Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utcsstat.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!utcsstat!laura
From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: re: What evil is
Message-ID: <726@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Jun-83 16:31:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.726
Posted: Mon Jun 27 16:31:10 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 27-Jun-83 20:38:49 EDT
References: utcsstat.722, <331@mit-eddi.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 42

Im sorry, but I still dont get it. From everything you have said so
far there is more than one conclusion that can be drawn. To my mind
they are esentially different conclusions.

conclusion A is that GOOD and EVIL exist. I print them in capitals because
	     they are essential definite qualities "engraven in stone and
	     unchanging" so to speak. Statements like "God is good" fall
	     into this category. God (at least in the Christian tradition)
	     is by definition GOOD, even all-GOOD.  Not only do they exist,
	     but they are absolutes.

conclusion B is that good is a quality which people only recognise with
	     respect to less good (evil) things.

I do not find that the two are necessarily incompatible (God is GOOD but
we only notice this in comparison to the EVIL things that we are exposed
to) but they need not be.

Instead of good and evil, suppose we talk about fast and slow. CRAYs are
fast. TRASH-80s are slow. Dec-10s are fast. My grandmother is *very slow*.
Considering that she just got out of the hospital, though, she is walking
*very fast indeed*. Are fast and slow "engraven in stone" concepts? Are they
absolutes? No. 

If you want to define EVIL and GOOD it makes a big difference whether they
exist as absolutes or not. It also makes a difference whether they are
2 qualities or 1. In the example using computers you discover that "fast"
and "slow" are merely human terms used to describe the speed of something.
Speed is measurable but "fastness" and "slowness" is only relative to
the person making the assertion and his ideas of the relative speeds between
the two things being compared. My grandmother should not be compared with
a CRAY, not because she or the CRAY do not have measurable speed, but because
it is nonsensical to compare them.

Even if you believe in an absolutely GOOD God, it does not follow that the
quality of "good" or "evil" can be viewed as absolutes. If you build a
computer which works at the molecular level and is as fast as any computer
can be designed you have still not solved the problem of how fast is my
grandmother, and indeed, Dec-10s will still be fast.

Laura Creighton