I disagree with William James when he says that we need to look to those of our inner desires that logic cannot sway for our understanding of right and truth. It’s the word “desires” that I object to here. . . . I am [also] suspicious of anything that claims authority in its supposed immunity to logic. That strikes me not only as inherently suspect, but as religious, as one of the very problems I see with religion.
I am suspicious of any idea that someone claims is not subject to logic; especially ideas that are used for subsequent ideological systems and authorities, which dictate the way those who buy into them should act. Those who are selling and buying such ideas must not recognize the irony of their using logic (the very idea of validity) to undercut logic. If you think you have an idea or ideology that is not subject to, or derived by the use of, logic, I’ll tell you you’re full of shit.
We are products of persuasive, influential, subtle, and sly conditioning. How do we know that this “inner will,” this “inner (moral) compass,” is not just a product of years and years of conditioning, a conditioning of the human species as well as the individual?
I cannot trust the motivations of he who cannot allow for the questioning of his most basic assumptions. And conversely, I am inclined to trust he who actively admits that his assumptions are the product of conditioning, and not God-given or a priori in a way that future experience and examination might not alter or allow to be seen more clearly.
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From my personal notes, 12/6/99.
