The Assumption of Infallibility

In support of his claim that censorship required the censor to assume he or she is infallible. John Stuart Mill cites historical examples of the monstrous effects of the assumption of infallibility by censors. His first is Socrates. He is now recognized as the most exalted of all teachers of ethics, but in his day, he was executed for his opinions.  How wrong could the people of Athens be?

The second example Mill offers is Jesus Christ,

“The man who left on the memory of those who witnessed his life and conversation such an impression of his moral grandeur that eighteen subsequent centuries have done homage to him as the Almighty in person, was ignominiously put to death, as what? A blasphemer?  Men did not merely mistake their benefactor; they mistook him for the exact contrary of what he was, as treated him as that prodigy of impiety which they themselves are now held to be for their treatment of him.”

 

Even the wisest and most virtuous of men falls into such errors. If they do it, how much more modest should we be about our claims to infallibility? Mill gave one more example—Marcus Aurelius who had more valid grounds to think himself the best and most enlightened of men and had a well-earned reputation of being the most just of leaders, got it wrong too.  As Mill said,

“This man, a better Christian in all but the dogmatic sense of the word than almost any of the ostensibly Christian sovereigns who have since reigned, persecuted Christianity. Placed at the summit of all the previous attainments of humanity, with an open, unfettered intellect, and a character which led him of himself to embody in his moral writings the Christian ideal, he yet failed to see that Christianity was to be a good and not evil to the world, with his duties to which he was so deeply penetrated…the gentlest and most amiable of philosophers and rulers, under a solemn sense of duty, authorized the persecution of Christianity.”

If great men  are not recognized for what they were by censors,  as Mill argues, the rest of ought to be governed by the most extreme modesty and recognize that we could not possibly be infallible.

In the light of such monstrous mistakes, we should be forever modest of our abilities to approach infallibility! Even when we are so certain that we are willing to put people to death because we believe they are misleading us we get it wrong! All of these mistakes counsel serious humility.

This was what Jonathan Haidt called “moral humility.” There is no good reason to believe we will be good at censorship.

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