Whether or Not Every Individual Must Be Responsible for Fighting Evil - Essay Example

1) Intro 2) Counter-Argument: people should not have to fight evil 3) This cannot be a universal ethical a) Kant’s metaphysics 4) If universalized, these principles would lead to horrible outcomes a) People protected Jews in WWII, if they followed this code they might not have 5) This contributes to bystander effect, which has real world consequences a) Child in China who recently died because bystanders failed to intervene 6) Counter-Argument 2: Intellectual leaders are more able to lead 7) They cannot live up to their high minded ideals a) Thomas Jefferson was a slave holder 8) They are often wrong a) Intellectuals thought that the earth was the centre of the universe 9) Theory-based governments tend to fail a) USSR and communism 10) Conclusion Abstract: This paper attempts to answer to questions: whether or not every individual must be responsible for fighting evil, even when it puts their lives or their loved ones in danger, and whether intellectuals might be better leaders than other people because of their ability to understand right and wrong. It uses theoretical justifications, such as Kant’s Fundamentals of Metaphysics, along with historical examples, such as the failings of intellectuals in history to live up to their high-minded ideals, to demonstrate that every person must be responsible for fighting evil, and that intellectuals are not better equipped to lead than others. Doing what is morally right is one of the things humans of any ilk concern themselves with most. People want to do the right thing in raising their children, want to be good citizens of their country and their world; politicians want to create fair political systems, and philosophers want to seek out the idea of an objective right, to make being a good human being as clear and simple as possible. There are many important ways of dealing with the question of what is morally right to do, and many questions that must be asked. One of the things people struggle with most is their responsibility to fight against evil, or the actors of evil, even when it would put themselves or their loved ones at risk. Obviously everyone hopes someone will stand up to evil, but they often hope someone else will. Intellectuals often seem better equipped to deal with this kind of question than other people, which could lead people to believe that they would be better equipped to perform leadership tasks, which could make the whole process of moral ambiguity simpler. A person should be expected to fight against evil wherever they see it, because the consequences if people do not function this way are dire, and intellectuals should not lead because of their ability to understand good and evil, because they do not necessarily have the propensity to lead better than other people. Some would argue that it is completely unfair to expect people to fight evil even when loved ones could suffer because of their fight. They would argue that it is up to heroes to fight against all odds, and against threats to themselves and others, but that this simply cannot be expected of normal human beings – their love for kith and kin can (or even should) overshadow their desire to fight evil (Zimbardo, 2007). They believe this because it is comforting and simple; fighting evil is hard, and a lot of us want to believe a loved one would do evil to save us, because of our self-centred outlook on the world. This, however, is a fundamentally flawed way of viewing the world. Part of the problem is that, as Kant’s fundamental’s of metaphysics touches on – any moral code must be universal, it cannot apply to some and not to others (Kant 1845). Furthermore, the imagined effects of a world in which this philosophy is followed shows that the consequences could be dire. Finally, this kind of thinking can create a diffusion of responsibility, the assumption that someone else will fix a problem, which can and does lead to real world tragedies. One of the biggest problems with this kind of thinking is that it cannot be a universally applicable moral code. A moral code must be something that everyone can follow equally, otherwise it will not be a guide to any particular individual on how to act in any particular case. This idea is inherent in one of Kant’s maxims, that every person should act as if their actions would become a universal maxim (Kant 1845). So, for instance, you can morally justify stealing a loaf of bread to feed a starving child if you think people should always steal loaves of bread to feed starving children. But the idea that everyone should wait for a hero to fight evil while they fail to do so out of fear cannot be a universal moral code, it relies on some people acting differently then others. And if everyone thought “I do not have to fight evil, someone else will” evil would never be fought. Universalizing the argument “people should not have to fight evil if it would put their loved ones in danger” demonstrates the ways in which that argument is fundamentally flawed. People have routinely risked their lives for others throughout much of history: in Nazi Germany, people hid total strangers in order to protect them from the evil regime, and thousands of soldiers marched to an uncertain fate in order to prevent it from being able to dominate the world. If all those people had subscribed to this idea, if the concept had been universalized, how many countless people would have died, and what would the world look like today? Everyone must fight evil, because if one universalizes the idea that it is no particular person’s job to fight evil, the consequences would be horrendous. The final reason that people must fight evil, whether or not they want to, is that any other philosophy would contribute to the proliferation of “diffusion of responsibility,” or the related phenomenon “bystander syndrome.” These are two