Direct and Indirect Moral Effects of
Greater Intelligence in an Individual

by Patrick Gunkel

Greater intelligence tends to cause (a greater):

appreciation of what is right

and wrong,

educability,

education,

and educatedness in what is right and wrong,

understanding of WHY it is right or wrong,

generalization of normative

and transcendental morality to any

and all things,

moral certainty

and precision,

awareness of the arithmetic

and logic

of moral axioms

and effects,

greater consilience

and practical harmony of

moral,

ethical,

aesthetic,

and intellectual laws,

more natural

and scientific morality,

more genuine

and spontaneous morality,

agreement between outward and inward

--and public and private--morality,

ruthless self-criticism

and self-discipline,

inevitable transformation of moral awareness into enhanced personal reality

and hence the production of either excellent

or supreme character,

wisdom as the supreme goal

and consideration,

the deliberate pursuit of ever greater wisdom,

awful sincerity

and integrity,

stern

and constant judgment of the conduct of any

and all men,

--both expressed

and merely felt, but which in either case may--by its

brilliance,

absoluteness,

unorthodoxy,

thoroughness,

and very clarity--

be a source of both minor

and great friction with any

and all others,

and even lead to others' projecting, self-confusingly

and disruptively, their own insincerity;

a tendency toward morality which is EXCESSIVELY:

active,

complex,

sophisticated,

arid,

effete,

original,

"abulic",

one-sided,

compulsive,

excessive;

a paradoxic tendency to produce ostensible

or real

immorality

or amorality, say in

isolated

or inconsistent

but extreme acts

or aspects of the person that are all too apt to be misread

by others of lesser mentality

or not the person himself;

an ABSTRACT interest in what IS

good,

virtuous,

right,

true,

best,

necessary,

"self",

just,

wise,

"character",

"conscience",

"responsibility",

the golden way,

"freedom",

ideal

and practical,

first

and last,

most consequential

and least,

universal

and relative,

arbitrary

and natural,

evil,

worst,

transcendent

and passing,

meaningful,

&c--

in early life

and throughout life--

and with effects on character

and behavior;

sensitivity,

understanding of the motives of others,

inner peace

and conviction,

latitude

and cosmopolitanism,

transcultural character,

self-importance

AND humility,

indirect

or generalized insights:

political,

cultural,

religious,

and philosophic;

consciousness of the very

and integral

wellsprings,

foundations,

continuities,

and teloi (def. ultimate ends and objects)

of society,

culture,

the state,

and human psychology itself;

dissent,

questioning,

experimentation,

liberalism,

recusancy,

rigidity,

self-government,

pure rationalism,

hesitation,

noncompromise,

sobriety,

radicalism,

progressivism,

WHICH MAY NOT SIT WELL WITH OTHERS...