Universal and Specific Ethics

As Raymond Cattell pointed out, the common ethics of universalism (eg. in the Revealed Religions, and in Marxism) are centered around basic survival for all of us, for the world. However, if only common basic ethics are allowed, there can be little creativity or evolution (remember the Spanish Inquisition, and Stalinism).

A natural separation of the world into small states allows for a more specific ethics related to place and time. That is, more creativity in ethics along with the common universal ethics of basic global survival. This way evolutionary change can take place, which is the basis of natural life, as well as the basis of our sacred mission to evolve to Godhood.

It is important to state that we require evolution not revolution, this is a central point in Revitalized Conservatism. The new needs to be synthesized into the old. Old conservatism must include new sociobiology. The ethics of traditional conservatism is grounded in the God-Within of the Inward Path. The inclusion of the Outward Path of evolution to Godhood, along with the Inward Path, needs to be affirmed, and it is affirmed in the Theoevolutionary Church.

Conserving “the best elements of our civilization” as called for by Russell Kirk, means not only conserving the ethical elements of the Inward Path to the God Within, but conserving the highest truth, goodness and beauty of various people and states, sociobiologically, all of whom are on the evolutionary Path to Godhood in the cosmos.