Topics Ethics

Question Why do bad things happen to people who are good or try to be good? Is being good all your life ultimately boring and thus having bad things happen adds "spice," i.e., challenges to our lives? Tests our mettle? Or is it simply "karma"? What goes around comes around? Be careful what you wish for because you may get it. Sow the wind reap the whirlwind, etc. Are people, basically, good? Why does it always seem that the "bad" person prospers while the "good" person suffers? Where is the justice in this? Is goodness something that you just acknowledge within yourself when you know you have done your very best at an activity? Is this your reward for being "good"? Thank you. Bill

Accepted:
October 3, 2005

Comments

You express some thoughts that many people often have (including me).You expressed them in a way that makes no reference to God, but formillennia the natural way of putting one of your questions was to askwhy God — an all knowing, all powerful, all good being — would allowmisery to befall those creatures who abided by His laws. This is thefamous Problem of Evilthat philosophers, theologians, andcountless others have wrestled with forever. (Richard Heck says alittle more about the problem in his response to another question.) Onecan see why theproblem is so pressing for someone who believes in God's existence. Isit pressing, is there even a problem, if one doesn't? For in that case,why should one expect that acting ethically would keep one from harm'sway? Some thinkers have argued that to act ethically is to act in sucha way that, if everyone were to act like you, everyone would findthemselves better off. But even on this view, it isn't the case that toact ethically is to act in a manner that will protect one from misfortune (for others might not act ethically).You hint at another response along these lines: that acting ethically(immorally)is in itself good (bad) for one. (One needn't add that people actethicallyin order to get this good.) If it's true that acting immorally isactually bad for one, a personal misfortune — it brings about, notcancer, but disease of another kind — then perhaps the thought that some badpeople prosper across the board is just an illusion. They might avoid certain illnessesor poverty or earthquakes, but still a misfortune has befallen them invirtue of their immoral actions. Not all misfortune consists in pain,and perhaps the misfortune of having acted immorally is like that.