When bad people say good things

The immoral mind at work

Over at The New Republic, resident philosopher Damon Linker tackles an important question: can evil people say intelligent things?

The case in question is a recent screed against watershed philosopher-cum-Nazi Martin Heidegger.  According to Linker, the essay in question makes the mistake of conflating worthwhile ideas with disdainful politics:

But moral disgust does not relieve a reader–let alone a critic–of the burden of intellectual engagement.

[. . .]

Yet even if distinguishing between Heidegger’s philosophy and his politics were as impossible as Romano (and Faye) would have us believe, that still would not justify excluding Heidegger’s thought from serious reflection, study, and a place in the university. On the contrary, it would serve as an additional reason to wrestle with the challenge it poses.

To some extent, the debate is academic.  Heidegger is unlikely to become “the butt of jokes, not the subject of dissertations,” as stated by the essay to which Linker reacts.  He’ll probably stick around as a fraught figure, studied seriously by philosophers on both sides of the Atlantic, and criticized by some subset of the same group as well as the educated public.  The status quo will hold.

What’s really at stake is whether a consummately evil life (one more evil than Heidegger’s, for example) can produce something worth reading and studying.  We can debate about whether Heidegger clears the bar, but only after we determine if there’s a bar at all.

Few examples are terribly insightful.  We read Mein Kampf, but as a way to better understand Hitler and National Socialism than as a repository of useful.  Perhaps Mao’s Little Red Book fits the bill, although the caliber of the intellectual product seems to fall below Heidegger’s Being and Time (disclaimer: I’m more familiar with Heidegger’s work; I’d be happy for a reader to correct me on this score).

Let’s imagine someone genuinely evil - Charles Manson - produces a work of unparalleled philosophic genius.  The monograph, found in Manson’s backyard, has been delivered to 10 of the world’s greatest philosophers.  None are told that Manson has written the piece in order to insulate their judgment from the taint of Manson’s acts.  They declare, unanimously and unequivocally, that the work enters the echelons of Plato, Aquinas, and Kant.

Are the ideas good, or are they inevitably stained because they were produced by the same hand that wrought wanton death?  Let us also assume, for argument’s stake, that we know Manson’s acts to be of cold blood, not insanity.  We also know the work to be produced as he plotted and carried out his crimes, so that we cannot section off some lucid period of his life from the violence he committed.

One may still choose to shun the work as the product of an evil hand, to ignore them as a kind of protest against Manson’s evil.  But it’s hard to imagine that the knowledge it contains does not join the other ideas humans have produced and uncovered, whether we use it or not.

-Sam

Related posts:

  1. When may people disobey?
  2. Linker redux
  3. In defense of reading Heidegger
  4. Do rich people work harder?
  5. The banality of banality

November 2, 2009 · Filed Under History of Political Thought, Sam

Comments

One Response to “When bad people say good things”

  1. In defense of reading Heideggar : The Public Philosopher on November 4th, 2009 10:48 am

    [...] had the first TPP cut at the now strangely vogue question of Heidegger’s worth as a philosopher given his Nazi [...]

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