Topics Ethics

Question In a recent question / answer, it was asked "how can a person know that an action is immoral, yet do it anyway?" and the response was "a person can 'know' things on different levels and so can engage in self-deception." I have a question about the response, which then leads to a deeper more qeneral question. Suppose a person knows that an action is immoral, yet does it anyway. Might that not indicate that the person [at least in this instance] does not care whether s/he behaves in a moral manner? and where does the concept of 'evil' stand in philosophy, and how might the concept of 'evil' explain this apparent disparity?

Accepted:
July 21, 2011

Comments

I hesitate to reply to this question because I think you are replying to my response to the question about akrasia, a case in which persons with "moral weakness" appear to do what they seem to know is evil, and it would probably be best to hear from a different philosopher.

I may not be utterly useless, however, in first bringing to your attention something on the philosophical horizon. I am one of the general co-editors (along with Chad Meister) of a six volume work called The History of Evil for Acumen Press in the UK involving over a 100 philosophers and so I feel that I can report something of interest: in four years, you should have available a massive set of works by philosophers of all different persuasions on evil. This, of course, does not answer your question, but I could not resist spreading the word that questions about the nature and concept and reality of evil is on the minds of many philosophers today (and in some respects these books are being written for you, readers of Askphilosophers). But four years is a while to wait for a reply to your most excellent question and including all six volumes into this response would not fit in easily with this format!

The course of reasoning that I suggested in the earlier response to the question about deliberate (fully conscious) wrong-doing was in the Socratic, Platonic, Aristotelian tradition. In this response now I will try to be helpful in filling out an alternative approach. Some philosophers only appear to recommend or contend that it is permissible that we do evil --a view that seems quite paradoxical because in commending evil, it appears (by definition) one is proposing one should do (or it is permissible to do) what one should not do. Nietzsche is sometimes read this way, especially in light of his book Beyond Good and Evil. But I think that book is most reasonably read as Nietzsche recommending we discard what Christians have identified as good and embrace what Christians have thought of as evil. Nietzsche thinks that Christianity has introduced a life-denying ethic and he proposes that we reverse Christian values and affirm more pre-Christian and (what is now) contemporary secular values (I think Ayn Rand is the most in company with Nietzsche in terms of popular philosophy) of what will enhance life. So, Nietzsche is not a nihilist (one who denies that we should care about whether there are values, goods and evil). Two very interesting, more recent philosophers who think that morality is important, but limited are Susan Wolf and Bernard Williams. Both propose that there are non-moral goods that can justify not following a strict moral code. To make this position seem appealing, imagine that morally you think that you should spend enormous time and resources on famine relief but you also love art making. From the standpoint of Wolf and Williams (and I could be wrong here, but this is the way I read them and heard them in conversation), it may be that you could be a good person (in the sense that you pursue good things) even though you do not follow what is morally required.

Another way to get at what can appear to be a case of a clear split between what is good and a person choosing the opposite (evil) is when we seem to have a conflict between self-interest and the greater good. Let me use a dramatic case. Imagine someone in a death camp is given a choice: if you help execute 1,000 victims, we will not kill you and release you. Imagine that the person fully knows that executing 1,000 people is evil, but he wants to survive and is willing to do what he regards as a greater evil in exchange for self-preservation. This is a case when it appears someone can have a compelling interest (from his or her own point of view and interest) to do something that they truly believe is evil. Such cases raise an issue of massive philosophical significance: how should one balance self-interest and concern for all involved parties (persons, animals, etc...)? Probably the most interesting, huge, recent philosophical work on this problem is Derek Parfit's On What Matters. He works hard to argue that it is not rational for persons to do what is unethical. So he might allow that it is possible for someone to not care about what is ethical, but he thinks it incoherent (in the end) for someone to know what is ethical and claim to have decisive reasons for not being ethical. This, however, is in the Socratic, Platonic tradition. Even so, you might look to Parfit AND HIS CRITICS for the latest work on this fascinating, central concern. And please look in four years for: six volumes on The History Of Evil. I think you will find the philosophical arguments fascinating! Or that is not must my hope but the hope of my fellow editor and over a hundred philosophers....

I agree that a person can, without self-deception, do what she knows to be immoral. This happens quite frequently. People lie to their parents and spouses about matters that legitimately concern them; people lie to colleagues and supervisors in order to get out of unwanted chores; people ignore the urgent needs of others, such as the famine currently endangering the people in the Horn of Africa. Many people doing such things know that they are acting wrongly and they do it anyway.

Does this show that they don't care about morality? Not necessarily. It may show that they don't care a lot. They care more about avoiding an unpleasant conversation, an unloved chore, or an undesired charitable donation. Such conduct may also indicate moral sloppiness: some people don't pay enough attention to clearly make the judgment they they are acting immorally. This is analogous to ordinary sloppiness, where someone knows where the speed camera is and nonetheless fails to slow down on the relevant stretch of road. Moral sloppiness also often indicates that a person does not care a lot about morality.

That a person performs an action that she knows to be immoral may also indicate that she had very powerful countervailing reasons. Someone lies in a divorce case in order to save a large sum of money that would otherwise go to her spouse. In such cases, people may care quite a bit about morality but still more about other things. A lot of people act immorally if only they are offered enough (money or other desired things) to do so. To be sure, most people would draw the line somewhere, well before murder. But most seem to be ready to do quite a lot of immoral stuff if the price is right.

While we wait for those six volumes, and for what it may be worth, I think evil is something quite distinct from the above phenomena. For a person to be evil, it is not enough that she care only a little, or nothing, about conforming her conduct to morality. Rather, an evil person is one who positively seeks out wrong conduct, for whom the knowledge that an act is wrong is a reason in favor of performing it. On this account, probably few people are evil. To be sure, most people are attracted to various kinds of conduct that they know to be wrong -- but they typically take the wrongness of the act to be a reason against performing it. An evil person (on my understanding) is one who takes the wrongness of the act to be a reason in favor. This is a narrow understanding of the word, I realize, and I don't object to calling evil also those who care nothing or very little about morality. I highlight the narrow understanding nonetheless because it marks an interesting phenomenon that has not received a lot of attention at least in philosophy.