When kids do linear algebra or they rise to the level of GM in chess within the first two decades of their lives, such people are obviously geniuses. Their intelligence is undeniable.
But it’s like moral/spiritual geniuses aren’t recognized in the same way, if at all. How come their intuitive expertise isn’t recognized so easily ?
Kant? St. Augustine? Siddhartha Budda? Epictetus? Plato? Hobbes?
Ethical philosophy has had plenty of geniuses.
Yeah, but who is today’s Buddha?
Philosophy needs a better PR department
Probably because morality is subjective and spirituality is a feeling?
WTF is a “moral/spiritual genius”? That doesn’t even make sense. It sounds like a title someone just made up for themselves to feel important.
Actually, that’s a good point! I brought it up in another comment, but there are mathematical geniuses, piano geniuses, scientific genius, etc. But everybody know and can agree on what math is, what a piano is and how difficult it is to play well, what science is and the long road to mastery of a sliver of human knowledge that entails.
But not with morality.
Personally, I think you’ve suggested an answer that satisfies me: people have no idea wtf morality or spirituality are. Plato and Aristotle once may have been able to point to someone and say, “So and so is more virtuous than us!” or “The king of a foreign nation is full of vice and worth less than coward who turns to bravery.” But it’s like modern American society cannot conceive of such a concept as moral superiority.
I mean, some people can, and then often go on to be significantly worse than normal people. They are often the definition of immoral. But, as a general rule, saying that you’re morally superior to others barely makes any sense and, even if it did, would demand an impossible type of proof.
There aren’t any?
Got some stats on that, or are you just begging the question?
Edit: Maybe you mean to ask “why does it seem geniuses lack morals?”.
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