Abstract

This paper examines problems and inconsistencies in the Plotinian conception of evil. A review of all the pertinent passages in the Enneads concludes that evil is non-existent in the metaphysical realm and that the absolute evil of the moral realm is subservient to a universal order and functions to produce a harmony in accord with the intellectual realm (Nous) of which it is but an image. [Most of the difficulties are seen as eliminated by adopting an interpretive view of evil as the result of the soul’s misdirected orientation toward its own completeness in matter.]