Introduction: Refuting Singer and Reframing the Purpose of Ethics
Peter Singer's famous thought experiment, first outlined in "Famine, Affluence, and Morality," goes like this: imagine walking past a shallow pond and seeing a child drowning. You can save the child easily, though your clothes will be ruined, and it will cost $200 to replace them. Most people agree they would save the child. Singer then argues that if we are willing to suffer minor inconvenience to save one life near us, we are morally obligated to donate that same money to save, say, 20 lives far away. For a small cost, we can prevent starvation, malaria, or death in poorer nations, yet we often don't. Therefore, we are morally inconsistent.
At first glance, his logic seems unassailable. But Singer's framing is both too abstract and too flat. First, he neglects the time component. The drowning child requires immediate, one-time action. Remote suffering is persistent and structural. Sending $200 does not solve the problem. It inserts a drop into an ongoing crisis that demands coordination, infrastructure, and sustained engagement.
Following Singer's logic, your $200 spread across the entire world of needy children will end up giving each child minuscule fractions of a penny, so you wouldn't save 20 children - you would save none. How does one choose who to give the money to and how much? His universalist ideals do not scale when applied seemingly "fairly." Singer's engaging in the same triage that he is condemning but hiding it.
Most crucially, Singer treats moral responsibility as a universal moral field, ignoring the structured, covenantal, and relational reality of ethical life. He assumes moral action scales linearly, that we can treat all lives as equally accessible units of obligation. Yet one's first responsibility is to one's family and community - an implicit covenant that cannot and must not be flattened by pretending that everyone is equally responsible for everyone else. He assumes that proximity is a flaw to be overcome rather than a feature that guides responsible moral scaling.
The Singer thought experiment is very relevant to America today. The question is what is America's moral role and responsibility in the world?
The Jewish ethical framework, and particularly the derechological model I have been developing, proposes a structured triad of moral obligation: proximity (moral, relational, or cultural, not just physical), capacity (the power to act without displacing higher duties), and covenant (explicit or inherited moral bonds of responsibility, including both moral ties and literal agreements like treaties, alliances, and shared commitments). This triad scales from individuals to superpowers.
The triad doesn't reject global concern. It structures it. It insists that moral responsibility must scale with care, not collapse into undifferentiated obligation. Moral universalism that ignores proximity ends up collapsing under its own weight, justifying either moral paralysis or performative politics.
When we think in terms of one's derech - their observable moral trajectory - we can name our own values transparently, identify which tier of obligation is in conflict, distinguish authentic derech disagreements from disguised reflex, and elevate partisanship into principled moral debate.
The result isn't consensus. It's dignity. A society that debates real values instead of tribal slogans is one that can still correct itself.
Part I: American Foreign Policy and the Shift in Proximity Logic
Modern America, particularly under the Trump administration, offers a fascinating case study in derechological terms. The first and second Trump terms differ not just in policy but in the internal structure of their derech, their observable moral trajectory.
In the first term, derech was inconsistent. Isolationist rhetoric coexisted with interventionist moves. Proximity, capacity, and covenant were each invoked but not in a coherent order. Derech analysis reveals fragmented values driven more by instinct than by tiered moral logic.
In the second term, the derech crystallized. Proximity was redefined as strategic alignment, not geographic or cultural but based on immediate political or economic usefulness. Capacity was treated as leverage, not duty. Covenant became conditional. Treaties, alliances, and shared values were honored only if visibly reciprocal.
In derech terms, this is not isolationism. It's transactional sovereigntism. It isn't a derech of cruelty per se but of hollowed responsibility. The moral triangle is still used, but its sides have been redrawn.
A key derechological concern in this phase is value hijacking, where values are invoked but only to serve pre-existing reflexes, fears, or political instincts. When "security," "tradition," or "freedom" are used as cloaks for fear of loss, racial panic, or anti-covenantal scapegoating, derech is being simulated, not followed. Derechology teaches that true values shape decisions even when they conflict with base instincts. A policy that always aligns with reflex and never with override logic is likely hijacked.
Part II: The Fracture Within the Right
This derech is not uncontested. Within the American Right, we now see a derech fracture.
Traditional nationalists maintain a covenantal derech. They believe America has inherited responsibilities to allies, to liberty, to history. They operate with structured values. Strength, yes, but not at the expense of fidelity.
New isolationists collapse the triad. Proximity becomes domestic only. Capacity is morally inert. Covenant is reframed as entrapment. This faction often draws moral language from tradition, but in structure, it functions derech-wise as self-protectionism cloaked in principle.
Overlaying both is a more disturbing split: between those whose derech includes Jews as moral partners and those whose derech scapegoats Jews as symbols of globalism, elite betrayal, or cultural threat. This isn't a fringe issue. It's a derech-defining fault line.
Here too, derechology applies the Reflex vs. Value Test. Reflex-driven policies arise from fear, anger, or trauma responses masquerading as principle. They shift rapidly, resist override logic, and lack repair capacity. True values, by contrast, remain legible across contexts, resolve conflicts transparently, and produce moral consistency even when inconvenient. Derechology warns: when reflex is moralized, values are weaponized, and derech collapses.
In derechology, this is not just bad behavior. It is a collapse of human dignity recognition, which disables covenant, mutual responsibility, and override logic. A derech that scapegoats cannot sustain moral leadership.
Conclusion: Derech Clarity in a Drowning World
Singer's experiment fails because it assumes that morality is weightless and obligation is frictionless. But derechology insists that ethical action must track structure, history, and relationship. The U.S. is not just a rich nation. It is a powerful actor embedded in global covenants, carrying layered proximities and enormous capacity. When it shifts its derech, the moral weight of that change is global.
The question is no longer: should we save the child far away? It is: who counts as "close" in a world where power expands moral reach, and where ignoring covenantal entanglement invites derech collapse?
Superpower status is a relatively modern phenomenon, but it irreversibly shifts the moral responsibility curve. The ability to shape global dynamics brings with it the ethical burden of prevention. When a morally grounded actor retreats, the vacuum is not neutral. It is filled by ideologies and regimes that reject human dignity, override logic, or covenantal constraint. The rise of China's authoritarianism, the spread of jihadist violence, or the ideological chaos of decolonial radicalism are not parallel moralities. They are derech failures. Abandoning the field allows derech collapse on a global scale.
On the other hand, concentric circles of moral responsibility are essential. Proximity isn't an evasion. It is an ethical anchor. A nation's first covenant is to its own citizens. That is not nationalism. It is moral triage. The moral question is not whether to abandon global responsibility but how to balance it without betraying inner circles. Derechology affirms that proximity and covenant must be respected, not erased.
And here, a real question arises: Does America currently have the capacity, economically, socially, morally, to care for the world without failing its own people? That is a derechological question, not a partisan one. It requires mapping competing duties, testing claims of value versus reflex, and discerning whether foreign action displaces covenantal integrity at home. There is no single answer. But clarity in the triad reframes the debate.
America's future moral integrity depends on its ability to recognize that superpower status is not just geopolitical. It is ethical geometry. You can't shrink the map without redrawing your moral boundaries.
This essay is not a policy brief. It offers no simplistic solution. Instead, it demonstrates how Derechology provides the tools to extract real values, detect value hijacking, and clarify complex moral dynamics, even in politically toxic environments. In place of rhetorical fog, Derechology offers moral structure. And that structure makes real debate possible.
Friday, November 07, 2025
Elder of Ziyon
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