comes out of habit, and it's just the almost mechanical churning of habit in the consciousness. Sometimes a value takes a lot of exertion. To actualize a value takes a lot of exertion on our part, or else a big stretch of the soul, of the being, or of the body, even, in some way. And then the whole way of looking at self/other/world, and our very intention, our will, our desire, our eros, ethically -- that can vary hugely. And so we might say that there's a higher virtue when those ways of looking are richer, deeper, wider, more noble, more ensouled. So all these other factors come in, and we might say that the height or grade of a value or a virtue depends also on those, all those other factors there. What else is going on in the whole being, the totality? It's a function, if you like. The height, to a certain extent, is a function of that whole complex of intentions and ways of looking and factors, forces in the psyche. [17:17]

So with any virtuous intention or moral action, there can be a kind of flat, if you like, ego-level version: a version that's based on some kind of 'fixated image,' what we might call it in our soulmaking language. Or it's kind of impoverished. It's an impoverished image. That kind of version of the same virtue looks the same, to a certain extent. Or it could be much more soulful, much richer, multidimensional, with a sense of divinity, with all of that. And there's a spectrum here. Again, it's not black and white. There's a whole spectrum. But all these, once we start to attune in this way and discern in this way, we start to realize, "Wow, it's really quite a complex territory here in terms of judging heights of values and virtues." So some care is needed in that. [18:16]

When we talk about, for example, climate change, but even more so about species extinction, massive extinction going on of other species at the moment at the hands of unthinking human beings, I wonder whether that particular care for species extinction is an example of a higher value. So it's not the same as caring for the suffering of one animal or even a group of animals. It's something different, as I've touched on before. It's actually not just about suffering. So we'll come back to this. What's the relationship between a care about suffering and our ethics and soulmaking? What's the relationship in that nexus: reduction of suffering, care for ethics, and soulmaking?

So I remember, again, some years ago, reading something George Marshall used to put out, and he criticized that a lot of the sort of media messages promoting or trying to promote a concern for climate change would have a polar bear on them: "The earth is heating up. The ice is going to melt. The polar bears are going to suffer. And they may disappear." And he was quite vociferous in attacking that kind of trope. As he said, it doesn't actually work for most people, in terms of galvanizing a response from people in relation to climate change. You get the cute polar bear, but polar bears live in the North Pole, and you don't really encounter polar bears. Most people don't really encounter polar bears in their life. And most people would just look at an ad like that, and somewhere in the psyche, they think, "Well, it's not really my concern or my children's concern." So he was saying most people are concerned about themselves and their children -- which to me is also, you know, in itself problematic, as we've touched on.

So yes, I would say there's some truth in that. And maybe the plight of the polar bear and the possible extinction or decimation of that species -- I'm not talking about the suffering of individual polar bears; I'm talking about the species -- maybe the sensibility to that concern, the sensitivity to the tragedy of species loss, and the crime, really, of ecocide and species loss, species extinction, species extinguishing -- those crimes -- maybe that kind of sensitivity is actually a higher virtue. It correlates with a higher value. And as we've said along with Hartmann, some people may have just a greater capacity, a greater talent for those kinds of virtues, or perhaps that kind of virtue, or perhaps higher virtues in general, just as, in Hartmann's explanation, some people have more talent for mathematical ideas. Or we could say some people have more aesthetic or musical talent, or art. You can have a talent for values. And the question is, can that be trained? Can we encourage that kind of extension of the moral sensibility in ourselves, in each other, in society, in schools? Can we support a growth of and an education of our moral capacity and sensibility, sensitivity?

And like I said, I talked about Polly Higgins, but also recently there was the UN Executive Director for the Convention on Biological Diversity, Cristiana Pașca Palmer. She also said this biological diversity -- in other words, species diversity, the thriving of many different species -- is necessary to maintain the natural life support systems on which humanity depends. And she added:

With biodiversity [with this need for a richness and a plethora of different species], it is not so clear [as with climate change, where people might feel the impact in their everyday life] but by the time you feel what is happening, [it's] too late [for us].^[2]

It will be too late for us when the bees stop pollinating because there aren't enough bees. We will suffer in terms of our agriculture.

