>Look, one can niggle and nitpick unto infinity about whether an act is
>'rational' or not-- patting oneself on the back for creating such fine
>distinctions. But to insist upon such ridiculous pedantry before making
>a judgement is, I think, surrendering one's own moral authority. I reserve
>the right to call an act, a person, or an event "insane" or "lunatic" or
>"evil."
I'd rather analyze than decry.
>Let's apply this logic to a single word which captures all of these-- the
>word "bad." Imagine that someone denounced the mass murders of Hitler or
>Stalin as "bad." One can easily imagine a Chris-like figure stepping in to
>say that one should not use the term "bad," because once people hear that
>word, they refuse to hear any more nuanced commentary. Or, he or she might
argue,
>"Men beating up women is not bad; it's part of a calculation to gain
>power, which is a rational thing for anyone to desire."
Well, I don't think you're following me. My point is that rational is not equal to good, or just, or right, or defensible. Rationality, in fact, can be worse than simple insanity. Take Kissinger. The guy spiked the Paris peace talks so he could get a government job.
>Is such hairsplitting really useful? Only if one wanted to dismiss, or
mitigate,
>or even applaud things which are clearly, unquestionably, horrible.
Well, if you want to talk about evil, then to say that evil is essentially irrational is a mistake, I think. It lets us off the hook--if we think the U.S. occupation of Iraq is essentially irrational, then further explanation becomes unnecessary, indeed futile.
>>>After all, most human beings don't act upon
>>>the impulse to murder a single human being, let alone millions. We
>>>usually regard such callousness to human suffering as a sign of severe
>>>pathology.
>
>> Except in times of war, when we regard it as a duty.
>
>Hardly. Studies of men in wartime show that relatively few actually kill
>opposing soldiers (at least, when they have to witness the effects or do
>it firsthand). And most of the ones that do are revulsed and horrified.
I'm aware of those studies. The military solution has been increased use of airpower and to drill so much that firing on targets becomes second nature. Nonetheless, in war large numbers of people do end up dead, and their deaths are caused by other people, and none of it is regarded as individual pathology. (What's regarded as pathology are the echoes of revulsion that show up as PTSD.)
Jenny Brown