I have a three-part question: One - What would you say is the Achilles heel of the human mind? What is the mind's weakest spot? Where is the mind most vulnerable? Two- Why do you think that that which you deem to be the mind's weakest and most vulnerable spot, is so? Three - What's your solution - how to avoid or overcome this weakest and most vulnerable spot, or what are the alternatives? In my estimation, the weakest and most vulnerable spot is the combination of unconditional honesty and unconditional good intentions. I think so because a mind set on the combination of unconditional honesty and unconditional good intentions will fall for anything and anyone, however good or however bad they might be. The solution for this can be to set a goal in life and maintain only conditional honesty and only conditional good intentions, in accordance with that goal. What do you think - what is the Achilles' heel of the human mind?
1.Emotion, specifically love. 2.Makes you do irrational and dangerous things. 3.No solution, just hard lessons learnt over. My achilles heel is believing the best in people and being frequently let down.
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Honesty and good intentions does not equate to trust. I might be honest and with good intentions but that does not force me to assume this of others. And are you truely being honest if you think that others always tell the truth, no matter the evidence? Isn't that some kind of self-deception? Personally I think the greatest weakness of the mind is that it can only work with the information it has; Past information becomes basis for a filter for future information, so usually you only learn what you already knew.
Unconditional good intentions lead to that sort of deception. A person inssisting in their own unconditional honesty and unconditional good intentions will listen to anything and anyone. Just tell them "I have good intentions and what I am telling you is true, even though right now it doesn't seem that way" and the one with unconditional honesty and unconditional good intentions will listen.
1. Its propensity for mental illness (e.g. obsessive compulsive, bipolar, schizophrenia, etc) 2. It can become emotionally and socially incapacitating 3. Religion/medical science.
Someone might have your best intentions in mind as he takes away your rights, liberties and properties. And they might be all honest about it. Take some extremist islamists as an example. Greensberg, I disagree with your definitions: a) Honesty, to me, means that one attempts to speak/act without deception. b) Good intentions means that you do as you see best, or that you, without self-deception, do as you see is best for others. Technically, neither impose a severe need to believe others. That would be c) gullibility, the ability to believe others without conditions. Indeed, a) and b) do impose the duty to determine whether someone is telling him the truth and to prevent him from doing harm unto others through deception or fraud. Then again that does depend largely on what you consider is best for others. If you believe, for example, that by getting robbed a couple of times teaches people to be careful, by a) and b) he would be compelled to allow a person to do harm to others, or indeed, help him do it. Someone like me or you might consider that self-deception, of course. But he might just see things diffrently.
That is all fine and well. But my point is that unconditional honesty and unconditional good intentions -however noble and flawless they might seem as an ethical principle- do in no way protect a person from being (ab)used. In fact, they even make (ab)use more likely. This is not a description of unconditional good intentions, though.
