PER 2015
“ Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions. ” Can a desire ever be wrong? How would you attempt to prove this? Oz Aibangbee “Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions.” I believe this quote from David Hume to have multiple analytical points. Some have argued it focuses on moral psychology and people’s motivation to act morally. Having not studied psychology it was hard for me to find the correct terminology or specific analogies I could use to better understand the usage of this quote. So taking it for its face value in which that reason is a slave which comes along with passions, I thought that this of course like others have said could may well be an interpretation of how motivated people are, to fulfilling their passions/desires. However I then took apart the words and I understood that reason being a slave to passions, does this mean that reason is shackled to desires whether it is needed or not. Does the linking mean that reason can be exploited and used as a way to get out of completing one’s passion, is it just in human nature as we evolve to develop methods to make a ludicrous task easier? But the longer reason is held onto the more guilty and doubtful the person would feel. Would releasing it mean that we are stopped from fearing the consequences of our actions or instead would we be paralysed with doubts? Can a desire be wrong? Well the definition of desire is the strong feelings to wanting something or wanting something to happen. In order to judge whether or not a desire is wrong an understanding of both the person and what exactly is they desire is required. Desire can lead to irrational judgements and decisions. For example a high executive would work incredibly hard in order to earn a promotion however this time spent has consumed his time which instead he could have spent developing a higher social profile. Or simply he could have stopped possible beneficial interactions from taking place due to his busy schedule all for him getting a promotion. Or even a more common example, someone wanting a new iPhone they would have to save a lot of money in order to get one, the extent of their saving could force them to miss out on common necessities. A simple experiment could be used to prove this theory, either with animals and or human beings. We could follow the classic go to experiment idea and use rats, and creating a hunger related experiment, placing them in cages and as time goes on and their desire to escape and find food increases what begins to happen? This is what we aim to find out, could it cause cannibalism or even self-eating this experiment could test how far desire could take animals and depending on the results we would be able to decide if desire can be seen as wrong. Another experiment which can relate to the idea of desire effecting people’s ability to create rational and logical decisions, would be the Milgram Experiment in 1963. Stanley Milgram began the experiment with the aim to look into how far someone would follow instructions if it was to do with inflicting damage onto others. In this case we could see the desire would be being rewarded for fulfilling the task required of the patient being tested. The experiment consisted of 40 men aged between 20-50 years of age. The candidates were split into to two different groups one being the teachers (who would inflict the electric shock onto the other candidate if they made a mistake) and the learner (who would be receiving the electric shock upon making a mistake). The conclusion of this experiment was that people are more likely to follow orders regardless of their rationality (to the extent of killing people) if these orders are from an authorial figure. However my views so far have been from a 1 st person perspective it is important when trying to understand the difference between right or wrong to look at both sides of the argument, so the 3rd person perspective as well as the 1 st person perspective. If someone were to walk to work every day for 5 years in order to save up for a car, would you see this as wrong? Or would you consider it wrong if it were someone only eating 1 meal a day for a month in order to save up for the car.
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