Kvant, od latinske riječi quantum= količina, mnoštvo, dio, iznos,

Kvantni moral = najmanji nedjeljivi dio potreban za određenje moralnosti.

Inspiracija: članak Klaudija Magrisa - Vašar tolerancije (jedan od dva eseja napisana
2001. godine za dodjelu nagrade Erazmus)

PRVI DIO - Određenje moralnosti

Određenje morala pati od iste bolesti kao i određenje slobode. Slobodu određujemo
negativno i pozitivno. Međutim oba određenja su komlpementarna. Moral se najčešće
određuje na sličan način: kroz univerzalnu i relativnu dimenziju. Ovdje ću tvrditi da
nema univerzalnog morala, već da je moralni univerzalizam određen kroz tradiciju, i
to partikularnu tradiciju. To što je takav slučaj sa moralom, ne znači da ne postoji
bolja ili lošija moralna tradicija. Koju moralnu tradiciju zastupati? Mislim da je u
okruženju liberalne demokratije samo jedna moguća, a da ne ukida različite kulture
morala. Mnogi teoretičari morala i same zakonitosti ponašanja u poziciji ili-ili: ili
ćemo definisati univerzalni momenat morala pa iz njega odrediti "idealno ponašanje",
ili ćemo imati potpuni relativizam. Upravo ta dilema i jeste problem današnjih,
savremenih zasnivanja moralnosti i "moralisanja".

Kvantni moral, iz naslova ovog izlaganja, jeste opravdanje i tolerancija svake moralne
vrijednosti koja je rezultat bilo koje istorijske perspektive. Gdje počinje tradicija
kvantnog morala? Tvrdim, u Sofoklovoj Antigoni, odnosno u poziciji koju taj
književni lik zauzima u odnosu na moral. Moral u liberalnoj demokratiji ne može biti
univerzalno i dogmatski utemeljen: kao kod Aristotela, Tome Akvinskog ili Kanta. On
mora biti relativan, ali na koji način relativan? Na način da se iz različitih dimenzija
tvori kolektivni moralni sklop, koji može, a i ne mora nositi karakter opštosti.
Relativnost morala ne podrazumijeva moralnu anarhiju, već prosto, mogućnost da se
različite perspektive sukobe i argumentovano izbore za vlastito priznanje. Kao što
možete naslutiti, to se dešava u pomenutoj antičkoj tragediji. I Antigonin stav, kao i
onaj njenog očuha, jeste moralan, no samo zauzimanje pozicije je ono što je važno.

Tragična situacija je ona u kojoj u izboru između dvije strane, nužno niti jedna nije
tačna, već upravo svaki izbor ograničava i oslobađa. Zauzimanje konkretnog položaja
je ono što je bitno, i moral se fundira u samoj odluci konkretnog, ličnog izbora. Taj
izbor može samo povući osjećaj savjesti i krivice u odnosu na druge izbore, bez
obzira koliko bio "ispravan" i "tačan". Takvo zauzimanje sigurno implicira da subjekt
koji ispunjava taj moralni prostor misli da je njegovo mišljenje tačno, a da je suprotno
netačno. Poenta je da tačne stavove moramo izgraditi, njih nema u vakuumu. Grade se
u praksi, u dijaloškoj praksi, gdje će svi moći da izgrade svoje sisteme. Liberalno
rezonovanje u domenu ispravnog ponašanja mora biti u isto vrijeme
konstruktivističko i relativističko u pozitivnom smislu, tačnije relacio-nističko. Kolika
zapravo bude zona razgovora i lokalnog djelovanja, biće i zona konstrukcije. Šta još
možemo naučiti od Antigone? Jako bitno je i mjesto, topos u kom se odvija
ispoljavanje ličnih i kolektivnih vrijednosti. Liberalno društvo mora imati razvijenu
topiku: dobro uvezana mjesta na kojima se mišljenje ispoljava, bez da pretenduje na
opštosti. Gdje smjestiti provjerene moralne činjenične datosti? Odnosno, šta sa
evolutivno provjerenim ponašanjem, koje bi trebalo da bude u centru normalnog i
tačnog rezonovanja? Antigona izaziva sam provjeren centar moralnog, i iako dolazi u
sukob sa Kreontom, koji simbolizuje ispravan, održiv moralni kodeks, u pozadini se
nalazi hor građana koji daje kolektivni komentar na ovaj sukob dva svijeta.

