Are our reasons just masks for pre-existing desires? (A philosophical take on Nisio Isin)
"To love someone is easy, but to keep loving them is hard. Just as to murder someone is easy, but to keep murdering is hard."
Here, two seemingly polar opposite propositions are presented: "to love" and "to murder." Yet, Nisio Isin places them on the exact same footing.
Question: "Why do you love her?" Answer: "Because she is beautiful, talented, and cute."
Question: "Why did you murder him?" Answer: "Because he took away my younger sister's future."
All right. As you can see, whenever we are asked why we love or why we kill, we always have reasons to justify those actions. Typically, these reasons are objective, rooted in external factors.
But let’s not debate the morality or the right and wrong of these two propositions. Instead, let us turn the mirror back upon ourselves and ask:
"If those qualities didn't exist, would you still love her?" "If there were no hatred left, would you still commit murder?"
Perhaps now you understand what I’m trying to convey. You love because you want to; you murder because you want to.
An infatuated lover who loves for no reason at all; a killer who murders simply because he wants to kill.
Reasons are nothing more than post-hoc tools used to justify a desire that already existed deep within the heart from the very beginning.
And the real question is: Do we actually have the courage to face that raw desire?