2NC Buddhism

Overview

The affirmative attempts to solve by extending the modern global economy poses the question of whether or not advocating the economy is complicating with a good process.

The aff asks you to vote for greed. They extend the modern global economy and ask you to be complicit in the that process. Instead of asking how many fictional lives you can save, you should ask yourself: do the debaters leave the round better or worse people? The problem is that an aff vote encourages debaters to think that materialism and selfishness are good—that's Sivaraksa.

Our interpretation for this debate round is that only ethics should be evaluated, none of the 1ac policy impacts. Don't think “oh my god, if I vote neg the plan won't pass and everyone will die!” Instead, think, is the 1ac good—is it honest, kind, inclusive, and loving?

Selfishness makes people think that its only a dog eat dog world. If we're out to get other people, well always think that they're out to get us. We become paranoid and strike out at anything that we think is intimidating. Our Ikeda 7 agrees that this paranoia culminates in nuclear apocalypse.

Our alternative is to vote negative for meditation and mindfulness. You should vote for self-reflection, love, and selflessness. Only by thinking of others before we act can we avoid the approaching crisis caused by the 1ac.

AT- Framework

Our interpretation for the debate round is that only ethics should be evaluated. This means that the implementation of the 1ac through the government and their impacts cannot be looked at until they prove that the 1ac is ethical.

Reasons to prefer:

A. Fiat Doesn't exist—We're only a group of people in a room. Nobody is able to pass a policy through the government. That means it's unrealistic to pretend the world works that way.So then it doesn’t matter if they say yes or no .Does this really help anyone?

B. Real World—we can actually use Buddhist teachings to care for others in real life. The odds of us becoming policy makers is pretty low since under 500 people are elected officials out of millions. We can use this philosophy to change our consumption patterns, care for the homeless, or simply lie less. The main point is just that ethics can be used in our actual lives.

C. Buddhist ethics are practical and solve genuine problemsPayutto 88 (a well-known Thai Buddhist monk, an intellectual, and a prolific writer. He is among the most brilliant Buddhist scholars in the Thai Buddhist history. He authored Buddha Dhamma, which is acclaimed to as one of the masterpieces in Buddhism that puts together Dhamma and natural laws by extensively drawing upon Pali Canon, Atthakatha, Digha, etc., to clarify Buddha's verbatim speech, Buddhist Economists: A middle way for the Marketplace, pg 15) //T.C.To be ethically sound, economic activity must take place in a way that is not harmful to the individual, society or the natural environment. In other words, economic activity should not cause problems for oneself, agitation in society or degeneration of the ecosystem, but rather enhance well-being in these three spheres. If ethical values were factored into economic analysis, a cheap but nourishing meal would certainly be accorded more value than a bottle of whiskey. Thus, an economics inspired by Buddhism would strive to see and accept the truth of all things. It would cast a wider, more comprehensive eye on the question of ethics. Once ethics has been accepted as a legitimate subject for consideration, ethical questions then become factors to be studied within the whole causal process. But i f no account is taken of ethical considerations, economics will be incapable of developing any understanding of the whole causal process, of which ethics forms and integral part. Modern economics has been said to be the most scientific of all the social sciences. Indeed, priding themselves on their scientific methodology, economists take only measurable quantities into consideration. Some even assert that economics is purely a science of numbers, a matter of mathematical equations. In its efforts to be scientific, economics ignores all non-quantifiable, abstract values. But by considering economic activity in isolation from other forms of human activity, modern economists

have fallen into the narrow specialization characteristic of the industrial age. In the manner of specialists, economists try to eliminate all non-economic factors from their considerations of human activity and concentrate on a single perspective, that of their own discipline.

