The Wise on Evil

The Buddha found the roots of evil in desire, which makes sense. If I don’t ever want anything I’ll never experience conflict. But this observation can be rendered in milder form as well. In an environment where resources are very ample and accessible and people are few in number, the sum total of evil is bound to be less than in a very complex and crowded environment where resources are limited and indeed artificially designed to extract effort to obtain. In a vast, rich society such as ours, no sooner does a baby arrive than some parents already begin to scheme to get it into an elite kindergarten when it’s old enough. Desire rises, waves of it tower up, and the whole civilization behaves like a vast, standing tsunami of desire, millions all yelling, me, me, me. Everything’s in conflict, from social items on my calendar, to getting a word in edgewise, and it just goes on.

In a way the Buddha’s is a fundamental insight because it anchors evil in the subjective experience and leaves out all detail. Neither free will, nor time, nor yet discernment of different kinds of goods are present here, and conflicts between them. The source of desire is left unmentioned. Socrates focus on ignorance, suggesting that whatever people do they view as good; evil deeds therefore arise because apparent good is chosen over real; here it is hard to find a place for the notion of a troubled conscience prospective or otherwise. Plotinus, for whom reality is an emanation from the Ultimate and thinning out with distance, as it were, the material realm is the lowest and least containing genuine being. Hence evil is linked to the material dimension. Augustine echoes this; evil is non-being or, better yet, a privation of being. Free will and knowledge converge in Ockham. Evil for him was failure to do what what we’re obliged to do. That failure is only possible if we know both, can distinguish between them, and are free to choose. But desire is also implicit in it; why would we avoid our obligation if avoiding were not more desirable.

All of these snippets throw varying amounts of light on a vast subject. I’m cribbing here from the Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion’s article on Evil—which doesn’t mention Aristotle or Aquinas. Among moderns it mentions Schelling, of whom I’ve read nothing, and Berdyaev, whom I’ve read very carefully. Berdyaev is a half-forgotten modern apostle of free will.

A distillation of the wise does produce an interestingly strong balsamic vinegar. Desire is rooted in matter most of the time or can be linked back to the presence of others when in manifests it unwholesome but mental forms like dominance and envy, to name two. But is it evil to desire wisdom? I suspect the Buddha might have thought so. Awareness is fundamental. Animals follow their desires without the least tinge of guilt. And an awareness of time is present in it—in that the greater good we are obliged to choose (Ockham) may lie as yet unborn and hidden by the future. Socrates touches upon the paradox of good—namely that once we know it is irresistible. And here concepts like Augustine’s come in handy because he suggests that knowledge is not quite enough if we are a kind of blend of being and not-yet being, a kind of ghost in the solid eternities of matter.

More on "Primacy of Intuition"

Intuition “flows” or “bubbles up,” “flashes,” “dawns,” “strikes like lightning,” and—sometimes “nags” as conscience. All but the last of these words suggest waters or energy. Indeed I think of intuition as an influx of something energetic from the higher level of reality. Now in this modern age our almost reflexive tendency is to formulate experience in naturalistic term. It feels more real to think of intuition as an energy, thus as something impersonal. In other times, and in still active traditions, we see the same experience rendered in quite another form. We speak of “the voice of conscience,” for example. The artist feels “inspiration” coming from the Muse—that lady surely conceived of as a person. We think it sophisticated to label such things as anthropomorphizing.

I come from a demanding religious tradition, Catholicism. It takes reality seriously, insists that action has real consequences, here and beyond. In my early schooling we were invited to see our selfish urges as temptations whispered in one ear by the devil; our conscience had the other ear. The devil was recruiting future inhabitants for hell; the guardian angel strove mightily to save our soul. These images are vivid, sensory, and therefore effective ways to teach. The abstract formulations—and energetic or liquid analogies—are somewhat less compelling but more suited for the adult understanding. I’ve waxed eloquent on the symbol of the spiral just recently. In that imagery intuition might be imagined as an attraction upward, a kind of negative gravity. (It is, by the way, put almost like that by Beatrice in Dante’s Paradise. The soul “falls upward” toward heaven as naturally as water falls into the depths at a waterfall.) Temptation is the “pull” of the depths.

