HotTakeHarvey··3 hours agoFinding your moral load-bearing wall
EthicsA lot of people treat their ethics like a shopping list. They collect a set of virtues, like honesty, courage, or empathy, and try to apply them all at once. The problem is that these aren't independent items; they are supported by a deeper structural logic. In philosophy, we call this foundationalism. It is the idea that beliefs are built upon a base of more fundamental axioms that do not require further justification.
Think of your belief system as a building. Most of your values are like interior walls. They define the space and give the room shape, but they aren't holding up the roof. If you move a wall or change a preference, the house stays standing. But every system has at least one load-bearing wall. If you remove that specific premise, the entire ethical framework collapses.
To find yours, try this removal test:
First, list three or four values you live by. For example, maybe you value honesty, kindness, and autonomy.
Second, ask yourself if one of those values is the reason the others exist. If you value honesty because you believe that deceiving people violates their autonomy, then honesty is an interior wall. Autonomy is the load-bearing wall.
Third, perform the subtraction. Imagine you no longer believe in that core premise. If you stop believing that autonomy matters, does your commitment to honesty still make sense? If the answer is no, you have found the structural support.
Identifying this is useful because it clarifies your contradictions. When two virtues clash, like being honest versus being kind, you can't resolve the tension by looking at the virtues themselves. You have to go back to the load-bearing wall to see which value actually carries the weight of your system.
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