The Immortal Divine, Part III: From Transcendental Paradox to Ontological Ethics
Introduction
"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?"
— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, §125
In the first two essays of this series, we explored how Nietzsche's proclamation of God's death contains within it a profound paradox: in the very act of announcing God's death, Nietzsche inadvertently assumes the divine position he sought to eliminate. We discovered that "God"—understood not as a specific deity but as the function of transcendence in human meaning-making—cannot die. The divine function persists not due to cultural inertia or psychological weakness but because it fulfills an essential structural role in human existence.
We then examined how science and technology have assumed many functions previously fulfilled by religion, providing comprehensive frameworks for understanding reality, specialized interpreter classes, mechanisms for excluding heterodox viewpoints, ritual practices, and salvation narratives. The pattern of modernity has not been the elimination of the divine function but its transformation into new forms.
This third essay confronts the implications of this analysis for ethics. Traditional philosophical approaches have consistently tethered ethics to transcendental truth—whether through Kant's categorical imperative, religious commandments, or Platonic ideals. Even philosophers who revolutionized other domains could not escape this fundamental assumption. However, if we accept the structural necessity of transcendence while recognizing its constructed nature, a new possibility emerges: an ethics grounded not in transcendental commands but in ontological questioning.
This essay proposes a transformation of ethics from "the unspeakable" to "the questionable"—from a domain of propositions derived from transcendental truth to a practice of questioning that emerges from our being-in-the-world. This shift addresses a fundamental gap in contemporary thought: how to maintain ethical responsibility without retreating to dogmatic absolutism or collapsing into nihilistic relativism.
The Transcendental Entrapment of Traditional Ethics
The history of Western ethical thought reveals a persistent pattern: ethics is conceived as the reflection or projection of transcendental truth into the empirical world. From Plato's Forms to divine commandments to Kant's categorical imperative, ethical systems have sought legitimacy in something beyond the material world.
Plato established this pattern by locating the Good beyond being itself, accessible only through philosophical contemplation:
"The Good is not being but superior to it in rank and power."
— Plato, Republic, 509b
This transcendental conception of the Good became the template for subsequent ethical thinking. Moral truth was understood as something to be discovered rather than created, as something that exists independently of human judgment and practice.
Religious ethical systems continued this pattern by locating moral truth in divine command. The Ten Commandments, for instance, derive their authority not from human consensus but from divine revelation—a transcendental source beyond human questioning. As stated in Exodus:
"And God spoke all these words, saying, 'I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me...'"
— Exodus 20:1-3
The Enlightenment attempted to remove God from the ethical equation while maintaining the transcendental structure. Kant's categorical imperative exemplifies this approach:
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."
— Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 1785
While purporting to ground ethics in pure reason rather than divine command, Kant's approach still relies on a transcendental structure—a universal rationality that somehow exists beyond empirical experience. The moral law within, which Kant famously paired with the starry heavens above, functions as a secularized version of divine command. The voice of reason replaces the voice of God, but the structure remains fundamentally transcendental.
Even utilitarian ethics, which appears more empirically grounded in its focus on happiness and welfare, ultimately appeals to transcendental principles. The utilitarian maxim to maximize the greatest good for the greatest number assumes a universal, objective good that can be measured and compared across individuals—a transcendental standard by which actions can be judged.
As philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre observes:
"In removing all reference to human nature and natural desire, all reference to anything that exists independently of norms and conventions, all reference to the facts that give human norms and conventions a point, rational persuasion of any kind has been removed from the ethical."
— Alasdair MacIntyre, The Tasks of Philosophy, 2006
Contemporary ethical frameworks, despite their complexity and diversity, largely maintain this transcendental structure. Rights-based ethics appeals to inherent human dignity as a transcendental value. Contractarian approaches like Rawls's "veil of ignorance" invoke idealized decision-making scenarios. Even pragmatic ethics ultimately appeals to principles beyond immediate practice.
Ludwig Wittgenstein recognized this limitation of ethical language. Having revolutionized our understanding of language in other domains, Wittgenstein nevertheless concluded that ethical truths cannot be meaningfully stated:
"Ethics, if it is anything, is supernatural, and our words will only express facts."
