Badly

Difficulties of the definition

What is the evil, is in oneself already a problem. It is even the main thing, within a framework purely and truly atheistic, and thus deprived of any transcendent morals.

In theory, everyone agrees about. All the Religion S, all the legislations have the same fundamental interdicts: to kill, flight er, to mutilate (except on a purely ritual basis) or to make suffer, to lie (for most demanding of them), etc the Décalogue is an example of fundamental interdicts. These interdicts, according to the religions considered, apply either only towards the members of the same religion, or with all humanity.

In practice, certain situations bring to be questioned: sometimes shouldn't one admit and even make an evil, in a utilitarian design , to avoid a larger evil? A murder to avoid a War? A war to avoid a Genocide? A Torture to avoid a Attack?

To that the difficulty in is added defining morality, certain actions and certain behaviors not involving a suffering, like the Homosexualité and the Avarice however are considered to be immoral, and thus attached to the evil, by some. The divergent answers show that it is not easy to define the evil well. To take again a famous sentence: it is sometimes less difficult to make its duty than to know it .

Complementary note. Independently of the belief in the existence of God, one can analyze the question of the existence of the evil by the need for contrast.

Which would be the interest of the good if the evil did not exist? The man would be quite simply a being without “conscience” if it were not likely to make the evil. He would not need any and would not be free to choose. He would have any merit to make the good nor no pleasure.

Which would be the interest of the life if death did not exist? The man would not test any pleasure to live if it were not likely to lose the life. As well as the difficulty of a exercise the merit ensures some (“to overcome without danger one triumphs without glory”), the risk of an untimely death makes us appreciate the life. “It is the death which gives direction to the life”.

The existence of God within the meaning of Michel Henry adapts well to this design of the good and the evil. It has the merit to respect the various beliefs. One can even read the bible by replacing the word God by Life or Love without corrupting the general direction of them.

Nature and causes of the evil

The field of what is considered bad is vast and its limits are variable:

evil caused by nature (earthquakes, tidal wave) or by the animals (attacks of a child by a wild animal, baby choked by a cat).
evil caused by the man:

by ignorance: if to want is to want a good, then the men want the evil by ignorance, by taking an evil for a good. One cannot thus make the evil for the evil; this thesis of Plato can be illustrated:

by the crimes committed in the name of certain ideologies: undoubtedly all the men believe to act for a good (for the fatherland, the Race, the Vertu, etc). But that does not prevent that some will be considered to be monstrous for the criminal and barbarian character their acts (massacres, persecutions, Génocide S);
by the dysfunctions of the will (Incontinence). For example, the fact of making another thing that what one for making.

by silly thing: the Bêtise is a philosophical concept with whole share and close relative of the precedent. This concept indicates the defect of judgment which connects the theory to the experiment, and the persistence of the will in this defect. For some philosophers (cf Schopenhauer for example), one can suppose that it is the thing of the world best divided, and that the silly thing would be then the only truly universal aspect of the human nature. In any time and any place, the silly thing causes, with the eyes of such pessimistic thinkers, innumerable evils because, as notices it Schopenhauer in Art to be right always, any man tends to persist in his errors, and this persistence is reinforced even when the consequences become catastrophic (approaching the refusal to reality). From such a point of view, it would be thus a fundamental structure of the human existence. The bétise is then a form of attachment.
it is possible to argue against the two preceding cases, by stressing that they do not give an account of the complexity of the human intention. By thus simplifying the explanations of what causes the evil, one reduces the evil to an accident, a contingency which one should not charge to the man, or, in any case, with the purity of its intentions. Indeed, if we act by ignorance, in the illusion to make well, or by a defect of our judgment, then we are ourselves the victims of the imperfections of our nature. However, one should not confuse guilty and responsible: one cannot thus then hold the man for culprit of the evil which it makes, but he is the actor all the same. The man, as a subject of the action, would thus not be a cause of the evil. The cause would be rather ignorance etc

History of the evil

Greek wisdom in connection with the evil:

not to be born is a good .