Moralni princip podriva i porodične i kolektivne vrijednosti, samim tim, kao što se
kroz istoriju i vidi, moral ne može opstati u svom generalnom, objektivnom domenu,
kao prosto pravilo. Tek kada je vidljiv, lokalan i radikalan, u konkretnim odlukama,
on ima i formu i sadržaj. Kao neka odredba u zakonu bez prakse ili nepisana norma,
on ne postoji. Insitucije se moraju graditi polazeći od konkretnog, odnosnog kvaliteta
uvažavanja razlika i konfrontiranja istih. Samo uvažavanje bez konfrontacije i
samjeravanja vodi u anarhizam bez ikakve konstrukcije, dok sukob bez uvažavanja
vodi u potpunu destabilizaciju, kojoj danas i svjedočimo. Moral je uvijek relativan na
svom banalnom planu, dok u vazduhu egzistiraju te nekakve univerzalne moralne
pjene, ili mjehurovi od sapunice koji aludiraju na potrebu da se ljudska mišljenja
usaglašavaju. Sama upućenost na provjeru stava u dijalogu rezultat je specifične
atmosfere koja to omogućuje. Mnogo češće ne stvaraju ljudi atmosferu već atmosfera
njih. U moralu je to u većini slučajeva tako.

Postoje tendencije ka potpunoj formalizaciji moralnog postupanja, jedna u pravcu

potpune dezintegracije samih formi, a druga u pravcu apsolutnog sadržaja. I jedna i
druga odbijaju gore opisani kvantni princip, jer je u totalitarnoj arhitekturi moral
određen kao formalni i sadržinski identitet.

Kvantni moral moraju omogućavati i institucije društva, to jest, nečija perspektiva

mora imati šansu da uzdrma dominantniju, u određenim uslovima.

DRUGI DIO - Nekoliko epistemoloških prepreka za razumijevanje liberalnog

relativizma i konstruktivizma;

1) Ontologija totaliteta = negdje mora postojati neki idealan oblik, neki totalitet,
zadužen za sve interakcije aposteriori; - Delez protiv Hegela;

2) Društvo kao takvo: Marks, Dirkem, Habermas, Burdije - Tretiranje društva kao
supstance a ne kao subzistencije;

3) Objektivni moral kao takav- Moral egzistira van sfere interakcija;

4) Subjektivni moral kao takav - Nema moralnih sklopova, kolektiva i atmosfera bez
pojedinaca;
5) Moral mora biti stvar univerzalnog za sve, bez uticaja perspektive - Teorije o
imperativima, moral ne može dolaziti iz perspektive i pojedinačne tradicije, iz onoga
"što jeste", već je on stvar onoga "što treba da";

6) Moral ne može biti opšti ako dolazi iz partikularne tradicije- Argumenti u korist
kulturološkog relativizma, lokalizma i nemogućnosti transcendiranja granica;

DEFINICIJE- OED (Oxford English Dictionary):

Of or pertaining to character or disposition, considered as good or bad,

virtuous or vicious; of or pertaining to the distinction between right and
wrong, or good and evil, in relation to the actions, volitions, or character of
responsible beings; ethical.
moral virtue: a rendering of L. virtus moralis, Gr. ἀρετὴ ἠθική (Aristotle), (an) excellence of character or
disposition, as distinguished from intellectual virtue (ἀρετὴ διανοητική). As in English (and in other modern
languages) virtue is rarely used exc. as synonymous with moral virtue, the use of the adj. with this n. has become
infrequent.

. Treating of or concerned with virtue and vice, or the rules of right conduct, as
a subject of study. (Cf. 1c.)
moral philosophy: the department of philosophy which treats of the virtues and vices, the criteria of right and wrong,
the rightness or wrongness of particular classes of actions, the methods to be adopted for the formation of virtuous
character, and the like; ethical philosophy, ethics. Formerly often employed in a wider sense, including psychology
and metaphysics. moral philosopher: one who studies or is versed in moral philosophy. moral science has in recent
times been used in the same senses as ‘moral philosophy’. the moral sciences is sometimes used (e.g. at Cambridge)
as a comprehensive name for a branch of academic study including psychology, ethics, political and economic science,
and in fact all that is now commonly understood by the term ‘philosophy’. Also attrib. as in moral sciences tripos.

Of a person, esp. a writer: That enunciates moral precepts. ? Obs. In early

quots. applied to writers of allegory.

c1374 CHAUCER Troylus v. 1856 O moral Gower þis boke I directe To the. c1430 LYDG. Min.
Poems (Percy Soc.) 25 The tragidés diverse and unkouth Of morall Senec. 1599 SHAKES. Much
Ado v. i. 30 'Tis all mens office, to speake patience To those that wring vnder the load of sorrow:
But no mans vertue nor sufficiencie To be so morall, when he shall endure The like himselfe.
1718 PRIOR Picture of Seneca, While cruel Nero only drains The moral Spaniard's ebbing Veins.
1742 YOUNG Nt. Th. v. 319 Let us read Her moral stone. Ibid. ix. 534 The moral muse has
shadow'd out a sketch.

moral law: the body of requirements in conformity to which right or virtuous

action consists; a particular requirement of this kind. Opposed to ‘positive’ or
‘instituted’ laws, the obligation of which depends solely on the fact that they
have been imposed by a rightful authority. Also moral code, moral norm,
moral order, moral rule, moral system.
In early use chiefly applied to that part of the Mosaic Law which enunciates moral principles, and therefore, unlike
the ‘ceremonial’ and ‘judicial’ parts, remains valid under the Christian dispensation. So moral commandment, etc.

Of rights, obligations, responsibility, etc.: Founded on the moral law; valid

according to the principles of morality. Opposed to legal.

1690 LOCKE Hum. Und. ii. xxviii. §3 Sometimes the foundation of considering things, with
reference to one another, is some act whereby any one comes by a moral right, power, or
obligation to do something. 1736 BUTLER Anal. ii. 403 Our obligation to attend to his voice is
surely moral in all cases. 1818 CRUISE Digest (ed. 2) I. 178 Dower is not only a civil, but also a
moral right. Ibid. IV. 584 There is one case in which a conveyance, founded on a moral
consideration only, has been held good against a subsequent purchaser. 1882 MORLEY Cobden
xix. (1902) 71/1 Cobden thus strove to diffuse the sense of moral responsibility in connexion with
the use of capital.

Of actions: Subject to the moral law; having the property of being right or
wrong. the moral world: the sphere or region of moral action.

1594 HOOKER Eccl. Pol. i. xvi. §3 The axiomes of that lawe‥haue their vse in the morall, yea,
euen in the spirituall actions of men. 1690 LOCKE Hum. Und. ii. xxviii. §4 There is another sort
of relation, which is the conformity or disagreement men's voluntary actions have to a rule to
which they are referred, and by which they are judged of; which, I think, may be called moral
relation, as being that which denominates our moral actions. 1809–10 COLERIDGE Friend
(1866) 278 To possess the end in the means, as it is essential to morality in the moral world, and
the contra-distinction of goodness from mere prudence, so is it, in the intellectual world, the
moral constituent of genius.

Pertaining to, affecting, or operating on the character or conduct, as

distinguished from the intellectual or physical nature of human beings. moral
suasion: see SUASION 1b.

Of persons, their habits, conduct, etc.: Morally good; conforming to the rules
of morality.

1638 SIR T. HERBERT Trav. (ed. 2) 233 Morall men they are, and humane in language and
garbe. 1697 DRYDEN Æneid Ded. (a) 3 Your Essay of Poetry‥I read over and over with much
delight,‥and, without flattering you, or making my self more Moral than I am, not without some
envy. 1700 —— Fables Pref., My enemies‥will not allow me so much as to be a Christian, or a
moral man. 1781 COWPER Conversat. 193 A moral, sensible, and well-bred man Will not affront
 me. 1841 MYERS Cath. Th. iv. §23. 293 A man may be Moral without being Religious, but he
cannot be Religious without being Moral. 1868 RUSKIN Arrows of Chace (1880) II. 199 A man
taught to plough, row or steer well‥[is] already educated in many essential moral habits.

