Abstract
Is evil a distinct moral concept? Or are evil actions just very wrong actions? Some philosophers have argued that evil is a distinct moral concept. These philosophers argue that evil is qualitatively distinct from ordinary wrongdoing. Other philosophers have suggested that evil is only quantitatively distinct from ordinary wrongdoing. On this view, evil is just very wrong. In this paper I argue that evil is qualitatively distinct from ordinary wrongdoing. The first part of the paper is critical. I argue that Luke Russell’s attempt to show that evil is only quantitatively distinct from ordinary wrongdoing fails. Russell’s argument fails because it is based on an implausible criterion for determining whether two concepts are qualitatively distinct. I offer a more plausible criterion and argue that based on this criterion evil and wrongdoing are qualitatively distinct. To help make my case, I sketch a theory of evil which makes a genuinely qualitative distinction between evil and wrongdoing. I argue that we cannot characterize evil as just very wrong on plausible conceptions of evil and wrongdoing. I focus on act-consequentialist, Kantian, and contractarian conceptions of wrongdoing.
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Notes
I have found that, when asked, most philosophers and laymen say that evil is just very wrong or very bad. But as far as I know, Luke Russell offers the only argument for this view (Russell 2007).
This is a charitable interpretation of Steiner’s view because it wouldn’t be evil for an agent to take pleasure in a feature of an act that was morally good or neutral rather than wrong. Thus, Steiner’s theory of evil would be implausible if it characterized evil simply as wrongful acts that are pleasurable.
A backless chair is a stool.
Haille Liberto has suggested an account of when two concepts are qualitatively distinct which is even more permissive than the one I have suggested here. Liberto believes that two concepts might be distinct even if they share all of their essential properties. Concepts A and B might share all their essential properties and yet be distinct provided A puts more emphasis on some particular property, or properties, than does B and vice versa. I will not pursue this more permissive view in this paper.
Consequentiailists will argue that wrongdoing essentially involves causing or allowing harm, while deontologists will deny that wrongdoing need be harmful. See Sect. 4 for more about these theories of wrongdoing.
Russell makes a similar criticism of Steiner’s view (Russell 2007, p. 670).
For instance, we might say that any act that does not maximize the good deprives some agent of some good and that being deprived of some good is a harm. In this way, wrongful actions are harmful.
It may not be necessary for evil that we cause extreme overall harm either. Garrard argues that evil need not involve harm at all (Garrard 1998, pp. 45–46). I disagree with Garrard about this, but I won’t argue for this point here. Below I will argue that we need not cause, or allow, extreme overall harm to do evil. Evil requires a victim’s suffering but it does not require overall harm.
As we will see later, there are other components of evil besides harm and intention. For now I focus only on these two components.
If B doesn’t get the job she will suffer greatly, but not as much as potential beneficiaries of aid from Good Deeds will suffer from lack of food, shelter, clean water, medicine, etc. if C doesn’t get the job.
In Sect. 4 I will say more about what makes an act evil. For now I will rely on the intuition that intentionally causing significant suffering for the purpose of obtaining pleasure from this suffering is evil.
This is, of course, an extremely truncated discussion of the formula of universal law, focusing only on how we can derive a duty not to deceive from this formulation. For brevity sake I have left out a discussion of the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties along with the correlative distinction between contradictions in conception and contradictions in the will. However, I think there is enough here for my purposes. My interpretation of Kant’s formula of universal law has been influenced by Korsgaard (2003, Korsgaard 1986).
There are different interpretations of what Kant means by ‘humanity’ (Calder 2005, pp. 238–243; Korsgaard 1986, pp. 106–132; Wood 1995, pp. 301–319). I won’t argue for a particular interpretation here. For my purposes here it will be sufficient to take Kant’s definition of humanity in the Metaphysics of Morals at face value (p. 154).
I discuss this question more fully in my paper “Kant and Degrees of Wrongness,” 2005.
Depending, of course, on the degree to which her relationship has been damaged and how likely it is that she will be able to purchase the bicycle in the future without this money.
The theory of evil sketched here is similar to the theories of Claudia Card, John Kekes, and Laurence Thomas in that our theories each have harm and motivation components. However, the theory sketched here is also importantly different from these other theories in ways which I cannot discuss here. See (Card 2002; Kekes 2005; Thomas 1993).
My view about Hitler’s wrongful actions and motivation has been greatly influenced by Jones (1999, pp. 121–142).
I do not have the space here to discuss the details of various contractarian moral theories. It is sufficient for my purposes to give the basic structure of contractarianism. The most fully developed expression of contractarianism is found in Gauthier (1987). See also Gauthier (1991). A helpful discussion of Gauthier’s theory can be found in Morris (1991).
Of course, we could make even more fine-grained distinctions between rules against stealing. For example, we might distinguish between rules against stealing very large sums, large sums, medium-sized sums, small sums and very small sums.
Notable theories of wrongdoing not discussed in this paper include contractualism, the ethics of care, and virtue ethics.
Wrongdoing might not be a component of evil at all. It might be that all evil acts are also wrong acts, but that evil acts are not evil because they are wrong. If so, evil and wrongdoing are like the concepts of triangular and trilateral. All objects which are triangular are also trilaterals. But being triangular is not part of the concept of being trilateral and vice versa. Triangular and trilateral are wholly distinct concepts which just happen to be instantiated in the same objects. Another often cited example of two wholly distinct concepts which denote the same objects are cordates (things with hearts) and renates (things with kidneys).
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Calder, T. Is evil just very wrong?. Philos Stud 163, 177–196 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-011-9806-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-011-9806-2