The human moral sense can excuse any atrocity in the minds of those who commit it, and it furnishes them with motives for acts of violence that bring them no tangible benefit.
Interpretation
Human morality can rationalize even the worst actions, leading individuals to commit violence without seeking personal gain.
This quote by Steven Pinker highlights the disturbing capacity of human moral reasoning to justify atrocious acts. It suggests that individuals can convince themselves that their violent actions are acceptable or even noble, despite the absence of any tangible benefits from those actions. This speaks to the complexity of morality and the potential for people to engage in harmful behavior under the guise of moral justification.
In practice
In a discussion about the justification of war, this quote can serve to illustrate the moral complexities involved.
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.
The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.
Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.
Perhaps wars weren't won anymore. Maybe they went on forever. Maybe it was another Hundred Years' War.
Everything that is loved, if it is not loved for His sake then this love is nothing but distress and punishment. Every action that is not performed for His sake then it is wasted and severed. Every heart that does not reach Him is wretched; veiled from achieving its success and happiness.
Tell her this And more,— That the king of the seas Weeps too, old, helpless man. The bustling fates Heap his hands with corpses Until he stands like a child With surplus of toys.
Listen; this world is the lunatic's sphere , _x000D_ Don't always agree it's real, _x000D_ Even with my feet upon it And the postman knowing my door _x000D_ My address is somewhere else.
I become more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of Hussein, the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers and his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle.
Not just self-restraint, that old killjoy, but communal restraint.
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