Category: Good and Evil
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Is Death Evil?
So is death evil or not? What is my answer? The answer depends on metaphysics. 1. If we are natural beings only, nothing but complex physical systems, continuous with the rest of nature and susceptible in principle of complete explanation by physics and biology, then I cannot see how death in general could be accounted evil. …
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Evil As it Appears to Atheists and Theists
In the preface to his magnum opus, F. H. Bradley observes that "Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct, but to find these reasons is no less an instinct." (Appearance and Reality, Oxford 1893, p. x) The qualifier 'bad' is out of place and curiously off-putting at the outset…
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Silenian and Epicurean Sources of “Death is Not an Evil”
Clarity will be served if we distinguish the specifically Epicurean reason for thinking death not an evil from another reason which is actually anti-Epicurean. I'll start with the second reason. A. Death is not an evil because it removes us from a condition which on balance is not good, a condition which on balance is worse…
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The Evil of Death and the Rationality of Fearing It
Is death an evil? Even if it is an evil to the people other than me who love me, or in some way profit from my life, is it an evil to me? A few days ago, defying Philip Larkin, I took the Epicurean position that death cannot be an evil for me and so…
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The Problem of Evil and the Argument from Evil
(A reader found the following post, from the old PowerBlogs site, useful. So I repost it here with minor modifications and additions.) It is important to distinguish between the problem of evil and the argument from evil. The first is the problem of reconciling the existence of God, as traditionally understood, with the existence of…
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Why Evil Can’t Be an Illusion
Suppose evil is an illusion. Then the illusion of evil is itself evil, a non-illusory evil, whence follows the falsity of 'Every evil is an illusion.' Or is that too quick? Then permit me some exfoliation. 1. Every evil is illusory. (Assumption for reductio ad absurdum)2. The illusion that there are evils is not itself…
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Evil as Privation and the Problem of Pain (Part Two)
Part One is here. Some pains, though bad in themselves, are instrumentally good. You go for broke on your mountain bike. At the top of a long upgrade your calves are burning from the lactic acid build-up. But it's a 'good' pain. It is instrumentally good despite its intrinsic badness. You are satisfied with having…
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Evil as Privation and the Problem of Pain (Part One)
A reader recalled my posts on evil as privatio boni from the old blog and wants me to upload them to the new, which I will gladly do. So far I managed to scare up two. Here is the first. ……………………… The goddess of blogging sent me Peter Lupu whose comments are a welcome stimulant.…
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A Modal Ontological Argument and an Argument from Evil Compared
After leaving the polling place this morning, I headed out on a sunrise hike over the local hills whereupon the muse of philosophy bestowed upon me some good thoughts. Suppose we compare a modal ontological argument with an argument from evil in respect of the question of evidential support for the key premise in each. This post…
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Supererogation and Suberogation
It would be neat if all actions could be sorted into three jointly exhaustive classes: the permissible, the impermissible, and the obligatory. These deontic modes would then be analogous to the alethic modes of possibility, impossibility, and necessity. Intuitively, the permissible is the morally possible, that which we may do; the impermissible is the morally…
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Richard Taylor on Goodness: Critical Remarks
Richard Taylor, Good and Evil: A New Direction (Prometheus 1984), p. 134: Goodness . . . is simply the satisfaction of needs and desires . . . the fulfillment of purposes. The greatest good for any individual can accordingly be nothing but the total satisfaction of his needs,whatever these may be. There seems to be a tension…
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God and Evil, Mind and Matter
It is a simple point of logic that if propositions p and q are both true, then they are logically consistent, though not conversely. So if God exists and Evil exists are both true, then they are logically consistent, whence it follows that it is possible that they be consistent. This is so whether or…
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Generic and Specific Problems of Evil
(A reader requested a post on evil. I am happy to oblige. The following has some relevance to the recent soul thread. So I'll leave the ComBox open in case Peter L. or others care to comment. As usual, the default setting for cyberpunk tolerance = 0.) Suppose we define a 'generic theist' as one who affirms the…
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Sophocles on the Root of All Evil
Via Mike Gilleland, we read in Sophocles, Antigone 295-301 (tr. Hugh Lloyd-Jones): There is no institution so ruinous for men as money; money sacks cities, money drives men from their homes! Money by its teaching perverts men's good minds so that they take to evil actions! Money has shown men how to practise villainy, and…
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Radix Omnium Malorum
One often hears that money is the root of all evil. But this cannot be true, since money is an abstract form of wealth, wealth is a good thing, and the root of all evil cannot be something good. Perhaps it is the love of money that is supposed to be the root of all…