Month: January 2019

“The world turns and the world changes… In all my years, one thing does not change…The perpetual struggle of good and evil.” – T.S. Eliot, The Rock.

Prehistoric humans lived in a world of natural wonders – sun, moon, stars, earth, storms, animals, food plants, and so forth. In the absence of science, most if not all human societies came to see or explain at least some of these phenomena as divine or as deities. With time they personified them and polytheism was the result. During that prehistoric era, they also came to distinguish desirable things (e.g. food) from undesirable things (e.g disease) and eventually abstracted from that contrast the idea of good and evil forces or agents in a struggle, each trying to dominate the cosmos, setting the stage for the mythological conflict of Good and Evil.

Virtually every culture and most religious traditions incorporate the struggle of these two forces into their belief system, and seek to ascertain the impact on man and his place in it. One of the earliest of these comes from the Vedas of the subcontinent of India where two deities were considered most powerful: Vishnu (the preserver – also called Krishna) and Shiva (the destroyer).

In Persia, perhaps drawing on a similar Aryan tradition, a prophet known as Zarathustra, derived a religion and philosophy focused on the struggle between Good and Evil, perhaps 600 to 1000 years before Christ. He preached a near monotheism with  Ahura Mazdah as the supreme god, Lord of Light, Lord of Wisdom, ‘God of gods,’ ‘the first and the last.’ However a series of evil spirits he called Druj (servants of the Lie) led by Ahriman (also known as Angro-Mainyus) were fighting with Ahura Mazdah to dominate the universe. In his system Evil comes from free will, and cannot create; it is ‘not-life.’ Humans are born into the struggle and their role is to take individual responsibility and be active and diligent in the cause of good (inactivity is equivalent to aiding the Druj). Man’s duties then are to make all enemies into friends, to make the wicked righteous, and to make the ignorant learned. The greatest virtues are piety and honesty or honor.

After Zorasterism was adopted in Persia, these ideas worked themselves into Judaism and then Christianity where the evil spirit was called Satan and finally into Islam where it was known as Iblis (or Eblis). This dualism was also reflected in the two equal gods of Manichaeism, an extinct religion embraced by Augustine before he converted to Christianity.

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¹Gore, Charles, The Philosophy of the Good Life. Everyman’s Library, 1954. Chapter 2 – pages 31-52.

² Durant, Will, Our Oriental Heritage. Simon and Schuster, 1954, p. 369.

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In the last blog, we noted that evil can be due to natural causes or to human free will and that there are six explanations of evil due to the latter. We then looked at the first two: immaturity and accident. Now we will look at the four other causes of evil due to human free will.

In the category of evil due to error, I am referring to the use of incomplete or erroneous knowledge in a decision for action. This may be avoidable through careful study of circumstances of decision and thoughtful reflection on actions.  Socrates sees  knowledge as the distinguishing  feature in human behavior, that is, he sees virtue as identical to knowledge, arguing that no man will knowingly do what he knows to be wrong. However, I am unconvinced as my last three categories of human evil will demonstrate.

Weakness is a common source of evil and includes intemperance, rashness, negligence, and cowardice. It is overcome by the ancient virtues of temperance and fortitude combined with patience and diligence in decision making. Unlike error which may be unavoidable, weakness can be overcome by the mature individual through the art of self-discipline.

Selfishness is an excess of the self-preservation instinct intensified by human emotions and psychological constitution. Early in life it leads to evils of immaturity, but later in life it blinds us to fairness and compassion. It often reflects the belief that personal sacrifice is  unnatural, irrational, or unrewarding, but many great thinkers – for example, Buddha, Jesus, Epicurus, Seneca, and Spinoza -conclude that restraint, moderation, and selflessness can be good for both the individual and for others.

Last is malice, the intention to cause harm to others. The more common form, mean-spiritedness, leads to relatively minor evil; whereas the less common form, cruelty, can lead to major evils. Most of us have experienced the former although most often subconsciously; especially in response to a perceived hurt. It may be overcome by self-examination and control of emotions especially anger. Cruelty in all of its forms must be overcome through ethical reversal and good will or if necessary by external restraint.

Extreme evils of error can be seen in an unwavering certainty of one’s belief. When paired with selfish desire to outshine others, we get Becker’s misplaced heroism discussed in Escape From Evil¹. When paired with cruelty we get J. Brownowski’s vision of the catastrophic evil of the Nazis in The Ascent of Man².

Remembering Frankena’s principle of beneficence we discussed in the section on ethics³, our primary duty is not to inflict evil or harm. This requires us to eliminate to the extent possible all the evil due to our actions, particularly that due to error, weakness, selfishness, and malice. Alternatively, knowledge, humility, self-examination, fortitude, consideration of others, and good will are the remedies for most human caused evil.

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¹Becker, Ernest, Escape From Evil. The Free Press, New York, 1975.

²Brownoswki, J., The Ascent of Man. Little, Brown, and Company, 1973. Page 374.

³Frankena, William K., Ethics,  Prentice-Hall, Inc. ISBN 0-13-290478-0 .  1973, p. 47.

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“Nature in her indifference makes no distinction between good and evil.” – Anatole France

We don’t usually think about causes of good, they simply seem to be good fortune or derive from personal effort. On the other hand for some reason, it is characteristic of human understanding to wonder why there is evil. We are unlikely to ask why a day is beautiful, but inclined to ask rhetorically at least why a hurricane with its resultant damage or injuries should occur.

