Chapter 37
Good and evil in general; the nature and kinds of good; the problem of evil.
415 passages · 133 principal · Covers the 49 volumes of primary texts
Few ideas run as deep in these books as good and evil. The pair names what every desire seeks or shuns. Epictetus observes that the good draws the soul and evil repels it, and that every impulse hangs on this1. The same pair also names the deepest perplexity of religious thought: how a world made by a good maker can contain evil at all. Between these poles lie questions the Harvard Classics return to again and again. What is the good, and is it one thing or relative to each desirer? Is the highest good God, virtue, pleasure or utility? Is evil a thing at all? Why do the wicked prosper? How should a man answer injury? Socrates remarks that the very good and the very evil are few, most men lying between2. It is with that middling humanity, and with the extremes that define it, that the books are concerned.
The first quarrel is over whether good has any nature apart from our wanting it. Hobbes gives the sharpest relativist answer. Good and evil are names for the objects of appetite and aversion. They vary from man to man, and no common rule exists except where a commonwealth or arbiter supplies one3,4. Apparent good is simply the sum of foreseen consequences weighed against one another5. Emerson, from a different temper, calls good and bad transferable names and holds that the only right is what accords with one’s own constitution6. Pascal says that each man makes himself a god whenever he pronounces a thing good or bad7. Franklin recalls a youthful pamphlet that treated vice and virtue as empty distinctions, a view he came to doubt8.
Against such views stands the older conviction that a thing’s good lies in its end. Socrates in the Phaedo wishes to explain each thing by what is best for it. He laments that men ignore the binding and containing power of the good, which he would gladly learn as the true principle of causes9,10. Marcus Aurelius holds that the good of each thing lies in its end, and that for the reasonable animal that end is society11. Epictetus seeks the nature of the good in reason, since the good, like God, is beneficent12. Dante gives the desire-centred view a theological turn: perceived good necessarily kindles love, and kindles it more as it holds more goodness13. On this account desire does not make the good; it follows it.
Kant moves the question inward. Nothing is good without qualification except a good will. Gifts of fortune and talents of mind can serve evil14. The worth of the good will does not depend on its results15,16. It is the supreme good, though not the whole or complete good17. Feelings, he adds, cannot furnish a uniform standard18. Luther, from faith rather than reason, reaches a parallel structure. Works do not make the person good; a good person does good works, as a good tree bears good fruit19,20. Marcus anticipates both in placing virtue and vice in activity, not in what is suffered21.
If good has an order, men may mistake it. Augustine grants that lower goods are beautiful, yet they are abject beside the higher. Even crimes are done for some good desired or some loss feared22. His evil, he confesses, lay in seeking pleasures and truths in creatures rather than in God23. Marcus contrasts the many’s wealth and fame with the real goods of prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude24. Epictetus says men seek good and evil where they are not25. Dante teaches that love aimed at the primal good, or held moderate toward lesser goods, is never evil, and evil arises only when love warps26. Pascal notes that evil is easy and takes infinite forms while good is nearly unique27. He confesses that he once reversed Christ’s maxims, calling blessed those who enjoy fortune and health28. The Gospel’s question stands behind them all: what profits a man to gain the world and lose himself29?
This leads to the dispute over the sovereign good. The religious answer is that none is good but God30. Pascal argues the case with almost geometric care. The true good must be lasting and not removable against one’s will31. The world lacks permanence and so cannot be that good32. A universal good must be shareable by all, and man, having lost God, takes anything for his good, even his own destruction33,34. Dante adds that the highest Good grows as more share it, like mirrors reflecting one another35. Penn calls God alone the Perfect Good36. Kant, for all his autonomy, allows that only God is good as a model, and holds that even examples of goodness must be tested by moral principle37. Here a sharp divergence opens. Pascal defines good by God’s will38. Whittier refuses to ascribe to God anything that would be evil in man39. Mill charges that religion vitiates morals when it makes them consist in obeying a being who could be called hateful40.
