The Good and Bad - Personal Statement Example

The Good and Bad Introduction Epicurean philosophy and moral theory which differentiates between good and bad is clearly based on perception and it is certainly attractive when compared to the ideals of virtue, honor and ethics as presented by Aristotle and Plato (Konstan, 2004). Of all the ancient philosophers, he seems to be the one closest to the ideal of letting people do as they wish or as they will. However, this is certainly a dangerous idea and the arguments forwarded by Aristotle, Plato and other thinkers can show how this is a dangerous position to hold. Parry (2004) notes that, “Epicurean moral theory is the most prominent hedonistic theory in the ancient world (Parry, 2004, Pg. 1).” Despite his focus on hedonistic views and the idea of perceptions making things good or bad (Konstan, 2004), it can be shown that some things are inherently bad while others are inherently good and that our perception of those things has little to do with their nature. Plato’s Good and Bad For example, Plato makes it quite clear that a person’s soul can have certain desires which are not good and the state of these desires not being good is not due to the percept we place on them but because they are bad for the individual. On the other hand, Plato uses Socrates to describe four virtues which are intrinsically good for a city as well as an individual such as wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice (Parry, 2004). It becomes difficult to describe Wisdom as being bad since Epicurus would be hard pressed to find anyone who perceives it as bad without giving up his/her own wisdom. On the other hand, we can find some significant examples of people taking the worse kinds of evil in stride and considering them to be commonplace rather than perceiving them as bad. In the course of human history, perhaps nothing beats the scale of evil as it was conducted during the Third Reich and the rule of the Nazis in Germany. Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt (1994) gives us what is perhaps the strangest view of evil since she discusses the trial of the German Nazi Eichmann who was found guilty of murder and eventually executed by the state of Israel. Bad and Evil Arendt’s (1994) perceptions of Eichmann as well as the events of the holocaust are closer to what Epicurus would have liked since she bases her opinions on her perceptions. The holocaust as well as the Second World War is still fresh in the living memory of many citizens and most rational persons consider the atrocity and cruelty of the Nazis on the Jews as evil, but Arendt focuses on the banality of evil. The idea comes from the premise that since evil is everywhere; it makes people consider it to be less evil. However, the situation could be taken in reverse. That is to say, the more evil there is in the world the more we need to do to stop it from spreading. For example, the idea that we are polluting our planet with our waste would probably gain a lot of strength when the negative effects of global warming eventually come to bear fruit. Arendt’s (1994) idea of evil is not very different from ours but the application of the concept of evil/bad to the person of Eichmann appears to be false. As described by Arendt (1994), Eichmann does not appear to be evil himself. Of course there is no defense for his actions for they were evil indeed, but as presented in this book he himself is little more than a middling civil servant following orders. If the lack of ethical values or a guilty conscience is evil then he is evil indeed. If not, then he was merely following orders. Since following orders is a good because it leads to pleasure and virtue, Epicurus might have edged him on as he went on butchering innocents. Arendt does demonstrate that having ethical values can be good for the individual and good for the person’s community since the Jews of Bulgaria and Denmark managed to escape in large numbers while the German Jew faced the full force of the Nazi regime. Eichmann was punished because he did not use his freewill, while others in the same situation might have. