Metamodern Ethics: Diunital Morality

17 min readDec 4, 2022

Barking up the wrong tree

Jordan Peterson is well known for his takes on biblical scripture. I want to take a leaf out of his book (pun intended) and offer up a take on the original sin. The act that ended with Adam and Eve cast out of the garden of Eden. Leaving us to toil the earth and suffer for all of our days. I’m talking about the Tree of Good and Evil. I like to look at the fruit that Adam and Eve ate as the fruit of dichotomous knowledge. The tree itself as a symbol of ethical ‘either/or’-ing.

The original word for sin was missing the mark. As I’ve been asserting by cutting the world up in pieces to make sense of it we’ve been creating emergencies and missing the mark. So its not that using dichotomy is bad. It’s that in terms of liberating and reducing undue suffering to all sentient beings it has been missing the mark. Ironic because the only way we could come to know the world was from the act of dichotomising.

When seen from this angle the Tree of Good and Evil produced a fruit that allowed early humans to dichotomise the world (di- as in two, -chotomise as in cut). By cutting the world into series of two’s through logical dissection we have saved countless lives. The quality of life for most humans has improved over the past 50–100 years, despite the news. At the same time we seem to be reaching our limitations of managing the axis of creation and destruction, and so now we must go beyond.

Mycellium networks are the main body of fughi. Mycellium are able to connect individual plants via their roots to share information and nutrients. Mushrooms are the fruit that are produced when conditions are right.

Diunital Fruit

It’s time to sup from a new tree. Fortunately, we stand on the fertile soil of modernity and its many iterations, (anti/post/post-post/hyper/meta) past and present. Here, like mycelium, growing occulted and shadowed by the Forests of Dichotomy, are the roots of diunitality. Its fruits are new ideas such as Metamodernsim, growing in certain conditions. The main body of this new growth can be gleaned from applying the Model of Emanance diunitally. (Another angle is that this new diunital growth is born from the second tree mentioned in the garden of Eden: The Tree of Life)

To avoid drifting off into the clouds of abstraction I want to ground this in something concrete. For that I want us to look at Ethics and Morals from a diunital, and so Metamodern, perspective. The tree of good and evil is a tree of moral dichotomising. Just as the the Model of Emanance, when applied to Dichotomous Logistics is a tree of dichotomsing. So we’ll take the Model of Emanance, and apply the same modes (Existential, Temporal, Spatial and so on) to Ethics and Morality, Good and Bad in a diunital way.

First we have to somehow approach morality, with the sense that there is and there isn’t such a thing as Good and Bad. This is the Diunital Existential mode. We’re going to spend a bit of time here to define our terms in a way I hope we can agree on. Forgive me for this lingering. It will help us to understand each other in the end. At the same time this is the existential mode. A big difference between the existential diunital mode is that alongside a yes/no answer we also get some sense of the degrees to which its yes/no, and/or true/false, in specific context.

At first our exploration offer up perplexing ideas, and paradoxes that will later iron themselves out. I’m still heavily embedded in a dichotomising way of life so I’m aiming to go beyond my subjective view (this of course is impossible, this text is still limited by my perspective bias). I also don’t claim this will be an objective(, to provide such a view would need a position outside of existence). In a sense it will be both and so hopefully intersubjective, a perspective of the connections between the differences of all perspectives of existence. (And the only thing I know is I will fall short).

“Bhaiṣajyaguru, the Medicine Buddha, also known as Vaiḍūryaprabhā or Blue Radiance, who is described in Buddhist tradition as the doctor who cures suffering (*dukkha*) with the medicine of his teachings. Between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand he holds the stem of the myrobalan, the fabled plant of healing.” Medicine Buddha Thangka — Urgyen House

Existential Ethics: Good/Bad, Ethics/Morals, Suffering/Nirvana

To begin we can say that there exists such a thing as a greater (utilitarian) Good, which is the ‘liberation and minimisation of undue suffering for all sentient beings’. There is also a sense of what is Good for the individual, which is the same: ‘liberation and minimal undue suffering’. At the same time because these two senses of good sometimes can clash there isn’t a universal good that also tells us what is always good for the sentient individual. This means if there is an Objective Good, only a being outside of existence can tell us what it is.

