Moral ideals reduced to subjective preference fatally weaken opposition to reality

Evidence

If the Good and the Beautiful, Peace and Justice cannot be derived either from ontological or scientific-rational conditions, they cannot logically claim universal validity and realization. In terms of scientific reason, they remain matters of preference, and no resuscitation of some kind of Aristotelian or Thomistic philosophy can save the situation, for it is a priori refuted by scientific reason. The unscientific character of these ideas fatally weakens the opposition to the established reality; the ideas become mere ideals, and their concrete, critical content evaporates into the ethical or metaphysical atmosphere. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 555

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Marcuse’s key political insight: the critique is not just that science devalues ethics, but that devaluation is itself political — it disarms resistance by rendering ideals ‘ideal.’
• XREF: Resonates with the chapter’s core thesis on false needs: ideals become harmless leisure goods, co-opted into the administered society just as consumption absorbs critique. — connects to: Denying others’ subjectivity reduces the denier to a thing — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 618; Moral systems are judged by survival value, not by preference — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1014; Diffusion of responsibility, distortion of harm, and dehumanization each neutralize moral restraint — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 62 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Moral systems are judged by survival value, not by preference #qualifies (0.82) — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1014
• Diffusion of responsibility, distortion of harm, and dehumanization each neutralize moral restraint #exemplifies (0.75) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 62