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,net.religion Subject: Re: what IS evil Message-ID: <695@utcsstat.UUCP> Date: Sat, 18-Jun-83 09:56:24 EDT Article-I.D.: utcsstat.695 Posted: Sat Jun 18 09:56:24 1983 Date-Received: Sat, 18-Jun-83 10:41:46 EDT References: <390@sbcs.UUCP> Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada Lines: 14 If you define evil to be "the absence of good" then the whole question changes. I have yet to find anything without *any* good -- there are merely things which are more good than others. By this reasoning, there is no way to assign "evilness" as a quality to something, only a way to measure its relative "goodness" to other good things. Of course, you now get to define "good" and you may have a symetrical problem, in which case you can accuse me of begging the question. But if "good/evil" are one quality, (albeit composed of separate qualities such as honesty, compassion...) the value system which emerges can be strikingly different from one that acknowledges two polar opposites. Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura