But she wouldn't agree that his belief is evil, would she? All she's saying here is that his willingness to corrupt his thinking is what is evil, which confirms my point that it is chosen actions (including, in this case, the choice to ignore the evidence that he has heard and seen) that she considers evil.

So an Islamic boy of 12 who was indoctrinated with anti-American hatred and who would kill innocent Americans if the opportunity presented itself is evil, even if he never had the opportunity to be aware of or to ignore any evidence against his belief. In other words, he is evil, simply because he embraces an evil morality -- a morality that is anti-life -- even if his belief in that morality was not due to any act of evasion on his part.

Bill,

You ask good questions and I will try to answer them not only to the best of my knowledge, but according to how I am now starting to understand Kelley. Please take into account that I do not feel myself an expert, although I do know quite a bit. I am chewing right now on some aspects just as much as you are. But I am rationally convinced enough of my own understanding to be on the other side of the fence.

You wrote:

If an evil morality is adopted due to an error of knowledge, does that mean, according to Objectivism, that the person who adopts it isn't evil, because his morality is based on an error of knowledge? Or does it mean that he is evil, because he has adopted an evil morality, even though his adoption of it is based on an error of knowledge?

 This entails some considerations. Let’s start with at least defining what an “evil morality” is. There are two ways to judge it: (1) by what its practitioners have already done (action) using it, and (2) by comparing its fundamental principles against rational ones in terms of what living by those principles means – in action. Do you know of any other way to judge a morality?

Also, it is very difficult to find a purely evil morality because people have to live by it. So a high enough number of the principles have to make enough sense that the whole package can be swallowed. When we say “evil morality,” we are referring to some specific principles, usually fundamental ones, but not the whole set. That is the meaning I use for the term here.

To my mind, a person who adopts a provably evil morality (because it was examined according to the two standards above), but lives in an environment where no alternatives have become available to his awareness, is not an evil person. He has no way of knowing whether the ideas he holds are evil or not – except by his own rationality, which is limited. He does know some “unconventional” things according to the amount of rationality he has been allowed to develop (or has chosen as a dissenter to that culture). Some rationality must always exist, otherwise he would not exist. I believe that quite a lot must exist, otherwise too many principles would not work in practice and most people in that culture would throw off the morality and search for another. People need basic survival conditions fulfilled. When they are not, people either die or rebel. This can be seen throughout mankind’s history.

If you went by the standard you are saying, that a person is evil because the ideas in his head are intrinsically evil as they go against human life, we would have to judge over 95% of mankind and mankind’s history as evil. And if that were the case, how has mankind become an incredibly successful biological species? (Evil is against human life – right?) By what standard? Mankind’s very existence – added to his magnificent achievements – is proof that he has not been mostly evil – 95% plus evil. If he were, we would not even be writing to each other because most likely we would not exist. Mankind would have committed suicide instead of having a population growth and people with ever increasing life spans.

In the case of the person without alternatives, one makes a presumption that given access to other rational alternatives, he will choose the more rational one – not consistently at first, but in general and on some level. And this will grow. Why do we believe that? Because man is basically good. This is the benevolent universe principle applied to out species.

That is what the leaders of closed fanatical Islamic cultures most fear about the Internet. They are afraid of the lack of evil (rationality) in their subjects - the good in them. Thus the tyrants try to stifle communication with other cultures at all costs. Exposure of the rational means adoption of the rational (usually by degrees).

This is why it is so hard to call those subjects evil. They change for the better in the face of rational alternatives. Essentially they are good people in the throes of a repressive culture dominated by very evil men/women.

In the case of the person who has analyzed rational alternatives and rejected them (especially according to the correct/incorrect parameter), this person is evil. He/she is beyond rational persuasion. That is the one of the main reasons why he/she is evil.

None of this means that the innocent believer – the one without alternatives – is not dangerous. I keep insisting on this. Morality entails volition. Danger does not always. As Kelley points out, an earthquake is not evil, but dangerous instead. Morality is for and about people. And it involves choice by definition.

Then you asked:

If the former [evil morality adopted through error of knowledge], then how can you know whether or not someone's belief is due to an error of knowledge or to an act of evasion, without having privileged access to the inner workings of his mind? If you know the person well, it might seem to you as if he is choosing consciously to evade relevant knowledge, but how could you ever be sure?

Here I cannot urge you strongly enough to read The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand by David Kelley. In the chapter, “Moral Judgment,” he talks about some of the more obvious types of things we morally judge. Here is a very brief summary.