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, "A Lecture on Ethics," 1929
And more famously in the Tractatus:
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 7
This relegation of ethics to the unspeakable stems from Wittgenstein's recognition that ethical statements do not function as descriptions of the world but as expressions of attitude. Yet in placing ethics beyond language, Wittgenstein implicitly maintains the transcendental structure—ethics becomes something that can be shown but not said, accessible through insight rather than articulation.
All these approaches share a common structure: they locate the source of ethical truth in something beyond immediate human experience—whether in divine command, rational necessity, natural law, or unspeakable insight. Ethics becomes the recognition and application of principles that transcend the material world rather than a practice emerging from within it.
The Unspeakable Becomes Questionable
If transcendence is structurally necessary to human thought and language, yet all specific forms of transcendence are contingent human constructions, where does this leave ethics? Must we choose between absolutism (accepting some specific transcendental authority) and relativism (rejecting all transcendental claims and thus the possibility of ethical judgment)?
Neither option is satisfactory. Absolutism ignores the contingent nature of all transcendental constructions, while relativism undermines the possibility of ethical responsibility. We need an approach that acknowledges the structural necessity of transcendence while recognizing its constructed nature.
The key insight emerges from reconsidering Wittgenstein's conclusion that ethics belongs to the realm of the unspeakable. What if ethics cannot be articulated as propositions but can be prompted through questions? What if the ethical domain is not one of statements about transcendental truth but of questions that emerge from our being-in-the-world?
The central question becomes: "What kind of world do you want to live in?"
This question transforms ethics from a domain of transcendental commands to a practice of ontological questioning. It acknowledges that ethical truth cannot be stated as fact but can be approached through reflection on our shared existence. It does not abandon the ethical domain but reconfigures it from a set of answers to a practice of questioning.
Unlike traditional ethical approaches that derive moral imperatives from transcendental sources, this question locates ethical responsibility in our active participation in creating the world we inhabit. It does not ask, "What does transcendental truth command?" but rather, "What world are we creating together?"
This shift addresses Wittgenstein's concern about the limitations of ethical language. Ethics cannot be meaningfully stated as factual propositions, but ethical questions can be meaningfully posed. The ethical domain moves from the realm of the unspeakable to the realm of the questionable.
Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas approaches this insight from a different direction:
"Ethics is not a moment of being; it is otherwise and better than being."
— Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise Than Being, 1974
For Levinas, ethics emerges not from ontological truth but from the encounter with the Other—an encounter that precedes and exceeds ontology. The face of the Other creates an immediate ethical demand that cannot be derived from transcendental principles but must be responded to in the moment.
Similarly, Hannah Arendt locates ethical and political meaning not in transcendental truth but in the shared human world:
"The reality and reliability of the human world rest primarily on the fact that we are surrounded by things more permanent than the activity by which they were produced, and potentially even more permanent than the lives of their authors."
— Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 1958
The question "What kind of world do you want to live in?" builds on these insights, recognizing that ethics emerges not from beyond the world but from our active participation in creating a shared world. It acknowledges that ethical meaning is not discovered but made, not revealed but created through our responses to concrete situations.
Ethics in the Absence of Delayed Reward
Traditional ethical frameworks often rely on delayed reward or punishment—whether in an afterlife, through karma, or in the judgment of history. This deferral of ethical consequences creates a temporal distance between action and judgment, placing ethical authority in a future beyond immediate experience.
Religious ethics exemplifies this approach:
"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil."
— 2 Corinthians 5:10
Secular ethical frameworks often maintain this structure, replacing divine judgment with the judgment of history or posterity. Kant's concept of the highest good, which combines virtue with proportionate happiness, requires an afterlife for its full realization:
"The highest good is possible in the world only on the supposition of a highest cause of nature which has a causality corresponding to the moral disposition."
— Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 1788
Even utilitarian ethics, with its focus on consequences, often requires a temporal projection beyond immediate experience to calculate the true utility of an action.
What happens if we remove this deferral? If there is no ideal realm beyond our world, if this moment is the only background of existence, then ethical responsibility cannot be postponed. The ethical imperative emerges not from future judgment but from present reality.