Here though we have a Goodness I hope we can agree on. ‘Liberation and minimisation of undue suffering’. I want to go further and define all these terms and the terms they are negations of. I’m a meta-realist and so I understand that what is real is defined by what is not, and so what is Good is defined just as much by what is Bad. We haffi linga for a likkle more still. So ignore Elephant Man for now.

Here liberation/freedom specifically means ‘the ability to choose your responsibilities’. This in turn allows for a definition of discipline to mean ‘the ability to make the hard choice’. These two combined show why we aren’t aiming to erase all suffering. Sometimes freedom means choosing to suffer due to a reward that arises from that suffering.

From this we can take Badness to be anything that:
1. Reduces liberty and increases Undue Suffering
2. Removes the ability to choose responsibilities
3. Reduces the ability to make the hard choice

Because I want use to be really clear on terms, I want to specify exactly what is meant by suffering from the perspective of Buddhist Philosophy, which I find the most rounded in terms of definition. The buddhist term that’s translated into suffering is ‘dukkha’. As the infamous first noble truth of Buddhism goes ‘Life is Suffering’. Another translation of dukkha could be ‘does not satisfy’. As in ‘Life (on its own) does not satisfy’. This is indeed a noble truth. Life requires sustenance to be satisfied.

Here then, Buddhism isn’t pointing towards Nihilism, although buddhist philosophy does see contemplation on emptiness (as negation) as an antidote, something Nihilists shy away from. Instead Buddhist philosophy is engaging in a form of “game acceptance” to create “game change” to use Hanzian terms. In fact in many religions: humans can only be truly satisfied after death, if they go to a form of heavenly afterlife . In this sense they accept that ‘Life is does not satisfy’ on its own too.

In Buddhist philosophy, dukkha aka suffering has three components:
1 .Mental and Physical stresses of life like age, sickness and death
2. Emotional stresses from change and impermanence, such as grief
3. Existential and Human stress comes being conditioned to causation

(Its worth noting that in Buddhist philosophy all suffering comes from attachment and craving and tackling those roots, with contemplative and meditative practices on emptiness and compassion can help us escape the cycle of suffering. Easier said than done, though right?)

Above we saw that there was a kind of Individual Good and a Global/Greater Good. Here is where I’d like to solidly define the difference between Ethics and Morals. Ethics being aimed towards a greater good. Morality being how the individual can align their behaviour towards the intersection of what is ethically good for the whole and what is good for them as an individual. Virtue being any behaviour that heads towards our Ethical goal of liberation and minimising suffering for all sentient beings.

Here we can see that Good Morals tends to be when someone puts the ethics of the greater good before their own, and Bad Morals is when someone puts their own individual interests ahead of the greater Good. In this way we can see how something can be existentially both good and bad. An action may be both good (Ethically/Universally) and bad (Morally/Individually) and/or visa versa.

Devouring his Son — Peter Paul Ruebens (Saturn is the Roman equivalent of the Greek God of Time, Cronus)

Temporal Diunitality — Historical Visioning

A sentient individual is (assumedly) a temporal being. (Conditioned and) Bound to move through time chronologically, where the future is caused by the present, and the present is caused by the past. Stuck in the one way flow of the arrow of time. In this scenario what an Individual perceives to be good for them in the moment, beforehand and in hindsight can vary greatly.

Generalising Morals across timespans becomes even more tricky, especially when relatively unethical or immoral behaviour is seemingly required for the survival of an individual, a group, or even a species. All this to say even if our ethical goals remain fixed it would seem that individual and group morals would need to be temporally relative.

