Michael,

I don’t think Dennis Prager explains the context of Will Smith?s quote very well.  He wrote:

“Near the end of the highly laudatory piece, the reporter wrote:
‘Remarkably, Will believes everyone is basically good’ and immediately
cited the actor saying: ‘Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘Let me do
the most evil thing I can do today,’ said Will. “I think he woke up in
the morning and, using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do
what he thought was ‘good.'”

It is unclear from his op-ed whether Smith himself stated that everyone
was basically good and then went on to talk about Hitler.  His
quote in that context would be a concern.  However, as it turns
out, People magazine explains the controversy better: 

“What got left out in the firestorm was that the quote was used as an
example to back up the journalist’s hypothesis that, ‘Remarkably, Will
believes everyone is basically good,’ and it was not an assessment by
Smith that Hitler was a good person, as many Web sites alleged.” 

This is a key distinction.

On the merits of the quote itself, I think Will Smith was
accurate.  I wouldn’t agree that all “evil” leaders have some true
belief that they are doing good, but I think Hitler likely thought in
his own messed up way that his actions were “good.”

This is why I always fear people saying that we need to do things for
the “greater good.”  It is easy to see how believing in the
“greater good” can lead to policies that are “good” for a group of
people, but absolutely a disaster for other groups.  The greater
good doesn’t necessarily even have to mean benefiting a majority of
people–it means benefiting whatever group the “leaders” are concerned
about.  The cost to everyone else, no matter how large, doesn’t
matter.  This leads to such evils as slavery, genocide, etc.

One way to avoid atrocities and dangerous policies for the greater good
is to have an established set of principles and limitations on
government action (i.e. a constitution).  Of course, a
constitution needs to be respected and enforced.  Doing things for
the greater good is subjective and completely contingent on the
decision-maker.  Having objective restraints on decision-makers
and also having checks on power minimizes the damage that can be done
by anyone trying to act in the “greater good.”

Our nation’s constitution sets up the right protections.  The only
question is whether we will fail to respect the Constitution, as we
have so often, or remember that the principles espoused in the document
are designed to protect us from subjective and dangerous policies in
the ?greater good.?