The Morality of Ideas

 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them." 

-Jesus, the Gospel of Matthew.

"People don't have ideas. Ideas have people." 

-Carl Jung

If ideas have agency, or a will of their own, then they can have moral responsibility or a moral/ethical spirit to them. Everybody who has been alive longer than a few years has probably heard someone say "that's a good idea" or "that's a bad idea." These phrases assign morals and ethics to ideas as well as gauging quality. 

An idea is usually considered good when the outcome or consequences of it has some sort of positive, beneficial, or constructive effect. 

We usually consider ideas bad if they are destructive. If they do harm. 

Just like you know the content of someone's character and their ethics, or lack thereof, "by their fruits" like Jesus said, you know ideas "by their fruits" too. By the consequences and outcomes of when you implement them.

Ideas are an abstract phenomenon. They are not really physically measureable and exist as a mostly mental phenomenon. You can't "hold an idea in your hand." At least not in the initial stages of it. Not until you turn that abstract idea into something physical, like an invention or innovation of some sort, or develop some system with physical parts. 

Every artificial system started out as an idea in someone's mind.

The only thing more abstract than ideas is probably consciousness itself. Ideas are just a step or two up from that. In fact, some would argue you can't have intelligent consciousness without ideas. Because of the abstractness of ideas, like consciousness itself, its not much of a stretch for me to believe some ideas may have agency, or a will of their own. We all know consciousness has agency. Ideas are an essential part of consciousness and just a little less abstract, uncertain, and mysterious than consciousness is.

If ideas and ideologies...which are systems of ideas...have agency, then in a sense they kind of have a level of personhood. They use the people who have them or believe them like agents and turn them into systems of people to more easily complete their goals. You know these systems by the institutions, religious and political movements and organizations that dot the social landscape of humanity.

In fact, you won't find a single human organisation, movement, or institution that isn't systemized around some sort of ideology or idea.

A person, in philosophy and ontology, is anything that can make choices and influence reality wilfully and consciously and have awareness of the world and the consequences of their choices. A human is a person, but so are angels if they are real. So is God. So is any entity that has intelligence, sentience, and awareness. 

If ideas are sentient and have agency, they would fall under this definition. If they have some level of personhood, than they would have morals and ethics, and have accountability. Personhood equates to accountability, especially in law.

When ideas are good, they lead to good outcomes with positive constructive effects, just like when people are good.

When ideas are bad, they caused harm and destruction, just like when people are bad.

In fact, a society or culture is only really as good as its ideas are and how well or poorly they are applied. Since every system that is not natural starts in someone's mind as an idea, then the morals and ethics of that system are gauged by its fruits just as a person's morals and ethics are. A good culture acts on and is inspired by good ideas, a bad culture acts on and is inspired by bad ones. 

If they have personhood, then a morally flawed idea, ideology, or system created by these are morally and ethically accountable for their actions or the outcome of their practice. They are held  accountable by humans, other ideas, or even God himself, just like humans are held accountable for our choices.

Some may find it hard to believe that ideas have agency, but all one has to do is take a look around at society, culture, and technology to see how ideas permeate everything humans create, design, and interact with that isn't naturally occurring. I just argue that's its the ideas themselves more responsible for this than we are. We just act on them. We are kind of their "proxies" in the physical world.

It's a simple saying that has a pretty profound truth: everything man-made started as an idea of a man's mind.

People have personhood. That's pretty self explanatory. But I see ideas as having kind of a will of their own as well. However, its not ideas controlling us, like Carl Jung suggested, or us controlling ideas. It's both to some degree or another. It's a truly symbiotic relationship. 

Ideas come into our mind, influence our thinking, maybe some exert more control of some people than others, and then we act on them, and the outcomes our actions are both the fruit of our choices as well as those of our ideas.

You know a man by his fruits.

You know an idea by its fruits too.