1. We judge actions. The fundamental standard is life, of course, but life is too varied to make one size fit all. Thus an action needs to be identified conceptually, and only then evaluated. There are also two inductive parameters that need to be used: (a.) degree (by comparison, not ordinal numbers), and (b.) complexity, especially where different aspects of the same action result in different but conflicting moral principles.

2. We interpret motives. We usually cannot see the motive in the isolated action. As Kelley mentioned, even Peter Keating built skyscrapers. That did not mean his motives were those of Roark. There are several manners of perceiving motives: (a.) Observing emotional behavior like facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, etc., (and this is far from a complete manner of evaluation). (b.) Rationally, we have to analyze other possible motives in light of evidence and decide not only which was the better among them, but which was “the only and best explanation.” (c.) Asking the person. Even though his answer may not always be reliable, it cannot be ignored.

3. We infer character traits. We do this to decide whether we want to interact with a person and how to predict that person’s behavior. This is necessary because man has free will and is never 100% consistent in his actions. Basically we must see whether a certain action was a standing policy or an aberration. A slip-up is one thing. A chosen policy is another.

4. We judge the person as a whole. For negative judgments, we look at negative character traits. In doing so, we have to evaluate the following: (a.) the person’s attitude toward the trait he has, and (b.) the scope and depth of the trait within his character.

At the end of the chapter, Kelley urges us to adopt the temperament of a judge, i.e., analyze all of the pertinent evidence possible before passing sentence and taking that responsibility seriously. Not shooting from the hip. He mentioned that the  Peikovian method of passing judgment on everything is simply not possible due to limited time and mental resources for the flood of information we process. This means that many people will not be worth judging. Only those important enough to us should be judged.

I would extend this to include a country, culture or civilization. As a matter of fact, I would extend all of these observations to groups of similar people.

One word of caution: What I just gave was a brief outline of Kelley’s already stated brief outline. He said this was far from complete. Thus it is important to read his work to get the full gist of what he is saying. However, there is a lot already here to think about.

Wouldn’t it just be a lot simpler if we could say the following? “Islam is a pack of evil ideas. People who believe in evil ideas are evil. Muslims are evil.” Or “Islam includes many principles that destroy life on earth if practiced. Whatever destroys life on earth is evil. Islam is evil.”

But would that be really using our rational faculty properly? Or would that be blanking out a truckload of other evidence and considerations? I presume you agree that blanking out – evading – is not rational. Some even say it is evil.

Michael

Bill, what about if the family of the Islamic boy, was killed by the Americans, do you still think that his idea is evil?

Ideas are ideas, they can be good or evil, we can act on, or we can keep them to ourself, but the gist of the matter is not whether an idea is good or bad, but why we have such ideas in the first place, no.

Bill, I don't think any sane person would be willing to act on an idea which he think to be bad. Unless he is stupid.

Professor Bill, consider my posts to be more questions than statements. You have many times, in private e-mail,explained many things to me, and I want to thank you publically for that.

In the moral sense of the term, evil does not result from an error of knowledge. From everything I have ever read in Objectivist literature, morality is a chosen code - it is based on chosen principles and acts, including mental acts of choosing and evading and things like that.

As Kelley stated, in the past (and nowadays colloquially), "evil" was (is) used in a non-volitional sense, even for non-human events like tidal waves. So in that sense, I suppose an error of knowledge and other such could be called an "evil idea."

But I presume we are discussing morality, specifically Objectivist morality, since we are talking about moral condemnation. If we are, it is a logical mistake to apply the colloquial (non-volitional) definition to evil, and then jump back to a discussion of morality as if the moral definition of the word had been employed. Using the same name for two different meanings can get confusing and it is important to be precise if you intend to morally condemn something or someone. It is irresponsible to be otherwise.

If we are talking about any moral principles that are not chosen, i.e., ones that are inherently good or evil (like the 10 Commandments, for instance, or Islamic commandments), I don't think we are talking about Objectivist ethics.

I do not know of any Objectivist ideas that come with such inherentness except the fundamental axioms - and even then, they must result from a process of induction, not just be or be decreed by someone or something.

Just because a phenomenon is destructive of human life, that does not make it evil (in the moral sense). It also can be merely dangerous and destructive and nothing more.

I normally don’t like the long list of candy-stripes, but I’ll do it your way this time. You wrote:

Or is it possible that his (the 12-year old Islamic boy’s) belief in Islam was not in fact an immoral choice, because it was the product of ignorance and indoctrination?

Of course his philosophy was a product of ignorance (in the sense of not knowing alternatives) and indoctrination. There was no choice involved. So he obviously doesn’t know any better.

