Evil is not absence of good

[Bahman]

I disagree. Evil has no capacity to exist on its own. Every evil thing is a corruption, absence, or destruction of a good thing.

You are mixing wrong with evil.

Rape could not exist without sex. But sex could exist without rape.

An intercourse could not exit without sex but sex could exist with intercourse. etc

 

[Bahman]

No, neutral objects have no moral bearing. They are neither good nor evil.

That I agree.

Evil objects arise from a removal of the good or a deprivation of the good.

Have you ever experience evil? Evil is something subjectively real since we can experience it. The same thing apply to good things.

 

[Bahman]

I think I’d have to disagree with the original post. I think it’s confused because it is associating evil with an action, whereas it’s not always down to the action. Sin can be committed by thoughts, words, deeds and omissions.

God is the source of all goodness. Original sin is a state not an act, leaving us weakened and inclined to evil. And although ignorance mitigates responsibility, the evil thought or deed remains evil.

Lets add all sins in one packet. Evil is something real that we experience it. So we have a hierarchy that could start with pure evil. Then it could be less evil until it becomes neutral then less good and finally pure good.

 

[sudy]

I don’t have all of the answers here but I think that things aren’t as straightforward as you’d like to make them.

Let’s take something as simple as the act of a kiss. A kiss can be good, like… greet each other with a holy kiss, or it can be bad… an adulterous kiss. Or, eating a dinner… it can be good because it feeds the hunger, or it can be bad because you have eaten your dinner already and therefore it’s gluttonous because you’re not even hungry and are just gorging. These are probably poor examples shrugs

 

[Bahman]

Most people are ignorant because nobody has taught them. As the eunuch asked Philip, “How can I understand if I no one shows me?” (Acts 8:31)

So ignorance is an evil, yes, but the ignorant are victims of it, just like the neglected are victims of neglect. Only those who are wilfully and purposefully ignorant are doing it to themselves.

So yes, the Church does make allowances for victims of ignorance.

There is no relation between ignorance and evil since ignorance is lack of understanding when we perform some act but the act could be good or evil.

 

[Bahman]

I can agree with your title but do not agree with your definition. Since we are talking about Good and Evil we are talking about morality and I do not think there exists a morally Neutral action. I would think of it more as a sliding scale that varies between Good and Evil.

Therefore absence of good can not make an action neutral since a moral action can not be neutral.

With that in mind I can agree Evil is not the total “absence” of good. An evil action is one that is lacking in goodness.

We have a hierarchy that could start with pure evil. Then it could be less evil until it becomes neutral then less good and finally pure good.

 

[LethalMouse]

So you are saying that everything is matter of definition? But in reality we can distinguish between evil and good since we can subjectively experience them hence they are both real.

It is a matter of definition in regards to philosophy. Because different philosophies contain different parameters, including not containing evil at all.

So from a theological standpoint all that is not right with God’s will is in fact evil, there really is no other metric for evil within that confine.

You are arguing evil from a very human standpoint which means this thread is relevant to many philosophies except Theology of God in His most commonly understood sense. So one can philosophize on the subject from alternate viewpoints (which I feel my previous post summed up okay) but non that would be wholly relevant to God.

To get super complicated let’s take the earlier posted example of eating an orange:

Eating for substance? Gluttony? Did you pass a homeless man you could have given the orange to? Are you eating an orange instead of doing something you should (like at work)?

Now a lot of these within different philosophies may/may not be “evil” because for example gluttony may not be an evil within a particular philosophy etc. But theologically in order to attain perfect goodness, then we should be able to make it to a point where eating an orange is never but a matter of specific good. I would argue that one of the most prevalent sins is in fact gluttony, and how many oranges have we eaten to excess? how much food does the average person waste? How many of us could half feed a small poor family with our excess? oh the rabbit hole goes ever deep

 

[MT1926]

We have a hierarchy that could start with pure evil. Then it could be less evil until it becomes neutral then less good and finally pure good.

I don’t follow you. Please give a few examples.

 

[LethalMouse]

I don’t follow you. Please give a few examples.

I think he is saying:

…Murder > stealing > lying > … [nuetral] …< giving a dollar to charity < spending time feeding the homeless < volunteering to search and rescue saving lives…

 

[Bahman]

I don’t follow you. Please give a few examples.

Just think of five options you could choose from: first pure evil, then less evil, then neutral, then less good and finally pure good. All five options are potentially real. It is up to you which one to choose.

 

[Bahman]

I think he is saying:

…Murder > stealing > lying > … [nuetral] …< giving a dollar to charity < spending time feeding the homeless < volunteering to search and rescue saving lives…

Thanks.

 

[MT1926]

I think he is saying:

…Murder > stealing > lying > … [nuetral] …< giving a dollar to charity < spending time feeding the homeless < volunteering to search and rescue saving lives…

Just think of five options you could choose from: first pure evil, then less evil, then neutral, then less good and finally pure good. All five options are potentially real. It is up to you which one to choose.

Sorry, I understand what you are saying but I still don’t follow. As I stated above every action has to have an intent. Even an involuntary action such as breathing has an intent.

I can’t think of a single action that would be considered neutral. Could you please give an example of an action and the intent of that action that is a neutral intent.

Already answered in a former post the reason why I don’t think there can be such a thing as pure evil.

Exactly the point. There isn’t a morally neutral action because the action has to have an intent. Eating the orange is good if the intent is to increase your vitamin C levels and be healthy. Doing a math problem is evil if the intent is to figure out how to calculate the correct amount of TNT needed to blow up someones car.