D. Language shapes reality—we must examine the ethics and words of something because they make policiesEscobar 10 – PhD in Philosophy, Policy, and Planning (Arturo, 12 January 2010, 'LATIN AMERICA AT A CROSSROADS', Cultural Studies, 24: 1, 1 — 65, http://www.unc.edu/~aescobar/text/eng/escobar.2010.CulturalStudies.24-1.pdf)

Despite the contradictory and diverse forms it has taken in the present decade, the so-called ‘ turn to the Left’ in Latin America suggests that the urge for a re-orientation of the course followed over the past three to four decades is strongly felt by many governments. This is most clear in the cases of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador ; to a greater or lesser extent, Argentina, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador; and in the cases of Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, which make up what some observers have called

the ‘pragmatic reformers.’ Why is this happening in Latin America more clearly than in any other world region at present is a question I cannot tackle fully here, but it is related to the fact that Latin America was the region that most earnestly embraced neo-liberal reforms , where the model was applied most thoroughly, and where the results are most ambiguous at best. It was on the basis of the early Latin American experiences that the Washington Consensus was crafted. The fact that many of the reforms of the most recent years are referred to as ‘anti-neoliberal’ seems particularly apposite . Whether these countries are entering a post-neoliberal let alone, post-liberal social order remains a matter of debate. There is also an acute sense that this potential will not necessarily be realized , and that the projects under way, especially in their State form, are not panaceas of any sort; on the contrary, they are seen as fragile and full of tensions

and contradictions. But t he sense of an active stirring up of things in many of the continent’s regions, from southern Mexico to the Patagonia, and especially in large parts of South America, is strong. How one thinks about these processes is itself an object of struggle and debate , and it is at this juncture that this paper is situated. Is it possible to suggest ways of thinking about the ongoing transformations that neither shortcut their potential by interpreting them through worn out categories, nor that aggrandize their scope by imputing to them utopias that might be far from the desires and actions of the main actors involved? Is it enough to think from the space of the modern social sciences, or must one incorporate other forms of knowledge, such as those of the activistintellectuals that inhabit the worlds of many of today’s social movements? In other words, the questions of where

one thinks from, with whom, and for what purpose become important elements of the investigation; this also means that the investigation is, more than ever, s imultaneously theoretical and political. This specificity also has to do with the multiplicity of long-term histories and trajectories that underlie the cultural and political projects at play . It can plausibly be argued that the region could be moving at the very least beyond the idea of a single, universal modernity and towards a more plural set of modernities. Whether it is also moving beyond the dominance of one set of modernities (Euro-modernities), or not, remains to be seen. Although moving to a post-liberal society does not seem to be the project of the progressive governments, some social movements could be seen as pointing in this direction. A third layer to which attention needs to be paid is, of course, the reactions by, and projects from, the right. State, social movements, and the right appear as three inter-related but distinct spheres of cultural-political intervention. Said differently, this paper seeks to understand the current conjuncture, in the sense of ‘a description of a social formation as fractured and conflictual, along multiple axes, planes and scales, constantly in search of temporary balances or structural stabilities through a variety of

practices and processes of struggle and negotiation’(Grossberg 2006, p. 4). Latin America can be fruitfully seen as a crossroads: a regional formation where critical theories arising from many trajectories (from Marxist political economy and post- structuralism to ‘decolonial thought’), a multiplicity of histories and futures, and very diverse cultural and political projects all find a convergence space . As we shall see, the current conjuncture can b e said to be defined by two processes: the crisis of the neo-liberal model of the past three decades; and the crisis of the project of bringing about modernity in the continent since the Conquest.

E. Justify the aff—there's always an ethics behind every aff. They can weigh their impacts, they just have to win that competitiveness rhetoric and greed are good ethics. There is a substantial amount of lit. on that.

F. Limits—there's only a limited amount of K's on the topic—Cap, Buddhism, Development, and Fuko. There can't be more than ten possible Ks. However, there are more than fifty possible affs. On this topic, K's are much more predictable.

