Saturday, November 1, 2008
why not evil?
In the beginning of chapter 3, Adams makes it fairly clear his position on the concept of bad, evil and wickedness. He seems to think that evil exists simply when good does not. He places them on the same scale and believes wickedness prevails in the absence of evil. This is an interesting concept because I always thought of evil and good as more of opposites. Specifically, one cannot exist without the other. For example, how can we know what happiness is if we never experience sadness? Same thing for morality. How do we know what evil is without good? But under this account, Adams would say that good can obviously exist without evil because good exists when evil is simply overwhelmed. This makes me think of a person that is completely evil and has no sign of goodness whatsoever. Adam acknowledges that this situation as both “problematic and fascinating.” This could obviously debunk Adams’s theory and he does little to disprove it, but what really troubles me is the basis for the existence of Adams’s “goodness” dominated scale. He doesn’t really say why goodness is the key factor. Why isn’t evil? Is it really so hard to believe that evil rather than good is the basis for all morality? Maybe goodness exists in the absence of evil. But then again, this seems to apply more for a victim centered morality rather that agent centered. In virtue ethics, bettering oneself as opposed to hurting others is the basis, so it would seem more appropriate that goodness be the scale rather than vice. Still, I would like for Adams to show why virtue and excellence should be the basis for the scale of morality rather than vice and wickedness.
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2 comments:
It feels like a lot of your points are somewhat nitpicky or just arguing for the sake of argument. For instance your complaint about evil needing to exist in order for good to exist doesn’t work out. While this might be true for some concepts like pain (you wouldn’t know what pain is if you never experienced it), if a world existed where everyone was good and no one was evil everyone would still be good. You might not need the word or even the concept of good in a world without evil, but the people in the world are still good.
Later you were talking about a few more problems with Adams’ theory. The first problem is the problem of someone who is entirely evil. I’m not sure why this would debunk Adams’ theory, it seems more like Adams’ would just say that person is incredibly vicious. If Adams’ take on virtue ethics is right, there -could- still be someone wholly evil (sort of), this person would just be acting in ways that are entirely irrational.
The last point I want to bring up is that goodness is the basis of morality and not evil. This should be a point where little argument is necessary – it’s an objective truth of morality that good is good to have. Adams’ own objection to evil being the center of ethics: it’s entirely implausible to value only evils. For one, certain good characteristics are necessary to achieve evil ends (courage, strength, etc).
2 points:
First, Adams spends a section trying to conceive of someone who is completely evil and has no signs of goodness. In section 3 he discusses how it seems intuitively possible to have an entirely evil person. After all, that's why we can conceive of one at all. Whether it is likely or not is another story. No matter, Adams does take the time to consider an evil person. In doing so he analyzes 3 possibilities and finds all 3 to be wanting. The first involved switching what the words good and evil refer to. The second shows evil to involve certain goods as well such as courage, patience, and firmness of purpose. And the third discusses evil as attacking good. The latter 2 both seem to involve goods. Thus, the first option is the only that could undermine his references to good. However, like he says, this eventually changes the subject.
Secondly, all forms of morality seem to step from a theory of the good. To imply that morality might stem from evil seems counterintuitive. Morality is basically by definition based on "the good". There are multiple conceptions of the good, but whatever the case may be, Adams is not revolutionary in assuming that moral scales are based on the good. Perhaps you want him to explain his theory of the good more or why evil is not its own thing but rather derivative of goodness, but to argue that morality might be based on evil seems off.
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