Traditionally philosophers attribute evil to two main causes: nature and free agency. Natural evil is that which occurs through the forces of nature: calamity (earthquakes, droughts, and the like), disease, and imperfections in natural function (e.g. genetic mutations or congenital conditions). Science can explain the basis for most natural evils, but not in any satisfying way why the universe has them. This ‘why’ is the crux of thinking about natural evil. Psychologically, it tends to make humans see the universe as hostile or indifferent to us while undermining belief in an all-powerful or beneficent divinity. These interpretations will be examined in more detail in later blogs.

The other main cause of evil is that committed by free agents, which for most of us means human free will (we will discuss the possibility of evil non-humans such as Satan in later blogs). While the number of evils due to free agency is large, the reasons fall into six main groups (in rough order of increasing severity): immaturity, accident, error, weakness, selfishness, and malice.

The first two of these are largely unavoidable and on the whole minor. The evils of youth are generally unintentional whereas accidental evil appears to be almost a variety of natural evil. Both lead to feelings of guilt or remorse and thus serve a place in human maturation and socialization and may drive individual and human progress .

(continued next post)

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In the last blog we discussed classifying goods and evils referring to Table 2 in the Appendix. We discussed the difference between  intrinsic and instrumental goods. A second distinction between goods is the location where they originate. An internal good is situated within the individual and cannot generally be directly shared with others, though this type of good can lead to good for others. Health for example cannot be directly shared, but healthy individuals can help the sick or disabled. An external good is outside the individual and relies on or is shared by others. Friendship and justice are obvious examples. Some goods, such as peace can be both, in which case I categorized them by the location that seems to me more essential to the individual.

Of course all goods are not equal with respect to desirable intensity. For instance, some goods are such that we can never have enough or too much of them. It seems illogical to say one has too much purpose, functional capacity, or creativity. Therefore these rate a 5 on a scale of 5 in the desired intensity column on the chart. Other goods are optimal in moderation and of diminishing value when excessive. Food is an obvious example; too much leads to obesity and lesser health. A classical example is courage where Aristotle sees moderation as ideal; too much courage being foolhardiness; too little cowardice.

The reader may have different thoughts on these ratings and categories, any of which I am happy to discuss and even modify. However it may be advantageous to create your own version of this chart, perhaps even with your own concepts of goods and evils for your contemplation.

You may also notice some items missing such as fame or power. I left these off because they seem to be of uncertain value or are not universally recognized as good or evil. The reader may prefer to add these and others to his own list. The other missing element in Table 2  is a ranking of goods. That question is addressed in our next blog.

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“Good is all that serves life, evil is all that serves death. Good is reverence for life…and all that enhances life. Evil is all that stifles life, narrows it down, cuts it to pieces.” – Erich Fromm

To further define the concepts of good and evil, it is helpful to identify the various goods and evils we detect around us. In general philosophers do not list more than a sample of goods and evils, so I have created a fairly comprehensive table of goods and evils from reading and personal reflection. (See Table 2 in the Appendix).  For many of these, a different name or manifestation might be chosen, but for the most part the reader should be able to trace a given good to one listed.  I also listed the corresponding evil – essentially the opposite of the good listed although there is some variation in this, for example for the good, security, the related evil is fear (i.e. worry about one’s safety).

Traditionally philosophers divide ‘good’ into two types. First is intrinsic which is good in itself rather than as a means to some higher good. Happiness is the most noteworthy example; we do not usually think of achieving happiness for some other reason, rather because we think it is desirable in itself. Alternatively an instrumental good is not good in itself, but by virtue of the good that can derive from it. Wealth is an example; good only as a means to comfort, happiness, or charity. In Table 2, I have tried to categorize the listed goods by which type they fit.

(to be continued in the next post)

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“Good then if we mean by it that quality which we assert to belong to a thing, when we say that the thing is good, is incapable of any definition…” – G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica.

The crux of reality and life for sapient beings revolves around the concepts of Good and Evil. For instance one may question whether the universe is mostly good, mostly evil, or neither. Individual actions are considered ethical if ‘good’ and immoral if ‘evil.’ Therefore the next step is to think through these two words and the relationship between them.

Like we found with the word ‘reality,’ philosophical dictionaries and encyclopedias tend to avoid defining the word ‘good’ per se. Dagobert Runes has a passable two part definition¹:

1.  In ethics, morally praiseworthy character, action, or motive.

2.  Anything desirable, or that ought to be desired.

However, the words ‘praiseworthy’ and ‘desirable’ seem a bit circular rather than defining to me, and leave the real concern of relativity. After all a tyrant believes control of others is desirable, but it is not clear that makes for a ‘good.’ Webster’s dictionary has a half-column, 58 meaning entry for the word ‘good.’ None is more exact or more useful than these.

Aristotle thought of a ‘good’ as something which leads to happiness, but that seems insufficient for more general use. Accordingly I will again suggest my own definition:

Good is that which contributes to the happiness, well-being, longevity, pleasure, or knowledge of oneself and others or at least does not diminish these for others; or which promotes existing non-human reality in the universe. Evil then is simply its negative.

No one need accept this definition, but the alternative is to rely on one’s own intuitive definition of good.  G.E. Moore thinks it is too basic a concept (like ‘yellow’) to be truly definable. This is troubling given the foundational nature of good and evil in much of practical philosophy, but the reader can at least get a sense of my use of those essential words from my definition.

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¹  Runes, Dagobert, Dictionary of Philosophy. Philosophical Library, 1950, p. 118.

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