Any group or society has a normative hierarchy of motivations. Cosa Nostra and Washington & Lee University each place honor uppermost in their motivations; but omertà and vendetta are crucial in the mafia's code of honor, whereas proactive cooperation with deans in rule-enforcement is crucial in W&L's student honor code.
Given a normative hierarchy of motivations, individuals feel pressure to conform — or to cloak their low motivations in the rhetoric of the high motivations. People who are skilled in rhetoric, perhaps thanks to higher education, might, on average, be less virtuous than others, but more artful in seeming virtuous. This is strategic misrepresentation of one's own motivations.
Then there is self-deception! Descartes wrote somewhere that one may gravitate to self-serving motivations, like a person who changes position during sleep until comfortable.
We all know people who have an unmistakeable propensity/tendency to pursue self-serving motivations in rhetorics that sound good.
Some important institutions trade in an ambiguous mix of high rhetorics and self-deception.
My point is that one should temper the principle of charity with realism about human nature and an eye for hypocrisy.
A related, and possibly better, idea is passing the Intellectual Turing Test when it comes to motivations: that is, when you describe the motivations of the other side, try to do so in such a way that they would say "yes, that's an accurate description of my motivation."
The subtle distinction here is that this does *not* mean you have to consider that motivation positive, or give up believing that the other side is evil for having the motivations they have. To take one of your examples, an open borders advocate might well consider "deterring people from crossing the border illegally" to be a bad intention, not a good one, on the grounds that national borders are evil, repressive things and there is nothing wrong with people crossing them without official permission. We should aim for more accurate and charitable understanding of others' motivations, but recognize that this will not reconcile deep differences of values.
That is somewhat parallel to Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.", where of course it may not be stupidity but perhaps different values, goals or background knowledge with differing assumptions, ignorance (including rational ignorance). Or some tasks are more complicated than outsiders grasp and it may merely be lack of brilliance rather than stupidity, or something that no one could do well despite the appearance of a task that seems simple to those who haven't looked at the devils in the details.
The line between "evil" and "grossly negligent" or "purposely ignorant" can be pretty thin.
There is also the question of "whose axe is getting gored". I may believe that someone is looking out for the interest of them and their associates but not my interest. Or if they are, they are heavily biased when there is conflict of interest.
I'm not sure how far "assume good intentions" gets us. Nearly everyone outside psychopaths has good intentions, even some of the world's worst dictators. I truly believe that Stalin lived through years of deprivation in the Russian underground because he wanted to alleviate the suffering of the working class. They just may not have competence or the sphere of their concern may not include you.
As to "evil" it is in some ways defined by results as much as intentions. And so a component of good vs evil is "discernment". We have a moral obligation to figure out what the effect of our intentions will be, not simply have them. I would point out that this virtue is far more difficult than simply having positive intentions. And if one thing is better, something else must be worse, and if you are asserting that your discernment is better you are asserting a character flaw in another person.
I think "evil" in that case is used to describe the size and persistence of the character flaw (poor discernment). For instance, how many bodies does it take for someone to discern communism is a bad idea? Couldn't Mao have given up after The Great Leap Forward and not also done the Cultural Revolution. It's difficult to think of an example of something that has become "all about you" more then that.
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
Once something reaches the "racket" stage, I think we have a right to call it out and not let people try to emotionally blackmail us and hide behind good intentions.
It's capitolism that is evil. Lowering the taxes of the very rich. Subsidies to the titans of industry. For ever wars. NATO. Hawkish think tanks. Hawkish Generals. Our pure evil capitolism. We need a new New Deal....NOW! Or better yet a new system of governing the people not rewarding the 1%ers.
Let's put our house in order and let other nations do the same. imho
I think it is important to recognize that there is evil in the world, just as there is good in the world. Stirring up war, putting melamine in baby formula to cut costs, and normalizing pedophilia are a few clear examples, but evil also exists in more subtle forms. There are people so knowingly steeped in the darkest of evils that it wouldn’t be unreasonable to refer to the person himself or herself as an evil person. But I like to think that is pretty rare. For the most part, as Solzhenitsyn put it, the line between good and evil runs right through every human heart. And most people, even those actively forwarding evil purposes, have so twisted their perspective that they are able to convince themselves that when they forward evil they are actually on the side of good, by some definition.
