Topic

The nature of evil

The topic of “Bad or Mad?” by Sean Spence is introduced right at the beginning of the article, as Spence asks what evil is. He explains that, historically, this question was posed by theologians. In the Christian tradition, evil was defined by Saint Augustine with the help of an important distinction between two sources of evil:

Saint Augustine distinguished between two forms of evil: ‘moral evil’, the evil humans do, by choice, knowing that they are doing wrong; and ‘natural evil’, the bad things that just happen – the storm, the flood, volcanic eruptions, fatal disease. (p. 137, ll. 8-12)

Spence points out that even the secular society subscribes to this distinction. He explains that society needs to believe that a criminal has chosen violence – and is, therefore, guilty of “moral evil”- for punishment to feel justified: “In our secular society, where crimes are punished, we need to believe that someone who commits an inexplicable act of violence (…) has freely chosen to do so.” (p. 138, ll. 1-4).

The writer explains that some people – such as those who possess severe antisocial personality traits - know when they are doing wrong. Neuroscience, however, has shown that some neural centres in these people’s brains do not work properly. The writer, therefore, questions whether they can truly be considered evil, if their wrongdoings are caused by brain abnormalities. Moreover, this also leads him to ask if moral evil even exists: “If we can find explanat...