Regenerating Goodness

A Response to the Bondi Massacre

2025 has not been a great year for people with empathy and compassion. We have watched the merciless slaughter of women, children and other human cannon fodder in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan and seen the indifference towards it by many and even the celebration of it by some. Such mass destruction of human life seems to be becoming normalized with even my own country, a country celebrated for its gun control, suffering one of its worse mass shootings just yesterday. We have seen the growth in inequality and further declines in democracy and more people being subjected to the whims of autocrats and oligarchs. We are seeing the replacement of humanity with machines and we have also seen significant acceleration in the decline of the world’s ecosystems which will make the planet unlivable for future generations.

Humanity is clearly degenerating, but why? There are many answers to this question but one emerged the other day while I was talking to a young lawyer. He specializes in workplace relations and was looking forward to work Christmas parties, which usually generated a lot of work for him. In relation to that, I raised an infamous case here in Australia only a few years ago where a man was accused of rape by a female colleague after some after-work drinks. He was charged and went to trial but got off after misconduct was discovered by a juror.

In seeking his opinion of the case the young lawyer commented that the accused had dodged a bullet, but what was more interesting was his view of what happened next. Instead of acknowledging his luck and enjoying his freedom, the accused rapist sought to clear his name by suing a media organization for defamation. He lost big time and now is in debt for millions of dollars. The young lawyer viewed this move as totally stupid and pointed out how much money he had made over the years from people who stood on principle, rather than playing the game.

Now lawyers are generally mediators who will look for compromise and sometimes use whatever means they can to get the best outcome for their client. According to the young lawyer I spoke too, he was less interested in principles than manipulating the system to his and his clients advantage. According to him, he has seen many people clinging to their principles being destroyed by the justice system. But their loss is his gain. This, however, was a bit disingenuous because, of course, as a lawyer he knows that he is bound by a number of rules of conduct underpinned by legal principles formulated and handed down over thousands of years.

Still, the cynicism was a bit disturbing and further evidence for me of how today’s political and economic cultures, whether they be neoliberal capitalism, autocracies or oligarchies, have come to value outcome over principle. In ethics, this comes under the general term of instrumentalism in which it is the ends that count, not the means by which you achieve them. Included in this category is the ethic’s theory of utilitarianism. While there have been some famous philosophers who have defended instrumentalism, I believe that when it is separated from principle, or a focus on the means, it becomes a toxic approach. One that can help explain much of the bad and destructive behaviour we see in today’s world.

In relation to war, for example, it becomes a justification for the massacre of thousands of lives. Thinking about the massacre of Jews celebrating Hanukkah in Sydney, we remember the almost pure instrumentalism applied in enacting the Final Solution of the Holocaust. Any atrocity in getting the desired outcome seemed to be justified. Similarly though, people playing golf on the bones of dead Gazans at Trump Gaza Golf Resort one day will be able to say, “Well, it was all worth it to have such lovely views of the Mediterranean while hitting my ball.” Great outcome. In relation to democracy, Americans can say that, “Well yes, Trump is a dictator, pedophile and scam artist, but at least we don’t have to see those brown people around anymore or worry about being polite and paying tax.” Great outcome. Or, “Well yes, oil and coal are destroying the conditions for life, but at least I can drive my petrol car, have tropical fruit in Winter and keep the Casino lights on 24/7.” Great outcome.

In relation to AI, after humanity has been reduced to slaves of the robots or victims of its extermination campaigns, at least those left will be able to say, “Well, at least we improved productivity, efficiency and profit margins.” Yeah, good outcome.

The great philosopher, Immanuel Kant, went too far the other way in his rejection of utilitarianism. He argued that ethics only makes sense if based on principle, or intent. An example often used is that of friendship. Imagine being sick in hospital and your best friend comes to visit you. You thank them but they tell you that they only came because they calculated that it would be in their self-interest to do so. Their desired outcome. Alternatively, a best friend should be defined as someone who sees it as their duty to visit you, even if it is inconvenient or painful. A principle of friendship is therefore being prepared to, at times, put your friend’s interests ahead, or at least equal to your own.