Agree. Pointing out the negative consequences of policies, even if you are pretty sure those consequences are being ignored, is not claiming that someone has bad intentions. It is not the equivalent to claiming the other party has 'real' motivations they are not revealing.
Trusting, at least at first, is a Christian imperative. Even after the actor reveals some malignancy, we must try not withdraw our love, but we don't have to "trust" them anymore with our time or treasure. We can forbear incompetence, especially from the young or ignorant. This can all be taxing on our nerves, of course. But no one full of years sitting on a porch says to themselves, "Gosh, I should have been more cynical and intolerant of my fellow men."
There is a book in a similar direction by Maria Guzman titled, "I Never Thought of It That Way." I recommend it. She never uses your terminology but it is all about finding the logical, rational, and best reasons people hold positions you don't. She is an admitted liberal Democrat and the book largely speaks toward that group but as someone near the origin on the Three Languages axes, I thought she made it speak to anyone open to the general message.
I am unconvinced that it is either helpful or desirable to APM. The LGBTQ+ movement's history over time is a great illustration of groups that are pursuing a long-term plan to destroy the foundations of civilization. So is the environmental movement. Etc. These are relevant because the only apparent "gain" from assuming positive motivation is that it enables you to make compromises with people who will keep ratcheting the Overton Window in bad directions. It's more critical now than in most of history to draw lines in the sand right now and defend what we have left. Demonization helps us do that.
"Well intentioned" is not a useful criterion because of crowd dynamics. Take the environmental cause. The vast majority of believers in it are well-intentioned average people who have been convinced that its stated concerns amount to a genuine emergency and something needs to be done now. But trace those beliefs to their sources and you find a bunch of credentialed-class, so-called experts who have either been fooled or told they'd better go along with the phony consensus if they want to keep receiving grants and getting favorable peer reviews. It only takes a few evil apples to poison the whole barrel.
As far as dangers and threats from GHGs goes, I rank that pretty low on the list of threats to humanity, maybe something akin to what Copenhagen Consensus says. That said,
- I tend to treat well-intentioned fools far differently than those I believe to be evil.
- I'd argue there are a lot of fools on both sides of the question, regardless of whether they are evil. Anyone suggesting it is close to certain that it is or isn't a major problem is a fool or evil.
- I'm not certain any of them are evil and suspect nearly all are not.
The way I cash this out is to give reasons for one's policy recommendations that the "other side" could agree with IF they shared the same model about how the works works and vice versa to oppose the policy positions of the "other side" as detrimental to their own deepest principles or preferences. So, I criticize "environmentalists" for not supporting net taxation of CO2 and methane emissions, not because the are evil, but because the do not recognize that is the least cost way to achieve our common objectives. They are "bad" allies, not enemies.
I think assuming positive motivations is a good start, but it is also worth being more fine grained when we draw circles around groups for whom we assume motivations. To run with your free healthcare for non-citizens example, the motivations of the supporters who live next door are going to be very different from the motivations of the supporters who run hospital networks, or the supporters in Congress. If I am assuming their intentions are good, I might then ask "good for whom?" and come to three rather different points, the latter two being quite a bit more focused on themselves.
Of course, maybe that is partially corrected by updating my assumptions more quickly, for example if someone seems entirely indifferent to the easily pointed out problems or counter productive nature of their ideas.
Still, I agree that we have gone too far in teaching people to expect the "other" to be hostile and evil towards their in group.
There is also the problem of policy mismatch. The person who wants to provide health care to undocumented workers may also want to deter future illegal immigration, but by other means
Any group or society has a normative hierarchy of motivations. Cosa Nostra and Washington & Lee University each place honor uppermost in their motivations; but omertà and vendetta are crucial in the mafia's code of honor, whereas proactive cooperation with deans in rule-enforcement is crucial in W&L's student honor code.
Given a normative hierarchy of motivations, individuals feel pressure to conform — or to cloak their low motivations in the rhetoric of the high motivations. People who are skilled in rhetoric, perhaps thanks to higher education, might, on average, be less virtuous than others, but more artful in seeming virtuous. This is strategic misrepresentation of one's own motivations.
