Who Says We Overthink Things?

Two interesting posts tonight up at The Ethical Werewolf, Neil Sinhababu’s blog.

Up top is a brief post about the difference between good and evil:

what makes a person morally good is her intrinsic desire for the good of others. One can be a morally good person (or for that matter, a morally good dog) with any set of beliefs whatsoever. Evil people are particularly susceptible to some beliefs — if you have some deep-seated desire to harm black people, this desire can get some wishful thinking going when combined with a desire to only harm people who do bad things, generating a belief that black people do lots of bad things. This is the belief with which your desires are maximally satisfied. What really makes you evil in this case is the desire to harm black people, not the resultant belief.

I wonder a bit about this definition. It seems to me like you can be evil without actually wishing harm on people if you don’t care at all about how your actions affect them. And people can rationalize themselves into all manner of definitions of good that justify really destructive behavior. Plus there’s the issue of the responsibility that we have to make sure that our belief about what’s good for others actually is good for others. Although under Neil’s definition that might be part of truly wishing what’s good for others in the first place.

But there does seem to be something to the notion that someone who does a horrible thing out of noble intentions is more sympathetic and less horrible than otherwise. Maybe that’s people have a hard time ascribing noble intentions to their ideological opponents.

Right under that post, Neil rather brilliantly marries philosophy of language with the mysteries of dating:

Sadly, it’s not easy to conditionally hit on somebody. Here’s a straightforward example: “If you’re interested in me, then I think you’re really cute.” This, however, amounts to actual hitting on, whether or not the antecedent is satisfied. . . .
There’s one clear problem with conditional hitting-on. It evinces the same attitudes of sexual interest that are essential to actual hitting-on. So when you try to construct a case of conditional hitting-on, it immediately becomes a case of actual hitting-on.

For better or worse, this is definitely the kind of problem only a philosopher can have.

About Dave Thomer

Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.

November 10, 2005 @ 9:35 pm

Philosophy