The Stoics offer a rival sovereignty, that of the will. What lies outside our power is neither good nor bad41. Exile, prison, death and shame are indifferent, and the good is a right use of impressions42. A ruined man may truly declare that no evil has befallen him43. Marcus supplies the argument. Death, honour, pain and pleasure befall good and bad men alike, so they are neither good nor evil44. What does not make a man worse cannot make his life worse45. Injury exists only in one’s own judgment, and that judgment is in one’s power46,47. Treating externals as goods, he warns, leads men to blame gods and men48. The Stoics inherit this from Socrates, who held that those who fear death as an evil are in error, and that no evil befalls a good man49,50.
Other claimants crowd the field. The Bhagavad-Gita marks the undivine as those who find all good in pleasure51. Cicero notes that most count nothing good unless it is profitable52. Pascal observes that the sects place the sovereign good in many different things53,54. Bacon calls truth the sovereign good of human nature55. Hobbes dismisses the old philosophers’ greatest good altogether56. Mill makes utility, grounded in man’s permanent interests as a progressive being, the ultimate appeal57. Emerson deplores Macaulay’s teaching that good means material commodity58.
What then is evil? Augustine’s Confessions record a passage from one answer to another. As a young man he imagined evil as a substance, a bodily mass opposed to God. He reasoned that a good God could not have made it59,60. He rejected the Manichean dualism that set a nation of darkness against God61. In its place he came to see evil as the privation of good62. Whatever is, is good, and corruption only diminishes good63. Iniquity is no substance but a will perverted from God to lower things64. Conflict in the will proves nothing for two natures, he adds, since even choosing among goods divides us65. Emerson revives the privative view: evil is to good as cold is to heat66, mere non-being that can work neither good nor harm67. Browning sings that evil is null and no good is lost68. The Stoics speak instead of hindrance. Evil is what impedes a thing’s nature, and for a rational being only hindrance to intelligence is evil69. George Long explains that what we call evil reflects a partial view of a whole governed by intelligence, in which wickedness harms only the wrongdoer70,71.
Such answers do not quiet the problem of origin. Augustine asks whence evil comes, if God and all he made are good, and for a time finds no way out72,73. Job’s trial turns on whether he will charge God foolishly. His answer is that we must receive evil from God as well as good74. Milton undertakes to justify God’s ways75. Among the moderns the doubts sharpen. Berkeley’s Hylas fears that God, as author of all motions, would author sins76. Hume grants that philosophers call physical ills goods to the universe, but he finds the consolation powerless against actual suffering77. Such speculation does not lessen our resentment of crime78. To save the gods’ honour by blaming matter or general laws presumes attributes we have no warrant to assign79. Mill finds evil irreconcilable with an author both omnipotent and perfectly good, and thinks Manichean dualism at least a hypothesis80. Blake wonders how one maker framed lamb and tiger81. The Rubáiyát asks why the snake was set beside paradise82.
The commonest reply blames human liberty. Rousseau’s vicar holds that evil comes from man’s abuse of freedom. God did not prevent it lest he debase man’s nature, and physical evil would be nothing without vice83,84. The moral disorder that some turn against providence is, for him, its strongest proof85. Pope traces moral ill to the wandering will and declares that partial evil is universal good86,87. Long records the ancient form of the debate: the Homeric view that Zeus dispenses evils, against the view that men cause their own sorrows88.
Imagination personifies what philosophy analyses. In Beowulf Grendel descends from Cain89. In the Grimms’ tales a witch feigns kindness in order to devour children90. In Coleridge’s Christabel an innocent dove is entwined by a serpent91,92. Milton’s Satan vows to do only ill93. He chooses evil as his good once hope is gone94, and finds all good turned to bane95. Michael names him the author of evil96, while Satan calls his strife merely the strife of glory97. Shelley denies that Milton’s Satan is the popular personification of evil98. Bagehot thinks it a defect to make the author of evil so attractive99. Goethe’s Mephistopheles calls himself part of the power that ever works ill yet produces good100. The play also observes that when the evil one is gone, the evil ones remain101. Renan finds Celtic legend placing evil in destiny rather than in conscience102.