Then there is self-deception! Descartes wrote somewhere that one may gravitate to self-serving motivations, like a person who changes position during sleep until comfortable.
We all know people who have an unmistakeable propensity/tendency to pursue self-serving motivations in rhetorics that sound good.
Some important institutions trade in an ambiguous mix of high rhetorics and self-deception.
My point is that one should temper the principle of charity with realism about human nature and an eye for hypocrisy.
Fortunately most people abide by the APM in most aspects of daily life. Twitter and politics don't reflect that
That is because Twitter and politics attract people with bad motivations.
That sounds like a bit of asymmetric insight. I'm more inclined to believe Twitter and politics attract bad behavior from people who are mostly good.
Funniest thing I have read all week, Stu. Thanks.
Truth makes the funniest jokes.
You keep on believing, Stu.
Believe? I don't even know what we are talking about.
A related, and possibly better, idea is passing the Intellectual Turing Test when it comes to motivations: that is, when you describe the motivations of the other side, try to do so in such a way that they would say "yes, that's an accurate description of my motivation."
The subtle distinction here is that this does *not* mean you have to consider that motivation positive, or give up believing that the other side is evil for having the motivations they have. To take one of your examples, an open borders advocate might well consider "deterring people from crossing the border illegally" to be a bad intention, not a good one, on the grounds that national borders are evil, repressive things and there is nothing wrong with people crossing them without official permission. We should aim for more accurate and charitable understanding of others' motivations, but recognize that this will not reconcile deep differences of values.
That is somewhat parallel to Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.", where of course it may not be stupidity but perhaps different values, goals or background knowledge with differing assumptions, ignorance (including rational ignorance). Or some tasks are more complicated than outsiders grasp and it may merely be lack of brilliance rather than stupidity, or something that no one could do well despite the appearance of a task that seems simple to those who haven't looked at the devils in the details.
The line between "evil" and "grossly negligent" or "purposely ignorant" can be pretty thin.
There is also the question of "whose axe is getting gored". I may believe that someone is looking out for the interest of them and their associates but not my interest. Or if they are, they are heavily biased when there is conflict of interest.
I'm not sure how far "assume good intentions" gets us. Nearly everyone outside psychopaths has good intentions, even some of the world's worst dictators. I truly believe that Stalin lived through years of deprivation in the Russian underground because he wanted to alleviate the suffering of the working class. They just may not have competence or the sphere of their concern may not include you.
As to "evil" it is in some ways defined by results as much as intentions. And so a component of good vs evil is "discernment". We have a moral obligation to figure out what the effect of our intentions will be, not simply have them. I would point out that this virtue is far more difficult than simply having positive intentions. And if one thing is better, something else must be worse, and if you are asserting that your discernment is better you are asserting a character flaw in another person.
I think "evil" in that case is used to describe the size and persistence of the character flaw (poor discernment). For instance, how many bodies does it take for someone to discern communism is a bad idea? Couldn't Mao have given up after The Great Leap Forward and not also done the Cultural Revolution. It's difficult to think of an example of something that has become "all about you" more then that.
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
Once something reaches the "racket" stage, I think we have a right to call it out and not let people try to emotionally blackmail us and hide behind good intentions.
It's capitolism that is evil. Lowering the taxes of the very rich. Subsidies to the titans of industry. For ever wars. NATO. Hawkish think tanks. Hawkish Generals. Our pure evil capitolism. We need a new New Deal....NOW! Or better yet a new system of governing the people not rewarding the 1%ers.
Let's put our house in order and let other nations do the same. imho
Cheers
I think it is important to recognize that there is evil in the world, just as there is good in the world. Stirring up war, putting melamine in baby formula to cut costs, and normalizing pedophilia are a few clear examples, but evil also exists in more subtle forms. There are people so knowingly steeped in the darkest of evils that it wouldn’t be unreasonable to refer to the person himself or herself as an evil person. But I like to think that is pretty rare. For the most part, as Solzhenitsyn put it, the line between good and evil runs right through every human heart. And most people, even those actively forwarding evil purposes, have so twisted their perspective that they are able to convince themselves that when they forward evil they are actually on the side of good, by some definition.