At the same time the goal of Ethics, the greatest Good, in light of this must remain despite what may be demanded of our morals. In fact at each point in recorded history when bondage and the infliction of suffering onto other humans was widespread, celebrated and justified in whatever manner, there were always people making the hard choice to speak out against the Bad from the angle of the Good. If then we are to engage in a moral relativism let us make the standard those who adhered to our idea of Ethical Good as the ‘liberation and minimising of suffering for all sentient beings’ despite the times.

This would make more rational sense than setting our standards to the worst of those times. Instead of using groupthink, and temporal context (historical relativism) as a means of justification, we view it as an explanation when contextualised with living standards of the time. History becomes once again a series of lessons of how to avoid repeat past situations by avoiding repetition of past dynamics.

This brings us to the ominous question of whether revealing an individuals best choices to them ahead of time is ethically or morally Good. While it could minimise suffering, it may also reduce an individuals ability to choose either their responsibilities or the hard things. As such when we ought to resist the tendency to giving up too much decision making to predictive computational intelligence. In other words unsolicited advice is criticism and adds vice not virtue.

Still there is something more at this mode. In Meta-Nothing we saw how a diunital view of time sees the past as both real and the ending of nothing (the unreal). Just as a diunital view of time sees the future as both real and the beginning of nothing (the unreal). Finally a diunital temporality sees the present as independently real and as co-created by the future and the past. Sounds like esoteric woo at yet has applications to how we view our place in history.

For the present moment to be co-created by the past and the future could simply mean that how we view our past and how we view our future directly shapes how we live in the present moment. In other words a belief that:

Humanity has the capacity to potentially liberate all sentient beings and minimise their undue suffering in the Future;
Humanity has done Bad and Good to endure terrible standards of living, that when minimised allowed for more greater Goods, in the past;
We can see that the past did not bring an end to Bad moralising or suffering and the future is not the beginning of liberating all sentient beings and bringing their undue suffering to an end.

To use the Hanzian terms again it’s a game denial, and acceptance, and so game change. The present is where the future begins and where the past ends. As such despite immoral pasts, and the illusiveness of a utopian future we must do our best in the present to align with humanities highest good and make our greatest Good an increasing probability.

Wu Ji to Wan Wu: The Daoist creation story. Notice the name of the yin-yang symbol is in fact called Taiji

Spacial Ethics — The Map is not the Territory

Good morals in different cultures can mean different things. Especially where symbolism can apply. Also different events in different spaces may warrant a different set of morals. For example a fight in the street is different to a fight in a ring. And a fight in a ring in Thai culture means something different to a fight in a ring in Dutch culture. Even when the sports seem the same.

This adds a different dynamic. When a young Egyptian tells me ‘we want democracy, but we’re not ready for it’ I hear a skeptical lament mixed with optimism and realism. Is it Bad to say ‘Egypt needs Theocracy now and Democracy later’ or ‘Theocracy is good for Egypt and Democracy is good for UK’? Yes, but only to the extent that it reduces the freedom of the Egyptian people to choose their responsibilities, and increases their suffering.

Of course this is possible. A diunital look at space is that it is non-local. That in some way here and there and everywhere are connected (by nowhere). A clue to this is that in the Model of Emanance time is more primary than the three(or four) dimensions of Space. Again that sounds like woo (spooky action at a distance) and despite the fact the noble prize was just handed out on the proof of such woo it rightly will take more than that to convince you.

The entanglement I’m taking about isn’t quantum, its social. If I made the above statement about specific states and systems of ruling in earnest and without context it could be taken by some Egyptians as a sign that they would never see democracy in their lifetimes. I hope this not the case, I hope they will. It also might be taken by some as a racist remark, taken to be me indicating things I don’t believe. It’s obvious to me the Egyptian people are smart and sane enough to have freedom of choice in governance, that’s part of the liberation of all sentient beings.

Still the fact remains my idle words could have a negative impact else where. So while it may seem that cultures have local moral systems that don’t translate, there are Ethical systems that do. In addition there are cultural morality overlaps, such as when a dutch fight meets a thai fighter in the ring.

