Can Good lead to Evil?

The question: “how to define an action as being “good” or” evil ?” - was of foremost importance for the British Legal System in the 1600s, .  In order to ‘establish a judgment of guilt’, judges needed a criterion to build upon an evaluation of the action under observation. In this mindset, the principle of Mens Rea (on establishing guilt) was formulated.  

Judges viewed ‘action” as possessing physical as well as mental aspects.  Together with the physical aspect of action, the mental nature (of inner motivation behind the action) has to be considered, and this means that regarding an action as being evil (or guilt- based) was conditioned by having a proof of the intentionality to do harm.

A legal dictionary defines Mens Rea as the existence of

“the element of …, wrongful purpose; a criminal intent”. (1)

From defining evil to defining good:  

This simple and meaningful criterion - on how to judge an action as “evil” through the intention to do harm - becomes also useful for us to aid in the definition of action as being “good”.  

Based on logical negation to the statement “evil is the intent to do harm” – we get: “good is the intent to remove harm”.  Everyone understands this. We call someone like a doctor, a nurse, or a medicine – as being “good”, because their action is based on removing harmful experience or suffering.  

It is just puzzling why Western philosophers did not match in their views about good and evil - the insight offered by the legal authorities of that time:

The concept of Good in Western philosophy

Each person agrees with the judges of the 17th century about their definition of “evil” as “intention to harm”.  That was about a century before the birth of Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804), who influenced the Western philosophy with his concept of goodness.

It seems that Philosophy should have left the definition of “good” and “evil” to the Legal System, which was clear and straightforward.  Western philosophy - on the other hand - offered rather a cloud of ambiguity regarding a definition of “what is good” - as the three following examples inform us:

Definition 1;

In his book Principia Ethica, philosopher G.E. Moore (1873 – 1954) offers the following answer:

“If I am asked ‘what is good?’ – my answer is that good is good, and that is the end of the matter. Or if I am asked, ‘How is good to be defined?’ – my answer is that it cannot be defined, and that’s all I have to say about it.” (2)

Definition 2;

In his book Belief in God, T. J. Mawson, Tutor in Philosophy at St. Peters Collage, University of Oxford, gives the following definition:

 “Goodness is a matter of behaving as one ought in one’s relations with other people, and perfect goodness is a matter of doing the best thing that one can for them whenever there is a best and doing one of the best things that one can whenever two or more things are ‘joint best’ for them,  i.e. are equally good and none is better”. (3)

The above-mentioned definition, however, has two problems.  The first is quite serious: when we say “Goodness is a matter of behaving as one ought”, we assume that “what one is ought to do” is - in the first place - is unquestionably “good".  Any hierarchical system of authority dictates that “good” is what people “ought to do”.  This definition is welcomed by all militarist regimes.  Extremists and terrorists believe that what one “ought to do for God” - is supreme goodness.  

The second problem in the abovementioned definition of good - is about circularity of the definition, because the three words “good", “better’" and “best” were all used to refer to - and to explain - ‘goodness’.

Definition 3;

Regarding the subject of goodness, Kant is most quoted by the following statement:

“It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, …… that could be considered good without limitation - except a good will”. (4)

In other words: “absolute good is good will”.  

Kant’s abovementioned statement shifted the definition of “good” to that of “good will”.  But to define something as ‘good’ by using the same word of ‘good’ - is a form of circularity - as we are informed:

“Don’t create a circular definition: don’t, that is, define a word in terms of itself, as in “Patriotism is the quality of being a patriot””. (5)

The essence of criterion of goodness in Eastern philosophy, as “removing harm & generating pleasantness” - is not found in Kantian ethics, which criterion for goodness is “fulfilling one’s duty”:

“I admit that I cannot associate any pleasantness with the conception of Duty, just because of its dignity.  For it involves unconditional obligation, which is directly contrary to pleasantness”. (6)

There could be other sources with satisfying definitions about “what is Good” in Western philosophy - as opposed to the three mentioned examples of ambiguity in defining the concept of goodness.   Nonetheless, the dominant influence of Kantian views in particular -  unfairly gives the perspective of “good is good will” - special focus in various literature.

The concept of Good in Eastern philosophical views:

Eastern philosophical perspectives suggest two aspects of the concept of Good:“removing harm” and  “imparting joy”"

“… the word for compassion comprises two Chinese characters. The first character corresponds to the Sanskrit word maitri, meaning “to give happiness.” The second corresponds to the Sanskrit karuna, meaning “to remove suffering. Taken together they describe the function of relieving living beings of suffering and giving them happiness.” (7)

In the Buddhist Theory of Value, the value of Good is related to actions, which make life of people better, in particular actions leading to the well being of self and others:

“A life devoted to benefiting others represents Great Good”. (8)

A similar view on the nature of goodness is presented in Soka Buddhist literature as:

“Goodness” can be defined as that which moves us in the direction of harmonious coexistence, empathy and solidarity with others. The nature of evil, on the other hand, is to divide: people from people, humanity from the rest of nature. (9)

Intention as the mental aspect of action

Kant’s theory is an example of a deontological moral theory.  According to those theories, the rightness or wrongness of actions does not depend on their consequences.  What matters most is to “fulfil our duty”.

There seems to be a misunderstanding in Kantian views about the link between causes and consequences. Cause (which is here the mental aspect of having “goodwill”) is not enough for initiating an action.  For any event to take place, the motivation for action (or cause) must meet conducive factors from the surroundings to engage in activity and make the intention turn into a reality of an observable event.  Therefore, to judge an event by the intention of initiating action misses the impact of that action on the environment.  In other words, intention is a necessary cause but not a sufficient operator in creating an event.  The external conditions (and hence: the effect of the intention on these external conditions) must be taken into consideration - when giving a judgement about a committed action.

Deontology emerged perhaps from the observation that in general we cannot control the external environment, which may interfere (and so can result in negative consequences) despite our good intentions.  Our ignorance, about the external factors, which affect our action – does not free us from responsibility for the consequences. 

_______________________________