This post is meant to be read in conjunction with the previous post “From the freedom to doubt to the freedom to assume“.

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Once one has acknowledged the ability of the self to loan transcendent value to a proposition, to assume the validity of a proposition, the basis for modern science is laid down. Modern science uses the ability to assume to formulate hypotheses about relationships between phenomena (ciscendent hypotheses) and tests them, in what is a refinement of a process that has probably governed the progress of mankind even before the idea of that process was formulated.

The entry into modernity has allowed us to come to terms with that process, to stop feeling a great loss when, faced with discrepancies between that proposition and phenomena, we have to stop assuming a proposition, when we have to let doubt win. In other words, paradigm shifts have become less painful and are even seen as beneficial.

The age of assumptions has seen the triumph of science, but it has also seen some of the worst horrors of the history of mankind. The progress of ciscendent knowledge has not been matched by a progress of morality. On the contrary, the greater ability to control phenomena has made moral bankruptcy an existential risk for mankind.

This is not that hard to explain. While doubt and assumption are, in the absence of transcendent intuition, our best way to knowledge and power, they are not sound basis for morality.

The most common expression of what it means for us to be moral remains as follows: we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves. In our terms, this means that we should act towards others ad things in themselves rather than as phenomena, that is to say not taking into account only the way in which they manifest themselves to us. We ought to act towards others as things in themselves.

But the age of assumptions does not operate on an “as” basis. It operates on an “as if”. When you act on the basis of an assumption, you act as if it was true, which explains why you are able to discard the assumption when it is not successful anymore.

But if you act towards others “as if” they were things in themselves rather than “as” things in themselves, you make yourself ready to discard that attitude as soon as it is not successful anymore. Hence, morality in the “as if” mode cannot stand in the way of selfishness, as the “as if” mode relies on the transcendent superiority of the assumer over the assumed. The rise of individualism (and the dangerous efforts of society to try and contain it by appealing to race, creed and ideology) is probably at least in part a consequence of the new model of knowledge given to us by Descartes: when you become able to doubt the existence of your fellow man, you have a ready-made justification for all your wrongdoings.