0164 According to Fuller, “research ethics” is a figment of the regulatory imagination.

It is a fig leaf for the empirio-normative university.

Why?

Imagine a school, selectively taking some of the opinions and traditions of parents_2a as phenomena_2a, then training their children on models of price and righteousness_2b that empower the one of scientism_3c.

0165 In chapter ten, titled “‘Research Ethics’ as a Post-Truth Playground”, Fuller demonstrates that empirio-normative social construction does not conform to familiar codes of conduct.

Surely, many nominally Christian parents merely want their children to seal the deal of the post-truth interscope and obtain certification_2b that guarantees opportunities_1c for success_2c in the normal context of a scientismist godhead_3c.  A Biblical parallel might be the ancient Hebrew family who sends their kids to the Canaanite College of Baal Business and Asherah Service Management.

0166 The problem is that there does not seem to be a clear way forward for reasonable_3a,1a people, who want to learn how to get ahead and think for themselves.

Going back to the first rendition of the interscope of the relativist one, the intellects_3a and the wills_1a of individuals in community support diverse opinions_2a that are then sifted, as phenomena_2a, by an academy_3b that formalizes knowledge_1b.

0167 In general, the resulting formalized knowledge_1b, which might include skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic, produces a person trained well-enough to find opportunity_1c in the system of the relativist one_3c of the day.

Here is a picture.

0168 The problem is subtle.

In this figure, “success” is an ambiguous term.  On the scrappy-player level, “success_2a” is “getting ahead”.  On the relativist-one level, “success_2c” is an actionable judgment.  The godhead does not care whether the resulting actions promote or destroy human flourishing.

Yes, gods can be capricious in this way, especially gods that don’t deal with truth.

0169 So, when the scrappy player, whose will_1a operates in the normal context of the intellect_3a, virtually situates his will_1a with the possibility of formal knowledge_1b, he makes a choice to subjugate his own facts and claims_2a to the facts and claims_1b required to obtain a credential_2b through some educational forum_3b.  He wants to get ahead and find opportunity_1c for “success_2a” from the scrappy-player point of view.

The scrappy player does not realize that he has also achieves success_2c in the normal context of the relativist one_3c, who sees “success_2c” only as the manifestation of an actionable judgment_2c, irrespective of whether that manifestation coincides with what the scrappy player regards as “success_2a“.

0170 But, that does not mean that the two renderings of “success” are completely independent.

I suppose that, before the Christians establish universities throughout Europe, an astrologer may have been a success_2a in regards to the relativist one_3c of the time as well as a well-renumerated_2a practitioner in reading celestial indicators_2c. Indeed, the fact that the astrologer is well-paid_2a indicates the power_2c of his expertise_2b within the Zeigeist_3c.

As Christian universities promote the demystification of the celestial bodies_2c, to the extent that Aristotle allows, the astrologer finds less opportunities_1c and soon enough, no one wants to be an apprentice to the local astrologer, because that is a lousy way to get ahead_2a.  The relativist god of the alchemical sciences has to wait a few centuries for another post-truth civilizational moment to manifest.

0171 Oddly, this brings me back to Fuller’s tenth chapter, where he claims that ethics is usually grounded in two codes of conduct: one transactional and one transcendental.

To me, given this examination, which runs a complementary course to Fuller’s text, the transactional code may apply to institutional_3b conduct in regards to the scrappy player_3a and the transcendental code may apply to the divine_3c in terms of the capriciousness inherent in defining success_2c in terms of actionable judgments.

The transactional code says that credentials_2b must be rewarded to a scrappy player_2a who objectively masters the relevant formalized knowledge_1b.

The transcendental code says that simply arriving at actionable judgments_2c is not enough.  The actions of perspective-level judgments_3c ought to promote human flourishing rather than destruction.

However, as this examination continues, the adjectives “transactional” and “transcendental” are repurposed as qualifiers for capitalist and socialist values, respectively.