G. Purely policy knowledge guarantees non-critical thinking and extinctionSnauwaert 9 - Associate Professor of Educational Theory and Social Foundations of Education; Chair of the Department of Foundations of Education, University of Toledo(Dale, “The Ethics and Ontology of Cosmopolitanism: Education for a Shared Humanity,” Current Issues in Comparative Education 12.1, Directory of Open Access Journals)//BB

The Ghandhian perspective is not foreign to Western philosophy and education. It was the dominant paradigm of Ancient philosophy. For the Greeks and Romans, philosophy did not primarily concern the construction of abstract theoretical systems; philosophy was conceived as a choice of a way of life, a justification for that choice, and the articulation of the path or curriculum leading to the realization of the ideals of that way of life. The focus of philosophy and education was the transformation of one’s life as a mode of Being. As a path, philosophy included sets of spiritual exercises necessary for the transformation of one’s being in accordance with the spiritual vision of the philosophy. Schools were formed out of the chosen way of life of the philosophy and those attracted to the philosophy. In these schools, the way of life defined by the philosophy and the understandings and exercises necessary to live that life were developed, taught, and experienced. Philosophy and inner transformation are linked in such a way that the discovery of the true and the good is contingent upon the transformation of the truth seeker’s being. Education is thus devoted to the internal transformation of the consciousness of the student (Foucault, 2005; Hadot, 1993, 2002; Hadot & Davidson, 1995; Hadot & Marcus, 1998). The necessity of internal transformation was not only pertinent to the search for truth; it had great relevance for morality as well. The moral response to others was thought to be contingent upon the quality of the moral agent’s character. Character was understood as a structure of virtues or capacities that enabled one to morally respond to others. The care of the self was thus thought to be interconnected and interdependent with care for others. However, as Michel Foucault demonstrates, at the beginning of modernity (referred to as the “Cartesian” moment), modern epistemology divorces the true and the good from the subject, resulting in the separation of knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge becomes merely the technical discovery of truth divorced from the subjectivity of the knower; education in turn becomes the transmission of technical knowledge with little or no concern for the internal subjectivity of the student. In addition, care of the self is disconnected from care of others. In this separation, modern knowledge, ethics, and education lose their transformative power (Foucault, 2005). The cosmopolitan perspective calls for a reclamation of the ontological perspective of Gandhi and Ancient Western philosophy. If we are to be capable of responding to the inherent value and dignity of all human beings, we must undergo an internal self-transformation. The following developmental hypotheses elaborate further the interconnection between a universal duty of moral consideration and internal transformation: 1. “Self-transformation” (i.e., decreased egoic attachment, increased pre-discursive, nonpositional self-awareness, and the realization of the Unity of Being) increases the capacity for empathy and, in turn, compassion. The more self-aware I am, the more I can be aware of the subjectivity of others, and thus, the more empathetic and compassionate I can be. 2. “Self-transformation” increases one’s capacity for tolerance. As egoic attachment decreases, holding on to one’s own truth decreases; openness to falsification and dialogue increases; hearing and understanding the other’s truth increases. One becomes less rigid, decreasing the tendency to impose and thereby increasing one’s capacity for tolerance. 3. “Self-transformation” increases one’s capacity for restraint from doing harm. One gains a more heightened awareness of internal contradiction and disharmony. This awareness prevents one from doing harm and/or withholding charity to others. 4. “Self-transformation” decreases fear. Fear is born of duality, and it drives violence. If valid, these hypotheses can be translated into educational aims focused on internal selftransformation. These aims define the core of a cosmopolitan education grounded in internal self-transformation.

Impact

Don't evaluate the 1ac extinction impacts—even if you vote aff, you aren't changing the government in any way. Framework is a gateway issue; they must win the aff is a good idea before we play the pretend game where the plan passes. The aff is unethical, so don't look at the impacts.

We're the root cause—the reason for violence in the first place is insecurity and greed. Individuals who believe that the world is filled with nastiness are usually cruel in return. Our Ikeda 7 evidence argues that we lash out against those we think are trying to take our things or mean to hurt us. This paranoia ends in nuclear extinction through military build up. Even if you do the plan, we will continue to be selfish and violence which means the 1ac is a band-aid at best. We solve the root of the problem.