Consider the encounter with suffering. If we accept that this moment is all we have, if there is no delayed reward promised by religion or historical judgment, could we easily turn away from someone in need? Could we accept a society that abandons its vulnerable members?
Without the metaphysical comfort of deferred judgment, we confront an immediate ethical demand in every encounter. The face of the suffering person becomes not a test of our obedience to transcendental principles but a direct call to respond in the present moment.
This immediacy transforms ethics from a calculation based on future rewards or punishments to a response emerging from our being-in-the-world. The ethical question is not "What will be judged good in some future accounting?" but "What kind of world are we creating in this moment?"
Philosopher John Dewey captures this pragmatic approach to ethics:
"A moral law, like a law in physics, is not something to which action is subjected; it is not something external to action which imposes itself upon it—it is simply a formulation of the mode of interaction between specific elements in the total complex of interactions."
— John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, 1922
Ethics becomes not the application of transcendental principles to worldly situations but the discovery of how actions create or diminish the world we wish to inhabit. The ethical question is not "What does the moral law command?" but "What happens when we act this way rather than that way?"
Ethics as the Practical Manifestation of Dasein's Questioning
Martin Heidegger's concept of Dasein (literally "being-there") represents an attempt to articulate the human relationship with being. For Heidegger, the distinctive characteristic of human existence is that humans are beings for whom their own being is an issue or a question:
"Dasein is an entity which does not just occur among other entities. Rather it is ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it."
— Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, 1927
While Heidegger did not develop a systematic ethics, his ontological analysis provides a foundation for reconceptualizing ethics. If questioning being is constitutive of human existence, then ethics can be understood as the practical manifestation of this questioning—not as a domain separate from ontology but as ontology enacted in the world.
The question "What kind of world do you want to live in?" emerges directly from Dasein's concern with its own being and the being of others. It is not an abstract moral calculation but an existential inquiry into how we create the world through our choices and actions.
This approach to ethics does not separate fact from value, is from ought. Rather, it recognizes that values emerge from our way of being in the world—from the projects we undertake, the relationships we form, and the world we create together.
As philosopher Charles Taylor observes:
"What we are as human agents is profoundly interpretation-dependent, and not just in the straightforward sense that we have interpretations of ourselves and of the things around us, but more radically in the sense that what we are is partly constituted by the interpretations we have of ourselves."
— Charles Taylor, Human Agency and Language, 1985
Ethics becomes not the application of external standards to human behavior but the ongoing interpretation and creation of human meaning through practice. The ethical question is not "What does the good command?" but "What kind of being am I creating through my actions?"
This approach addresses a fundamental limitation in Heidegger's thought. While Heidegger brilliantly analyzed the ontological structure of human existence, he struggled to connect this analysis to ethical responsibility. By reconceiving ethics as the practical manifestation of Dasein's questioning, we bridge this gap, showing how ontological insight leads to ethical practice.
Respecting Diversity Without Relativism
A common concern about non-transcendental approaches to ethics is that they collapse into relativism—if there is no transcendental standard by which to judge actions, how can we condemn harmful practices or hold people accountable?
The approach proposed here avoids this trap. By grounding ethics in the question "What kind of world do you want to live in?" rather than in transcendental principles, we create space for diverse ethical perspectives while maintaining a substantive basis for ethical judgment.
This question respects cultural and individual diversity because it acknowledges that different communities may envision different kinds of worlds. It does not impose a single standard of the good life but invites reflection on what makes life meaningful within particular contexts.
Yet it also provides grounds for ethical criticism and responsibility. When we ask, "What kind of world do you want to live in?" we implicitly acknowledge that we create the world together—that my actions affect your possibilities and vice versa. This interdependence establishes a basis for ethical responsibility without appealing to transcendental commands.
Consider the practice of female genital mutilation. A purely relativistic approach might say, "Different cultures have different practices, and we cannot judge them by our standards." A transcendental approach might say, "This practice violates universal human rights derived from inherent human dignity."
The approach proposed here would ask, "Is this the kind of world we want to create together—one where young girls experience this procedure? What relationships and possibilities are created or destroyed by this practice?" This questioning does not impose external standards but invites reflection on the world we are creating through our actions.
