Logan Darklighter Wrote:Occam's Razor usually defaults to stupidity or incompetence rather than evil, you know. No one wakes up in the morning thinking - "How am I going to be EVIL today!" No - they do evil with the best of intentions thinking they are doing good. It's the classic "law of unintended consequences."That isn't Occam's Razor. Occam's Razor is whichever explanation requires the fewest assumptions, all else being equal, is to be prefered.
Thus the vast majority of "progressive" positions and programs are explained.
But assumign someone is stupid and assuming someone is evil to explain an action requires the exact same number of assumptions, one.
The argument you are looking for is Hanlon's Razor, which goes "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
To which I add Aaron's Corrolary, "Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."
So if you are acting out of ignorance or malice, the result is still fucking evil. The intentions of a person's actions in this respect hardly matter. I could murder a dozen babies because I honestly truly believe I'm doing God's work and its still fucking evil.
Of course, the stupidity defense doesn't hold up to the slightest bit of critical examination. The fact is that the language in that proposed law exactly mimics the language that actual murderers have attempted to use in actual court to defend themselves. This is not an error.
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Epsilon