What is evil? What makes an action evil? What makes a person evil? What makes a person evil? Even moral philosophers struggle with these questions. There is no real consensus but there are some commonalities between all arguments, the number one commonality being that evil people harm others. Stupidity can harm others, in fact stupidity can be so harmful that it can be indistinguishable from malice. This is why Hanlon’s razor (“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”) exists. Some have even argued that stupidity is worse than evil, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an anti-nazi dissident who wrote this when he was imprisoned by the nazi regime:
Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.
This leads to the question, is stupidity evil?
What is stupidity? I’ll start by talking about what it is not. Being stupid is not just not having knowledge, that is just being ignorant. Everyone is ignorant in some way, we are not gods, we can not know everything. Even if we spent everyday learning and lived to be a hundred, we would die ignorant because there would still be so much we didn’t know. Even if one has a strong desire to learn, not everyone has access to information. It is easy for us with access to the internet but in impoverished countries, impoverished parts of developed countries, and in the past, people have/had limited access to information and knowledge. Stupidity is not being mentally disabled either as that is not the fault of the individual. Being mentally disabled is like not being able to walk while being stupid is being able unwilling to walk. Stupidity is having the ability and access but not the willingness to use that ability and access to learn that makes one stupid. Stupidity can be broken down into six categories. Believing one has knowledge one reasonably could not have, ignoring evidence and facts so one does not have to change one’s beliefs, an unwillingness to consider the effects of one’s actions, an unwillingness (not inability) to learn, and an unwillingness to admit when one is wrong.
When one believes they have knowledge they could not possibly have this false knowledge could very likely be wrong and being wrong can not only hurt them, but hurt others as well. Such as religious faith, people presuming themselves to have knowledge about God(s), the supernatural, and the afterlife they could not possibly have. People have refused needed medical care, denied their children needed medical care, abused their children or others, murdered others, oppressed others, denied people their human rights, etc based on religious dogma. Religious dogma based on knowledge they thought they had but could not possibly have had. Racism is demonstrably wrong, yet many people still hold onto racist beliefs. These people often rarely even talk to people they are bigoted against and when they do it is rarely a real conversation, yet they believe they have knowledge about those people they could not possibly have.
To maintain irrational beliefs one has to ignore contradictory facts and evidence. Ignoring reality is extremely harmful, to oneself and others. If one refuses to wear their seat belt climbing it does more harm than good, they are objectively wrong, seat belts have been repeatedly shown to save lives. By ignoring the facts and evidence they could end up endangering themselves and endangering their children when they don’t buckle them up. Or the claim that one drives better when they are drunk, no one drives better when they drink, these kinds of people ignore the facts and evidence that they don’t drive better. As a result they drive drunk risking their lives and the lives of others. Climate change is another example of this, climate change is real and human caused and it is harming people. Yet people ignore the facts and evidence, particularly the people in positions to do something about it, shareholders, executives, and politicians. In doing nothing about it, they are making the situation worse but doing something would mean acknowledging the facts and evidence and thus changing their opinions and beliefs.
Everything one does has consequences, some really small, some huge. Consequences can harm the individual, the individual’s family, others, and harming one’s family and others can come back on the individual. If one starts a fight with someone, that someone could be stronger than them, have a knife or even a gun. Even if one wins the fight, that person, their friend, or loved one could come back for revenge later, maybe with a weapon. Even if the other person likes a good fight, people have been accidentally killed in fights, some have been sentenced to prison for accidentally killing people in fights. Not considering the effects of one’s actions goes far beyond a fight. Driving or doing other things under the influence of drugs, cheating on one’s partner, abusing others, stealing, self destructive behavior, addiction, etc all can come from not considering the effects of one’s actions. People who don’t consider the effects of one’s actions inevitably harm others.
As I said above, we are not gods, we are not omniscient. There is always far more that we don’t know and as the old saying goes, “what you don’t know can hurt you”, but also what one does not know can harm others as well. In politics when one doesn’t have needed knowledge it could lead one to vote against their interests or the interests of the people they care about. Not knowing what is healthy can lead people not only to doing what is unhealthy to themselves but could harm their families as they pass on unhealthy behaviors (though the majority of unhealthy eating in the developed world has more to do with what food is available, not ignorance). We can see this example in people denying their children needed healthcare and forcing children into psychologically damaging programs. When people refuse to learn they are stuck not knowing what they might need to know, this condemns them to taking actions that are harmful to themselves, their families, and others.
