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> Do you think you would be able to detect [malicious motivation] by examining their officially stated desires and morality? Insofar as you can define a measur

> Do you think you would be able to detect [malicious motivation] by examining their officially stated desires and morality? Insofar as you can define a measurement for malicious intent, you could detect this. The set of measurements you define might not tell you everything you want to know about malicious intentions but they would give you a decent approximation. For example: Image we have a controlled random study, we have two groups A and B. We show both groups a medication K, and give group A a motivation (perhaps monetary say $10) for K to be approved, we give an equal weighted motivation $10 to group B for not approving. Then we show both groups information showing that K has some detrimental effect. Observe outcomes, and those who approve for the monetary motivation would be displaying "malicious intent" as defined by the measurements in this study. Generalizing from studies, however, to what particular persons in political parties at a particular point in time are thinking is something for historians or debaters and a set of methods I am unfamiliar with, outside of a general knowledge of the dialectic.

mseebach 9y ago
The problem is, first you need a reliable measure of good and evil. Sure, most reasonable people can agree on some set of actions that are clearly either, but there's a lot in between. Working out this answer is basically the entire field of philosophy. Your experiment won't measure evilness, perhaps something along the lines of honesty when faced with conflicting incentives (which of course is a desirable trait in leaders, political and otherwise). But what if one of the subjects in group A needs the money to buy a loaf of bread for their starving family, to illustrate using a favourite ethical dilemma? What do you do if a given policy will benefit yourself, but you know for certain that it's a right and good policy?
- jfaucett 9y ago
  The only way I see of alleviating some of the problems you mention is by controlling for them and doing further experiments. My experiment was not intended to measure evilness but rather to give an example of a general approach to the problem, and was for measuring malicious intent. Regardless, given time I'm sure we could come up with much better experiments for studying both. You're right though at what you are getting at, and I think the underlying idea here is that there is a continuous scale from bad (0) to good (1) for any given action/policy, where given additional context our internal moral barometer can move across this domain as well as an independent societal human flourishing barometer which measures the broader repercussions of the action/policy. Honestly, I do not know enough about ethics or research in this general area to have a truly insightful conversation on this topic. I'd just like to add that 1) I think good and evil are so broad in their scope that we'd be virtually forced to break them into separate definitions and measurements and study these constituent parts if we wanted to understand the general concepts and 2) we'd need to make a clear distinction between what humans perceive as good/evil in each context vs. what has good/evil repercussions at different levels (individual/familial/societal) based on measurements of brain states, pain/suffering, and human flourishing.

mseebach 9y ago

The problem is, first you need a reliable measure of good and evil. Sure, most reasonable people can agree on some set of actions that are clearly either, but there's a lot in between. Working out this answer is basically the entire field of philosophy. Your experiment won't measure evilness, perhaps something along the lines of honesty when faced with conflicting incentives (which of course is a desirable trait in leaders, political and otherwise). But what if one of the subjects in group A needs the money to buy a loaf of bread for their starving family, to illustrate using a favourite ethical dilemma? What do you do if a given policy will benefit yourself, but you know for certain that it's a right and good policy?

jfaucett 9y ago
The only way I see of alleviating some of the problems you mention is by controlling for them and doing further experiments. My experiment was not intended to measure evilness but rather to give an example of a general approach to the problem, and was for measuring malicious intent. Regardless, given time I'm sure we could come up with much better experiments for studying both. You're right though at what you are getting at, and I think the underlying idea here is that there is a continuous scale from bad (0) to good (1) for any given action/policy, where given additional context our internal moral barometer can move across this domain as well as an independent societal human flourishing barometer which measures the broader repercussions of the action/policy. Honestly, I do not know enough about ethics or research in this general area to have a truly insightful conversation on this topic. I'd just like to add that 1) I think good and evil are so broad in their scope that we'd be virtually forced to break them into separate definitions and measurements and study these constituent parts if we wanted to understand the general concepts and 2) we'd need to make a clear distinction between what humans perceive as good/evil in each context vs. what has good/evil repercussions at different levels (individual/familial/societal) based on measurements of brain states, pain/suffering, and human flourishing.