Etyka codzienności – czy można być dobrym po prostu? (eng: Everyday ethics – can you simply be good?)

Abstract

Everyday ethics – can you simply be good? is a work arising from reflection on the condition of contemporary ethical debate, as well as on the practice of morality and the policy of morality, which we observe and experience in everyday life at the beginning of the 21st century. The presented research is based on the belief that the ethical dimension of the reality in which we live and which we create remains deeply intertwined with the everyday form and practice of our life. At the same time, this position does not have to, should not and does not mean giving up the ideals born in the bosom of various cultures and minds that co-shape this everyday life. In this sense, it is also a record of the search for a path between consumerist nihilism and fundamentalist universalism, two ideologies of the modern world that dominate it and lead it in opposite directions. The work defends the thesis that every morality is a projection of a form of life, including language that creates this form and practices that embody this life. In this context, the basic research goal is the construction of a narrative that allows to ground moral beliefs in their actual place of origin – i.e. everyday life – in a way that at the same time eliminates the typical complexes of subjectivity and locality. This perspective, in turn, allows for establishing a dialogue between the authentic values present in the life of an individual with the tyranny of ethical systems claiming profundity and universality. It is therefore also an attempt to escape from the symbolic violence of the dominant 369 Roland Zarzycki ideological discourses and to restore morality to its ordinary use in accordance with Wittgenstein's postulate to return to everyday life. Among the research questions that organize the whole reflection, the most important ones concern the strict practice of life, i.e. the relationship between the local form of life and the local morality. How do life forms dictate the rules of morality games? What connection is there between the present-day form of consumerist society and its globalized reality, and the morality games that function today? How does the mystical dimension of ethics emerge in the current of everyday practice, in the mechanism of social training? How does consciousness evolve that exceeds not only the value of individual life, but also itself in the selfdestructive act of questioning the criterion of the mechanism of natural selection, of creating a value higher than the survival of the species? Are arbitrariness, egoism and the subjectivity of beliefs appropriate analytical categories for considering morality? How do fantasy and ideology penetrate the sphere of moral reflection, and in particular, is it possible to have a coherent view of morality that is free from the notions of freedom, dignity and purposefulness? Is taking into account the suffering of the Other an indispensable part of all possible morality? If so, who would the Other be? The book is also devoted to the analysis of the feedback emerging in the course of this reflection and an attempt to understand today's forms of life from the perspective of moral problems plaguing the present day. The culmination of this journey is reflection on the condition of modern man. In the background of these investigations there is a sense of a deep dissonance between the abstract sphere of declared morality and everyday practices, between the intention or appearance of intention and its everyday translation, also between moral fantasy, moral ideology and moral reality. 370 Summary The structure of the work is based on three chapters, the first of which is devoted to the reconstruction of Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of morality, the second to highlighting selected aspects of the sociology of morality, including in particular Pierre Bourdieu's concept of sociology, and the third to the synthesis of the preceding considerations, the designation of new tools of description and narration as well as the analysis of practical aspects of the functioning of moral belief systems in today's world. The first chapter contains a kind of philosophical preliminaries aimed at briefly delineating and explaining those aspects of Wittgenstein's thought that will play a key role in considering ethics. In particular, therefore, it introduces the categories of language games, vision as and forms of life, central to the whole work, which at the same time constitute a peculiar conceptualization of Wittgenstein's considerations on anthropology, sociology and the history of culture. The grammatical connection of consciousness with all possible ethics is signaled in the context of the discussion on the possible understanding of the arbitrariness of morality and ethical invariants. Explaining the consubstantiality of language and human views and moral beliefs allows us to show the complementary role of everyday life and awareness for the developed ethical concept. The second chapter describes the ethics of everyday life from a sociological perspective, formulating a wide range of approaches to it, both affirmative and critical. Thanks to the coupling of these many views, a perspective is developed that allows to problematize the issues under consideration in terms of the categories of purpose, dignity and freedom. The last of these categories also opens up a wide field of reflection on the role, determinism and freedom of the cognitive models themselves. Ultimately, the key stage of this part of the discussion is the application of Pierre Bourdieu's reflective sociology and his concept of 371 Roland Zarzycki social games to formulate the concept of moral capital and further research into the ethics of everyday life. In particular, it helps to explain how, in the socio-political context, morality functions as the title commodity, weapon and distinction. An important theme is also the approach to Jeffrey Goldfarb's policy of small matters as a discourse appropriate to the ethics of everyday life. The last part contains both a summary, conclusions from previous investigations, as well as autonomous considerations aimed at a more complete conceptualization of everyday ethics and determining the place of the concept of a form of life in the practice of contemporary social sciences. The practical and theoretical conditions of the possibilities of everyday ethics as well as the mechanisms by which its authentically and immanently social and everyday character are manifested are consecutively considered. These results are a stimulus for further research into the theory of relativity of morality. Then, selected aspects of the interference of ethics and politics are outlined, crucial for understanding the phenomenon of morality, including the influence of the veils of fantasy and ideology on the very political functioning of morality. In the area of reflection on the economy of morality, moral distance, loyalty distance and the calculation of recognition are indicated as three components that define the vector of moral action. The final part of the text attempts to identify the pivotal features of contemporary life forms, which shape not only the shape of contemporary morality, but also the world: the tyranny of individualism, interpassivity, and then the resulting atrophy of trust, which in turn drives the mechanisms specific to the commodification of morality and the development of forms of hypermorality.