The Golden Rule is both rational and intuitive (the ‘fellow-feeling’ you menionted–self is other, other is self). My article explains how it is essential to every moral theory, and that where every moral theory goes wrong is when it departs from the GR.

I agree, to some extent: Kant’s analysis of evil is flawed, for one thing because it has to cover the spectrum from the “little” evil to the extreme forms. I suspect that the religious connection is the root cause of this flaw: From the time of Aquinas the concept of evil has been linked up with disobeying God’s natural law, and the result is a too-broad brush; “everyone does it.” It does not reach the level of horrors that someone like Duncan reveals to us. But go back to the time of Augustine and you get a more interesting version (borrowed from Plotinus): evil as privatio, the lack of God’s presence, or shall we say in modern terms, the lack of goodness/compassion. Makes it sound almost like Taylor’s analysis!

I like your distinction between the banality of ordinary evil and radical evil—mainly because I, too, make that distinction (with a different choice of words) in the new 2009, 6th edition of my ethics textbook!(The Arendt-Zimbardo comparison I referred to in my first Duncan post, April 30.) Philip Zimbardo carries Arendt’s analysis into the post-Abu Ghraib era, and Arendt’s brilliant concept is certainly a marvelous addition to our modern vocabulary, but both she and Zimbardo seem to forget to reserve a place for the acts of deliberate harmdoing for the sake of harm. But, interestingly, somebody like Eichmann whom Arendt uses as the primary example of evil’s banality, and if not he, then certainly other Nazi officials with executive powers, would probably qualify as agents of radical evil.

However, whichever form “evil” takes, I think Kant has a point that it does involve self-centered (not necessarily self-interested) actions, done with the full understanding of their moral wrongness. In Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone he presents the ultimate version of this as evil, and sees it as part of the human condition that we are supposed to rise above–he even calls it “radical evil.” To my recollection he does not include the kind of extreme harmdoing that Duncan represents, however, but I’d have to go back and re-read it. As for the Golden Rule: as much as it is not a cure-all, and sometimes has rather monstrous results, such as you describe, to me it represents (or is supposed to represent) some basic, minimal comprehension that others are people, too. Not the gracious recognition of the Other’s humanity á la Levinas, but a simple “We’re all in this together.” Better than nothing.

I agree with you that what you call Taylor’s “emotionalism” –Duncan’s lack of compassion–doesn’t quite explain our revulsion at Duncan’s behavior. But I don’t think Kant helps much here.

Kant’s account of immoral behavior undergoes some development. As I recall in the “Groundwork” (1785?) immoral behavior is any action that cannot be universally willed without contradiction. This would mean lots of ordinary acts of compassion would be immoral because they cannot be universalized. This hardly provides us with grounds for revulsion!

In the Critique of Practical Reason (1788 ?) he thinks of immoral action as the attempt to employ “self-love” as an unconditional practical principle. In other words, acts motivated by pure self-interest are immoral. These would be cases in which I aim at a state of affairs that serves my interests and I simply don’t consider the humanity of another person except incidentally as it might help me bring about that state of affairs. So I treat the humanity of another person only as a means to my own ends.

Much garden variety immorality–ordinary deception, thievery, and some rape and murder–is motivated by self-interest in which the humanity of others is ignored, and Kant’s explanation of these cases seems to be in the right direction.

But in Duncan’s case, the humanity of others is not just incidentally involved in his quest to promote his interests. He actively seeks to violate the humanity of his victims, independently of his interests. The object of his will just is the dehumanization of another person.

In my upcoming book, I distinguish between ordinary evil and radical evil. Ordinary evil arises from ordinary people coping badly with their situation, acting from excessive, misplaced anger, fear, resentment, etc.–Arendt’s the banality of evil. Radical evil chooses evil because it is evil–this describes Duncan. It seems to me Kant is describing ordinary evil. I don’t think he has conceptualized radical evil. (although my knowledge of Kant is well short of comprehensive)

I think we find Duncan’s behavior revolting because at a certain level we cannot understand it. All of us are self-interested much of the time and we understand that motive rather well. Most of us, thankfully, don’t recognize dehumanization as something good it itself.

As to the golden rule, I’m not a big fan. Duncan seems to oscillate between utter narcissism and self-hatred. In those moments of self-hatred, the golden rule will be a monstrous doctrine. Perhaps even a true narcissist is indifferent to how others treat him.

I do not think that reason and emotion can be separated. Some may hold the view that emotional people are unreasonable. It can be true that some people are emotional because they are unreasonable, but that does not mean that emotion itself is unreasonable. It would seem that emotion can be quite reasonable. Indeed, it would seem unreasonable not to be emotional at times. It seems also that those that are unreasonable toward us are those that are insensitive to our feelings, either because of their unreasonableness or because of the ignorance that follows upon their unreasonableness. We are angered by those that are thoughtless to us because we consider their thoughtlessness due their unreasonableness toward us. Killers and rapists can be people that are emotionless.

It may be that compassion is the premier emotion. Compassion does not belong to ignorant people nor does it belong to unreasonable people. I have to think that compassion follows upon knowledge and since reason follow upon knowledge it can be said that compassion follows upon reason. One has to know when and where to be compassionate and especially to whom to be compassionate. The person that is most reasonable to others would be the same person that is most compassionate to others. Simply being reasonable to someone seems to be a form of compassion. I would think that compassion is an indication of a high degree of intellectual perfection.