Evil

5. Facing evil

It will perhaps be apparent that the various attempts to account for evil are not among the highest achievements of Western philosophy. All the surveyed accounts begin with the assumption that the good is primary and then vainly struggle to explain the prevalence of evil. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the history of this subject is riddled with bad arguments and sentimentalism. A reasonable account of evil must acknowledge the reality and prevalence of evil. It must recognize that much evil that prevents the wellbeing of humanity is caused by human beings who are not moral monsters but ordinary people going about their ordinary lives. The character of such people includes virtues and vices, and a struggle between them (see Virtues and vices §5). Depending on the hardships they face, the traditions and institutions that guide their conduct, and their capacity, opportunity, and motivation for moral reflection, sometimes their virtues and sometimes their vices prevail. Human nature is mixed; it is neither simply good, nor simply evil. It is primarily the proportion of the mixture, not the knowledge and intentions of agents, that determines how much evil will be caused by specific individuals in specific contexts. The search for a metaphysical explanation for this banal fact is a diversion from the morally necessary task of decreasing evil by improving the conditions and character of individual moral agents.