Similarly, with environmental ethics, the question becomes not "What does nature command?" or "What rights do animals have?" but "What kind of world are we creating through our relationship with the natural environment? Is this the world we want to inhabit?"
This approach respects diversity because it acknowledges that ethical questions always arise within specific contexts and communities. It does not claim universal validity for particular ethical conclusions but recognizes that ethical reflection is always situated in cultural and historical traditions.
Yet it avoids relativism because it maintains that ethical questions can be meaningfully posed and answered, even if those answers are not derived from transcendental truth. The interdependence of human existence creates a basis for ethical responsibility that does not depend on universal principles but on our shared participation in creating a world.
As philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues:
"We need to ask not just what people currently prefer, but what informed and unpressured people would value if they had a range of genuine choices."
— Martha Nussbaum, Creating Capabilities, 2011
This approach acknowledges that ethical judgment requires attention to concrete circumstances, including power relations and social conditions, rather than abstract application of principles. It focuses not on conformity to transcendental standards but on the creation of conditions for human flourishing within specific contexts.
Ethics as Showing Rather Than Saying
Wittgenstein's distinction between saying and showing provides another way to understand this approach to ethics. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein famously claimed:
"What can be shown, cannot be said."
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.1212
For Wittgenstein, ethical truths cannot be stated as propositions but can be shown through practice. Ethics belongs to the realm of showing rather than saying.
The approach proposed here embraces this insight but transforms it. Ethics cannot be stated as propositions derived from transcendental truth, but it can be shown through the practice of questioning—specifically, through the question "What kind of world do you want to live in?"
This question does not state ethical truth but shows it through the act of questioning itself. It demonstrates that ethics emerges not from beyond the world but from our active participation in creating a shared world.
Consider the difference between saying, "Torture is wrong because it violates human dignity," and asking, "Do you want to live in a world where torture is practiced?" The first statement claims to derive an ethical conclusion from a transcendental principle (human dignity). The second shows the ethical issue through a question about the kind of world we wish to create.
This approach aligns with Wittgenstein's later philosophy, which focuses on language games and forms of life rather than transcendental logic. Ethics emerges not from beyond language but from within particular language games and practices.
As philosopher Cora Diamond argues:
"The problem of life is not a theoretical one; it is not solved by discovering something, by satisfying an intellectual craving for understanding."
— Cora Diamond, The Realistic Spirit, 1991
Ethics is not primarily a theoretical domain to be understood intellectually but a practical domain to be engaged with through questioning and action. The question "What kind of world do you want to live in?" invites this practical engagement rather than theoretical contemplation.
Ethics in the Age of Technological Transformation: The Formless, Adaptive Nature of Questioning Ethics
This approach to ethics offers valuable resources for addressing contemporary challenges, particularly those arising from technological transformation. Traditional ethical frameworks struggle to address issues like artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and environmental crisis because these issues involve unprecedented transformations of human existence that were unanticipated when these ethical frameworks were formulated.
What distinguishes the "questioning ethics" approach is its inherently adaptive nature. Unlike command-based ethics that derive prescriptions from past contexts, questioning ethics emerges spontaneously in each new situation. It has no fixed form, no predetermined structure—it materializes in the moment of questioning and dissolves afterward, only to reappear in a new configuration when faced with the next ethical challenge.
This formlessness is precisely what makes questioning ethics so powerful in an era of rapid technological and social change. When we face novel situations—from advanced AI systems to genetic engineering to social media dynamics—traditional ethical frameworks often respond with awkward analogies to past situations or rigid applications of principles developed in entirely different contexts. By contrast, questioning ethics generates its response directly from the present situation, adapting instantly to new realities.
Consider the ethical questions surrounding artificial intelligence. Traditional approaches might ask, "Do AI systems have rights?" or "What duties do we have toward artificial beings?" These questions attempt to force new realities into pre-existing ethical categories and assume a framework of rights and duties derived from transcendental principles.
The approach proposed here would ask instead, "What kind of world are we creating through our development and use of AI systems? Is this the world we want to inhabit?" This questioning directs attention to the concrete ways in which AI technologies transform human relationships and possibilities in the present moment, not how they might fit into ethical frameworks from the past.
