REASONABLE DOUBT
By Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge189.html#rg

Spinoza had argued that our capacity for reason is what makes each of us a thing of inestimable worth, demonstrably deserving of dignity and compassion. That each individual is worthy of ethical consideration is itself a discoverable law of nature, obviating the appeal to divine revelation. An idea that had caused outrage when Spinoza first proposed it in the 17th century, adding fire to the denunciation of him as a godless immoralist, had found its way into the minds of men who set out to create a government the likes of which had never before been seen on this earth.

Spinoza's dream of making us susceptible to the voice of reason might seem hopelessly quixotic at this moment, with religion-infested politics on the march. But imagine how much more impossible a dream it would have seemed on that day 350 years ago. And imagine, too, how much even sorrier our sorry world would have been without it.

<snip> the article is 3,450 words

How do we deal with the issue of the prols who follow like ants, from labour to entertainment, to bed? Yet who have a mind, possibly astute, but probably unrealised. Their societal worth is easy to understand, but what of their intellectual worth, their unfulfilled potential, their untried artistic ability.....? And what of the mentally disabled (could include mentally ill)? What about the reason of the Lebanese versus the Israelis?

This is an interesting area to delve into. Thanks for raising it Culture.