Reason And Evil

 

On 10/28/2013, Dennis Prager narrated a short video entitled Is Evil Rational? I took notes on the video which I will comment on: “Since the Enlightenment many thought reason is all we need for good people and goodness. We do not need God and religion. For 300 years we have been told that evil is irrational and doesn’t make sense. Mass killers running totalitarian regimes are labeled butchers and madmen. To be reasonable is to be a good man.”

 

My response: Good people are rational more than emotional and bad people are more irrational than rational, but Nazis planned The Final Solution and carried it out meticulously.  Good people get accurate hunches about who is a good person to associate with and trust, and get creepy accurate feelings about bad people to distrust and avoid.

 

More than not God and religion in our lives will lead us to be good, but we must develop a good, strong will of our own free will, and, if we choose to cultivate a bad or evil will of our own free will, that too is possible.

 

Our good will will rely on reason more than feelings to make sound choices beneficial to the self and others.

 

Those of bad will will be passionate more than rational, but they will scheme to inflict pain on themselves and others for they are filled with rage, ingratitude, bitterness, and a desire for revenge for being born.

 

Prager: I deny that reasoning automatically makes one a good person. This is wishful thinking. Reason can be used for good or bad. It could be reasonable to be unethical.”

 

My response: Reason is a tool as Randian scholar Craig Biddle points out. We will what we want to do, where we want to go, and then think to decide how to get there, and what is consistent or inconsistent with our moral values.

 

My point is the self-realizing living angel has strengthened his good will, his free will, and his conscience, so he must be smart, learned, wise and a subtle thinker that loves honesty to sustain all these higher levels of moral existing and heightened consciousness. Perhaps Right Reason is the kind of reasoning that he adopts. Can we use reasoning not just as a logical tool, but also as rational intuition to make moral choices. I believe so.

 

Prager: “To be heroic is not reasonable and not self-preservation. Reason leads to good only when you want it to. It leads to bad only when you want it to.

 

All people are made in God’s image, so life is infinitely precious. This is a belief not a reason. The Greeks are reason-based and Israel is faith-based.

 

My response: We could have a religious belief grounded in irrational faith with no logical explanation, for our beliefs could also be accompanied by what rationales and evidence that we can harness to support these beliefs.

 

Do our beliefs come first, out of our willing, and then reason is the tool to help us find ways to meet our beliefs and needs. Probably, but it could be that we rationally and linguistically intuit how something is, and then a priori and nonverbally identify the phenomenon being considered with an accompanying concept and name that seem appropriate.