Driven by an interminable search for self, but detoured by his memories of the past, man loses his way to self, in status-seeking behavior. By now, he has been, in turn, just another animal, a sacrificer of self, a vassal and a social and industrial automaton, but the large mass of men have never been anything. Urged on to be something, they gravitate to wasteful materialism, position, prestige, Cadillacs, swimming pool and other status-like symbols. Man, at this level, wants the esteem of others, wants to be appreciated by others, and wants to be recognized by them as standing out. To get esteem from others, and to bolster his own feeling of importance, man seeks to be something before any and all. Since he meets many people, demanding many things, and since he must be someone in the eyes of all, the status-seeker has to contrive all kinds of attention-getting actions, and has to become a skillful role player. He is all things to all people, and tries to be esteemed by everyone or by anyone. He is, on any one day, many selves, but never himself. He is tops at what his girl-friend wants him to be, the best grandson to the doting grandmother, the company man of all company men, the civic leader of all civic leaders, and the best beatnik of them all. To the status-seeker, the moral of life is the life which enables him to succeed. If the behavior gains for him esteem, the character of the behavior is unimportant. If it enable him to stand out, it is good behavior, no matter how devious it is, because proper behavior brings him recognition and leads him to feel he has arrived. But, arrived he has not, because his roles are false. They require of him less than he has to give - - - his humanness. He has not arrived because earlier stages of ethical development constrict the more human characteristics of cognition, compassion and appreciation of the beauty of it all. Yet, man is sufficiently perceptive to have a glimmer of insight into his future, and this faint glimpse of tomorrow leads him to higher ethical levels. These shall be called in turn the cognitive, the compassion ethic, the ethic of awe and the human ethic.

Western man this moment in history, is approaching his great divide, the point between lower and higher ethical systems. Across this psychological space, he will become what he is ordained to be, and his ethics will be human ethics, ethics that are good for man in his life, not after life; that are good for him, not his superior; that are good for him, not his group, that are good for him, not his ego.

On the other side of ethical development, he may be the doer of greater things or lesser things. He will become gradually his moral percepts. If ever man leaps to this great beyond, there will be no bowing to suffering, no vassalage, no peonage. There will be no shame in behavior, for man will know it is human to behave. There will be no pointing of the finger at other men, no segregation, depredation or degradation in behavior. Man will be driving forth on the crest of human ethics, rather than vacillating and swirling in the turbulence of partial human ethics blocked from playing themselves out on the sands of time.

The fifth ethical level develops from man’s need for self respect, which now revitalizes and reorganizes his capacities to do and to know. Man has done previously,and he has learned previously, but the purpose of doing and knowing now changes radically. Previously, he learned in order to assure himself that he would survive, that he would be safe, that he would gain approval, and that he would gain the esteem of others, and the knowledge he sought was a means to these ends. Now, something occurs which changes markedly his behavior. That most specifically human capacity, cognition, previously hobbled by the more narrow, more animal-like needs of man, becomes suddenly free. At earlier levels of development, man did in order to survive, and created to assure everlasting life; he did in order to ward off danger, and created to assure his own personal security; he did in order to get approval, and created only to test if approval was certain; he did in order to stand out, and created to assure that the attention would come. But now, with his energies freed for cognitive roaming, he focuses down upon himself. The picture revealed is not pleasant. Lit up in devastating details, is man’s failure to be what he might be. Triggered by this revelation, man leaps out in search of a life where he can be more than a sufferable parasite, and man seeks a foundation for his self-respect, which will have a firm base in reality. This firm base he finds when he creates his fifth ethical system, an ethical system rooted in human knowledge and cosmic reality. This I call the cognitive ethic.