Whether you think one can say that or not, that has been one of the ways this word has been used by mankind. (I am biting my tongue not to make a catty remark here about mankind not consulting you first to see if you approved.) You do understand that a word can have more than one definition?

Good. Now we are away from the word (which is confounding because of the different definitions) and into the concept. I think your statement is incomplete and puts the cart before the horse, though. The normative went before the cognitive. By definition of being a concept, evil applies only to organisms with conceptual consciousness (i.e., human beings). Value comes after defining the conceptual consciousness part.

Evil does not exist as a moral concept for a rabbit, for example, because a rabbit has no conceptual ability. It does have life-threatening elements it must avoid, however, to avoid being killed and eaten. Would you call a wildcat morally evil to the rabbit? That makes no sense to me. The wildcat is acting properly according to its nature. I would call the wildcat dangerous to the rabbit, not morally evil. Morality is for human beings only – it is the form of dealing with values at a conceptual level and it involves volition. (Values and dangers do exist for other life forms. But morality and ethics do not, except by a really, really, really forced projection.)

I agree here, but only up to a point. Your oversimplification of Islam as “anti-life” is breathtaking in light of the billion and a half people who successfully live under it. Once again, I stress that some principles in Islam are “anti-life” if practiced literally. Jihad is one. But the other principles are rational enough for people to get by and even flourish.

Er… you want to do all this condemning without acting on it? Your idea of moral condemnation is to think something bad about someone? That’s it? All in the mind and nothing in the rest of reality? No resulting action? That’s a premise I think that needs to be checked.

Well, if you just want to think bad thoughts about him, I see no harm in that – on a personal level. Go ahead and call him a poo-poo head if that makes you feel moral.

My own evaluation is different when I find someone to be evil. I either banish him from my presence or I try to kill or imprison him (or support agents who do that for me), depending on the degree of evil. Notice that evil is not to be tolerated if it is to be taken seriously. If you think the 12-year old boy is evil, then he should be banished or imprisoned at the very least, or killed. You don’t have to wait for him to initiate force. You have already condemned him as "anti-life," i.e., as a serious threat only.

You see the problem?

My thinking is to try to get the evil bastards who are oppressing him and give him a better chance (while taking due precautions about any potential danger coming from his indoctrination). Especially, get better ideas to him.

We are talking apples and oranges. Let's go down to the cognitive realm first, then go to the normative realm. Kelley states (and I agree) that on a fundamental level (cognitive), an idea is merely true or false. Only when it is applied to actions (normative) is it good or evil.

This is so glaringly obvious to me that I find it difficult to try to see through the eyes of one who doesn't see it. You have to know whether something exists before you can judge it and act on that judgment.

About beliefs, the way you know a belief is bad (in your sense of the term) is because others have already acted on it. You are judging what they have done. You are judging actions. It is a future projection of those past actions that you call good or evil in the moral sense.

This is a secondary sense, not a primary cognitive one. The idea in itself (on a cognitive level) is not evil. It is an abstraction, not an entity. It is not a causal agent, despite your claim to the contrary.

Regarding our 12 year old, it is clear in my mind that you can say that he holds an evil creed in his head through indoctrination (evaluated as evil because of the evil actions others have committed by guiding their choices with that same creed, but using the word "evil" more loosely for this - as a potential - than for actions - as observed fact). Still, he is not necessarily an evil person. He might be and he might not be. He is a very dangerous person, though, somewhat akin to a savage, and he must be treated as such. But he cannot be judged good or evil on matters that he did not choose.

For example, our 12 year old might have a mean sadistic streak in him where he regularly chooses to torture domestic animals because he gets a kick out of their suffering and squeals. Thus he will use the ideas in his head in one manner when he encounters human beings. It will not be pretty. This kid has got such an mean streak in him that he will probably become a very evil adult. I do admit that the ideas help him on his way. Another 12 year old saw his parents brutally murdered by Americans and those Islamic ideas are the closest thing he has to understanding why. Yet he is a rational person to the extent he can be. He tries desperately to understand the world around him. This boy will choose different ideas if he finds ones that explain his plight better. He is not an evil person. He chooses reason where he can find it.

Without choice, there is no morality. People are not mere robots programmed by philosophy.

Philosophy is a powerful force, but it is not the only element. An evil creed alone does not make an evil person.

As you can see, I don't like oversimplifications in moral judgments ("Islam is evil" and that kind of pronouncement). I vastly prefer precise thoughts. Oversimplifications lead to injustice if used too loosely and completely short-circuit the good in morality.