Augustine s famous story about his own theft of pears is perplexing to him at

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1 1 [This essay is very well argued and the writing is clear.] PHL 379: Lives of the Philosophers April 12, 2011 The Goodness of God and the Impossibility of Intending Evil Augustine s famous story about his own theft of pears is perplexing to him at first, because it seems that he stole for the sheer pleasure of doing something evil. 1 He later realizes that he intended the evil of theft only for the sake of the good of freedom from restrictions. In fact, he argues that the will can desire only good, and cannot intend evil essentially and for its own sake. Intending evil simply is both directly contrary to the goodness of God, and a conclusion resulting from Augustine s privation theory of evil, a theory which begins with the principle that God is supremely good. Thus, the impossibility of intending evil for its own sake results from the goodness of God, and it is possible to intend evil only accidentally, and for the sake of some good. Comment [Unknown A1]: The author begins with a brief summary of her argument. Comment [Unknown A2]: This sentence is not very clear. Comment [Unknown A3]: A clear thesis. Augustine rightly notes that God, who is perfectly and supremely good, can only cause good. 2 The human will is created by God, and so the will must be ontologically good. If the will is good, then it must be naturally inclined to seek the good. If it had any natural tendency toward evil, even some of the time, then the will itself would be evil, at least partially. God would then be the creator of an evil and defective faculty, either because He could not or did not want to create something wholly good. God also would be responsible for all the evil that we commit with that faculty, because by using it to 1 2 Augustine, Confessions, trans. E. B. Pusey, (New York: Modern Library, 1999), ff. Augustine, Confessions,

2 2 commit evil we would only be using it as He created it to be used, and in accordance with its nature. All this is manifestly contrary to the supreme goodness and omnipotence of God. Augustine s commitment to the principle that God is perfect goodness and cannot cause evil leads him to his privation theory of evil. God created everything, and God can Comment [Unknown A4]: Note the smooth transition between paragraphs here. only create good. Therefore, evil is not created by God, nor is it a thing; it is a lack of a good that ought to exist. 3 Evil is absence of being in something else that has being. Augustine s definition of evil as a lack or an absence of a due good gives further evidence that evil cannot be desired for its own sake. Each thing tends toward being, rather than nothingness. Each thing, even irrational creatures, naturally seeks its own selfpreservation. A plant tends toward growth and life. It does not have a natural principle within it that propels it toward death or annihilation. It withers and dies only when it is Comment [Unknown A5]: It would have been better to say another explanation, rather than further evidence, since a definition can explain, but does not convince without an argument about why it is correct. Comment [Unknown A6]: This should be creature, since thing and its are singular. deprived of an external good necessary for life, such as water or sunlight, or reaches such an age that its internal goods, such as leaves and chlorophyll, are no longer powerful enough to function properly and sustain its life. If good is being and evil is a lack of being, and all things seek being rather than non-being, then the will must seek only good and not evil. Seeking its own preservation means that each thing avoids corruption, which entails the loss of being, and seeks the contrary, which is its own perfection. Drawing from Augustine s arguments, J. Patout Burns notes that something spiritual, such as the human soul, is perfected by virtue and corrupted by vice. Thus, to will moral evil for its own sake would be to will one s own corruption, loss of perfection, and loss of being. 3 Augustine, Confessions,

