Ethics can act against destruction without aiming at any final harmony

Evidence

Moral agents can decide to how to negotiate the world without hopes of reaching a predetermined, necessary state of harmony or static equilibrium, or any ultimate state. Indeed, the abandonment of such a teleology also entails abandoning hopes that our decisions and actions will result in perfect harmony or order, and such non-teleological ethics can’t be motivated by a desire to actualize a pre-established end or enact given roles. We can, however, value the somewhat ordered/somewhat chaotic universe in which we inevitably dwell, and we can also decide that it is good and worthwhile to prevent significant destruction to other valuable members of the universe through the agency and choice that also seem inevitable. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 669

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sets up the definition of non-teleological ethics that ‘manifest dismantling’ operationalizes.
• XREF: This non-teleological ethic echoes the useless tree from Zhuangzi and earlier in the book, and connects to Odell’s larger argument about attention as world-constitution. — connects to: Ethically clean answers to catastrophe may not exist as formulated. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 70; Humans must commit to ethical action without certainty of consequences — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 889