The only truly moral life is a life of service.
The Rule of Service is an inherently human call to action. More than the classic “Golden Rule,” the Rule of Service engages our innate drive to actively support one another, not to simply treat each other well or kindly or civilly or nicely. The Rule of Service demands that we act intentionally in order to generate better outcomes for each other, and, by extension, ourselves.
The
Rule of Service is a binding moral contract we all share that has but one dogmatic assertion—one self-evident truth we cannot defy, dismiss, devalue, demean, or discard:
We are all in service to one another.
The Rule of Service is an inherently human call to action. More than the classic “Golden Rule,” the Rule of Service engages our innate drive to actively support one another, not to simply treat each other well or kindly or civilly or nicely. The Rule of Service demands that we act intentionally in order to generate better outcomes for each other, and, by extension, ourselves.
Our essential moral grounding arises from the Rule of Service. Morality isn’t some magical power that somehow imbues us with “The Good.” Morality isn’t some mysterious, ineffable force within us that we can only blindly follow, but never comprehend. Morality is a knowable, tangible, mensurate quality of human existence that we can all understand and that we all share.
Morality is an intentional practice that arises from our actions in relation to one another. We can only be moral in relation to another living being. That special relationship between and among us emerges through our acts of service to one another. Morality is the active relationship we share with one another through mutual service.
~Brian Scott Archibald
Excerpts from In Our Service: Moral Action in an Ends-based Society
Brian considers himself to be a 'natural metaphysician' with the innate predilection to seek answers to deep questions. He earned his BA in Philosophy from UC Santa Barbara in 1986, having focused on the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and the philosophy of language. He pursued graduate studies at San Diego State University in the 90's with a concentration in the philosophy of technology, but he found himself instead taking an alternate professional path in IT/IS. He returned to academia in 2019 and completed his Masters in Philosophy at SDSU in 2023, focusing on the fundamental ontology of identity, personal identity, and the grounding of consciousness. His thesis on 'The Identity of Possibility and the Realization of Persons' broke ground on what he has termed 'Modal Monism', a fundamental ontology that argues Possibility simpliciter to be the radically neutral foundation of existence.
Upon completing his exploits in the business world, Brian had been a service professional since the age of eleven in a wide range of service positions including paperboy, nurseryman, landscaper, delicatessen manager, ski technician, commercial copy manager, retail salesperson, athletic club manager, IS systems trainer, web designer, technological learning environment designer, software consultant, and VP of IT/IS for a multi-million dollar cultural attraction retail management company.
Brian invested a decade of his time supporting retail technologies for some of the most prestigious not-for-profit organizations in North America: The American Museum of Natural History; The Shedd Aquarium; Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago; Museum of Science, Boston; The Philadelphia Zoo; The Royal Ontario Museum; and The National Aquarium in Baltimore, to name just a few. He also installed and supported the digital video asset management system for NASA Johnson Space Center's Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs.
"Throughout my professional life, I have had the opportunity to serve others in many different capacities. Driven by my growing social conscience, I combined those decades of diverse practical experience with my academic and avocational studies in philosophy to write a series of blogs in service of us all. I returned to academic life to consummate my authentic aspirations in Philosophy and to realize the potential of nascent ideas that had been percolating in my mind for years. One of these ideas purports to resolve the hard problem of consciousness and offers radical and ultimate grounding for foundational concepts of identity, morality, and existence itself. Beyond Infinite existence and the Totality of the world dwells the responsive sensibility of Possibility."