In etymological sense: Pertaining to manners and customs

Of, pertaining to, or concerned with the morals (of a person or a community).
Also (occas.), pertaining to the ‘morale’ of an army.

1794 PALEY Evid. i. v. §4 (1817) 97 The phrases which the same writer employs to describe the
moral condition of Christians compared with their condition before they became Christians.
1818 HALLAM Mid. Ages ix. (1868) 700 note, His standard is taken, not from Avignon, but from
Edinburgh,‥where the moral barometer stands at a very different altitude. 1844 H. H. WILSON
Brit. India I. 545 He quoted largely from a memoir on the Moral State of India by Mr. Grant.
1848 W. K. KELLY tr. L. Blanc's Hist. Ten Y. I. 382 The moral interests of society seemed still
more compromised than the material. 1889 D. HANNAY Capt. Marryat 38 The squadron was in
an indifferent moral condition, divided by sour professional factions, and impatient of its
Admiral.

As Hegel explains, however, Sophocles’ Antigone offers timely guidance to its

readers and spectators as a representation of an important step of the spirit on
its way to ‘absolute knowing’. Staging the unfolding of ‘Spirit’, the play leaves us
with a synthesis of Creon’s ‘self-conscious action’ on the one hand and Antigone’s
representation of ‘simple and immediate essence’ on the other hand.71 Thus,
the play’s outcome lays the foundations for ‘ethical life’ that would reconcile the
private individual’s particular essence with the public community as the artificial
construct of consciousness in an ethical realm that acknowledges the specific
value of both but takes away their incompatibility.72 On the one hand, ‘ethical
life’ offers a proper foundation for law and justice by providing it with concrete
and heartfelt substance as the life of the law from which the procedural ‘abstract
right’ remains deprived. On the other hand, it rises above ‘the subjective opinion
and caprice’ (das subjektive Meinen und Belieben) of one-sided individual ‘morality’
as a threat to the public legal order.73 Ethical life subscribes to Antigone’s claim
to immediate knowledge of the laws, with the human mind unable to determine
‘where they came from’. At the same time, however, ‘the substance of ethical life
also has a consciousness’, that is to say, the ‘objective and subjective moments
are alike present’, now not contradicting each other but brought together in a
harmonious synthesis in which they are relieved of their previous one-
sidedness.74 In its ultimate form, ‘ethical life’ manifests itself in the Hegelian
‘state’ as a synthesis of the ‘immediate substantiality’ of the unit of the family
(held together essentially by love) on the one hand and the wider sphere of the
civil society as a ‘stage of difference’ (Stufe der Differenz) that rather relies on
‘abstract right’ on the other. As an ‘ethical domain’, the state is dominated
neither by the objective standards of ‘pure reason’ nor by the one-sidedly
subjective claims of inward-looking conscience; instead, its laws and institutions
reflect the intersubjective nature of Hegelian ethics.75

In his reactualization of the Hegelian notion of ‘ethical life’ as a remedy against

the modern inflictions of social life, Axel Honneth discerns between modern
conceptions of law and justice that are based on substanceless proceduralism –
such as Creon’s – on the one hand, and those clinging to universalized
subjectivism – as exemplified by Antigone – on the other. A mere procedural
understanding of law would lead to an unhealthy ‘legal formalisation of social
relations’ that induces subjects to hide behind their ‘masks’ (personae) of formal
legal personality while rejecting the intersubjective obligations that were
formerly accepted as self-evident.76 One-sided procedural law would tend to
misconceive both public and private legal powers as absolute, with negative
‘legal freedom’ taken as law’s ‘exclusive reference point’. Suffering from
substanceless proceduralism, Creon-like we would focus on our role as ‘bearers
of rights and legal powers’ to such an extent as to ‘lose sight of the ‘normative
grammar’ of ordinary social life. The emptiness of proceduralism induces an
‘interruption of communication’ (Kommunikationsabbruch) as a pathological way
of interacting and solving our conflicts with others, giving preference to the
reductive reason of formal legal dogmatics above the broader scope of the
‘communicative rationality’ with which we are intuitively familiar.77 One-sided
moral subjectivism would be equally destructive. As Honneth argues, a healthy
understanding of law entails that we acknowledge that our relations to others
are ‘always already regulated by norms of action that we cannot control at will’.
Only a pathological inwardness could result in a ‘blindness’ to intersubjective
normativity that urges the individual to reduce his social world to nothing but ‘a
field of circumstances’ that should be shaped in accordance with his own moral
convictions as universal standards.78 Only Honneth’s updated version of
Hegelian ‘ethical life’ – relieving both proceduralism and moral subjectivism from
their one-sidedness and bringing them together in a harmonious synthesis –
would provide a proper cure.79

