Good and Evil
Some of you know that there is a Philosophy message board I post on occasionally (The link is on the right). One of the perennial topics there, and in general, is whether good can exist without evil. I thought I'd post some of the discussion here.
Asaris: Sure good can exist without evil. Consider the nature of the two -- evil is parasitic on good. No person ever commits an evil act for the sake of evil, but for the sake of some good. For example, someone might do something evil for the sake of money, or for the pleasure. But people do perform good deeds merely for the sake of good -- not because it gives them pleasure or otherwise benefits them. Or, looking at it another way, good is a prerequisite for evil. You can't commit an evil action without having some good thing. Power is the easiest example here. You have to have some power to do something evil, but power is itself a good. So we can see that evil cannot exist without good, but the relationship is asymmetrical. So good can exist without evil.
Roachboy: but good and evil are relational terms. one implies the other. i dont think the question is whether at any given point you can imagine someone acting entirely "for the good" but more whether one can have the good without its opposite.
the story of the fall would have you think no:
but the complication is that the story is more about free will, which cannot be exercized without the possibility existing of the rules being broken--without that, there is no choice, and without choice no free will (which exists in practice, not in principle). so without an opposition good/evil there can be no free will.
without evil, good cannot be defined, and vice versa.
Asaris: Merely because two terms are opposites doesn't mean that one can't exist without the other. For example, you could have light without darkness or darkness without light. And I don't see why you couldn't have the good without its opposite. It may be true that you cannot have good without the possibility of evil (though I would argue that this would be the case if God had not created). But that is merely because good is capable of gradation, so its existence entails the possibility of things having different grades. But this does not imply that the existence of good entails the existence of such things. Possibility is not the same thing as existence.
Roachboy: the basis of this is simple enough, so maybe we might shift gears for a minute:
it depends on whether you believe that meanings are the reflections of forms or not.
if you do believe in such forms, then your argument follows.
if you dont, then mine does.
this is not a chicken-egg argument either: it comes down to how you understand meanings to come about--whether they are effectively divine creations or if you see them as historical in some way. when it comes to referencing data or scenarios, both lend themselves equally to abstractions that are pushed back into some mythical prehistory--so it is a matter of dispositions, how you approach the question, what assumptions you bring to it.
Asaris: I think the problem with your line of reasoning is that it doesn't really answer the question -- the question already presumes the reification of good and evil. If you mean to make the linguistic claim that *we* couldn't have developed the concept of good without also developing the concept of evil, I would tend to agree with you. We live in a world that contains both things generally described as good and things described as evil, and given the obvious relation between the two concepts, it would be very strange if one developed independently of the other.
However, I don't think that's what people usually mean when they ask this sort of question. Rather than the linguistic* question, they mean to ask the ontological question of Good existing without Evil. And as I mentioned, this presumes some sort of existence of the two concepts independent of language. I don't think either the question or my answer to it requires some sort of platonic existence of the Good, and I really hope it doesn't, since I don't believe in that any more than you do.
*I'm sorry about the use of the word 'linguistic', since I'm sure there's a better word I'm just not thinking of. I hope you won't hold it against me.
I might post more of the discussion if it keeps being interesting.
Asaris: Sure good can exist without evil. Consider the nature of the two -- evil is parasitic on good. No person ever commits an evil act for the sake of evil, but for the sake of some good. For example, someone might do something evil for the sake of money, or for the pleasure. But people do perform good deeds merely for the sake of good -- not because it gives them pleasure or otherwise benefits them. Or, looking at it another way, good is a prerequisite for evil. You can't commit an evil action without having some good thing. Power is the easiest example here. You have to have some power to do something evil, but power is itself a good. So we can see that evil cannot exist without good, but the relationship is asymmetrical. So good can exist without evil.
Roachboy: but good and evil are relational terms. one implies the other. i dont think the question is whether at any given point you can imagine someone acting entirely "for the good" but more whether one can have the good without its opposite.
the story of the fall would have you think no:
but the complication is that the story is more about free will, which cannot be exercized without the possibility existing of the rules being broken--without that, there is no choice, and without choice no free will (which exists in practice, not in principle). so without an opposition good/evil there can be no free will.
without evil, good cannot be defined, and vice versa.
Asaris: Merely because two terms are opposites doesn't mean that one can't exist without the other. For example, you could have light without darkness or darkness without light. And I don't see why you couldn't have the good without its opposite. It may be true that you cannot have good without the possibility of evil (though I would argue that this would be the case if God had not created). But that is merely because good is capable of gradation, so its existence entails the possibility of things having different grades. But this does not imply that the existence of good entails the existence of such things. Possibility is not the same thing as existence.
Roachboy: the basis of this is simple enough, so maybe we might shift gears for a minute:
it depends on whether you believe that meanings are the reflections of forms or not.
if you do believe in such forms, then your argument follows.
if you dont, then mine does.
this is not a chicken-egg argument either: it comes down to how you understand meanings to come about--whether they are effectively divine creations or if you see them as historical in some way. when it comes to referencing data or scenarios, both lend themselves equally to abstractions that are pushed back into some mythical prehistory--so it is a matter of dispositions, how you approach the question, what assumptions you bring to it.
Asaris: I think the problem with your line of reasoning is that it doesn't really answer the question -- the question already presumes the reification of good and evil. If you mean to make the linguistic claim that *we* couldn't have developed the concept of good without also developing the concept of evil, I would tend to agree with you. We live in a world that contains both things generally described as good and things described as evil, and given the obvious relation between the two concepts, it would be very strange if one developed independently of the other.
However, I don't think that's what people usually mean when they ask this sort of question. Rather than the linguistic* question, they mean to ask the ontological question of Good existing without Evil. And as I mentioned, this presumes some sort of existence of the two concepts independent of language. I don't think either the question or my answer to it requires some sort of platonic existence of the Good, and I really hope it doesn't, since I don't believe in that any more than you do.
*I'm sorry about the use of the word 'linguistic', since I'm sure there's a better word I'm just not thinking of. I hope you won't hold it against me.
I might post more of the discussion if it keeps being interesting.
posted by Mad Jurist at 5:45 PM
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