First occurrences of the evil in the texts Judeo-Christians

God puts Adam in a garden at the East of Eden and this command gives him: You will be able to eat of all the trees of the garden, but you will not eat a tree of the knowledge of the good and evil, because the day when you will eat some, you will die . With the disobedience of the law, Adam and Eve are punished and driven out garden of Eden.
Caïn and Abel, wire of Adam and Eve, make offerings with God. The offering of Abel is preferred. Caïn kills Abel and God punishes it.

It should be noted that the evil is a more or less arbitrary concept because it is an interdict posed by somebody (God in fact).

Théodicée augustinienne

In religion, the théodicée traditional one is that of Saint Augustin: the man was diverted of God by making the sin. He is private original grace and awaits the Saver. In the First council of Braga, the evil is defined like a voluntary deprivation of the grace of God. The evil is not a principle in oneself, as the priscilliens and the Manicheans support it, but rather an absence of grace and good works. By analogy, it is current to hear that the cold is not a principle in itself, but only one absence of heat.

The Présocratiques

The problem of the evil arose as of the birth of philosophy:

Héraclite d' Éphèse evokes the punishment which would be that of the sun if he violated the laws of the need. One can understand by there that the fact of exceeding the terminals of its nature (and thus of the reason, of the Logos, according to Héraclite) is an injustice and a moral fault;
One of the most famous texts of Présocratiques on the evil is this fragment of Anaximandre:

And the things turn over to that which they left “as it is prescribed; because they give each other repair and satisfaction the ones with the others of their injustice, according to marked time”, like it says it in these somewhat poetic terms .

Plato and Néoplatonisme

Stoicism

Sénèque sees in certain evils a spectacle worthy of the gods:

a worthy spectacle to call Here the glances of God who takes care of the work of his hands; here a duel worthy of God: the noble-hearted man to the catches with the misfortune, especially if it caused the fight. Yes, I do not see anything more beautiful on the ground with the eyes of the Master Olympe, when it condescends to lower to it, that this Caton, inébranlable after the last fall of its party, and upright still in the middle of the ruins of the republic. (...) Could the gods not take pleasure, to see their pupil escaping the life by so beautiful and so memorable demise? It is an apotheosis which a demise admired of these even as it terror. ( Of providence ).

Epicureanism

Cyrénaïsme

Hégésias supports that happiness does not exist and that the evils of this world justify the suicide.

Gnosticisme

Gnosticism, starting from the end of the 1st century after J. - C. radically distinguishes God and the world: the world is made of matter and is opposed to the spirit, like the evil is opposed to the good. In this design, it seems impossible to think a creative god of lights of a world obscure and changing: it is thus makes of it an enemy god who created it: the prince of darkness . The good and safety are thus not this world.

" the world is made of matter and is opposed to the spirit, like the evil is opposed to the good. " Contestable assertion: the world is compared to the evil and the spirit with the good. What is what the spirit?

Leibniz

The question of the evil is the philosophical problem which worried Leibniz the most.

the problem of the compatibility of the existence of the evil with the existence of a good and very powerful god;
the problem of the causal implication of God in the existence of the evil which cancels its holiness.

Leibniz distinguishes:

the badly metaphysical : the imperfection, the essential limitation of each creature which, resulting from perfect God, should be perfect.
the badly physical : the badly of sorrow
the badly moral : the Sinned

He explains the existence of the evil by an optimistic design : if the evil exists it is because it is necessary to the achievement of higher good deeds. We would live thus in “better possible worlds”, expression used by Voltaire to caricature the thought leibnizienne, work perfect of perfect God. This justification of the evil exceeds the simple explanation of contrast, not only the evil (the suffering) is necessary to make it possible the Man to discover the good (happiness) but it is also necessary to the achievement of this good.

“ the apparent defects of the whole world, these spots of a sun of which ours is only one ray, raise well its beauty far from decreasing it ”. (Théodicée, 1710 - publication in 1747).

Kant - Definition of the evil

For Kant, any action or any behavior is bad which cannot be generalized with everyone without starting the chaos. For example, everyone can be nourished without the company not degenerating into chaos. To nourish itself is thus not badly. Contrary, everyone cannot steal the good of others, because the company would become anarchistic. To fly is thus badly.