So I've touched on this before, but to me it's an important consideration: you know, is there something asked of a different order, a different height of moral sensibility here? What if scientists found out a certain species -- I don't know what kind of species -- was actually useless? It didn't really provide anything for the ecosystem. The ecosystem could get on fine without it, whatever ecosystem it was in. And we could get on fine without it, and other species could get on pretty fine without it. Perhaps it's just merely beautiful, merely graceful, merely remarkable, merely miraculous. And perhaps it's not even beautiful. You know, is a haddock beautiful? We have also, again, a narrow sensibility in terms of beauty, often is the case. So the polar bears tend to be [laughs] -- they're potentially very dangerous animals, but they're, you know, furry and cuddly and warm. A haddock is cold and slippery and wet and, to most people's eyes, not that beautiful. [25:37] But then, if there was this useless species, would it then be okay ethically if our actions made it forever extinct? There's some other level here that I think is important, some other level of sensibility, to me.

And you know, is this an elitist sort of request, an elitist demand, an elitist aspiration? Yeah, maybe it is. But I said right at the beginning, you know, I may sound like an elitist. I probably am an elitist. You know, the whole movement towards awakening is a very elitist movement. It's not like everyone's really going to take that up, even in terms of how many Dharma people really take up seriously a real movement to deep awakening and insight. So that's only a small portion of even Dharma people. Soulmaking asks so much of us, in terms of our skills and the aspects of our being, the demands, the stretches, the know-how, the art of it. Samādhi, you know. I was a musician; it's elitist. Not everyone can do that or train that way, to take that to a high level of art.

And again, I recall Hartmann's notion of the noble and his kind of insistence that it's through the noble few, those who stretch the sensibility, that humanity evolves spiritually, through their leading, their opening the doors through which more people then follow after and are kind of converted or infected with that sensibility, that moral sensibility.

Of course, in that kind of care, or respect for, or sacred place given to species and ecosystems, etc., that we're saying is a higher value, it's not really a new value, because indigenous cultures would be totally rooted in that. So it might be it's a resurrection. It's relatively new for our time. But still, there may be a big ask in this. And George Marshall may be right, to a certain extent, that only some people are going to be really moved by the plight of, let's say, the polar bear. But still, if we talk about our life and our soul and the deeper and wider needs of the earth, of humanity, of certainly the species, then this is a consideration: stretching, opening, heightening our moral sensibilities. [29:01]

And as I said, species loss is not the same as concern for the suffering of one animal or even of, you know, many large numbers of animals -- so something else, some other sensibility. And all this, what we've been talking about begs the question, to a certain extent, of "What then is the relationship of these ways of thinking about ethics and the whole thrust and intention, primary thrust and intention of the Dharma to reduce suffering?" So you know, happily, our attraction to and need for moral values is often satisfied -- to a certain extent, at least -- in our attention to and need for and pursuit of a reduction in suffering or reduction in dukkha. But in most cases it might not be enough to notice that there are in fact two directions of our desire there.

So keep the precepts, for example, as an ethical investment and commitment -- reduces some suffering. But again, there may be, as I said, two directions or two strata of our intention here. So the love of higher moral values -- the love, the attraction, and the eros for a higher ethos, or an ethos that encompasses the higher, that cares about the higher, the beauty of sacrifice, the images and archetypes and values bound up in a fuller and more powerful devotion to ethics -- may well not overlap with the idea or the thrust, the intention for decreasing suffering, other than as a promise of reward of a future rebirth or a heaven, or whatever you might believe. [31:12]

