Bryan Caplan argues against the “corrupted by power” idea with an alternative view: they were corrupt from the start, which is why they were willing to go to such extremes to attain power.
Around the time I stopped believing in God and objective morality I came around to Stirners’ view: such values are “geists” haunting the mind, often distracting us from factual truths. Just as I stopped reading fiction for reasons of epistemic hygiene, I decided that chucking morality would serve a similar purpose. I certainly wouldn’t trust myself to selectively filter any factual information. How can the uninformed know what to be uninformed about?
Bryan Caplan argues against the “corrupted by power” idea with an alternative view: they were corrupt from the start, which is why they were willing to go to such extremes to attain power.
Around the time I stopped believing in God and objective morality I came around to Stirners’ view: such values are “geists” haunting the mind, often distracting us from factual truths. Just as I stopped reading fiction for reasons of epistemic hygiene, I decided that chucking morality would serve a similar purpose. I certainly wouldn’t trust myself to selectively filter any factual information. How can the uninformed know what to be uninformed about?