Why he went too far is that principle on its own is also toxic. The problem with it is usually framed these days as a lack of flexibility. An inability to adapt to changing circumstances, which is a cardinal sin in today’s rapidly changing world. People who stick to their principles get left behind, like those who cling to some outmoded view of what it means to be human in the face of technological progress. The famous example raised in relation to Kant is not lying in any situation which leaves you incapable of being able to function in a human world built on lies. But yes, sticking to a principle can often lead to horrific outcomes through inability to compromise. I’m sure that the shooters at Bondi Beach would say that they were being true to their principles of ethnic cleansing.

However, in agreement with Tim Miller on a recent Bulwark Podcast, I believe that what we have increasingly seen in 2025 are people willing to abandon principles for the promise of some outcome which will justify whatever evil and immoral acts they commit as the means. This is fundamentally a symptom of decadence and the loss of any guiding principle other than acting in your self-interest. It is also a symptom of nihilism. The more we see bad behaviour being rewarded and unchecked, the more we lose faith in the process of developing good character traits underpinned by reasoned principles.

Because that’s how life actually works. Both instrumentalism and deontology are reductionist over-simplifications of the real complexities of ethics. When we act there are consequences and when we reflect on those consequences we create principles which then condition our further actions. I smoke and I get lung cancer. I then reflect on my actions and determine not to smoke anymore. I learned something. This is how we develop from children incapable of self-restraint to mature adults who understand how to act in civilized society. I come to understand that the means by which I achieve my goals, how I conduct myself throughout a process, are as important as achieving the desired ends.

The drift towards instrumentalism, however, the do-whatever-it-takes mentality infecting us, reveals a lack of learning and development. We have traded deep self-reflection for mindless, mechanical, stimulus/response processes and psychopathic algorithms which relieve us of the responsibility of being a good person and acting for anything but our immediate self-interest. You can see this in the Trump Administration where there is no growth, no self-reflection or self-awareness. Just doing or saying whatever it takes in the moment to satisfy their self-interest.

These questions of means/end relationships are of particular relevance to me at present as the university I work at seeks to dismantle the Humanities Department to supposedly save money. They want to focus on science and technology where the big bucks are. But it is in the Humanities where the solutions to our decadence and instrumentalism lie.

In our semester which finished a month sago, I taught my Introduction to Ethics course to around 70 students (not many, I know but ethics is not very popular at the moment). Throughout the course I contrasted Virtue Ethics with other theories such as the ones I mentioned earlier. At the end, in their major assignment, I get them to write a short reflection on the experience of the assignment and course. Nearly all of them expressed the same thought; that they had not known or understood the nature, history and importance of Virtue Ethics and that rather than focus on following pre-determined rules and algorithms or just remaining cynical, they were now going to focus on making themselves and others around them, better people. They want to grow up and I could not have been prouder of them all.

As a process philosopher, I embrace Virtue Ethics because it understands ethics as a process, not a fixed rule. As Aristotle and many Eastern philosophers envisioned it, it is the heuristic process of learning from your experiences and coming to understand your relationships to everything in this universe. As Aristotle also argued, it goes beyond the individual in creating societies which support such development. In a good process we become good, mature people capable of thoughtful self-restraint and deep questioning of the means by which we achieve our ends. In a good process we will have more people in the world who have learned the habits of being good and less wanting to blow it all up in their self-interest.

This is what our education and political institutions should be primarily focused on and not expediency, productivity, efficiency and an ends justifies any means mentality. As a species we are degenerating. The signs are all around us in recent events, our personal relationships, our institutions and our environments. A growing cynicism and sense of powerlessness has led to us abandoning our complex journey to goodness because it seems too hard or leaves us too vulnerable in a cynical world and we have instead, outsourced our responsibility to a simple rule or algorithm.

The solution is not rocket science. It is a regeneration of the need to develop the virtues we need to live together and cooperate with each other, an idea seemingly better understood over 2,000 years ago than it is now. We see glimpses of our virtuous nature, as was displayed in some of the heroic acts performed in the Bondi massacre. But too often we are unaware of this aspect of ourselves, or we are encouraged to suppress it. As my young students show, it is possible for most of us to learn to become virtuous and become moral exemplars, if we have the collective will to re-orient our priorities.