Or if there are gifts and rewards from a devotion like that -- a kind of deep, high, wide, very attuned moral sensibility and commitments -- if there are rewards from such a devotion in some cases, they are relatively subtle. So the decrease in, the kind of attenuation of self-sense, the openness of heart, seeing the dependent arising of the perception of self/other/world -- these are all relatively subtle gifts, if you like, rewards from that kind of devotion. So there's certainly only some reduction of personal suffering. Maybe we could say, the larger picture, there's a reduction of suffering. But we're really talking about two strands of intention: the reduction of suffering, and the love of moral values, and particularly of the higher moral values. And they may overlap to a certain extent, but they're also not completely the same. And again, the question is, what do we love? And what do we want? What are we devoted to -- the decrease of suffering, or the beauty and soul-attraction of moral values? So as I said, they're not exactly and always the same thing. [32:57] There's not a complete overlap between the two.

As we said, because values are an element of sensing with soul -- one of the twenty-eight elements we've delineated so far -- there is an overlap with soulmaking. And many people -- and I've said this before -- many people, and perhaps most people would assume at first that an overlap with decreasing suffering would be more likely to be the case, overlap between the concern for morals and the reduction of suffering, and they would harbour some kind of suspicion of a prioritization of soulmaking intentions. But as we've said, soulmaking intentions implicitly or explicitly include a devotion to values -- or rather to some or other values from the sort of pantheon, the zodiac of values.

So I mentioned the Buddha and his choice to leave his family, and generally considering his zest and devotion to know the end of suffering, to not be reborn, to teach others, perhaps his mystical hunger, his hunger to know the mystical -- you don't really hear that one so much in the Pali Canon -- and that devotion, that intention trumped his sense of his moral responsibility to be there for his wife and his young son. So he basically abandoned them. In this antinomy and this conflict of values, he chose one. Now you could argue that in his life, he always chose what would maximally lessen the suffering for the totality in all time, which is, as we started this part of the talk saying, that's a version of utilitarianism. And then that's how he was thinking: "You know, if I become a Buddha, I'll probably help more people than if I stay at home and become a world monarch and keep with my family." And so, many people would kind of construe it that way: he chose that because in the totality of things, it would reduce more suffering and increase more happiness for more people over time than if he stayed at home and did other stuff, ruled a kingdom, etc.

But actually, that seems to me, if I'm honest, and if we look, feel into it a little more carefully, it seems a bit of a psychologically naïve view or belief or assertion. Maybe that's heretical. If you feel into the psychology there, is that really what's going on -- that he was sort of weighing up, calculating the probable amounts of suffering, pain that could be avoided, pleasure that could be increased? Or was, you know, his drive, his love, his devotion, his determination, his desire, his choice coming out of a richer psychology that had also to do with his soul, what was beautiful to him, what called him?

To say all this another way, or approach it from a slightly different direction, take, for example, mettā: it's regarded as a value in Buddhadharma, but as a value, it's subordinate to and dependent on the higher and, in a way, more fundamental, more central value given to reducing suffering -- actually, the direction of ending suffering. Mettā is one component, one element in that path that prioritizes the end of suffering, and its primary purpose is for that: ending rebirth. So mettā is a value in that system of thought because it reduces suffering and leads to the end of suffering, which is its primary value. Now probably, to use philosophical jargon, on the margins of the text and the margins of the Pali Canon, so to speak, between the lines, and sort of briefly alluded to, with the perfume, the margins of the text and discourse, if we were to deconstruct it (if we use philosophical language), there'll be many messages even in the Pali Canon attesting to the independent value of mettā and sīla. So primarily they're given as stepping-stones. Their function is to reduce suffering and actually, more primarily, as stepping-stones on the path to ending suffering, to not be reborn, as we said before. But the beauty of mettā and the beauty of sīla are probably there in the Pali Canon -- they can't help but seep out and be there sort of at the edges of the main point of the teachings.

So there's a certain way we think about the Dharma in terms of reducing suffering. Of course the Mahāyāna extends that to include all beings, etc. But there are also other factors, and I think it is important to be a little more psychologically sophisticated, a little fuller in our gaze at the psychology of all this. What's really going on? What really are we loving and wanting? What's really motivating us with all this?