related ideas – essentially, if every person thinks that it is someone else’s job to do something, or that someone else is doing something, then they are less likely to act. The idea that fighting evil is solely the responsibility of heroes is obviously an outshoot of this idea – it basically states that someone else is probably dealing with it, so I do not have to. This kind of think can and does lead to real world problems, for instance, these two ideas heavily contributed to the death of a toddler in China mere months ago, where many people simply passed the dying child, assuming that if something serious was going on someone else would be dealing with it (Osnos 2011). The idea that someone else will deal with the world’s problems can and does cost lives. People need to be responsible for fighting evil, but might this fight be somewhat easier, if intellectuals, experts who could understand the difference between right and wrong, were leader instead of elected officials? Some people would say that this would be a good idea. They say this because they believe that a deeper understanding of the issues surrounding moral dilemmas is the most important part of being a good leader, and leading people to do the right things. They are wrong, however, because a mere academic understanding of morals does not necessarily have any relation to the ability or aptitude in enacting them, intellectual ideas have been wrong incredibly often in the past, and systems of government based on theory rather than experience tend to fail. Intellectuals should not lead because history has demonstrated time and time again that the ability to understand high-minded philosophies of right and wrong do not necessarily lead to the ability of individuals to enact those ideals. There is perhaps no better example of this problem than Thomas Jefferson. This man, considered one of the most brilliant intellectuals of his era, and era unusually blessed by brilliant intellects, did not in any way live up to this high-minded ideals he put forth. Thomas Jefferson wrote some of the most important words in human history, words that would shape the progress of the most powerful nations the world has ever known. He said: “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” – yet he was a slave owner (Jefferson 1776). Despite saying in the clearest way possible that he was created equal to his slaves, still had them work his fields for no money, treating them as below him. This, and countless other examples show that, despite perhaps understanding high-minded ideals better than others, intellectuals are not any better at enacting moral behaviour than non-intellectuals, and thus would probably be no better as leaders. Another problem with trusting intellectuals is that their ideas, though sometimes well accepted, have often over the course of history proven to be completely untrue. But because they are such imminent people in their time, they perhaps hubristically believe that they cannot be wrong, and push forward on ideas they should not. The entire world believed, for instance, that the sun rotated around the earth for thousands of years. It was not until the renaissance that one man was able to challenge this idea. But because of the intellectual weight behind the false idea, it was nearly impossible to challenge. This feature in leadership could be devastating, as at least other leaders could be challenged by common people in a way that intellectuals can not. The final problem with the idea that intellectuals should be our leaders is the fact that systems of government that are based on little-tested theory tend to fail, while those built on traditions that develop of centuries tend to succeed better. An excellent example of this principle is Communism. In the eighteenth century, a philosopher named Karl Marx enumerated a number of problems with the current way the world was running, especially the middle classes dominance over the lower classes (Marx 1848). His ideas were interesting, and largely good theoretically. But in the nineteenth century, a group of rebels in Russia tried to put theory into practice, caused a revolution and created the USSR. This government was prone to a wide myriad of problems, and eventually collapsed. Any governance by intellectuals would similarly be based on theory, which, unfortunately, has not shown itself to be durable in real world situations. Morality can be a hard thing to adjudicate, and is nearly impossible to form any consensus on. But a few ideas cannot be accepted – one of these is that idea that it is not up to everyone to fight evil, but only to heroes, and another is that governance should rest in the hands of intellectuals, because of their better understanding of moral dilemmas. These ideas are fundamentally flawed, because both history and theory show them to be so. Theoretically, the idea that only heroes must fight evil falls down, because that principle universalized would cause a world where no one would ever want to live. History also shows that intellectuals are just as fallible as everyone else, and that any government based on intellectual theory rather than historical practice is likely to fail. Works Cited Jefferson, T (1776). The Declaration of Independence. Retrieved from: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration.htmlhttp://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration.html Kant, E (1785). The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals (Guyer P., Trans.) London: Routlege. Marx, K (1848). The Communist Manifesto (Possony, F., Trans). New York: Penguin Osnos, E (2011). Letters from China: the Bystander effect. The New Yorker. Retrieved from: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2011/10/chinas-bystander-effect.html Zimbardo, P. G. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: understanding how good people turn evil. New York: Random House. Read More