Topics Ethics

Question Are people who have more imagination (or who use their imagination more) better people (more moral, cause less suffering, make better choices)? For example, I could argue that: - imagination leads to more empathy for others, more understanding of others points of view, more tolerance - imagination leads to creative solutions to problems (rather than punch the other guy in the face) - imagination allows a person to forsee the potential consequences of actions, and make less destructive choices - imagination stimulates thought, expression, variety, the artistic side of life which feeds the human spirit - imagination improves tolerance of others because a person is more comfortable with novelty and differences I often wonder if a certain kind of person or a specific person had had more imagination, would they have been a better person, or not have done something awful that they did. Saskatoon, Canada

Accepted:
November 5, 2005

Comments

To be plausible, all of your claims about imagination need to be qualified as "other things being equal", since there are, of course, examples of vivid imagination leading to terrible (and destructive and intolerant) actions. This said, I'm inclined to agree to most of the general claims you make for imagination. And in fact, we've just embarked our daughter on a Waldorf education that emphasizes the development of imagination, and all the benefits that this supposedly brings. However, to really assess all of this, we'd need a somewhat detailed account of what exactly counts as imagination (and greater or lesser amounts of it), and some tests to determine whether it links up in positive ways with the other properties you've identified. This task is partly philosophical, but mostly, I think, a matter for empirical psychology. It's an interesting topic, though. Sorry I don't have more to add.