Selfishness destroys value to life, there's no purpose to living without meaningZsolnai 11 - professor and director of the Business Ethics Center at the Corvinus University of Budapest(Laszlo, “Ethical Principles and Economic Transformation – A Buddhist Approach,” p. vi)//BB

Today happiness is a top priority in economic, psychological and sociological research. In the last several decades the GDP doubled or tripled in Western countries but the general level of happiness – the subjective well-being of people – remained the same. Happiness research disclosed evidences, which show that the major determinant of h appiness is not the abundance of material goods but the qual- ity of human relationships and a spiritual approach to material welfare . Buddhist countries perform surprisingly well in this respect. There is a growing interest in Bhutan, this small Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas, where the King of Bhutan introduced the adoption of an alternative index of social progress, the so-called Gross National Happiness (GNH). This mea- sure covers not only the material output of the country but also the performance of education, the development of culture, the preservation of nature and the extension of religious freedom. Experts attribute to the adoption of GNH that while Bhutan’s economy developed, the forestation of the country and well-being of people also increased. Thai Buddhist monk and philosopher, P. A. Payutto once said that one should not be a Buddhist or an economist to be interested in Buddhist economics. Buddhist ethical principles and their applications in economic life offer a way of being and acting, which can help people to live a more ecological and happier

life while contributing to the reduction of human and non-human suffering in the world .

Rampant consumerism guarantees liquidation of the earth—global warming and destruction of the planet are the most probable extinction impacts

Brown 11 – MA in Agricultural Economics, Professor @ Chinese Academy of Sciences, the most foundational environmentalist of the 20th century

(Lester R., “World on the Edge,” Google Book)//BB

The signs that our civilization is in trouble are multiplying. During most of the 6,000 years since civilization began we lived on the sustainable yield of the earth’s natural sys- tems. But in recent decades humanity has overshot the level that those systems can sustain. We are liquidating

the earth’s natural assets to fuel our consumption . Half of us live in countries where water tables are falling and wells are going dry. Soil erosion exceeds soil formation on one third of the world’s cropland, draining the land of its fertility . The world’s ever-growing herds of cattle, sheep, and goats are converting vast stretches of grassland to desert. Forests are shrinking by 13 million acres per year as we clear land for agriculture and cut trees for lumber and paper. F our fifths of oceanic fisheries are being fished at capacity or over- fished and headed for collapse . In system after system, demand is overshooting supply . Meanwhile, with our massive burning of fossil fuels, we are overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide (CO2), pushing the earth’s temperature ever higher. This in turn generates more frequent and more extreme climatic events, including crop-withering heat waves, more intense droughts, more severe floods, and more destructive storms. The earth’s rising temperature is also melting polar ice sheets and mountain gla- ciers. If the Greenland ice sheet, which is melting at an accelerating rate, were to melt entirely, it would inundate the rice-growing river deltas of Asia and many of the world’s coastal cities. It is the ice melt from the mountain glaciers in the Himalayas and on the Tibetan Plateau that helps sustain the dry-season flow of the major rivers in India and China—the Ganges, Yangtze, and Yellow Rivers—and the irrigation systems that de- pend on them. At some point, what had been excessive local demands on environmental systems when the economy was small became global in scope. A 2002 study by a team of scient- ists led by Mathis Wackernagel aggregates the use of the earth’s natural assets, includ- ing CO2 overload in the atmosphere, into a single indicator—the ecological footprint. The authors concluded that humanity’s collective demands first surpassed the earth’s regenerative capacity around 1980. By 1999, global demands on the earth’s natural sys- tems exceeded sustainable yields by 20 percent. Ongoing calculations show it at 50 percent in 2007. Stated otherwise, it would take 1.5 Earths to sustain our current consumption . Environmentally, the world is in overshoot mode . If we use environmental indic- ators to evaluate our situation, then the global decline of the economy’s natural support systems—the environmental decline that will lead to economic decline and social collapse—is well under

way. No previous civilization has survived the ongoing destruction of its natural supports. Nor

will ours . Yet economists look at the fu- ture through a different lens. Relying heavily on economic data to measure progress, they see the near 10-fold growth in the world eco- nomy since 1950 and the associated gains in living standards as the crowning achieve- ment of our modern civilization. During this period, income per person worldwide climbed nearly fourfold, boosting living standards to previously unimaginable levels. A century ago, annual growth in the world economy was measured in the billions of dol- lars. Today, it is measured in the trillions. In the eyes of mainstream economists, the world has not only an illustrious economic past but also a promising future.

