Evil is all around us. Murder, rape, genocide, theft, child abuse, extortion, fraud ... What is the cause of all this?
Many answers have been offered. The simplest and easiest answer to digest, the answer that allows us to explain the really inconceivable depravity, is that some people are "just plain evil." Bad to the bone. Incorrigible. I suspect all of us have had this thought before. It seems so obvious.
Sure, we all make mistakes, we all sin occasionally, but a select few are demon spawn, incapable of mending their ways.
Turns out, that's logically impossible.
It's impossible by the very nature of evil.
An evil act involves a choice. No one forced Ted Bundy to callously murder people; he did it because he wanted to - because he freely chose to. Sure, he may have had a deprived childhood, he may have had bad genes. But all those possibilities do is exonerate him of responsibility. No, we must assume he is evil incarnate. That's part of his identity. For that to be true, he must have freely chosen his crimes.
But wait ... He's innately evil, bad to the bone ... yet he had a choice.
That means he's intrinsically bad, even though if he were intrinsically bad he couldn't help himself, yet he could help himself. He's evil, yet not evil.
Those of us who think for ourselves call that a contradiction in terms.
So you can't "be" evil and have free will. You can only choose bad behavior. Ted Bundy chose bad behavior. Describing him as evil frees him of responsibility for his actions.
Let's consider another case: A cat not only catches a mouse, she also toys with it. She inflicts pain on the terrified little creature. Is the cat evil?
Many people claim "lower" animals don't have free will. Does this assumption free us from contradictions enough to call the cat evil?
Well, if the cat doesn't have free will, then she must have been programmed by nature to torture mice. If so, then is nature evil?
Maybe so.
But wait ... Aren't we assuming that there is such a thing as "evil?" That is, aren't we assuming that there exists some objective standard of good and evil - that evil is not just subjective? Aren't we assuming that torture really is bad?
If so, then where do we get this standard of good and evil - is it the "natural" standard? But if nature itself is evil, and we got the standard from nature, from reality ...
Again, we are led by inexorable logic into a maze of contradictions, as soon as we assume that some creatures are "evil." It doesn't matter whether the creatures have free will or not.
The only way out of this maze is to accept responsibility for our choices and actions. Choices and actions can be evil, but people can't.
No wonder Christians say God loves all of us in spite of our sins.
But wait ... If we can't be evil, doesn't that mean we can't be inherently good, either?
Well, it certainly means that we can't earn goodness by our actions. We can only choose good actions.
No wonder Mom and Dad always told me to "Do the right thing."
And for the record, cats do have free will. They aren't forced to purr and act cute; they really mean it when they snuggle up against you lovingly.
I'm not so sure about dogs. They may have ulterior motives:-).
