Recall

Evil: Essential characteristics

Evil is:

Qualitatively different from other wrongdoing and badness.

“Evil” does not mean just "very very wrong".

True Evil is as different from wrong as ice is from cold water.

Could there be anything like that?

If not, Evil is a myth.

Question though: what does it mean to ask whether there could be a certain kind of concept?

Isn't it up to us what concepts we use?

There are really two versions of this challenge.

Version number 1

The concept of evil is incoherent.

According to this challenge, talking about evil is like talking about a smile without a face, or the largest number.

You can sort of talk that way for a while, but ultimately this way of talking leads into terrible confusion.

Version number 2

The concept of evil is harmful

According to this challenge, it's coherent to regard some set of acts or people as evil.

But you shouldn't, that's not a helpful way of thinking about things.

Both versions of the challenge say that there's something wrong with the concept of evil: either that it's incoherent, or that it's harmful.

We do have some choices about how we think about the world. Some ways of thinking about the world work better than others.

One way to think about some philosophy is as a form of conceptual engineering: trying to find the most helpful and productive way to think about the world.

Viewed from that “engineering” perspective, the first challenge says that the concept of evil is like a bridge with a nonsensical design that can't sustain any weight.

The second challenge says that the concept of evil is like a bridge that we shouldn't build, because it wouldn't help much with traffic, and it would destroy some nearby wildlife.

Should we believe in Evil?

Phillip Cole, in the Myth of Evil: Demonizing the Enemy, argues that we should not.

We can understand why people do terrible things to other people in order to achieve some recongizable human end, such as the pursuit of power, or wealth, or popularity, or, very often, the greater good of the community or even humanity; but this is a kind of ‘impure’ evil, evil outcomes mixed with immoral intentions, or at least mudane intentions, or perhaps even good intentions.

But pure evil includes not only the evil of outcomes, but the evil of intentions… and this verges on the incomprehensible, to such an extent that many thinkers have argued that mere human beings are incapable of it… And so if we reject the supernatural, it seems we must reject the reality of pure evil.

Cole's First Argument

This is a type-1 argument.

There are four main conceptions of evil motives.

Monstrous Evil Motives

Evildoers are monsters, different from ordinary human beings. They desire terrible outcomes for the sake of the badness of those outcomes.

Pure Evil Motives

Evildoers are ordinary people. They desire terrible outcomes for the sake of the badness of those outcomes (as do many ordinary people).

Impure Evil Motives

Evildoers are ordinary people. They desire terrible outcomes for the sake of some other ordinary goal that those outcomes would serve.

Psychological Evil Motives

Evildoers are ordinary people. They perform terribly harmful actions because of

• Delusion: they're impaired in some way that prevents them from genuinely making decisions.
• Necessity: They're in a situation in which the only way to achieve any desirable goals will cause harm.

Cole's first claim: there are no monsterous evil motives.

Whatever motivations we can identify in chronic evildoers, we can find in many ordinary people as well.

The capacity for evil, whatever it is, is widespread.

Is this true?

Hard question.

We'll look at research later.

Cole's second claim: there are no pure evil motives.

We can always find some explanation, either internal to the agent (a desire for something) or external to the agent (a brain tumor) that lets us understand why the person did what they did.

Strong point

It does seem like we should be optimistic about explanation. There's a lot we don't know, and we find out more every day.

Weak point

Something can have more than one explanation.

It might be true that I feel happy in my wife's presence because seeing her triggers a reaction in my hippocamus that causes the release of oxytocin.

But it's also true that I feel happy in my wife's presence because I love her.

Cole's third claim: there are no impure evil motives.

Here's his argument

1. When a person freely chooses to do evil, some other non-evil alternative must have been available, or the choice isn't free.

2. If a person prefers an evil action over a non-evil action, it must be because they find evil desirable.

Therefore, the only way to freely choose to do evil is if you find evil desirable. But that’s pure evil, and we’ve already argued that there's no such thing.

Evaluation?

Extra Credit.

Cole's second argument

This is a type-2 argument

Central claim: The concept of evil is harmful, and doesn't do any good.

Familiar?

Recall, Virginia Held's criticism.

… ‘evil’? It seems to me we can designate all the relevant moral considerations without it. … And I remain wary of the associations between the language of evil and such questionable positions as that particular persons, or humanity in general, are ‘inherently’ evil.

… horribly damaging but avoidable situations … can be called evil, but we can still wonder if this adds much more than rhetorical variety to our understanding of grevious wrongs.

Why be wary of those associations?

Labeling someone as evil potentially dehumanizes them (consider the concept of monstrous evil), and paves the way for abuse.

Consider the treatment of prisoners, labeled “evildoers” at Abu Gharib, US-run prison in Iraq where inmates were tortured, sexually abused, and murdered. This was part of Cole's reason for writing.

Furthermore, judgements about evil can come from a bad place.

1. Feelings of superiority
2. Self-deception
3. Irrationality and ignorance.

Possible reply

Using the concept of evil does not need to involve these things.

We need caution, not prohibition.

Furthermore, almost any moral concept can be abused: murder, courage, self-control…

Should we stop thinking about ethics altogether?

Final Worry

Evil might be unlike most moral concepts.

The concept of Evil might be a thought-stopper.

Do we let ourselves off the hook when it comes to understanding someone, by labeling them as evil?

If so, the concept of evil might do more to hide the truth from us than it does to to reveal it.

This is a serious challenge.

A proper response will require us to find a positive role that the concept of evil plays in our thinking.

To be continued...