Intelligent People Do not Make Better Ethical Decisions

[JackWhite]

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The Holocaust and U.S. slavery were perpetrated by Christians

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The Nazi leadership were Christians?

"The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity."--Adolf Hitler

[Zygote]

check out this study. not entirely directly relevant to what you're specifically talking about, but you may find this interesting.

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

[J. Stew]

Smart people build their egos through intellectual superiority, dumb people have a tendency to build their egos through sensual pleasures. Smart or stupid doesn't matter, it's the ego-building that inhibits the mind's ability to be ethical IMO.

[benkahuna]

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This is my own thread based on Sklansky's most recent post about various religions effecting someone's ability to reason.
I pointed out that most of the horrible crimes such as the Holocaust, Slavery, various genocides and Christ's murder were legal and meticulously planned in many cases by the intelligentsia of the day.

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Be careful about imposing modern day morality on historically different circumstances. Beliefs have been dynamic through history and different beliefs imply different moral actions.

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This pulls back the curtain on the idea that the society's most intelligent will make better ethical decisions. I am not saying stupid, uneducated people would be superior. I am merely saying that there isn't a correlation between intelligence and ethics.

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There is, however, a correlation between intelligence and making better decisions. I think an intelligent, ethical person would make better ethical decisions than an unintelligent, ethical person. The relationship between intelligence and ethics is different and I can't say whether intelligent people are more ethical, especially since there are many different ideas on what proper ethics is.

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Intelligent people, for one thing, are much more likely to be able to rationalize, lie more efficiently and fool themselves and others. GW Bush without Karl Rove and Cheney would be nowhere. An idiot like him could not possibly pull off the things he's done without the help of intelligent people.
Point is, even geniuses are flawed psychologicaly. Without the proper emotional and mental maturity, ethical decisions will be poor at best. A supreme court justice ultimately makes ethical decisions...

g

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Really intelligent people know when their rationalizations are complete nonsense. The whole notion of psychologically flawed bothers me here. Geniuses are not necessarily flawed at all. They can be within the normal psychological range just like most other people.

I'll come right out and say I'm not a fan of Dubya, but he's smarter than you think. I do agree he needed help to do what he has done, but so has every president.

I would ask whether a better ability to make decisions makes up for any difference between how ethical intelligent people are versus every else. I'd guess yes and I want intelligent people in charge because of this belief.

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check out this study. not entirely directly relevant to what you're specifically talking about, but you may find this interesting.

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

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It is interesting and i think you definitely should post it as its own thread to challenge religious believers. They should be expected to answer the challenge that religious populations so clearly fail to meet the criteria that secularist nations meet. that is, secular nations apparently tend to adhere to the moral framework better than religious ones.


However, my thread, although it touches on religion, is more about intelligence correlating with ethics.

g

[Darryl_P]

Good point and I agree.

According to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, ego is at level 4 which means most dumb people will never get there in any meaningful way because they are too busy working on the first three.

But it is still before level 5 which is where the ethical questions arise. So it could be argued that the most dangerous people are the ones at level 4, and it could just be that most world leaders are there -- scary thought.

[kbfc]

What a scary page.

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The yellow triangle [spiritual needs], is my addition, and is not included in Maslow’s original pyramid.

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[benkahuna]

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What a scary page.

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The yellow triangle [spiritual needs], is my addition, and is not included in Maslow’s original pyramid.

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The idea of concrete steps in personal development strikes me as inauthentic and overly simplistic. I don't think personal development is like levels in The Legend of Zelda. Actually, even in that you could go beyond a level you hadn't yet conquered...

Personally, I've recovered seven of the eight Triforce pieces in the second to last stage of Maslow's Hierarchy.

g

[purnell]

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Spiritual Needs are redundant and differ from mere self actualization. We need a higher form of love than we find from fellow humans. This Love is part of the natural Law of the universe.

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Which natural law of the universe is that?