Your impact is small because of how they can’t actually solve this if this actually occurs ,climate change and so then really we can’t survive in the world were we then are breaking away from Nirvana. Nirvana will solve how life will reappear ,so then therefore if we die in this life we still have mutilple lives to life.If we increase how we just change any viewpoints or happiness we should given the ballot.

Slow because...

and unlikely because...

AT- Perm

It still links—you can cross apply all of our link evidence. The greed accumulation of the 1ac has already done the damage and they can't take it back. The permutation can't resolve the ego and greed of the aff.

It's intrinsic—there's nothing in the plan or the alternative that suggests buddhist acts in “all other instances”. We argue for meditation in the face of the 1ac, not forever or all the time. Intrinsicness is a reason to reject the perm because it allows the aff to add things that were never discussed—that makes them unpredictable and unfair.

Our alternative in the Dhammanada evidence is to be RIGHT HERE, in the NOW- the affirmative continues a mindset of looking into the future to apprehend conflicts years later- it guts our ability to engage in mindfulness.

The Ikeda 7 evidence also contradicts the perm because they engage in the state’s politics and economics- it endorses egotistical competition for wealth and influence. When society interferes with the alt, we lose sight of the eightfold path.

YOU SHOULDN’T defer aff because of how they are following their own selfish mindpath , extend are link evidence so then their Affirmitive is double binding by following their own selfish mindpath by default AFF ,as well to that their Objective

Death Trick

Death leads to reincarnation – best scientific evidence provesSecrest No Date - award-winning American biographer, primarily of American artists and art collectors(Meryl, “Scientific Proof of Reincarnation Dr. Ian Stevenson's Life Work,” http://reluctant-messenger.com/reincarnation-proof.htm)

Probably the best known, if not most respected, collection of scientific data that appears to provide scientific proof that reincarnation is real, is the life's work of Dr. Ian Stevenson. Instead of relying on hypnosis to verify that an individual has had a previous life, he instead chose to collect thousands of cases of children who spontaneously (without hypnosis) remember a past life. Dr. Ian Stevenson uses this approach because spontaneous past life memories in a child can be investigated using strict scientific protocols. Hypnosis, while useful in researching into past lives, is less reliable from a purely scientific perspective. In order to collect his data, Dr. Stevenson methodically documents the child's statements of a previous life. Then he identifies the deceased person the child remembers being, and verifies the facts of the deceased person's life that match the child's memory. He even matches birthmarks and birth defects to wounds and scars on the deceased, verified by medical records. His strict methods systematically rule out all possible "normal" explanations for the child’s memories. ¶ Dr. Stevenson has devoted the last forty years to the scientific documentation of past life memories of children from all over the world. He has over 3000 cases in his files. Many people, including skeptics and scholars, agree that these cases offer the best evidence yet for reincarnation. ¶ Dr. Stevenson's credentials are impeccable . He is a medical doctor and had many scholarly papers to his credit before he began paranormal research. He is the former head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, and now is Director of the Division of Personality Studies at the University of Virginia.

