Custom «World Views» Essay Paper Sample

In George Lakoff’s view the world’s perspective of things is divided into two faculties. The views of good and evil are shared throughout the world. In our world it is perceived that there can be two courses of action that a human being can take either good or evil. The two have great moral authority and have even been used as the basis for all law making. Things that are seen as evil are not permitted by the law and those that are seen as good are generally permissible. Evil is seen as an act that requires absolute punitive measures and not rationalizing or understanding. Every good person (in accordance to this believe) is allowed the leeway to commit lesser evils for the purpose of defeating grater evil.

However, it is hardly near correct to assume that the line between evil and good if visible to all and is clearly discerned. Every act undertaken by a person falls under these two categories and in the modern secularized world, as a result of both moral decadency and necessity the line between good and evil is becoming less clear every day. A good example would be that in the past acts such as abortion were completely abhorred and rejected. In this time we have seen as a result of necessity rulings by courts such as the holding in Row vs. Wade legalizing abortion. In our time the world has become an accepted norm that if it can be rationalized it can be done and accepted.

This is a fault in the argument because the standards of good and evil work on an assumption of commonsense not rationality. This manifestation is seen even in the interpretation of the bible. Lakoff argues this and says that there is no such thing as the literal interpretation of the bible. He continues to say that the bible is interpreted in a certain way that helps the people responsible for the interpretation to justify their course of action. It therefore follows in my own opinion that the world we live in today does not follow the ‘commonsense’ understanding. It is my belief that the world of rationality is the new world order. If a person can go as far as to justify why he/she has committed a certain act or omission then they can be absorbed of guilt or liability. Where complete absolution is not possible then there will always be mitigation.

It follows therefore that our practices should then be about the truth behind justice rather than the commonsense of justice. In every field of life it is reason that provides for development if we were strictly playing by the rules without giving leeway for wrongs when wrongs are necessary then it would be impossible to push our own boundaries toward a grater view point. Imagine a world where nobody questions the authority and the rules in place. In that world it would be a world where power would be vested in a single institution of law makers and implementers. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, (Aristotle) and it is the nature of every man to abuse power. The world would be a dictatorship and every absolute is subject to failure in the end. People would be slaves and all slaves if experience is to be our teacher revolt at the end of it all the world would be in complete anarchy Benum omnium contra omnes. It would be a world of anarchy where every man is evil and, in a search for his own interests alone with no one else in mind.