Intelligence is not morality
Notes
Claim
Smart people are not necessarily good people, and not just because they fail to follow their own advice Knowing the right thing doesn't mean we do it. Intelligence is focused only on our ability to implement our goals, while ethics is focused on what those goals are. Therefore increasing our knowledge doesn't mean we are becoming better people.
Explanation
If anything, intelligence can make this worse: the smarter we are, the better we get at bending reality to fit what we already believe, which turns reasoning into a tool for justifying whatever we wanted to do anyway, rather than a check on it.
Why it matters
The best we can hope for when sticking with intelligence alone is a misguided Maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering defines moral action, where the person tries to maximize something, like pleasure, ignoring all other aspects of morality. Morality is both rational and emotional
Examples
Supporters
Opposers
Socratic intellectualism disagrees: Socrates held that Knowing the good and doing good are inseparable, that really knowing what's good is enough to act on it, and that wrongdoing is a failure of understanding rather than of character.