Similarly, with biotechnology, the question becomes not "Does genetic modification violate natural law?" but "What kind of world are we creating through these technologies? What relationships and possibilities are opened or closed by them right now?" The question emerges and takes shape in direct response to the specific technology and context at hand.
This approach does not provide easy answers to these complex questions, but it offers a way of engaging with them that does not depend on transcendental principles yet still provides grounds for ethical judgment. It focuses attention on the world we are creating together rather than on conformity to pre-established standards.
As philosopher Hans Jonas argues:
"Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life."
— Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility, 1979
This formulation directs attention not to transcendental principles but to the concrete effects of actions on human existence. It asks us to consider what kind of world we are creating through our technological choices.
The momentary, adaptive quality of questioning ethics means it can lead rather than follow technological and social change. Instead of struggling to apply ethical frameworks that were developed for previous eras and contexts, questioning ethics constantly regenerates itself in response to each new situation. It does not need to be updated or reformed—it is perpetually new, emerging freshly in each moment of questioning.
Conclusion: From Transcendental Paradox to Formless, Adaptive Ethics
The journey through these three essays has traced a path from the paradox of transcendence to a new grounding for ethics. We began by recognizing the structural necessity of transcendence in human thought and language, as revealed by Nietzsche's paradoxical assumption of the divine position even as he proclaimed God's death. We then explored how this divine function has transformed rather than disappeared in the modern era, particularly through the elevation of science and technology to a status once reserved for religion.
This third essay has proposed a way forward: an ethics grounded not in transcendental commands but in ontological questioning. By transforming ethics from "the unspeakable" to "the questionable"—from a domain of propositions derived from transcendental truth to a practice of questioning that emerges from our being-in-the-world—we address the fundamental paradox of ethical thinking.
Above all, this "questioning ethics" distinguishes itself through its formless, adaptive nature. Traditional ethical frameworks attempt to dictate behavior based on fixed principles derived from past contexts, often struggling to address novel situations that their formulators never anticipated. By contrast, questioning ethics has no predetermined structure—it emerges spontaneously in each moment of ethical challenge and dissolves afterward, only to reappear in a new configuration when faced with the next situation. This momentary, adaptive quality enables it to lead rather than follow the rapid technological and social changes that characterize our era.
This approach does not eliminate transcendence from ethics but reconfigures our relationship to it. Rather than receiving ethical commands from beyond, we create ethical meaning through the question "What kind of world do you want to live in?" This question acknowledges the constructed nature of all ethical frameworks while maintaining a substantive basis for ethical responsibility.
The result is an ethics that respects diversity without collapsing into relativism, that grounds responsibility in our shared existence rather than in transcendental authority, and that addresses contemporary challenges without retreating to dogmatic absolutism. It transforms ethics from a domain of obedience to transcendental truth into a practice of creating meaning through questioning.
As we navigate the complex ethical challenges of the contemporary world—from technological transformation to environmental crisis to social justice—this approach offers valuable resources. It does not provide easy answers or universal principles but invites us to engage in the ongoing practice of questioning the world we are creating together.
The divine function does not disappear but is transformed from an external authority delivering commands to an internal questioning that emerges from our being-in-the-world. The transcendental paradox is not resolved but embraced as a productive tension that generates ethical meaning.
In this way, we move from the death of God to the birth of a new ethical practice—one that acknowledges the constructed nature of all ethical frameworks while maintaining a substantive basis for ethical responsibility. We transform ethics from the recognition of transcendental truth to the creation of meaning through questioning, from obedience to creative responsibility, from the unspeakable to the questionable.
The question "What kind of world do you want to live in?" becomes not just an ethical inquiry but an ontological practice—a way of engaging with being that transforms both ourselves and the world we inhabit. Through this questioning, we create not just ethical judgments but the very world in which those judgments have meaning.
This formless, constantly regenerating ethical approach provides us with what traditional ethics cannot: an adaptive capacity that matches the accelerating pace of change in our technological society. It does not need to be periodically updated or reformed—it is perpetually new, emerging freshly in each moment of questioning, always contemporary with the latest developments. In a world where yesterday's science fiction becomes today's reality, this adaptive quality is not merely advantageous but essential.