Fyodorov's ethic runs entirely through kinship and it is uncomfortable by design. Pride in one's ancestors he regarded as egotism; genuine love for them, he argued, permits nothing less than raising them, and any arrangement in which the living pursue their own projects while the dead stay dead is a species-level dereliction. He extended this to reproduction, arguing that the energy directed into producing new generations should be redirected into restoring the previous ones — a doctrine that reads as either the deepest possible reading of the fifth commandment or as an instruction to stop having children, depending on the reader. He also opposed setting oneself apart in any way, holding that refusing to grant ourselves that right is what keeps us from any goal that is not the common task of all.