Nietzsche

Nietzsche supports as Sénèque that the evils undergone by the men are perfectly justifiable if one makes this observation which the inflicted suffering can be a source of pleasure: the public tortures and executions were not indeed always rejected into the field of cruelty, and could be regarded as an entertainment. In the same way, in the Iliade, one reads that the suffering of the men is a spectacle for the gods and the poets. This thesis supposes this truth barbarian that to make suffer is a cause of pleasure : the evil is justified if one takes the point of view of that with which it can give pleasure. In this case, one puts on a veil on the suffering which the victime.
feels In addition to this Esthetic aspect of the evil (we saw higher the character Sublime evil at Sénèque), according to Nietzsche, the suffering returns to us more extremely: What does not kill to me returns me more extremely ( Crépuscule of the Idols ).

Moreover, Nietzsche had understood that the evil comes not from the phenomena, but of the capacity of the man to interpret the phenomena. He wrote: " There are not moral phenomena, but only one moral interpretation of the phénomènes" (Across good and badly).

John Rawls - Theory of justice

The theory of the justice of John Rawls obeys a similar logic: a situation can be regarded as Juste if what returns to each one makes us indifferent to be a person or another. In application, the right of seniority would be thus an evil except if the associated advantage counterbalanced additional duties to restore balance. One observes in many companies this idea of repurchase of the privileges by the duties (Nobility obliges) with the idea that under such conditions there strictly speaking do not exist any more privileges, but additional opportunities to make together with well sanctions if this duty is not accomplished in return. One is not far here from the parabola of the talents described in the Gospel!

The article first of the declaration of the Human rights of 1789 is completely in this spirit when it enacts that “the men are born and remain free and equal in rights. the social distinctions can be founded only on the common utility . ” Unfortunately, no clear procedure at this stage is defined to achieve this goal, and its implementation is left with the possible good will of the deputies! The continuation is guessed…

The universal declaration of the Human rights of 1948, although filled more still of good intentions (“Article 23. Any person is entitled to work…”!), is quite as dumb on the way of implementing them in practice. At least has it the merit to define them.

Lastly, some governments in the world wish to define a position according to which the human rights (especially besides those of the woman!) would not be not adapted to their culture and would constitute a vision of the world specific to the occident that this one would not be founded to impose. Another dispute couremment opposed to the theory of Rawls is that of the subjectivity of the utilities: any man having different preferences and tastes, the fact of asking an individual or groups individuals given their opinion on an exchange of place in a precise situation guarantees neither that the situation is appropriate for those for which one did not require their opinion, nor which there do not exist other situations giving the same result.

Norman Spinrad

The writer Norman Spinrad articulates his books on the idea that the conflicts are seldom an opposition of the good to the evil, and much more often “a conflict between two visions different and incompatible of the good ”. In such a case, alas, as Pascal had noticed it, not being able to find the Juste , it does not remain any more but with to find the fort . But it is not there a solution well resting, nor satisfactory for the spirit. Doesn't there exist a means rational to objectively distinguish the good from the evil, or failing to arrive to a consensus which would gather the essence of the humanity put aside a minority of irreducible?

Marxism

Trotsky defines the evil as the whole of the forces reactionaries which block the development of the proletarian Révolution .

Michel Henry

For the philosopher Michel Henry, God is the invisible Vie which does not cease generating us and to give us to ourselves in his pathetic car-revelation. God is Amour because the Life likes itself of an infinite love. Consequently the life is good in itself. The evil corresponds to all that denies or undermines the life, it finds its origin in the death which is the negation of the life. This death is an interior and spiritual death which is the separation of with God, and who consists simply of not liking, egoistically to live about it as if God did not exist, as if he were not our Father with all and as if we were not all his beloved Wire, as if we all were not Frères from/to each other, generated by the same Life. The evil culminates in the violence of the hatred which is at the origin of all the crimes, all the wars and all the genocides. But the evil is also the common origin of all these blind processes and all these untrue abstractions which lead so many men and women in misery and exclusion.

