Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 19:43:50 -0400 From: ravi narayan <ravi at streamcenter.com>
Nathan Newman wrote:
>
> When that proportionality is lost, it becomes quite reasonable to abandon
> causal explanations, try psychological if you want, but ultimately you often
> are in the realm of the purely irrational- where John Hinkley, Son of Sam,
> Hitler, Bin Laden and the statistical freaks of hate and violence dwell.
>
i actually tend to agree with some aspects of your reasoning (though i disagree with your conclusion w.r.t causal analysis of WTC attack), but "irrational" is a high order term on which to end analysis from a juridical or even common sense perspective. however, it is possible, and perhaps called for, to continue at least the medical examination of the causes of such behaviour - one might find that the irrational behaviour of dahmer was caused by certain chemical imbalances that we can address in the rest of the population. i am glossing over finer points here (such as that the world is not necessarily rational and that "correcting" chemical imbalances implies the use of some form of a value system which will ultimately have to rest on some axioms arrived at through nothing more than agreement) but again i am agreeing not to reduce all this to physics and hard rules of causality.
in particular:
are you arguing that trying to explain/examine the irrational is a waste of time, or are you arguing that trying to do so detracts from corrective effort rather than aiding in it, or are you saying that it is entirely meaningless to even attempt to examine the irrational (that the concept of "evil" is the best and most atomic tool to use to define or examine or respond to it)?
i am afraid the above is a bit of "stream of thought" and disorganized. i hope it makes some sense to you,
--ravi
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- man is said to be a rational animal. i do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. more often i have seen a cat reason than laugh or weep. perhaps it weeps or laughs inwardly - but then perhaps, also inwardly, the crab resolves equations of the 2nd degree. -- alasdair macintyre.