ONLY the alternative leads to NirvanaZsolnai 7 (Laszlo Zsolnai is a professor of business ethics and director of the Business Ethics Center [1] at Corvinus University of Budapest, Society and Economy , Vol. 29, No. 2, SUSTAINABILITY AND SUFFICIENCY: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN A BUDDHIST PERSPECTIVE (August 2007), pp. 145-153, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41472078)

Thomas Schelling rightly characterises modern Western economics as an "ego- ¶ nomical framework". Modern Western economics is centred on self-interest, un- ¶ derstood as satisfaction of the wishes of one's body-mind ego. Buddhism chal- ¶ lenges this view because it has a different conception of the self, which is anatta, ¶ the "no-self' ( Elster 1985). ¶ Anatta specifies the absence of a supposedly permanent and unchanging self in ¶ any one of the psychophysical constituents of empirical existence. What is nor- ¶ mally thought of as the "self' is an agglomeration of constantly changing physical ¶ and mental constituents, which give rise to unhappiness if clung to as though this¶ temporary assemblage represented permanence. The anatta doctrine attempts to ¶ encourage Buddhist practitioners to detach themselves from the misplaced cling- ¶ ing to what is mistakenly regarded as self, and from such detachment (aided by ¶ moral living and meditation) the way to Nirvana can be successfully traversed . ¶ Modern neuroscience supports the Buddhist view of the self. What neuro- ¶ scientists have discovered can be called the selfless (or virtual) self, "a coherent ¶ global pattern, which seems to be centrally located, but is nowhere to be found, ¶ and yet is essential as a level of interaction for the behavio r". The non-localisable, ¶ non-substantial self acts as if it were present, like a virtual interface (Varela 1999: ¶ 53, 61).

Their framing of existence in terms of human value creates the world as standing reserve and legitimizes endless genocide – the only way to escape this cycle is to vote negative to affirm the infinite value of all forms of Being and reaffirming .Introna 9 – Professor of Organization, Technology and Ethics at Lancaster University(Lucas, “Ethics and the Speaking of Things,” Theory, Culture & Society 2009 vol 26 no 4, 25-46, dml)

In the ethics of hybrids our ethical relationship with things is determined beforehand by us , it is anthropocentric. In this encounter with things we

have already chosen, or presumed, the framework of values that will count in determining moral significance. In this ethics, things are always and already ‘things-for-us’ –

objects for our use, in our terms, for our purposes. They are always inscribed with our intentionality – they carry it in their flesh, as it were.

The defining measure of the ethics of hybrids is the human being – the meaning of the Latin root of ‘man’ is measure. Indeed our concern for things is what they might do to us humans , as was suggested above. Our concern is not our instrumental use of them, the violence of our inscriptions in/on them, but that such scripts may ultimately harm us . As things-for-us, or

‘objects’ as we will refer to them, they have no moral significance as such. In the value hierarchy of the modern ethical mind they are very far down the value line. What could be less

morally significant than an inanimate object? Their moral significance is only a derivative of the way they may circulate the network as inscriptions for utility or enrolment. For example, they may become valuable if they can be sold in a market where they are valued, as is the case with works of art.

The magnitude and diversity of our projects are mirrored in the magnitude and diversity of the objects that surround us. As things-for-us they are at our disposal – if they fail to be useful , or when our projects drift or shift, we ‘dump’ them . Images of endless ‘scrap’ heaps at the edges of our cities abound. Objects are

made/inscribed, used and finally dumped. We can dispose of them because we author-ized them in the first place. Increasingly we design them in such a way that we can dispose of them as effortlessly as possible . Ideally, their demise must be as invisible as

possible. Their entire moral claim on our conscience is naught, it seems. One can legitimately ask why should we concern ourselves with things in a world where the ethical landscape is already overcrowded with grave and pressing matters such as untold human suffering, disappearing bio-diversity and ozone layers – to name but a few. It is our argument that our moral indifference to so many supposedly significant beings (humans, animals, nature, etc.) starts with the idea that there are some beings that are less significant or not significant at all . More originally it starts with a metaphysics that has as its centre – the ultimate measure – us

human beings – a metaphysics which has been at the heart of Western philosophy ever since Plato (Heidegger, 1977a). Thus, when we start our moral ordering we tend to value more highly things like us (sentient, organic/natural, alive, etc.) and less highly, or not at all, things most alien to us ( non-