Mephistopheles’ boast points to a widespread theme: good drawn out of evil. Cleanthes sings that God fitted good and evil together so that one Reason reigns103. Augustine sees apparent evils harmonizing in the whole104. Milton shows Satan’s designs recoiling into good for man105. Adam marvels that this is greater than light out of darkness106. Pascal’s formula is that God brings good from evil, while we without God bring evil from good107. On the human scale, Epictetus holds that even sickness and bad men can be turned to profit by right use108. Cellini cites the proverb “God send us evil, that may work us good” after a poison cured him109. In Bunyan the barking of the devil’s dog profits the pilgrims110. Woolman trusts that whatever befalls the obedient works for their good111. Carlyle calls evil the dark material from which free will creates order112, and Emerson finds that every evil resisted becomes a benefactor113.
Milton gives a related theme its strongest statement. The knowledge of good and evil, he argues in the Areopagitica, grow together almost inseparably, and trial by what is contrary purifies us114,115. Yet in Paradise Lost God judges that man had done better to know good alone116. The fallen pair learn that knowing both means losing good and gaining evil117. Pascal finds our goodness always mingled with evil118. Homer had said that Zeus mixes good with evil in men’s lots119, and Johnson praises Shakespeare for showing life’s mingled joy and sorrow120.
How men judge and choose is the next question. Rousseau calls conscience an innate principle of justice and the infallible judge of good and evil121,122. Mill replies that right and wrong belong to conduct, not feeling, and that conscience itself may mislead123. Thomas à Kempis notes that reason discerns the good yet cannot perform it124. Pascal laments that morality lacks a fixed point from which to judge125. Webster’s Bosola would not trade peace of conscience for Europe’s wealth126. Shakespeare’s Antonio scorns conscience as a deity he cannot feel127. Darwin notes how habit and interest blind decent men to inhumanity128.
The ancients tend to trace wrongdoing to ignorance. Socrates argues that no one wishes to be injured129. Marcus holds that wrongdoers act from mistaken opinion about good and evil, and so deserve pity rather than anger130,131. Augustine’s theft of pears confronts this view with gratuitous evil, done for love of the ill itself132. Shelley’s Cenci wills to corrupt his daughter’s soul133. Marlowe stages the choice between good and evil angels134,135.
On means and retaliation the books mostly agree. Socrates holds that evil must never be returned for evil, against the morality of the many136. Penn insists that a good end cannot sanctify evil means137. Pascal counsels overcoming evil with good138. Machiavelli dissents, distinguishing cruelties well employed from those ill employed139.
Last comes the apportionment of fortune. Job answers his comforters that the wicked live long and prosper140. Zophar insists their triumph is brief141. The Psalms counsel against fretting, for the wicked wither while the meek inherit142. Yet the psalmist too was troubled until he saw the wicked’s end143. Euripides’ chorus finds deeds and rewards mismatched144. Shakespeare catalogues good held captive to ill145. Lady Macduff laments a world where harm is laudable146. Aeschylus traces woe to impious deeds147, Milton’s Comus has evil consume itself148, and Buddhist writings bind suffering strictly to the evil done149.
Whether kindness to the wicked is wise remains disputed. Aesop’s serpent stings the child who warmed it150, and Sindbad vows never again to do good151. Against them, the envied king repays injury with honour152, and Manzoni’s friar prays for God’s enemy153.
These books leave several questions genuinely open: whether good is natural or conventional, whether evil is privation or power, and whether any theodicy answers Hume’s suffering. On one point the moralists from Socrates to Penn largely agree: evil is not to be answered with evil.
Introductory essay written by Claude Opus 5.5 from the outline and the notes on every passage below; quotations are checked against this edition.
See also: Revenge 8b