Rational morality, The Mechanics of Virtue, aphorism 271

271

Rational morality is a dominance standard initiated by the politically inferior.  Establishing it was a matter of expediency, but now that it is established, it is expedient to abolish the notion of expediency.  That is, we accept a bribe: by rejecting expediency the politically superior are demoted to a morally inferior status.  When this does not gratify us, it at least consoles us ... but at a cost: our new morality has no traction with reality.


If we truly craved a higher standard, how could we exclude honesty?  How could honesty exclude the mechanical view? ... that alignment between mentality and actuality.  Nonetheless, with all our emphasis on reasoning and morality, we divert our attention away from our own motives for their achievement.  A superior reasoning which lies about its own motives for being can only remain morally inferior to yet a higher standard: fearless honesty.  Our unconscious motives first need to be rendered conscious and then they must enter into our strategy ... our morality.  We cannot neglect this mechanical view without tearing Truth out of the heart of Morality ... and yet this is exactly the sacrifice demanded by the public.  And so this honesty too comes with a price: we appear immoral precisely where we have found traction again with reality.

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