Source of the evil

In certain traditions, the solution is very simple: there is

either an agent specialized in the evil (the Diable or its equivalent),
or a permanent war between supernatural agents (Gods or spiritual forces) which induces the evil for the poor mortals (as the war between lords causes sufferings in the people),
or quite simply an evil inevitably related to the simple existence.

But, in the traditions monotheists, with single God, the evil becomes a true theological question. Indeed, it is difficult to admit that God causes the evil directly (or lets make the devil , which returns to same), and quite as difficult to admit that the devil is sufficiently independent to do what it wants (one is not truly any more within a framework monotheist). Certain religions answer by the mystery: only God knows the good and the evil, and the man is not qualified to think the evil, his existence and his source.

For the Occultiste Rudolf Steiner, these are two spiritual entities (Lucifer and Ahriman) which encourage the man with the evil. These entities were sacrificed according to the paramount plan to be delayed in their evolution and to induce the man in error. The task for the man is to balance these two tendencies in him to find true freedom and thus the Christ (you will know the truth and the truth will return to you free, lira on this subject " Lucifer and Ahriman" of Rudolf Steiner). According to Steiner, the evil is a good which is not in its place.

The problem of the evil and belief as a God

The problem of the evil is the question of knowing if the Existence of facts such as the physical suffering and mental anguish are arguments which make unreasonable the belief in the existence of God. This problem is sometimes seen like a protest movement vis-a-vis the innumerable events violent one of origin natural or human (murder and rapes of children, tortures, diseases, natural disasters, etc) which strikes without reason connect the many innocent ones, and it is one of the most important arguments of the Athéisme.
The Livre of Job does not give an answer other than this one: one should not seek explanation and continue to trust God. The Christianisme proclaims that Jesus-Christ is God, sons of God, that it came among us, that it took flesh, as said holy Jean, and that it deeply suffered (Passion of Christ). For the Christians, it is the Christ who gives a direction to the human suffering.

Various designs of God

To be able to include/understand the answers likely to solve this problem, it is important to start by determining what one understands by the word “god”.

Thus, according to a certain design:

if God exists, it is very powerful and good;
if God is very powerful, it has the capacity to remove the evil;
if it is good, it must want to destroy the evil;
but, the evil exists;
thus God does not exist.

The problem, logically formalized this manner, would show the logical inconsistency of the existence of God, because the first four proposals cannot be constant all at the same time (only some can the being at the same time). What would thus thus be shown in a perfectly rigorous way, it would not be the lack of rational bases of the religious beliefs, but their entirely irrational character.

In this formulation, however, the problem arises in the case of a god designed like métaphysiquement perfect, main cause, base to be it, or to be par excellence, whose gasoline merge with the existence, and whose attributes are the any power, omniscience, kindness, etc In this case, the question is posed well to know why the evil exists if there is such a être.

It is possible to escape this logical contradiction, with an aim of maintaining the assertion of the existence of God, by denying one of the premises of the reasoning and by raising the question to know if this question of the evil also arises in these cases:

if a god is designed like good but not like very powerful, the question is obviously not posed: God is good, and wants to prevent or destroy the evil, but it does not have the capacity of it;
that is it in this other case where one designs God from a point of view strictly Métaphysique, like the base of the to be, and that implies T it to conceive it independently of kindness and the power (because one can wonder whether God having a Volonté would not be this fact even subjected to the Temps, the will expressing the resolution indeed to arrive at a goal, which means that for reason or another one did not reach it yet and that one will spend a certain time to do it)? So not, the problem remains. In the contrary case, the problem of the evil does not seem to relate to such a design of God, but this god, as Hume notices it, does not have anything any more an object of devotion nun and becomes completely foreign with the hopes which the men usually place in him.
God is not good, and it created the world to make the evil.

The problem of the evil thus relates to certain determinations of the concept of God and certain beliefs which the men have about it.

One can formulate it in two manners:

logical incompatibility enters the existence of the evil and the existence of a good and very powerful god;
impossibility of deducing from the existence of the evil which we note the existence of a good and very powerful god.