Again, if I just look around me right now, it's interesting. So this question about ethics -- the emphasis in Buddhadharma on reducing suffering and that sort of principal way of conceiving what we're doing, or that conception of that as the principal thing that we're doing, the main thing, the main purpose, and ethics and soulmaking, all that -- and I look around me right now, and certainly in Devon, where I live, there's very suddenly, really, a lot of Dharma people suddenly involved in, for example, Extinction Rebellion and actions on the streets against inaction for climate change, and against species loss, etc. And more widely in the UK, as well, suddenly there's been quite a dramatic change, almost black and white, among Dharma folks. Maybe in other countries it's starting, or there are the potential seeds, the potential rumblings of that, maybe, in the US, something starting. But certainly around here, it's a dramatic quantum leap, a sudden shift. I think only some of that -- I don't know what proportion, but only some proportion, probably; I don't actually know -- but only some of that is because of Soulmaking Dharma teachings. Somehow other conditions have come together for this sudden ignition of the wildfire in the Dharma community.

Is it the last IPCC report that was much more stark in its warnings, much more grave, much more demanding or insinuating that rapid action needs to happen? Is it that most of these Dharma people who are getting involved now are actually looking at it through the lens of reducing suffering in the world, for others? Is it just that there's a kind of critical mass of enough people, and something starts snowballing? And if three of your friends are talking about this thing, and are being involved, and sharing with you how it's touched them, and how wonderful it was, and how they actually survived an action fine, etc., and how they're even thinking of maybe being arrestable or whatever, that has an effect on the people around me, so it's less, you know, a few lone voices crying in the wilderness. So I don't know. I don't know what all those conditions are. Like I said, I think the Soulmaking Dharma is just one small piece that's relevant for some people. The question more for this fire of commitment and action and engagement that has struck up, the question is, really, can it stay steady? Can it be mature?

On one of the retreats, one of the series of talks, we talked about the fire, mastering the fire, and the way different soul-fires burn, the way eros burns in souls differently at different times, and depending on different conditions.^[3] And to have a fire that just flares up and then goes out -- it may be not so helpful. There's something that's actually more mature because it's steadier, it's not going to be blown out at the next little wind.

So all these are questions. But it may be, as I said, that for many of those people, it's really just a consideration, it is a utilitarian consideration, a weighing up of, "What's the net amount of suffering here?" And that's what's galvanizing their response. And it's what's, rather, framing their perspective and their conceiving of the whole issue and whether to get involved or not. And the commitment and the action, the engagement is supported by a whole web of other conditions. I don't know.

But again, if we stay with this question of the relationship, the nexus between reducing suffering, and soulmaking and ethics, etc., and values -- as I've said before when talking about Buddhadharma, when talking about awakening, there's a kind of 'petering out' of the whole notion of awakening as an ending of rebirth, ending the cycle of rebirth. It's -- I don't know -- fewer and fewer people who actually, they may believe in rebirth, but that that's actually at the core of their being, what they're aiming for is to end their rebirth, that's become, I think, in Western Dharma (certainly in the people I meet, get a sense from, and hear from), it's become rarer and rarer. So that opens up: what are we actually aiming for when we're talking about the goal of the path and awakening, if it's not ending rebirth? So it might be just this, as I said, utilitarian working towards a reduction of suffering -- maybe just my suffering, maybe much wider, in the more Mahāyāna sense of all beings. But there's something else. There are other factors, as I've been saying.

And something about meaningfulness. We said that's an element of soulmaking. It's an element of the imaginal. It's an element of sensing with soul. And when we take the consideration of meaningfulness and extend it to our whole life, it is interesting to us. What gives us meaningfulness? And is it only a kind of utilitarian reduction of suffering? So yes, that has its place, absolutely. But there are other strata and factors that are part of our psyche, and we need to kind of be aware of, more consciously aware of, I think, when we look at what's going on for us, and what renders life fruitful, fulfilling, meaningful.

