Maintaining Morality, Exhausting Evil
The belief that evil will always exist is not an excuse to discontinue the moral fight against those who commit wicked acts, but rather, grounds to continue combating these people. Morality does not create evil but identifies it, and most importantly, seeks to root it out. Once recognized, moral persons are obligated to take action against evil, for as Sir Edmund Burke once said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
There exist many individuals today who firmly believe that the battles against such evils as terrorism are futile. This attitude is backed by the notion that evil will exist forever, regardless of actions taken by moral people, and therefore terrorism and terrorists will always be present. They hold that if an al Qaeda leader is removed, another will step up, and if Hamas is defeated, Hezbollah will substitute in. Their opinion proposes the idea that the moral fight against terrorism is an endless and pointless cause. Philosopher Iris Murdoch goes so far as to say that moral people “desire the existence and perpetuity of evil” because morality “makes evil” and could not exist without it (Murdoch, 725). Many people who think like Murdoch feel that terrorists should be treated as criminals so that the lives of our soldiers are not jeopardized in a conflict that, they believe, cannot be won.
The belief that evil will endure no matter what may be true; however, moral people should still make an effort to decrease evil to negligible levels. Nations like the United States, Great Britain, and
Australia actively attempt to disassemble terrorist networks and prevent the evils of terrorism from reaching their streets, citizens, and buildings. In doing so, these countries are standing for a moral and virtuous cause.
It is apparent that it is impossible to end terrorism altogether. Still, it would be illogical and immoral for nations to halt their efforts to thwart terrorist assaults on their own people. Truthfully, if terrorism is left to grow, it would become a global and faceless threat capable of committing acts more atrocious than those of Hitler and Stalin. Hiding from this fact would create a morbid scenario, and as novelist Emile Zola once said, “When truth is buried underground, it grows, it chokes, it gathers such an explosive force that on the day it bursts out, it blows up everything with it.”
If we were to follow the destructive consideration that ignoring evils in our country and other parts of the world is justifiable, then we no longer could sincerely call ourselves moral people. Genuine moral people recognize evil when they see it and strive to terminate its continuation. A moral group of people would agree with Martin Luther King Junior’s statement that “To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it.”
If good and evil have always existed, and if they will always continue to exist, then it is intelligent and worthwhile to try to restrain the wicked as much as possible. It is noted that the notions of morality and immorality are just concepts and that one cannot kill conceptions of the mind. Undoubtedly, even though evil is not tangible when in the human mind, it does materialize through human actions. It is these immoral actions that the moral and the good should aspire to stop.
Iris Murdoch concludes her argument on morality and religion by stating that, “If there is to be morality, there cannot altogether be an end to evil” (Murdoch, 725). It is important to note that the converse, “If there is to be evil, there cannot altogether be an end to morality” is not necessarily true. One would be making a dangerous gamble to believe such a statement. Therefore, the good and moral have an obligation to continue their struggle against evil. For a world left unchecked and overrun with evil most certainly would not leave space for the moral and the good.
Good arguments. One approach (just for the sake of the discussion) that I like to take is this: Perhaps ethics and morals were created to ensure peaceful society, instead of absolutes they are rules created by communities to govern communities.
~CallieV
“If there is to be evil, there cannot altogether be an end to morality”
i'm not sure you worded that right, and that's not necessarily proper logic anyway.
in any case, i would of course agree with you, except i am also going to comment on it through my islam, with regards to war and fighting. if someone is to attack you, or your family, or your community, etc, you are allowed to fight until they have been subdued, at which point it is advised to let them go free, and if one oppresses people such that they cannot practice religion freely, one may depose them. In the process, one may not in any way harm women, children, innocent people, or the natural environment.
I think this is very important, because while violence has moral justification in certain situations, one must continue to always conduct themself in the most moral, compassionate, merciful way they can.
this applies to a couple of the situations you mentioned. i would like to compare actually the united states and palestinian resistance groups. hamas and hizbollah are two groups who have diverted about 10%(im pretty sure that is the number in hamas' case, anyway) of their funds to palestinian resistance. it is generally thought that some of these funds go to acts of terrorism. now, they are justified to some extent because israel is flat out denying the palestinian refugees basic human rights and have broken international law. they have not, however, in harming innocent israelis through funding terrorism, conducted themself in a moral way. america deposed of sadaam, which regardless of one's politics and what they thought of this war, was an act of deposing a dictator, yet america too has inflicted massive innocent casualties.
the idea of common good is prevalent in islam, and in european philosophy through moore, and that does also need to be taken into consideration, but its a philosophical dilemma to count too heavily on it to breach codes of conduct. is it even possible to set such bounds without heading down a slippery slope?
Morality is doing what is right no matter what you are told.
Religion is doing what you are told no matter what is right.
well if you thought about that for two secons, "morality" means a CODE of "ethics" anyway, which is part of what religion is. and ethics are mostly acquired throughout life, not that it is solely nuture which determines one's commitment to ethical acts, but most people who think they would do good things no matter what are naiive at best; 'good' and 'bad' are inherent in some form, but not enough that it is always screaming out at us what we should do. hence teaching people ethics is absolutely necessary if they are to become ethical people.
your quip is a cliche attacking religion for its 'blind followers' most likely, but most religions teach an understanding of what one does, and a commitment to doing what is right despite the ease of doing wrong. khalil gibran wrote something to the effect that religion is no more than who we are and what we do every day. without a belief in some creed of right and wrong, it's nearly impossible to act in anything but a selfish way.