The question “Is doubt good?” can be answered depending on what is meant by doubt. Doubt is generally useful because it allows us to check and verify. Thinking in detail is always beneficial when guided by a proper chain of reasoning. In practical life, there are moments when questioning must turn into action; apart from those, we can say that doubt is good.
A questioned life or an unquestioned life?
Socrates said that everyone wants to live a good life, and to live a good life one must question. In other words, without questioning, we could not even know whether a good life exists. Indeed, evaluating good and evil is itself a form of inquiry. Anyone who wants to live a good life must live a life of questioning.
When is doubt harmful?
When is doubt—the stage of checking—harmful? Like everything else, the kind of detailed thinking that is generally helpful is only beneficial in the right dose. Medicine is useful, but too much becomes poison. Even too much goodness or too much work can be harmful. Doubt, of course, can also cause hesitation in practice and prevent one from taking action. For example, when chatting with people in a social setting, constantly doubting oneself can be harmful for the flow of conversation. Mental capacity should be reserved for socializing; ideally, one should engage in doubt together with others, and if that is not possible, doubt should be reserved for moments when one can focus on thinking alone.
Doubt that yields no result
If our thoughts, which should have practical outcomes, produce no results, doubt can be suspended. There are even situations that require intuitive, fast reasoning. While driving in traffic or making a move in a sports competition, we do not enter a process of doubt. We do not doubt while walking because these are motor actions—automatic processes. In such simple operations or situations that do not require the problem-solving function of the mind, entering into doubt would prevent us from achieving the expected result.
Doubt must be focused
All intellectual capacity—including doubt—should be directed toward the human being’s main task: analysis and creation of meaning. We constantly need doubt to analyze concepts and ideas. Doubt is good, but when misdirected, it appears harmful.
Still, people should be advised not to act on their first impulse and to think things through. The first thing that comes to mind is a primitive reaction the body uses for survival. It is useful only in such bodily, animalistic situations. In social or human affairs, the activity we call doubt—reviewing our thoughts—has never proven harmful.
Self-development is a necessity
A human being is in a body that must be transcended. Overcoming the body’s short-term instinctive, primitive reactions and replacing them with long-term human responses depends on reviewing processes. Using what we call human capacity—thought—one must rise above the body and events into a mental world. Human life is already on an intellectual level. We experience even physical pain and pleasure in our minds. When our mind focuses elsewhere, we do not even notice our greatest pleasures or greatest pains. Therefore, just as we must focus our doubt, we must also focus our humanity within the mind. With an infinite ladder of intellectual growth capable of transforming all our vital perceptions, we cannot descend into animalistic levels and complain about doubt there.
