Stephen David Ross

Invitation to Ethical Fullness Stephen David Ross

The world is full of things full of being, things that matter to other things, things that matter to themselves, where how they matter, and what mattering means, exceeds all limits and expectations. Such a fullness is ethical, exceeding comprehension and anticipation, inexhaustibly full in goodness and abundance, in suffering and joy. I wrote my book, Ethical Fullness: Thinking of Animals, Believing in Things, to express such an ethics, from animals to plants and things. Such a fullness is also aesthetic, inexhaustibly filled with beauty and abundance, with enchantment and wonder. I wrote my book, The World as Image, to express such an aesthetics. The fullness of being is full beyond itself, full beyond ethics and aesthetics, where they are full beyond themselves. Here I hope to provide a guide to such a fullness, with ethical fullness foremost in mind. This guide and invitation continues the more complex, earlier work by making it more accessible, but also by developing what fullness means and why it is ethical. It provides answers to the persistent questions of why ethics is so difficult, why injustice is always mixed with justice, why the world is not a better place. The answer is that this divergence and variation is what fullness means. This book may be read in different ways: As an introduction to Ethical Fullness, which spells out its movements in greater detail; As a more explicit account of what ethical fullness means in human life, given its complexities and evasions, supposing the development in Ethical Fullness; As an extension of the theory of ethical fullness in the context of human life, ethics and politics, taking the thinking and believing of Ethical Fullness for granted; As another struggle to be ethical in the fullness of its exposition.