So here's a quote from Predrag Cicovacki. I think I mentioned him before in another series of talks.^[4] He wrote a book about Hartmann, which was, I thought, quite a good book. And he says:

One of the central claims of Hartmann's entire philosophical opus [so it's not just around morality and ethics] is that it is precisely useless values that bestow meaning upon life. By uselessness he means neither fruitlessness nor meaninglessness. Uselessness only refers to the absence of any tangible purpose or visible end.... It is on such [useless] values that we depend when we attempt to bestow meaning on our strivings and struggles.^[5]

So he would also include in that, I'm pretty sure -- well, I certainly do -- art as something ultimately useless. So the whole notion of, as I said, for me, aesthetics, and consideration of beauty -- it's totally wrapped up in, or it's connected with, it's wrapped up in this domain of the useless values. For me there's almost no boundary between aesthetic concerns -- the love of beauty, the care for beauty -- and moral concerns. So there are values that are, in a way, useless. They don't serve an obvious function in our life. They're not kind of easily brought under a utilitarian kind of framework. [48:51] And these are often the higher values. The higher values are often useless.

So for example, an aesthetic sensibility is kind of useless from a certain perspective. But as I said, I think, in the last part, these higher values need to rest on the lower values as a foundation. They depend on the lower. And without them they are kind of hollow. So a care for higher values, a care for aesthetics, for example, that doesn't care for justice or kindness, completely neglects those, it causes a collapse in the whole value of the aesthetic care.

Let me read again a few things from Hartmann here. So the more elementary values, the lower values -- the more negative commandments go with them. So the prohibitions, "Thou shalt not steal, not murder," etc. And if you like, when they're transgressed, then the seriousness of that transgression of a lower value is much more serious than the omission or transgression of a higher value. So not to engage in a care for aesthetics, not to cultivate one's what Hartmann calls the 'ideal personality,' to attune to that, to listen to the duties of that -- if a person neglects to do that or leaves that out of their aspirations, then the transgression is not as serious as, for example, killing or stealing or whatever. And he says, so you can't really command higher values, but you can make commandments for the lower values in the form of prohibitions. He says:

Only brotherly love can be commanded [of the higher values], and that not in the strict sense.^[6]

So we say, "Love your neighbour as yourself," but it's not really a commandment. It's a kind of aspiration. And personal love, what he calls personal love, which is the love of another, in a way that, in our language, sees them as image. In his language, it's a love of another that senses and cares for and is attuned for their ideal personality -- the soul-essence, if you like, the image:

Personal love [he says] cannot be commanded at all.... [But] genuine morality [he says] is built from below up. Its essence is not the ideal self-existence of values, but their actualization in life.

In other words, we have to act on these.

Only upon the actualization of the lower does the actualization of a higher value rest solidly.

It's just different words for saying what we just said. And without that, as I said, they're hollow. They smell off. If there's a transgression of lower values, but one cares for higher values, something's off. It strikes one as off. In transgressing against a lower value, it has more consequences. It has consequences on a wider range of our existence. So the consequences of one person not caring about this or that particular higher value are much more limited. So:

The higher value [he writes] has a narrower field of activity; contains less palpable substance, its existence for itself is more pronounced.

What's the purpose of that higher value? It exists for itself, this concern with beauty, this concern even with my ideal personality. Yes, if I can actualize, if I can follow my soul's calling, if I can listen for the angel out ahead and do my duty, that will bestow gifts on the world. But in a way, it's just for itself. It's for the beauty of itself, for the soulmaking itself. "Its existence for itself is more pronounced" for a higher value.

It stands and falls for itself alone. When it suffers injury it injures little else, only what stands above it in order of rank. The basis beneath it remains intact. This becomes most evident in extreme cases, like that of the dispensing of spiritual value [the sort of radiant virtue that I was talking about], which is altogether "useless" and has nothing further dependent upon it.