Let me try this again. I was honing in on “total absence”. Basically the total absence of something is nothing.

I am starting from the standpoint of goodness is the way the world should be. Plants are growing, it is good. The air is clean, it is good, etc.

The thought process is the reason we recognize evil is because it is lacking in goodness or the way things should be. From this process we can say evil is not the total absence of good, because we hold faith that God is capable of bringing good out of something evil. Therefore, even a totally evil horrific act can still have the presence of God’s goodness that might bring about some future good. Even though we might never realize what that good might be.

Now that I reread the OP, I guess I disagree with the title. To me evil is a lacking in goodness, because as I stated above goodness is the starting point. Without good we would not recognize evil.

 

[SilverShadow22]

Just think of five options you could choose from: first pure evil, then less evil, then neutral, then less good and finally pure good. All five options are potentially real. It is up to you which one to choose.

I would argue that the only truly neutral actions are those which bear no consequence at all.

And even a neutral is still lacking the positive force of the good, it just doesn’t lack the good to the extreme of being evil.

 

[SilverShadow22]

That cannot be true. We can have knowledge of something which true but it is evil.

No one deliberately chooses what they know to be evil. They merely choose a perceived good over a true one.

For example, no one chooses to murder someone solely because it is bad. They murder someone for a perceived good (pleasure, vengeance, money) or to remove what they see as a greater evil (kill a witness to avoid prosecution, get the insurance money to keep from going broke, remove a competitor or inept business partner).

They blind themselves to the worse evil in order to chose the perceived or lesser good. No one sets about to choose what they KNOW is evil; they set about to choose what they think is good.

The knowledge that human worth exceeds all temporary gain, means that murder is never the highest good. (We’re not talking about self-defense or justified force here, we’re talking about deliberate murder.) The knowledge that refraining from murder is a higher good than any excuse ever used for murder leads to the HIGHEST good, which is refraining from said murder.

Ignorance of the highest good leads to evil – through evil being called good. Every excuse for sin uses a lesser good to justify an evil. This is the sense in which ignorance is evil.

 

[seagal]

The more I think about it the less I like the continuum model of Evil <–> Good. I think of it more like a cavity, an idea I got from Bishop Robert Barron. If you think of a tooth as intrinsically good then the cavity is the evil. It is where the tooth isn’t. The longer you leave it untreated the worse it gets, the bigger the cavity, the more of the tooth is gone. This is what happens to us if we leave the evil we do “untreated”. Every act of Evil we commit (or sin) makes the hole larger. And it’s a downward spiral. We might start out committing small Evils, but the more we do it the easier it gets, the larger the cavity in our inherent Goodness. By contrast, in a continuum model, each step either towards Evil or towards Goodness is basically the same, but that’s not how it really is in our life. Once we start digging holes erosion and landslides start and the damage gets incrementally larger.

Just a thought.

 

[Bahman]

Sorry, I understand what you are saying but I still don’t follow. As I stated above every action has to have an intent. Even an involuntary action such as breathing has an intent.

I can’t think of a single action that would be considered neutral. Could you please give an example of an action and the intent of that action that is a neutral intent.

Already answered in a former post the reason why I don’t think there can be such a thing as pure evil.

Just resting and doing nothing. That is the only thing that comes to my mind.

 

[LethalMouse]

Just resting and doing nothing. That is the only thing that comes to my mind.

How much good could be done instead of doing nothing? Nothing would therefore be bad.

If you Needed rest to be able to carryout good, then resting would be good.

Never could it be wholly neutral

 

[SilverShadow22]

Just resting and doing nothing. That is the only thing that comes to my mind.

That’s only a neutral if there’s nothing you’re supposed to be doing. If you should be doing something else… That’s the definition of absence of the good = laziness (evil).

 

[Bahman]

No one deliberately chooses what they know to be evil. They merely choose a perceived good over a true one.

For example, no one chooses to murder someone solely because it is bad. They murder someone for a perceived good (pleasure, vengeance, money) or to remove what they see as a greater evil (kill a witness to avoid prosecution, get the insurance money to keep from going broke, remove a competitor or inept business partner).

They blind themselves to the worse evil in order to chose the perceived or lesser good. No one sets about to choose what they KNOW is evil; they set about to choose what they think is good.

The knowledge that human worth exceeds all temporary gain, means that murder is never the highest good. (We’re not talking about self-defense or justified force here, we’re talking about deliberate murder.) The knowledge that refraining from murder is a higher good than any excuse ever used for murder leads to the HIGHEST good, which is refraining from said murder.

Ignorance of the highest good leads to evil – through evil being called good. Every excuse for sin uses a lesser good to justify an evil. This is the sense in which ignorance is evil.

I have a simple question: Do you experience evil subjectively like the way you subjectively experience good?

 

[MT1926]

Just resting and doing nothing. That is the only thing that comes to my mind.

But what is the intent? If you are resting to regain your strength or because you just finished mowing the lawn for your dad, that is good. If you are laying around doing nothing when your dad asked you to take out the garbage that leans towards the evil side. It all comes down to intent and I can’t think of a single intent that would be neutral. Because, as we can see with my examples the intent might not even be directly related to the action, but still has an effect on whether it is good or evil. Unless, we can come up with some examples of a neutral action I stand by my claim that a neutral action does not exist.