Ethics and Benjamin's Angel of History

[kenneth.mackendrick]

Benjamin writes:

"A Klee painting named "Angelus Novus" shows an angel looking as 
though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly 
contemplating.  His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings 
are spread.  This is how one pictures the angel of history.  His faced 
is turned toward the past.  Where we perceive a chain of events, he 
seens one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon 
wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet.  The angel would like to 
stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed.  
But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings 
with such violence that the angel can no longer close them.  This 
storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is 
turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward.  This 
storm is what we call progress."

Moral decisions are often understood as leaps of faith, moments of 
undecidability, or ends in themselves.  I wonder though if Benjamin's 
interpretation of the angel illuminates something here.  The decisions 
we make based upon conditions, most of them generated by things 
we have no control over or say in.  In this light - we don't really make 
a moral leap - we are pushed.  This, in a way, sums up the problems 
of moral reasoning today.  Moral philosophy examines the history of 
human actions and intentions descriptively and moral practice 
engages theory through the process of decision making.  What I 
would like to ask is this: is it possible to make a moral decision 
within the confines of unfreedom?  Does the fact that a decision must 
be made indicate the inevitable immorality of such a decision?  How 
does moral autonomy relate to moral freedom?  Do we jump or are 
we in fact pushed?

peace and anarchy,
ken