But I am wandering afield. If intuition manifested in sharp, precise words heard in the ear, all would be clear. It manifests as feelings, images, and perceptions of patterns. So does temptation. We supply the “little voice”—and it is an interpretation, an interpretation in both cases, be it of higher inflows or of feelings produced by hormonal reactions to stimuli. The two differ in taste, as it were; tastes are difficult to render in concepts, but attention to our experiences develops the palate, as it were. The intuitive has a certain joyous sharpness—even when it is a “dark” intuition; temptation is always heavy in flavor (as we speak of certain wines, for instance); one feels the pull of the flesh, the greed for dominance.

To state simply what I’m groping to make palpable: Intuition is primary, but it needs interpretation. The images, feelings, and sensed patterns must be properly understood. The intuition will always be right, but we can make a hash of it nevertheless by inattention or excessive attention to it, by twisting its meaning or direction. Art supplies endless examples. The same inspiration produces both kitsch and the sublime.

Scrupulosity—obsessing about one’s own sinfulness—is a good example of the abuse of conscience. Naturally, under the influence of Modernism, it is labeled as a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. It can also be seen as sloppy interpretation of intuition, of conscience. The consequences of sin on the one hand (damnation, etc.) and of the self’s importance on the other are exaggerated, deformed, and produce a downward spiraling of obsessive self-absorption. Here, as in everything human, a comprehensive approach is vital. Intuition must be consulted about judgment—and judgment applied to intuition. I assign primacy to intuition in this sense: we don’t produce it ourselves. Nor do we produce our own desires. But intuition comes from above; most desires rise from the body. In the use of both we must apply ourselves correctly.

Now the human is the most maddeningly perplexing reality. I use the word “interpretation” above—and now feel the urge to interpret interpretation more comprehensively. We interpret an intuition in two ways: intellectually, thus as something meant or intended; and by action, thus by doing or abstaining to do something, by the exercise of will. A popular phrase comes to mind: “Which part of NO don’t you understand?” When we ignore a nudge of conscience, we interpret it by action.

Twisted Together

The concept of complexity suggests an approach to thinking about values. Complex means, minimally, twisted together, entwined. Something made of many parts linked together in meaningfully related ways has more value than something simple existing without relationships. A slice of bread has more nutritional value than a lump of sugar with the same caloric value. Both produce energy in the body but the bread will provide more balanced nutrition owing to its more complex structure.

Another case. You come into a new community and meet two people. Both belong to important and well-connected families. One of them, Arthur, is a leading figure in his family, young but already widely accomplished. The other, Beaumont, is his family’s problem child, the source of many conflicts, with a very patchy history to put it generously. — This, by the way, is how a novelist develops a plot. He says: Who’s going to be more valuable to you in your work in the new community: Arthur or Beaumont? The truth is that odds heavily favor Arthur, and in most cases he will be very helpful; Beaumont may be entertaining, but he’ll be a problem sooner or later. The novelist knows this—knows how people eyeball situations—and therefore has a nice plot situation that might be exploited.

Both are complexly related to their families, but Arthur is integrated and Beaumont is not. This fact suggests that “relationship,” by itself, is not a sufficient condition for value. Relationships are central, but they range between love and hatred. Attraction and repulsion are more neutral terms, but speaking of love and hate permits us to think in terms of willful, feeling agents. We might hypothesize that creation is a movement in the direction of complexity, thus in the direction of an attractor. Destruction then may be envisioned as things spontaneously falling apart because an attractor has been removed; in its absence that which used to cohere no longer does.

Complexity, however, won’t solve the problem of morality. What is it about Beaumont that always produces trouble, mayhem, contention, flare-ups, wrecks, uproars, and the like? Why is it that whatever Arthur touches, it always turns green? Is it a willful quality? Is it grace? Is it nurture, nature, karma? Don’t look at me. I don’t have the answer. I think it is a will that freely decides, but I can’t justify that thought by the mechanics of logic.

Logic depends on concepts, but in Beaumont’s (or anybody’s) actual case, a point comes where a weird concept spoils the logic. Beaumont acts on his perceptions of reality; in his own mind he chooses the good. He seems unable to perceive the full context of his choice, unable to see that, more complexly considered, the choice he makes will lead to a negative outcome. That inability to see: is that also a choice? or is it a real inability. Logic can’t untwist that one for us. When I do bad things, I willfully ignore what I do perceive. Hence arises my belief that evil is chosen knowingly. But I can’t honestly speak for Beaumont.

This all sounds innocent enough, but its implications are quite major. We’ll have to go there.