I think Lessdazed meant that even if rationality doesn’t stop people with bad intentions from doing bad things, it can stop people with good intentions from doing bad things. And there are probably more bad things done by irrational, well-intentioned people than by evil people.
Thus gigantic evil deeds are invariably accomplished by teams of people full of clever rationalizations for evil constructed by clever intellectuals.
They don’t need to rationalize when they just don’t have sam0345′s concept of ‘evil’ anywhere in their brain in the first place. It get the impression, for example, that Genghis Khan just did what he wanted to do—no excuses, no need to rationalize. Hearing this ‘evil’ concept of Sam from the future wouldn’t have just been something he rejected it would be completely dumbfounding.
Yes, there’s clearly something dubious about assuming that not only Genghis Khan, but his entire army, consisted of weird mutants who somehow lack moral intuitions. Much more likely is that they had normal human moral intuitions, but failed to apply them generally to all people, rather than (say) people in their own cultural group.
Stalin actually was a psychopath (probably diagnosable, as he fits all the standard criteria: flat affect, deceives people easily and without remorse, indifferent to suffering, superficially charming). Genghis Khan may have been (we know far less about him). But the average Soviet soldier? The average Mongol warrior? Clearly not—there are simply too many of them for that to be plausible.
I think Lessdazed meant that even if rationality doesn’t stop people with bad intentions from doing bad things, it can stop people with good intentions from doing bad things. And there are probably more bad things done by irrational, well-intentioned people than by evil people.
In order to accomplish gigantic evil deeds, it is necessary for people to work together in teams. Consciously evil people are not team players.
Thus gigantic evil deeds are invariably accomplished by teams of people full of clever rationalizations for evil constructed by clever intellectuals.
They don’t need to rationalize when they just don’t have sam0345′s concept of ‘evil’ anywhere in their brain in the first place. It get the impression, for example, that Genghis Khan just did what he wanted to do—no excuses, no need to rationalize. Hearing this ‘evil’ concept of Sam from the future wouldn’t have just been something he rejected it would be completely dumbfounding.
Seems like he would have a label like “evil” for stabbing an ally in the back or the like. It just mightn’t apply to outgroups whatsoever.
Yes, there’s clearly something dubious about assuming that not only Genghis Khan, but his entire army, consisted of weird mutants who somehow lack moral intuitions. Much more likely is that they had normal human moral intuitions, but failed to apply them generally to all people, rather than (say) people in their own cultural group.
Stalin actually was a psychopath (probably diagnosable, as he fits all the standard criteria: flat affect, deceives people easily and without remorse, indifferent to suffering, superficially charming). Genghis Khan may have been (we know far less about him). But the average Soviet soldier? The average Mongol warrior? Clearly not—there are simply too many of them for that to be plausible.