Being unwilling to admit when one is wrong could be caused by the stupidities above, a belief that admitting one is wrong is weakness (which is stupid in and of itself), or they are unwilling to deal with the guilt that would come from what they did. This can also lead to the stupidities above. Even if one knows they are what they’re doing is harmful to themselves and/or others they might not change what they do or how they act because that would be an admission that they are wrong. To make this one worse, some people are forced into this stupidity by the culture of their work or community, a work culture or community that sees admitting one is wrong as bad or weakness.
Looking at these stupidities, how many evil actions can be explained by them? Take hate crimes, racist believe they have knowledge they couldn’t possibly have, some act on this “knowledge” by committing acts of violence against people they are bigoted against. Hate crimes could and likely will lead the perpetrator to prison as these crimes, in the modern world, are seen as worse than non-hate crimes. Yet hate crimes have been going up. The people who are committing these crimes are not thinking about the consequences of their actions and how their actions will likely lead them to prison. Racism is demonstrably wrong but racists ignore facts and evidence so they can hold on to their bigoted beliefs. And it’s not just racism, it’s all forms of bigotry, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, nationalism, ethnocentrism, etc are all the results of stupidity. It goes even beyond bigotry, a lack of self control has been strongly correlated with violent crimes, people without self control are not thinking about the effects of their actions, they are just acting impulsively. Any action where one doesn’t consider the effects on others is stupidity. Even the Holocaust and World War 2 were actions of stupidity. The Holocaust was based on stupid ideas, antisemitism, racism, and eugenics, none of which were (or are) based on reality. The use of resources in the Holocaust when Germany was fighting a war was a lack of consideration for the effects of the choices Nazi leadership made, these resources could have gone to the war effort and could have helped Germany keep Europe. Hitlers decision to attack the Soviet Union was pure not considering the consequences of his actions, fighting a war with the Soviet Union when they were still fighting a war against Britain which was, at the time, being supported by the US, an economic power (who later entered the war). Looking at evil actions, a great many are motivated or involve stupidity. This makes evil stupid. It may not be entirely true but evil is a form of stupidity.
There is a view of evil that evil people are basically cartoon villains, knowing what they are doing is evil, enjoying evil, and looking evil. The reality is, evil is stupid. Evil people don’t think what they are doing is evil, much of the time they are acting without thinking about the consequences of what they are doing. When they do think about the consequences of what they are doing they rationalize their evil actions. Stupidity plays a role in those rationalizations. Assuming one has knowledge one could not possibly have gives the evil person a reason, however wrong it is, to do their evil acts, ignoring the facts and evidence of the immorality of their actions allows them to continue thinking they are not doing anything wrong, and refusing to learn keeps them one from gaining the knowledge that would expose their own evil to them. This belief plays into evil people’s rationalizations. By viewing evil people as people who know what their doing is evil, enjoying being evil, and looking stereotypically evil rather than as people who has rationalized their evil actions and hide in plane sight by acting and looking like regular people, evil people are able to view themselves as not evil. The reality is successful evil hides in plane sight by acting and looking like everyone else, successful evil seeks positions of power and authority so they can act on their evil desires and get away with their actions, all while having rationalized those desires and actions. Those who act stereotypically evil end up in prison or dead. The assumption that evil looks and acts stereotypically evil is an assumption of knowledge one does not actually have and ignore the facts and evidence the opposite is true.
Going back to Henlon’s Razor, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Why would one want to deliberately harm another? Revenge could be a motivation but revenge doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t bring closure, it in fact does the opposite. By assuming revenge will bring closure or will feel good the avenger is assuming to have knowledge they couldn’t have or they are ignoring the facts and evidence that it wont. Another motivator maybe be a desire to punish, but punishment doesn’t work on kids or criminals. Often the desire to punish is in and of itself just a desire for revenge which does not feel good. Then there is aggression, sadism, and the desire for power which can lead to abusive behavior. Abuse and bullying does not make the abuser happy, abusers lack the social and emotional intelligence to get what they actually desire in a pro social way. That abuse often ends up denying the abusers what they actually want, making their lives worse. Something that could be solved if they would learn, learn how to communicate, and learn how to recognize their own emotions and emotions in others, but many abusers refuse to learn. Malice can be born out of stupidity and acting on malice can be a result of stupidity. Combined with the other harms stupidity can cause, this makes the distinction, almost nonexistent.
Stupidity harms people, stupid people harm themselves and others. This makes stupidity evil, or at least immoral. Evil in and of itself is stupid, coming out of stupidity. This makes the distinction pointless, whether an action is an action of evil or just stupidity, it is all stupidity. Ultimately stupidity is indistinguishable from evil because stupidity is evil, and evil is stupid.
C.L. Who Writes 