I wasn't a regular listener of Limbaugh, but the parts I had heard suggested to me that he wasn't claiming liberals were evil- just just stupid.
Agree. Pointing out the negative consequences of policies, even if you are pretty sure those consequences are being ignored, is not claiming that someone has bad intentions. It is not the equivalent to claiming the other party has 'real' motivations they are not revealing.
ah..there's the rub. Inventing negative motivation: increases clicks, increases donations, increases votes. Moloch wont let anyone admit positive motivation.
Trusting, at least at first, is a Christian imperative. Even after the actor reveals some malignancy, we must try not withdraw our love, but we don't have to "trust" them anymore with our time or treasure. We can forbear incompetence, especially from the young or ignorant. This can all be taxing on our nerves, of course. But no one full of years sitting on a porch says to themselves, "Gosh, I should have been more cynical and intolerant of my fellow men."
Thank you. It forced me to both lament and query:
How often does the man in the mirror—my mirror—fail INTENTIONALLY to “Assume Positive Motivation” (!\?)
This is great stuff.
There is a book in a similar direction by Maria Guzman titled, "I Never Thought of It That Way." I recommend it. She never uses your terminology but it is all about finding the logical, rational, and best reasons people hold positions you don't. She is an admitted liberal Democrat and the book largely speaks toward that group but as someone near the origin on the Three Languages axes, I thought she made it speak to anyone open to the general message.
I am unconvinced that it is either helpful or desirable to APM. The LGBTQ+ movement's history over time is a great illustration of groups that are pursuing a long-term plan to destroy the foundations of civilization. So is the environmental movement. Etc. These are relevant because the only apparent "gain" from assuming positive motivation is that it enables you to make compromises with people who will keep ratcheting the Overton Window in bad directions. It's more critical now than in most of history to draw lines in the sand right now and defend what we have left. Demonization helps us do that.
The line in the sand and the defense are different depending on whether the conflict is over a well-intentioned viewpoint or evil.
"Well intentioned" is not a useful criterion because of crowd dynamics. Take the environmental cause. The vast majority of believers in it are well-intentioned average people who have been convinced that its stated concerns amount to a genuine emergency and something needs to be done now. But trace those beliefs to their sources and you find a bunch of credentialed-class, so-called experts who have either been fooled or told they'd better go along with the phony consensus if they want to keep receiving grants and getting favorable peer reviews. It only takes a few evil apples to poison the whole barrel.
As far as dangers and threats from GHGs goes, I rank that pretty low on the list of threats to humanity, maybe something akin to what Copenhagen Consensus says. That said,
- I tend to treat well-intentioned fools far differently than those I believe to be evil.
- I'd argue there are a lot of fools on both sides of the question, regardless of whether they are evil. Anyone suggesting it is close to certain that it is or isn't a major problem is a fool or evil.
- I'm not certain any of them are evil and suspect nearly all are not.
The way I cash this out is to give reasons for one's policy recommendations that the "other side" could agree with IF they shared the same model about how the works works and vice versa to oppose the policy positions of the "other side" as detrimental to their own deepest principles or preferences. So, I criticize "environmentalists" for not supporting net taxation of CO2 and methane emissions, not because the are evil, but because the do not recognize that is the least cost way to achieve our common objectives. They are "bad" allies, not enemies.
I think assuming positive motivations is a good start, but it is also worth being more fine grained when we draw circles around groups for whom we assume motivations. To run with your free healthcare for non-citizens example, the motivations of the supporters who live next door are going to be very different from the motivations of the supporters who run hospital networks, or the supporters in Congress. If I am assuming their intentions are good, I might then ask "good for whom?" and come to three rather different points, the latter two being quite a bit more focused on themselves.
Of course, maybe that is partially corrected by updating my assumptions more quickly, for example if someone seems entirely indifferent to the easily pointed out problems or counter productive nature of their ideas.
Still, I agree that we have gone too far in teaching people to expect the "other" to be hostile and evil towards their in group.
There is also the problem of policy mismatch. The person who wants to provide health care to undocumented workers may also want to deter future illegal immigration, but by other means