GOOD IS A EUPHEMISM FOR NECESSARY EVIL AND IS ONE OF THE
NECESSARY EVILS WE ALL CELEBRATE BUT SHOULDN'T
What is a Necessary Evil and an Unnecessary Evil?
The lesser of two evils principle (or lesser evil principle) is the principle
that when given two bad choices, the one which is not as bad as the other should
be chosen over the one that is the greater threat.
The "No Win" Situation is a common one. There are two outcomes. No matter what
you choose, one will be as bad as the other. So you choose one. You couldn't
win. A "No Win" is a Hobson's Choice. The Hobson's Choice is when you are given
what seems to be a choice when actually only one option is offered! It is a take
it or leave it situation.
The False Dilemma is a common problem. When you engage in black and white
thinking, you are making the false dilemma. For example, if you say that all
atheists are bad and Christians are good you are failing to remember that many
atheists are good and many Christians are bad. Religion however is guilty
of this false dilemma, "God as we know him is needed if you are to be a good
person. So if you don't accept him then you are bad and harmful even if
you do not know it." If morality then is a necessary evil, religion based
morality is going a step further. It slides from necessary evil to evil
that is not necessary and lies that it is.
The problem of "necessary" evil
When people get accustomed to necessary evils, they can get a bit complacent and
soon evils appear that are tolerated as necessary when they are in fact not
necessary.
Even religion recognises the problem. Necessary evil is a necessary but
potentially harmful subject. Religion however is full of "necessary" evils.
The principle itself is a necessary evil
The concept of the necessary evil is itself a necessary evil in the sense that
it means the better choice might only be 1% better than the alternative.
The other problem is that it makes it too easy to do the wrong thing on purpose
for the good thing is only slightly better and nobody might notice. It opens the
door to people making excuses for their choosing the worst evil.
"I didn't know I had other options."
"I was emotional and had to act though I couldn't think straight."
"It is up to each person to decide what the best evil is. Disagreement is
unavoidable."
"Even if you think I meant to choose the wrong evil, you cannot prove it. You
cannot judge for you cannot see into my heart."
You can say that even if what you did caused great harm that you thought it was
the lesser of two evils meaning that nobody then can call you evil. Being called
and defined as evil is the only thing that deters bad people from evil. The
concept of necessary evil leads to bad people not being judged and if they are
it makes them feel they have the right to be mad at their opponents.
The lesson from all this is that we need to keep the need to make a choice
between two equal evils to a minimum. If religion for example can be done
without it should be done without even if it seems harmless. It is still going
over the line by needlessly creating a need for choosing between two evils.
All necessary evils are not equal
Not all necessary evils are equal. One can be a less important necessary evil
than another.
Here is a selection of the major necessary evils in life.
Knowledge
Knowing is necessary for we need truth and it is up to us to embrace the truth
and it is not truth's job to fit us.
The evil side of knowing is that it implies that any thing - and in practice
anyone - that contradicts that knowledge is unacceptable. It would be nice if
there were an exact match between what you want to believe and what you know.
Knowing takes away your freedom to believe anything different. That aspect of it
is a necessary evil.
Facts are intolerant in the sense that they contradict, threaten and oppose
errors and don't care about what you want to think. You cannot treat a person
basing their work on facts the same as you would a person basing the same work
on errors and guesses.
Knowledge is good one way and a necessary evil another. The goodness is the main
thing.
Creation
The complaint that firstly a God made us without our consent and secondly that he put nobody in a context that is ideal or very conducive to flourishing is interesting. If creating us from nothing without caring what we think or would think is degrading it is even more degrading when you see what kind of creation we are part of and stuck in.
Consent to exist and how to exist would be fundamentally good. It is not possible to give consent for you can't exist before you exist to say, "Yes let me be made". It would still mean that our existence would be a necessary evil. It would not be the "very good" of the Bible. The Bible says God made all and was admiring how good it was. God is taking advantage of our inability to agree to be made.
And you can infer consent even if the person
does not give it or cannot. Nobody would consent to a life of
agony and indignity. A God who does not care about what we
would go for does not care about us.
Free Will
Free will is the belief that we are responsible for our actions and we cause
them be they bad or good. Free will is great if we do good but the risk of doing
bad gives it two sides. Free will can look like a good but is in fact a
necessary evil.
There is no free will to be totally good all the time. It cannot be done. Thus
free will is really more a necessary evil than a great good. It is wrong to
celebrate and glorify a necessary evil as a gift from God. You do not celebrate
the gun as a necessary evil. What does that say about your attitude to those who
use the gun and the people who die?
Responsibility
Responsibility is recognising how you are involved when something good or bad or
neutral happens. For example, if you knowingly vote a terrorist into power you
share in the responsibility for the evil he or she will do.
Is this partial responsibility? It is in the sense that other people are
involved too. But if you were on your own and you would still vote for him then
you are as responsible as you would be if you were the only voter. The role of
others does not diminish or lessen your full responsibility. In fact you are
saying that you need them to get the strength for your true colours to show -
thus you are happy that they corrupt themselves.
Imputing responsibility for evil to the agent is a necessary evil. Why? Because
it admits the person has bad potential. Because it admits the person may need to
suffer and should suffer for doing the wrong things. Even if a person is good,
there is still a may. There is still a chance that they may deserve something
bad for you don't know if their goodness is as genuine as it looks.
You are responsible for what evil another human does in
this sense. You share a common nature. Thus what Hitler does is what
you would be doing too if you had the same environment and traits.
Authority
Authority is treating somebody and something as having the right to tell you to
believe or do things you cannot understand.
Most people think that if an authority is about sincerely trying to represent
what is true then it is a valid authority even if it is wrong. That is how they
can regard the pope has having authority even as they suspect there is no way of
telling which religion is true or if one has more truths than the others.
Most people today do not want to be subject to any authority. When they obey,
they do it unwillingly. They know that doing good because you are told to is not
the same as doing it because you understand why and that you should. Society
cannot function without authority so it is at best a necessary evil.
If you understand as well as or better than the authority, then you should be
your own authority. That would be when authority becomes an unnecessary evil.
There is a sense in which bowing to authority is hypocrisy. You are the one
deciding they are the authority so it is really your own authority you are
following. This point shows that if your own authority is enough then other
authorities are a bad thing. They are unnecessary evils.
The critics say that people's suspicious attitude to authority is bad for it is
essentially a form of opposition to the authority of truth. They say that only
those who accept the authority of the truth can be truly free. They must mean
that obeying is freedom in the sense that you are free from worse things
happening if you don't obey. Without authority there would only be chaos and
authority risks leading those under it astray or harming them. So it is a
necessary evil. That makes this kind of freedom a necessary evil. You are not
that free when you have to embrace it.
Many believe that freedoms with conditions are not freedoms at all. Quite right!
Conclusion
Morality is not a good but a necessary evil. The same would be true of God
if God is somehow the same as morality. The concept of the necessary evil
is a fundamental one. We need to be beware of and object to evils that are
presented as necessary when they are not. Religion is the perfect example of
such an evil and dallying with it can only corrupt you. We cannot celebrate life
without celebrating necessary evil. But that does not mean we should go
too far. Religion is out.
