States and Processes. Ends and Means.

There are no states.

Only processes.

If something ever looks like it has settled, relaxed, and passed into a 'stable state', don't be fooled. Soon it will change again.

It has only entered a new phase in a process.

This truth applies to all reality, but has special implications for the human world.

Human life, unlike the natural world, consists not only of states and processes, but of ends and means. Which is the same thing as saying that the human world is governed by the power of thought in addition to natural forces. An end is nothing more than a conceived state, a thought about a future type of situation. A means is nothing more than a conceived process.

States and processes are to the natural world as ends and means are to the human world.

In my world, I think, the analysis of ends is typically privileged over the analysis of means. We often hear that the ends justify the means. We like to think about what state of affairs we want to bring about, we picture the results of our actions rather than the actions themselves. 


This is one of Joan Bondurant's main concerns in Conquest of Violence, her analysis of Gandhian political philosophy. She insists that Western political philosophy falls short in that it is concerned primarily with ends: with the perfect political model, the perfect social contract, the perfect model of justice and morality. Gandhi's main contribution to political philosophy, she argues, is that he insists only on the analysis of means. Gandhi did not want to tell you what the perfect society would be, or even what society might look like after a particular revolution. Gandhi only wanted to tell you the best way to conduct a revolution: what principles to rely on, what types of action to take, how to organize people. Gandhi did not want to speak about ends, only means. What he wanted was the proper conduct of a process.

I want for this idea to infect me. I want it to become a part of what I am. I so dislike trying to conceive of the perfect future for myself. I so prefer to live in the moment and conduct myself in the way I think appropriate. Some planning is necessary, of course.

If I believe that there are no states and only processes, then a means-focused morality seems like the only possible alternative. I cannot use moral or political philosophy as a way to build a model of morality or judgement. I can only use philosophy to conduct a process better.

There is no end for human life other than living it well.

I believe I can live it best by committing to certain means: thoughtfulness, politeness, kindness, honesty, so on. All that good stuff.

The hope is that those means turn out to be what Gandhi called 'ends in the making', or that those means implicitly contain certain ends (that there are ends that are 'internal' to those means, as MacIntyre says).

The wager is that the ends do not justify the means, because the means contain ends of their own.

Understanding that everything is process, and the implication that morality must commit to means, is a lesson I'm trying to learn.

Everything will always be changing.

I shouldn't hope to ever reach a point in my life in which everything is complete, in which I've accomplished my goals and arrived at my final state. I should hope to conduct the process as best as possible, remaining flexible and being the best person I can be.

"And you wait, you wait for that one thing
that will infinitely enlarge your life;
the gigantic, the stupendous,
the awakening of stones,
depths turned round toward you.

The volumes bound in rust and gold
flicker dimly on the shelves;
and you think of lands traveled across,
women found and lost

And then suddenly you know: it was then.
You rise, and before you
stands the fear and prayer and shape
of a vanished year."

I refuse to let my years vanish in anticipation of some final state.

I won't wait for that end.

I want to live the means, be the process.

Because it is now.