Great node! The Romantic Fallacy is also proof that there's just
some places Reason can't go. We know that viewing
Mankind's Operating System as an
inherently evil thing does nothing good for us at all--it just makes us
hate ourselves and each other. And yet, the other rational option--viewing our basic programming not as "
original sin" but a state of
strayed-from purity--doesn't seem to work either. The other option is
neutrality--pure science. Our
hardwiring is neither naturally good nor naturally evil; it's simply a
matter of survival and
perpetuation of the DNA species. Some people want to accept that one; because it's neither one nor the other, we assume it must be better than both of them; it's a
natural response. We all want to
walk the line. But since we
all have souls--or something non-rational of that sort--we don't like the
pure science of it either.
The answer, as any
philosopher knows, is not yes, no,
or neither. It's
both. And although
some people can understand that "
in their hearts", how the
hell do you get there
rationally?