Various designs of the evil

But such logical formulations do not give yet an account of the various directions which the word “badly” can take; and, indeed, the evil of which one is useful oneself in this reasoning can vary considerably from one design to another. It can indeed be question of any evil which occurs, or of a certain quantity of evil, or of a certain kind of evil. Moreover, one can distinguish various types of evils by taking account of their origin: natural or human, and one must of course use these distinctions for the analysis supplements problème.

However, which does not seem to be that a series of useless distinctions for the reasoning poses actually some problems. Thus, if one badly understands by , all the evil which occurs in general in the world, one presents a concept which disregards difference which can exist between the evils, presupposing of this fact that it is legitimate to include in an undifferentiated way all the evils in the problem. This design of the evil, one can answer that it is reasonable to want that certain evils without disappear to want the disappearance of the evil in general.

For example, the sorrow which a physical exercise or intellectual causes can be judged with final acceptable, and thus justify the idea that a good world must necessarily contain a certain proportion of evils. In the same way, with regard to holding of a Morale of the virtue (such as for example the Stoïciens), some of the virtues which it is a question of acquiring to arrive at happiness (courage, prudence, etc) would not have any direction if there were neither adversity nor efforts required. From this point of view, the total eradication of the evil would be a bad thing. One enters a culture however then where the merit of the act has more value than the act even.

The formulation which there exists a logical incompatibility between the existence of the evil and the existence of God should thus be moderate, because, in these terms, and according to the prospect currently examined, it is not valid: the existence of certain evils is indeed compatible with the existence of God, because if God is good, it cannot want éradiquer all the evil which occurs in the monde.
But such an argument is still too general and can cause objections, even when one speaks only about certain evils acceptable and compatible with the existence of God. It is necessary to be able to determine the field of these evils. However, this field is rather variable. Certain authors, such as Augustin in the City of God, support for example that certain violent acts, like the rape or torture, must be supported as tests and as punishments which correct those which undergo them. These examples show the particularly variable character of what one considers justifiable and compatible with the divine will. They also show that the characterization of the evils supposes a hierarchy which falls under an overall reflection on the concept of God.

With the example of Augustin, another aspect of the problem of the evil is proposed, that of the human Liberté, by which we would be made ready to choose between good actions or bad actions. The question is then to know why God created free beings, thus allowing the men to make the evil, to kill, to torture, violate, etc, like in the case of the wars and of the plunderings evoked by Augustin. With this question, an answer similar to the preceding one is possible: the absence of freedom would undoubtedly remove the evil which can rise from our actions, for example if the man had been created so that it is always given to make the good, but this good would not be any more one; the kindness of the human actions would not be any more that one predetermined result, removing any moral value and any responsibility such as they are included/understood from this point of view. The freely decided good action thus exists only so bad actions are possible. Once again, the existence of a good and very powerful god would be compatible with the existence of the evil, and a certain kind of evil would be even logically the consequence of its existence and its kindness.

The general argument which invalidates the reasoning considering higher according to which God does not exist because the evil exists is thus in short the following:

if there are evils necessary to obtain larger goods, all things being equal, it is impossible to deduce from the evil the inexistence of God.

Difficulties of these arguments

These arguments are however far from entirely solving the question:

to support an evil for a larger good does not appear to be an always convincing argument (see higher, examples of Augustin), unless resorting to moral arguments, which would undoubtedly make a petition of principle of it;
no design of the human Liberté seems to be established well, and this Concept even seems to rise from a moral reflection, which would make of it perhaps also a petition of principle;

In both cases, indeed, one justifies a certain category of evils by what is precisely blamed: thus the existence of a very powerful god and good setting causes some by the existence of the evil it is made acceptable by the existence of this same god, since without this god, the evil which cannot be explained, it follows that God does not exist.

God does it have a sufficient reason to allow the existence of the evil? Another argument to solve the problem is to formulate this reasoning:

God is very powerful and good
God allows that the evil exists
Donc God has a moral reason to allow the existence of the evil.

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