load.of.crap.
from the first book i've had to read for my class, "integrity" by stephen l carter:
"the distinction that the person of integrity must draw in order to avoid evil is between willing good and willing evil. willing good occurs when, upon due reflection, we will ourselves to do and speak that which we now know to be the right, even when the burden ( Read more... )
"the distinction that the person of integrity must draw in order to avoid evil is between willing good and willing evil. willing good occurs when, upon due reflection, we will ourselves to do and speak that which we now know to be the right, even when the burden ( Read more... )
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i think "evil," if i must call it that, can really only be used for people who knowingly act maliciously or people who cause such wide-scale harm to others that no amount of reflection could possibly excuse it. it could be argued that hitler duly reflected and acted in a way which he thought was right.
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I think this passage (admittedly out of context) refers to situations where you knowingly don't help somebody. For example, "I think my neighbor is beating his wife, but it's none of my business. I'm not beating her myself, so I'm not acting in an evil way."
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Mind I do think there is a difference between evil behavior (your first sentence) and being evil (your last sentence). I don't mean to argue grammar, but most people agree that human beings are complex and commit "evil" acts-- even generally "good" people do. Whether or not you can classify humans in a binary system (you are good, you are evil) at all is debatable; and I think that saying a single small evil act makes a person evil is a stretch. Certainly not my meaning, and probably not the meaning of the fellow you're quoting.
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also, there really isn't much more context. i brought this bit up in class, because i wasn't really clear if this was his attempt at defining evil for the rest of his discussion or if i'd missed something, and the prof said she didn't recall any other discussion that could be considered some other meaning he gave to evil. it really made everything he had to say on the subject of evil completely absurd to me.
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I think defining "what IS evil" is outside the scope of the class and probably the fellow's argument. You have to take as a given that you have a moral compass for "good" and "evil." Rather than trying to define "evil," he is saying that not acting to stop "evil" when you can is less "good" than acting; and, perhaps, tantamount to committing "evil" yourself.
Of course I can see your problem because it's hard to think of an example where there are not complicating circumstances. Like, if you see somebody get shot and don't call 911, but choose to do nothing, it's pretty easy to argue that's as "evil" as shooting someone yourself. But if somebody is in a burning building and you don't run in to save them because you think there is a 50% chance you'll just die with them, it is a more nuanced argument...
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someone in class mentioned that the term "evil" is too vague or broad to really discuss without clearly defining it for the purposes of the discussion. if we get that, it seems that someone taking the time to write a book and devoting a chunk of the book to the topic of evil would get that, too.
we did also talk about whether someone could commit acts of evil without being evil, and people seemed to agree they could. but by his writing, anything that isn't acted or spoken, after due reflection, by what we know is right, is evil. anything.
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I don't think "evil" is too vague or broad to discuss without clearly defining it. We don't expect critics to clearly define what makes "good" art as a preface to making some simple value judgments.
I think you're correct to interpolate as you do in that last paragraph. It's a pretty rigorous standard. But I guess instead of giving yourself a pass on bad behavior, he's implying that you should accept that you're bad sometimes and probably ought to try to minimize it.
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