The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions. I absolutely
love this maxim. Whoever came up with it is an incredible genius. It helps explain most of the problems in the world.
Very few people have
bad intentions. But most of the problems in the world are caused by
good intentions. They may not seem good to us, but they seem good to the one taking the action. Good intentions alone are not enough to make our actions moral.
All of us justify our actions to ourselves. It is human
nature to do so. Leon Felsinger's theory of
Cognitive Dissonance posits that we feel psychic distress when we do things that consciously violate our own values, so we create justifications for what we do, allowing us to comfortably live with ourselves. Even Hitler, the modern symbol of ultimate evil, had good intentions, as did his followers. Otherwise, he would not have been able to convince intelligent, educated, enlightened Europeans that the world would be a better place without Jews and other impure people like homosexuals, Gypsies, blacks and intellectually deficient people. However, his good intentions spawned the most horrific genocidal crusade in human history.
During the Middle Ages and afterwards, well-intentioned witch hunters in Europe and America burned tens of thousands of women alive at the stake in the hope of ending epidemics, and they instilled
paranoia in the populace, for anyone could be suspected of being a witch or a consorter with witches.
In 1919 our
government instituted Prohibition of
alcohol with the intention of reducing
crime and other social problems associated with the consumption of alcohol. The intentions were excellent but the cure was far worse than the illness. Fortunately, our government had the
wisdom to repeal Prohibition thirteen years later.
In the 1970's, catfish farmers introduced Asian Carp into their fisheries with the good intention of keeping the water clear of plankton and algae, allowing for healthier catfish. The voracious and aggressive Asian Carp, which can reach over a hundred pounds, fly through the air, injuring boaters, and decimate native fish species. It has now overtaken the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and threaten to do the same to the Great Lakes.
For the past few decades, our government has waged a massive war against drug use. This has led to a multi-billion dollar drug industry and a commensurately expensive governmental drug-fighting establishment. Many political analysts and social commentators, and even some officers who work in drug enforcement, insist that the worldwide drug problem and the related crime and violence are the ultimate result of our war against
drugs.
We cannot assume that everything that results from our good intentions will be positive. Scientists frequently refer to the "the law of unintended consequences." The recent best-seller,
SuperFreakonomics (link is external), repeatedly asserts that we should not underestimate the power of unintended negative consequences.