Scaled Morality — Hierarchical Diunitality

So far we’ve set an ambitiously high standard for our Ethics. On top of that we’ve agreed that we haven’t come close to reaching that standard, and for most of our history we’ve actively done the opposite. To this day we’re at least moving against liberation for all sentient beings in that our societies collectively are causing suffering to each other, at least in terms of emotional stress. So despite our historical relativising we have got a hierarchy of what is closer to Good and what is closer to Bad.

Let’s say that at some point we will achieve liberation for all sentient beings. The morality of humanity at that point would have to be much more Good than it is now for that to happen. This then is an Ethical Humanity. Where the moral standards of humanities many cultures lead to all sentient beings experiencing no bondage and no undue suffering. This then is the Most Good. From a diunital point of view every other Moral mode that is not Ethical humanity is both a lower order of Morals and needed for the production and eventual emanance of Ethical Humanity.

In other terms, when we look at reality from a diunital perspective we see that less complex process come together in a both and way to form more complex processes and so on. This means that the most complex processes (Ethical Humanity) is necessarily dependent on lower order processes. In other terms the capstone of the great pyramid isn’t more important than the foundations, or of more value.

Once again, we seek to make sense of the intersectional nature of morality. Intersectional in that what is a Good set of morals lies at the contextual intersection of Space, Time, how close they are to our greater Good of an Ethical Humanity, and how much they contribute or detract to producing an Ethical Humanity. We need to be aware of all of these tensions, and more before we pass judgement upon the morals of others in other places at other times. At the same time understanding the intersection of these tensions can help us to understand the moral reasoning of others. Once we do that we can learn to work together towards our common Ethical goal.

Consumptive Morality — Ethical Immorality

I hope we now agree that Existentially, Temporally, and Spatially, the pursuit of Ethical Humanity doesn’t always lead to Good for all sentient individuals in every context. For instance there are contexts when in order to ensure the greater Good I may have to restrain and cause suffering on another to defend myself or another, so I , or they may contribute to the greater good in the future. After all, some people do have Morals that lead to Bad outcomes. In the face of the Bad at times I must be bad, or at least be willing to risk appearing Bad, to achieve Good. (The paradox of tolerance applies here).

From the perspective of the ancient Chinese philosophy of Daoism we have can come to a clear understanding of the consumptive nature of reality. The popular symbol widely known as the Yin Yang symbol, is an instance of diunital consumption. Its actual name is Taiji or tai chi. The black and the white parts we know of are called Yin and Yang respectively. Neither are good nor bad. Both complement each other to create all things.

Yin is soft, dark wet, cold, and quiet and Yang is hard, bright, dry, hot, and loud. They exist in that almost figure eight shape as they are fluid, forever following and preceding one another. As I said and I must stress Yin and Yang are not Good and Bad, they are beyond such judgments. What I want to draw our attention to here is the way in which there is a Yin within the Yang, and a Yang within the Yin.

This is consumptive Diunitality, and what I want to bring our attention to. While Yin/Yang don’t represent Good/Bad, we can say three things about the connection between Good/Bad and Yin/Yang. Firstly, two related points. Point A is that the extremes of Yin/Yang tend to lead to more Bad outcomes than Good, and point B is that the balancing of Yin/Yang tends to lead to more Good outcomes.

Secondly, it is possible for Bad to exist in (at least the pursuit of the) Good and there can be Good in the Bad. For instance, killing a sentient being is Bad, and yet the killing of a sentient being to save the life of another could produce Good. In the same way in the pursuit of the greater Good, people often do Bad things, to themselves and others.

Thirdly the existence of Yin within yang, and Yang within Yin, is maintained by the dynamic balance of Yin and Yang supporting each other. Without this mutual support one or the other can claim dominance, creating an environment that does not support this form of harmonious nesting.