Or, you know, writing beautiful music, whatever it is, it's useless. Nothing else is dependent on it -- or very little.

It is similar with love of the remotest, personal love and all the values of individual personality.

So all these higher kinds of values. And just one more short passage. So the higher values, he writes,

possess their superiority in the conferring of meaning upon life and in its fulfilment.

Those are the ones that really give this sense of meaningfulness and fulfilment in our life.

For the meaning of the moral life [he writes] is no more to be found in the lower values than its foundations are to be found in the higher.

If we have only a concern for the lower values, then as I said earlier, there can be a kind of impoverishment of our whole life. Our whole ethical life is kind of impoverished by that limitation when we're just concerned with lower values. And it can be like Jesus criticized the Pharisees: everything's kind of low. There isn't this high nobility, in the sense that I would use the word. There isn't this love of value and aspiration. Something's not stretching into the beyonds with the eros, with the height, with the soulmaking there. So the higher values have beyondness, as we talked about. They have dimensionality. Our sense of them, there's unfathomability there, mystery, irreducibility. And all this supports them, allows them to become erotically imaginal objects for us, beloved erotic-imaginal objects, and to give, as I said, a sense of meaningfulness and fulfilment in our life.

Somewhere or other, Hartmann wrote also something like:

[The] aims [of our life, of our moral life] should be placed so high that [we] can only just discern them, but [their] foundations should be laid as firmly as [possible].

When we talk about, or when we consider climate change and species extinction, mass species extinction, those two things are threatening the foundations, are really threats to the foundations of many people's lives -- certainly many animals' lives and many species' lives. But they also threaten the foundations of existence: that people have water to drink that's not undrinkable because the sea has risen and the saltwater has gotten into the water; that people will not live in climates where it's actually too hot to cool the body at certain times of the year, people die from the heat; where there's enough rain but not flooding, and all this. So the foundations are threatened through that kind of unfolding, and the lack of care with regard to climate change and species extinction.

But also, at the same time, it's an issue of foundations here, and thus they are issues that pertain to the lower moral values. "Thou shalt not kill"? Well, you know, watch your climate emissions. Or watch our climate emissions. Or take care, you know, to make sure the governments and the corporations act, because we're not going to solve this just on the back of our individual efforts at lowering our personal emissions. Something much more systemic needs to happen. [58:55] But yes, those issues are issues that touch on the foundations of human being, what human beings need for life: water, air, an adequate climate, etc., food.

But also, there's something in those issues, we've been saying, that implicates, involves, touches on, asks for our sensitivity, really to the highest values and virtues. So yes, George Marshall and, I think, more and more now, people are realizing that, yes, climate change and, to a lesser extent, people realize that species extinction does, will have, is having a big impact on the foundations, the material foundations of human existence for many, many people, and eventually for everyone. And as such, it touches on, it implicates the foundational, the lower moral values and virtues, the commandments. But there's also something here that touches on the highest values, that calls in, that asks for an extension in range and height of our moral sensitivity, I would say. [1:00:22]

So if it's only a perspective of foundations, then some things, in tackling climate change, are just completely okay. The idea which many people have touted, and some people think will be a kind of inevitable solution because humanity is being too slow at reducing emissions: the possibility of geoengineering -- I've forgotten the exact name. It's like putting certain particles of something or other into the atmosphere, some chemical particle. Spraying particles of this chemical into the high atmosphere, and they will reflect back a large proportion of the sunlight, so the earth will cool instead of the warming and the global warming that's caused by the carbon emissions. So you actually keep the same amount of carbon or even put more carbon in, and reduce the temperature of the earth, and then, therefore, allegedly, the problems -- it will only solve part of the problems of global warming by cooling the temperature. One of the side effects of that, apparently, is that it will make the sky white. So if there are enough of these particles in the air, the sky would no longer be blue. It would be white. If we're only thinking from the perspective of foundations of human life and material needs, and therefore the foundational or lower values, then that's okay, because what difference does it make -- blue sky, white sky?

