Ethics can act responsibly without aiming at any perfected end state.

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: This is the precise content of non-teleological ethics Odell adopts against the productivity telos.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: whether preventing destruction still smuggles in a negative telos or moral ground.