What, then, could Sophocles’ Antigone teach us moderns? No less than the
Greeks, we tend to set up a public order as a political device, a technē that
enables us to control the harsh forces of nature that surround us. Law, in this
regard, serves as an art of separation, a reductive tool that helps to protect us
from being overwhelmed by the endless complexity of human social life. In
Sophocles’ Antigone, the reductive nature of law’s separative art clearly emanates
from the interconnectedness between the public domain of the polis and the
private sphere of the oikos, neglected by both Creon and Antigone in their desire
for clear demarcations between those spheres. However, these demarcations
are far less obvious than both protagonists envision them. Creon suppresses the
demands of the nether Gods, one-sidedly emphasizing his allegiance to the city
and denying his obligations towards Polynices as a deceased member of his
family. Antigone not only denies the public rule of Creon as the only way out of
chaos and misery, but also Creon’s private position as the head of her oikos that
she aims to defend. For both, the separation between public and private is the
fundament for further separations between friend and foe, divine and human,
just and unjust; as it turns out, however, their one-sided approaches to these
matters seem at least partly flawed, as Creon and Antigone both close their eyes
to important facts and circumstances that evade their schematic ways of
thinking.

All that being said, the downfall of the play’s main protagonists does not
determine that ‘separative law’ is all wrong. For the ancient Greeks as for us,
law’s artificial distinctions and demarcations are the only way in which law may
hope to bring order to the chaos of nature. The challenge laid down by the
Chorus is to seek the virtues of separative law while acknowledging that law’s art
of separation itself is a natural force, driven by the human desire to emulate the
Olympian Gods in creating an abode safe from natural violence. Separative law
may be a human invention, but that does not mean that it is not a natural
phenomenon as well, with humankind not standing apart from nature, but being
an integral part of it. In his heroic efforts to overcome nature and improve the
human condition, man – and as moderns we naturally mean woman too – makes
ample use of artificial contrivances derived directly from ‘wind-swift’ thought –
with the technai of law and politics among the most significant of them. These
contrivances have brought us enormous benefits, but may also bring about our
downfall. The dangers of our awesomeness loom large when artificial law takes
on an overly rationalist character, not only drawing more or less artificial
boundaries and distinctions, but absolutizing its artificiality and denying its own
identity as a natural force altogether.

One-sided recourse to the artificial distinctions and generalizations of separative

law destroys human life even as it seeks to secure it against destruction by other
forces. An unbalanced emphasis on subjective particularity provides no viable
alternative; a legal system that one-sidedly relies on unreflected personal
morality is bound to fail in its coordinating function. Contrary to Hegel’s
interpretation of the play, Sophocles’ Antigone does not offer the possibility of a
dialectical movement that can bring rationalist law into a stable synthesis of
‘ethical life’ free from tragic loss. The residues of justice will inevitably have to be
dealt with; there’s no therapy or harmonizing strategy that may absolve us from
that burden. Still less does the play direct us to some unheroic ‘middle way’ in
which human greatness is denied in favour of a miserable and meaningless life
in the dark, spared by the Gods but unnoticed by posterity. Instead, Sophocles’
Antigone makes us aware of our precarious position in which we are bound to
make use of law and politics as rationalist devices that at once elevate us but in
that elevation endanger us. We created our legal orders and cities to assist us in
our human lives, controlling and cultivating wild nature and protecting us from
its harsh forces. In our frantic attempts to become nature’s masters and
possessors, we are constantly and inevitably at risk of being overcome ourselves,
now led by the intricate legal and political structures that we created to assist us
in the first place – a deinos fate indeed.