Topics Ethics

Question At what point does an immoral act, i.e. one that is in direct contrast to the ethics and laws of society, become an evil one? Both can be intentional, and with full knowledge of injury that the act will cause. Can we say that evil is an enjoyment of the injury? Is that the differentiating factor? My 17 year-old son asked me this question and we became a bit bogged down! --Laura (Australia)

Accepted:
February 2, 2006

Comments

A very interesting question! Ordinary language generally is not all that precise. Philosophers often try to make important terms more precise in ways that capture the essential meaning elements intended in most ordinary usage. But such precision cannot do justice to every ordinary use of the term.

With this disclaimer, let me give it a try. The word "evil" is primarily applied to agents. What makes an agent evil is not so much the conduct this agent engages in or is prepared to engage in. Rather, to be evil, an agent must be pursuing immoral ends. (People who cheat to enrich themselves are usually called bad or immoral, not evil. I suppose this is because their end is permissible.) You suggest a good example of this: An agent who enjoys the suffering of others and acts to give himself this enjoyment is an evil person.

When applied to actions, the word "evil" similarly refers to the action's end. An action is evil when it is performed in pursuit of an immoral end. Sometimes, the only immoral aspect of such an action is its end. It is not inherently wrong to make a living by running a grocery store that, because of its fresh produce and good prices, brings financial hardship to the owner of another store nearby. But if the grocer's sole end is to make and watch his competitor suffer financial ruin, then both he and his conduct are immoral and, more specifically, evil in virtue of their immoral end.

There are immoral ends other than the one you suggest (achieving enjoyment for oneself by making others suffer). Any immoral end can make an agent and his conduct evil. Heinrich Himmler notoriously saw the murder of Jews and other non-Aryans as a very burdensome task for himself and his SS. Nonetheless, even if enjoyment was not part of his end and even if pursuit of his end pained him greatly, he was an evil man and his conduct evil.