sentient, synthetic/artificial, inanimate, etc.). It is our argument that one of the reasons why this anthropocentric ethics of things fails is because it assumes that we can, both in principle and in practice, draw a definitive boundary between the objects (them) and us . Social studies of science and technology have thrown severe doubt on such a possibility. If it is increasingly difficult to draw the boundary between our objects and us, and if in this entangled network of humans and non-humans objects lack moral significance

from the start, then it is rather a small step to take for an ethics to emerge in which all things – human and non- human alike – circulate as object s : ‘things-for-the-purposes-of’ the network. In ordering society as assemblages of humans and objects we ultimately also become ordered as a ‘for-the-purposes-of’ . Thus, the irony of an anthropocentric ethics of things is that ultimately we also become ‘objects’ in programmes and scripts, at the disposal of a higher logic (capital, state, community, environment, etc.). In the network, others and our objects ‘objectify’ us. For example, I cannot get my money out from the bank machine because I forgot my PIN number. Until I identify myself in its terms (as a five digit number) I am of no significance to it. Equally, if I cannot prove

my identity by presenting inscribed objects (passport, drivers licence) I cannot get a new PIN number. In Heidegger’s (1977b) words we have all become ‘standing reserve’ , on ‘stand by’ for the purposes of the network – enframed (Gestell) by the calculative logic of our way of being. Enframed in a global network that has as its logic to control, manipulate and dominate : ‘Enframing is the gathering together which belongs to that setting-upon which challenges [hu]man and puts him in position to reveal the actual, in the mode of ordering, as standing-reserve’ (Heidegger, 1977a: 305). The value hierarchy presumed in an

anthropocentric ethics is in fact a dynamic network of values and interests – there never was a hierarchy. The fate of our objects becomes our fate. In the ethics of hybrids we are also already objects – indeed everything is already object. Instead of a hierarchy of values we find a complete nihilism in which everything is leveled out , everything is potentially equally valuable/valueless ; a nihilistic network in which ‘the highest values devaluate themselves’ (Nietzsche, 1967: 9). If this is so, then we would argue that we should not ‘extend’ our moral consideration to other things, such as inanimate objects – in a similar manner that we have done for animals and other living things, in environmental ethics for example. In other words we should not simply extend the reach of what is considered morally significant to include more things.

Rather, we should abandon all systems of moral valuing and admit , with Heidegger, that in ‘the characterisation of something as “a value” what is so valued is robbed of its worth’ and admit that ‘what a thing is in its Being is not exhausted by its being an object , particularly when objectivity takes the form of value’, furthermore, that ‘every valuing, even where it values positively, is a

subjectivising’ (Heidegger, 1977a: 228). We must abandon ethics for a clearing beyond ethics – to let beings be in their own terms. We must admit that any attempt at humanistic moral ordering – be it egocentric, anthropocentric, biocentric (Goodpaster, 1978; Singer,

1975) or even ecocentric (Leopold, 1966; Naess, 1995) – will fail. Any ethics based on us will eventually turn everything into our image , pure will to power (Heidegger, 1977a, 1977b). As Lingis (1994: 9) suggests: ‘The man-made species we are, which produces its own nature in an environment it produces, finds nothing within itself that is alien

to itself, opaque and impervious to its own understanding’ (emphasis added). Instead of creating value systems in our own image, the absolute

otherness of every other should be the only moral imperative. We need an ethics of things that is beyond the self-identical-ness of human beings . Such an ethics beyond metaphysics needs as its ‘ground’ not a system for comparison, but rather a recognition of the

impossibility of any comparison – every comparison is already violent in its attempt to render equal what could never be equal (Levinas, 1991 [1974]). How might we encounter the other in its otherness? Levinas (1991 [1974], 1996, 1999) has argued for the radical singularity of our fellow human beings. But what about all other others? In the next section we will argue that Heidegger, especially as presented in the

work of Harman (2002, 2005), might provide us with some hints towards the overcoming of ethics, towards an ethos of letting-be of all beings.

Their Ethics are flawed on these basics of then on how their Discourse