What this means is that we must be careful of declaring an action or a behaviour, or a philosophy or way of life, as absolutely Good or Bad. Sometimes actions that appear to only be in service of the greater Good or Bad can in fact be the opposite. (That includes this one. In fact feed back and questions are welcome). In addition the environment we are consumed by (and the environment that consumes it) has a direct impact on what can exist in that environment.

So as we have seen even if the Ethics of a greater Good are not contextual, they are ambitiously fixed. Their dynamism comes from our exploration into the meaning of sentience, which is beyond the scope of this article. Morality does appear to be far more dynamic with multiple factors, whether or not that is Good or Bad, as it could be argued it is both.

Visibility Ethics — Light Supremacy

This is a topic I have touched on previously. If you need a thorough recap please revise this previous article on Light Supremacy. I’ll give a very brief summary on what Light Supremacy is here and some of its dangers, if you are unconvinced and want more information dive into the article.

Light supremacy is the idea that the light is supremely Good and the dark is supremely bad. We’ve seen that fixed hierarchal light supremacy is dichotomous, either/or, thinking that leads to racism, classism and the split between humanity and nature. We’ve also seen that from a Daoist perspective neither light (Yang) not dark (Yin) are good or bad, and in fact both are needed in balance to create Good.

We also saw by using the Model of Emanance that the visibility mode of dichotomous logistics occults/hides perspectives that are not dominant. This means the voices of the marginalised, the fragmented and the oppressed tend to be drowned out by the spotlit, dominant culture. Just because this is the way things always seem to have been doesn’t mean we can’t find a better way. In order to create the kind of antifragile and dynamic hierarchical diunitality we need we must to identify and explore all tensions to situate them in sustainable way for the greater Good. Ethical Humanity demands it.

Diunital visibility ethics then goes hand in hand with an understanding of diunital consumption. In that in order for all sentient beings to become completely liberated and relieved of all undue suffering all sentient beings need the agency to express themselves and be heard by a society (environment) resilient enough to receive the messages of friction and adapt with compassion, not reactive crude and subtle forces. In order for this to happen, our relationship with the dark, the fragmented, the marginalised, the occulted, and the negated needs a diunitality reality check

Image of a Black Hole and its Event Horizon — Solarseven

Ethical Gravitas — Moral Divisions and collision

Here we reach the middle mode of the Model of Emanance. As a diunital model this is a bottom-up, and a top-down, and a middle-out model. This middle mode is often the one that ties it all together. The same is true here. By this mode in dichotomous logistics we’ve centred around a fixed dominant body, which dictates the orbit of the relatively marginalised. The most obvious way this happens is the way in which we revolve our lives around what we know and keep what we don’t know at the fringes of our awareness.

In the same way the subtle bondages and sufferations of the marginalised, fragmented and negated are often hidden from the perspectives of the centre. As we’ve seen this can mean that well meaning solutions without these perspectives can lead to increased division in the centring of the dominant perspective, and also Bad in terms of increasing bondage and suffering for fragmented groups. From this stance it’s easy to ignore the negate and their respective tensions.

The diunital approach seeks to explore, identify, understand and work with negated tensions and the negated themselves. This is how we come to make sense of the nature versus nurture debate. It’s both-and. The intersection of our temporal, spatial, hierarchical and consumptive contexts tend to shape our sense of moral tendencies. In other words the individual is 100% responsible for the choices they make and the environment is one 100% responsible for the choices an individual has.

As such we ought to look at the factors and tensions that create and are created by the negated. In this way we can actively build the environments that create the tendency for a diunitally Ethical Human good. Where we support the fruition of a interdependent and individual Morality that aligns with and is integral to Ethical Humanity.

In looking to create this tension informed integrity we borrow from tensegrity. Informed by tensegrity we seek to observe nested hierarchical structure centring the negated, as hierarchical tensegrity. Putting all this together we focus on an ever present origin, as by a diunital view of time, aiming towards an Ethical Humanity. We have Integral Metamodernism. A fruit from Black Metamodernism’s tree.