The Crippled Epistemology of Extremism

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Jeremy Bentham remarked that religious motivations are among the most constant of all motivations. And, although such a motivation need not be especially powerful, it can be among the most powerful. Because of the constancy of the motivation, “A pernicious act, therefore, when committed through the motive of religion, is more mischievous than when committed through the motive of ill-will” (Bentham 1970: 156). He explains this conclusion from fanaticism, which, of course, need not be religiously motivated and in the twentieth century has been as destructively motivated by ideological and nationalist sentiments as by religious sentiments. This is Bentham's explanation: If a man happen to take it into his head to assassinate with his own hands, or with the sword of justice, those whom he calls heretics, that is, people who think, or perhaps only speak, differently upon a subject which neither party understands, he will be as inclined to do this [at] one time as at another. Fanaticism never sleeps: it is never glutted: it is never stopped by philanthropy; for it makes a merit of trampling on philanthropy: it is never stopped by conscience; for it has pressed conscience into service. Avarice, lust, and vengeance, have piety, benevolence, honour; fanaticism has nothing to oppose it.

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