The Ethics of two

Ethics as an Emergent Property of Interaction

The Foundation: Five Core Behaviors

Ethics begins with specific, observable interactions between people:

Recognition: I see you as an autonomous person with your own needs, boundaries, and goals - not as an object or resource to be used.

Attention: I listen to what you're saying and pay attention to the signals you're sending about your state and needs.

Respect: I refrain from harming you and acknowledge your right to make your own choices about your life.

Trust: We build reliability through consistent actions - when you say something, you follow through, and so do I.

Care: I invest energy in your wellbeing because I value your existence and flourishing.

These aren't rules imposed from outside. They're what naturally develops when two people encounter each other and choose to interact constructively rather than destructively.

The Process: How Ethics Emerges

The First Encounter

If I were the only person in the world, ethics would not exist. The moment I meet you, ethics becomes possible. Even the simplest acts of seeing you and choosing not to harm you are ethical acts.

Self-Sovereignty and Recognition of Others

I must first preserve my own existence and integrity - without that, there's nothing real to contribute to any relationship. But authentic interaction also requires acknowledging that you are equally autonomous, with your own non-negotiables and boundaries.

Ethics emerges where self-preservation meets recognition of the other.

Navigation Through Friction

Two autonomous people will inevitably have conflicts - different needs, incompatible priorities, boundary clashes. This friction isn't a moral failure; it's information about where our systems intersect and create tension.

Ethics doesn't eliminate these collisions. It provides a way to navigate them that preserves both people's integrity while allowing for genuine encounter.

Practical Application: Navigating Conflicts

When Systems Collide

Each conflict becomes an opportunity to practice the five core behaviors:

• Recognition: See the other person's needs and boundaries as legitimate, even when they conflict with yours
• Attention: Listen to understand what's actually happening, not just to defend your position
• Respect: Avoid trying to control or coerce the other person into compliance
• Trust: Communicate honestly about your own needs and follow through on what you say
• Care: Look for solutions that preserve both people's wellbeing when possible

The Paradox of Growth

Sometimes authentic personal development leads people in incompatible directions. The ethical question isn't how to prevent this, but how to navigate it without abandoning the core behaviors.

Authentic divergent growth: Engaging with the friction first, building capacity to handle the collision, then acknowledging incompatibility if it genuinely emerges from the interaction itself.

Avoidance masquerading as growth: Skipping engagement and immediately interpreting friction as evidence of incompatibility.

Test: Can you articulate specifically what each person needs and why those needs create friction? If not, you might be avoiding rather than growing.

When Disengagement Is Ethical

Sometimes the most ethical response to divergent trajectories is conscious, respectful separation. Forcing people to remain connected against their authentic development can harm both parties.

The key is that disengagement follows genuine engagement - you've practiced the core behaviors, understood the collision, and determined that continued connection would require one or both parties to compromise their integrity.

Complex Cases: Expanding the Framework

Unequal Power Dynamics

The five behaviors still apply, but the context must expand to address structural inequalities.

When one person has significantly more power (employer/worker, parent/child, wealthy/poor), ethical interaction requires recognizing how that power difference affects the possibility of genuine recognition, attention, respect, trust, and care.

Example: An employer threatening an undocumented worker with deportation isn't practicing recognition - they're treating the worker as a resource rather than an autonomous person. The ethical response requires expanding the context to include whatever structures (legal, community, collective action) can restore conditions where the five behaviors become possible.

Developmental Asymmetry

With children or others who aren't fully autonomous yet, ethics becomes "developmental scaffolding" - using power in ways that expand the other person's future capacity for autonomy rather than erasing it.

Test: Does this action increase or decrease the other person's ability to eventually engage in recognition, attention, respect, trust, and care?

Collective Challenges

Some problems (climate change, systemic injustice) require coordinated action that constrains individual choices. The ethical framework extends by recognizing that true autonomy includes understanding your impact on others' ability to be autonomous.

Accepting constraints that preserve everyone's capacity for the five core behaviors isn't a violation of ethics - it's ethics applied at scale.

The Challenge of Absolute Positions

Wrestling with Ayn Rand's Oath

I often return to Ayn Rand's oath from Atlas Shrugged:

"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

This captures something essential about self-sovereignty - the refusal to be consumed by others or to consume them. But I've always found it somewhat naive, and I think I've identified why: it has always seemed ironic to me that the government in the novel acted in exactly the same way, and the strikers, in turn, mirrored that behavior. They removed their interest in each other's autonomy as a way to prove their own points.

Both the government and the strikers ended up negating the very relational dynamic that makes ethics possible in the first place. They chose absolute positions that eliminated the space for recognition, attention, respect, trust, and care.

A Revised Understanding

The oath preserves the self but, applied rigidly, can destroy the encounter that gives ethics meaning. A framework that honors both self-sovereignty and relational ethics might read:

"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will honor and preserve my own existence and integrity, and I will not demand another erase theirs for me. Yet when I meet another, I will recognize, respect, trust, and care, acknowledging that our lives are bound together in that encounter."

This captures the tension I was trying to resolve: How do you maintain absolute commitment to your own integrity while remaining open to the genuine encounter that creates ethical obligation?

Addressing Common Objections

"This Is Just Sophisticated Selfishness"

The framework starts with self-sovereignty but doesn't end there. Recognition of the other as equally autonomous creates genuine reciprocal obligation. You can't authentically practice these behaviors while treating others as objects for your use.

"What About Justice and Fairness?"

Justice emerges from consistently applying the five behaviors across all relationships, especially when power is unequal. Fairness means creating conditions where recognition, attention, respect, trust, and care are possible for everyone involved.

"This Only Works Between Equals"

The behaviors scale up and down. A parent can practice all five with a child, adjusting for developmental capacity. A society can embed them in institutions. The core principle remains: see others as autonomous (or developing toward autonomy), listen to their signals, refrain from harm, build reliability, and invest in their flourishing.

Conclusion

Ethics isn't a set of rules to follow. It's a set of behaviors that emerge naturally when autonomous people choose to interact constructively. These behaviors create the foundation for everything else we value - dignity, justice, love, community, meaning.

The complexity of ethical life arises from applying these simple behaviors across different contexts, power relationships, and scales of organization. But the foundation remains constant: recognition, attention, respect, trust, and care in the space between us.