Or with noise pollution and light pollution, it's getting difficult to find places in the world that are not full of the sound of mostly combustion engines burning fossil fuels. But noise and light pollution would be okay from that perspective of just addressing the foundational, just thinking in terms of reducing suffering, just thinking in terms of the lower values, just sensing it on that level and addressing the foundations, the material foundations of human existence. Noise and light pollution would be okay as long as we can't measure any effect on health or pleasure -- however we measure that -- or GDP. [1:02:52]

So to me, something would be missing there. I don't know how it sounds to you, but it doesn't sound okay to me. My heart hurts as I'm saying this. To me, to my soul, something else is needed. Something else is calling. A deepening, a widening, an ensouling of our ways of looking, of our view, our sense, our conception of ourselves, our anthropology -- our sense of our individual self, our sense of our communities, but also our anthropology, our sense of what human beings are and what their place is in the cosmos, and a sense of each other, and a sense of individual things and beings in the natural world, and a sense of the whole world -- all this. Something else is called, and that has to do with higher values. They are necessary, they're implicated, as I said, in our concern for all this. When we look at the whole problem, it's a multi-levelled problem.

As I mentioned the other day, some people have said to me something like, "Soulmaking Dharma is really what humanity needs right now. It's the new frontier, you know, in this time of sort of post-postmodernism. It's got all the aspects that are needed for taking us forward, out of the sort of quagmire or stagnation that came with postmodernism, and where we are now in our whole vision of ourselves and philosophy, and all that stuff." And maybe in that sense, in being a new frontier, it's what Hartmann would call one of the noble values of our time, in his sense of the word. Remember, the nobility, in his meaning, is those that look for the new. But nobility, in his language, looks for the new not only -- it's got its antennae out for a sensibility to new, unfamiliar values with respect to a certain culture, time, and place. Its prime motivation is not just to address the crises, for example the ecological crises it finds itself in.

So people say stuff like that, or sometimes some people say stuff like that, but I certainly think that soulmaking is not the fix-all of all modern problems, by any stretch. And whether it's noble in Hartmann's sense, I don't know. I'm not sure. People sometimes say, "Well, everything that it involves, soulmaking practice, the flexibility and openness conceptually, in terms of logos, that sort of is a way to move forward out of the limitations of postmodern philosophy, which just, if you like, shoots down, negatively, different conceptions." Actually, there's a practical possibility of having some flexibility, some openness, and then the actual practical capacity to move between different conceptions. That and the kind of attunement that it asks for, the kind of reverence that it brings, the sensing with soul of the world, the re-enchantment of self/other/world -- that all these are necessary and new. I don't know. I'm not sure.

So certainly, for some people, for sure, for some people, soulmaking practice will kind of support and encourage and draw out and grow the virtues, the moral virtues. And for some people, it will, it already has legitimized and supported, for instance, their activism, their engagement, their work for the protection of the earth, and species, and humanity. It's supported a growth in their care. And the sensing with soul that kind of underpins that, all that will kind of contribute, does/will contribute to material help of these crises, with regard to these crises. And that's great, and it's necessary, and it's really important.

But you know, on another level, soulmaking perhaps is ultimately useless, we could say. What's it for? Yes, there are these fruits. And that's, as I said, necessary, wonderful, and really important. But the soul loves soulmaking. Period. What's soulmaking for? Soulmaking is for soulmaking. Soulmaking is the purpose of soulmaking. In that sense it's useless. It has nothing else that it's in the service of, primarily, or as its main reason. There are gifts, there are offshoots, there are bestowals, and it provides support for all kinds of things, including a reduction of suffering of self and other. But like all the highest values -- so like beauty and art and all that -- essentially it's useless, but in the best sense of the word.

Somehow it crowns our lives, blesses and anoints our lives and our deaths, our whole sense of existence. That is perhaps ultimately what it's for, and ultimately what we care about, and what bestows meaningfulness on life, fulfilment in life, beauty. It's what we love.