A quick recap of the
negative ethics I have described previously (described in more detail by its originator at the link):
-All humans are born into a terminal situation we naturally wish to postpone, containing no value except what we manage to create and not enough space to do so without interfering with each other
-The basic moral imperative that all ethical systems have in common is to consider the interests of others and not just your own, to act in a way that is respectful of the fact that others exist and have preferences
-Due to the situation we find ourselves in, it is structurally impossible to live according to this fundamental ethical norm, as everything we do necessarily deprives someone else and disrespects their projects
-A system of morals that sidesteps this issue and merely instructs us how we should behave
having already entered the situation that impedes us from being truly moral is a
secondary or
second-degree morality, situated within the moral impossibility described above
-A
primary or
first-degree morality recognizes the structural impediment and disqualification that our condition as humans entails from birth and will reach different conclusions about several important areas, such as suicide and procreation
To the extent that second-degree ethics assumes up-front that it is possible to live morally, and that life has positive intrinsic value that we can appeal to in our striving to act in accordance with it, they may all be called "affirmative" ethics. This category contains most of the moral theories that have been described in the history of civilization from Europe to Asia.
An ethics that, at least initially, opens up the possibility of the received conditions of human life being
incompatible with the most basic moral duties, and asserts that no human acts can ever be moral in the first-degree or primary sense (though they may be moral for secondary reasons, like the good of the country) may be called "negative" ethics.
In affirmative ethics, there is a strong impulse toward regarding suicide as a great evil and procreation as a sublime good. This polarity flips in negative ethics. Suicide, though still disqualified from being truly moral in the same way as any human act, has a better chance at being moral if it removes oneself from harming others. And procreation is seen not as the bestowing of a gift but as a manipulation of another human being, not just in terms of what they might do with their time, but in the sense of bringing them into the same terminal existence that obligates them to disrespect others in their struggle to postpone its consummation.
So, for my part, I don't blame other people for their failings, try to give them as much space as they need to work out their problems, and I don't ever intend to have children. I actually love children; it's parents I have a problem with, and don't want to become one. I'm not suicidal, but I don't have any qualms with suicide and generally respect people who decide to do it, rather than immediately categorizing them as mentally ill. Those are my primary ethical stances. In the secondary realm--that is, assuming that we are all continuing forward as a species, regardless of whether or not it's good in itself to do so--I'm a communist.
