b/ Second judgment of the doxa: there is a crisis of values

We hear it said here and there that our world is facing a crisis of values. Daily events seem to confirm this diagnosis. A. Léonard, for example, draws up a list in which his Catholic sensibility shines through: The over-armament of the great powers and the growing indebtedness of the Third World, the vertiginous fall in the birth rate in the West and artificial reproduction techniques, abortion and contraception, experimentation on the human body and violation of privacy, human rights simultaneously trumpeted and trampled underfoot, the unbridled quest for comfort and the throbbing unhappiness [...] ¹.

Similarly, R. Misrahi, who has a more Spinozist sensibility, echoes this grim litany of current events: At the dawn of the 21st century, the world seems to be torn apart by crises whose seriousness is in no way inferior to that of the crises at the beginning of the century. Wars are no longer 'global', but they are tearing every continent apart under new guises, whether religious wars disguised as national wars, or battles between interests disguised as national struggles. The collapse of totalitarian empires gives rise to hatred and local conflicts, while technological progress produces misery and unemployment [...] Thus, dominated by misery, violence or misfortune, most of the population seems to live, economically and socially, in a state of permanent crisis ² .

Yet we might well ask whether it is current events that reveal the profound essence of an era. After all, wars, poverty, unemployment... have affected every era, without it being argued that they were experiencing a crisis of values. Why should the post-modern era be in crisis, as opposed to the classical era, that of Descartes, for example, when both are experiencing the same disasters?

So if there is a crisis of values, it is not, in our view, because of current events, which seem to prove King Solomon right: Nothing new under the sun. For me, there is no more superficial reading of the times than that which consists of analysing them on the basis of a historical event, such as 11 September.

On the contrary, our era can be seen as one in which ethical concerns have never been so present. The law of war limits the actions of States, and most violations of international law are revealed by the press. Ethics committees are multiplying; ethical reflection is appearing in every sector of activity, and "ethics" sections are appearing in university libraries (these works are no longer relegated to the "philosophy" section, as if ethics were no longer a mere sphere of philosophy but was gaining a consistency of its own).

Nonetheless, we may well wonder whether this 'swarming' of works on the subject of morality is really a sign of an ethical revival, or whether it does not rather reflect a deep-seated anguish. All these books and ethics committees are set up to provide a response to a problem. Only a fundamental problem can give rise to so many responses. Or rather: the proliferation of responses shows that the problem remains intact.

The tremendous inflation of the field of ethics is perhaps the ominous sign of its twilight.
We should remember Hölderlin's words: But where the danger is, also grows the saving power ³. If works on ethics are accumulating - as what saves man from moral disarray - this implies that the danger itself is 'growing', that this disarray is swelling out of all proportion.

So what could be the cause of post-modern anxiety?

Where does such anguish come from?

[Go to the next chapter]

1. Foundation of morality, p. 11
2. What is ethics, p.5
3. Wo aber Gefähr ist, wächst/ Das Rettende auch (Patmos -At Hombourg, 1803-1806).