3 3 Furthermore, a spiritual being can be corrupted only by its own actions; one spiritual being cannot harm another spiritual harm. Burns states: The aggressor, by the very intention to harm another, would lose the goodness and power of which it sought to deprive its intended victim. 4 All things avoid their own corruption, and the only way for Comment [Unknown A7]: After giving Burns s full name the first time he is mentioned, he is referred to by his last name. This is the correct way to refer to an author. a person to avoid spiritual corruption is to avoid moral evil. It seems from the above that it is impossible to will evil, and yet the evil that human beings commit each day cannot be denied. Each thing is said to seek its own preservation, and yet numerous people have been known to commit suicide. How can such crimes be explained if it is impossible to intend evil? It impossible to intend evil essentially, and for its own sake, but evil can be Comment [Unknown A8]: Here a new point of view is introduced to provide contrast. intended accidentally, and for the sake of some good. This can occur when an evil is necessarily connected with a good that one desires. If the person commits this evil, he does so either because he ignored the evil, or because he was willing to endure it as the necessary cost of enjoying the good that he valued more and could not obtain without it. We will now examine these two possibilities more closely. It is possible to intend only good, and yet commit evil for which we are responsible. This occurs when we do not attend sufficiently to reason and the circumstances of the act, and thus ignore evil that will necessarily result from our action 5. St. Thomas Aquinas gives an example of a man who intends to enjoy the sweetness of wine. 6 To accomplish this end, he drinks a great quantity of wine in a short period of 4 J. Patout Burns, Augustine on the Origin and Progress of Evil, Journal of Religious Ethics 16, (March 1, 1988): Philosopher's Index, EBSCOhost (accessed March 21, 2011), Carlos Steel, Does Evil Have a Cause? Augustine s Perplexity and Thomas s Answer. Review of Metaphysics 48.2, (December 1994), Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles. Trans. Vernon J Bourke. Ed. Joseph Kenny. NY: Hanover House, dhspriory.org (accessed April 11, 2011), 3.6.4

4 4 time. He does not intend to become intoxicated, but intoxication is the necessary result of the act of drinking large quantities of alcohol quickly. The man is culpable for this evil that he did not intend because he should have been aware of its necessary connection to his action, and chose to neglect this knowledge. We may also consciously intend evil that we do not want because it is connected unavoidably to a good that we do want. Aristotle s well-known example in which a man caught in a storm at sea throws cargo overboard illustrates this concept. 7 The sailor does not intend the loss of the cargo for its own sake. He intends only to prevent the ship from sinking, and intends the loss of the cargo only insofar as it serves this end. If such loss were not necessary in order to save the ship, the man would never discard the cargo. The man who throws cargo overboard to save a sinking ship has intended an evil Comment [Unknown A9]: A well-chosen example can illustrate a point. for the sake of a good, but is not guilty of any moral wrongdoing. What he has done is praiseworthy, because, when circumstances prevented him from achieving both, he sacrificed the lesser good the preservation of the cargo for the sake of a higher good the preservation of the ship and the lives of those on board. Desiring evil for the sake of good is blameworthy and morally wrong when higher goods are forsaken for the sake of lesser goods 8. For example, a man may steal because he values the lesser good, wealth, more than the higher goods of justice and virtue, and this is morally wrong. Thus, to intend the evil of loss of cargo for the good of preserving human life is praiseworthy, but to intend the evils of theft and injustice for the good of acquiring wealth and status is not. However, in both cases, the evil is intended only for 7 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics. The Basic Works of Aristotle, trans. W. D. Ross, ed. Richard McKeon, (New York: Modern Library, 2001), 1110a9. 8 Augustine, Confessions,

5 5 the sake of the intended good. If that particular good were not intended, or the evil were not necessarily connected to it, the evil would no longer be intended. We are now in a position to return to the question of the suicidal person, who seems to intend evil for its own sake, and to seek his own destruction rather than selfpreservation. It is clear from the above that the person who commits suicide does not seek death and evil simply, but some good that is or appears to be connected with death. One may believe in an afterlife and choose to commit the grave wrong and suffer the great evil of suicide for the sake of reaching it more quickly. One may be a prisoner of war, and choose suicide out of the belief that killing oneself is more noble and courageous than allowing oneself to be tortured, enslaved, or killed by one s enemies. One may be experiencing great suffering and choose death to escape it. In each of these examples, the evil of suicide is chosen for the sake of the good apparently connected to it heaven, courage, or happiness. The will chose between greater and lesser apparent goods, and did not choose evil simply. Furthermore, since the goods desired are positive, existing things, the principle that all things seek being rather than nothingness is not contradicted. It is impossible to desire evil as evil, and for its own sake. Evil is a lack of being, a corruption, and all things seek being and perfection. Augustine concludes that evil must be a lack of a due good rather than an existing substance, because God Who is perfect goodness could not have created evil. Intending evil also contradicts the goodness of God in another way, because it implies a natural tendency toward evil placed in the will by its Creator. It therefore results from the goodness of God that the will cannot desire evil essentially and for its own sake, and evil can only be desired accidentally, and for the

6 6 sake of some good. Were the good obtainable without the evil, evil would no longer be desired.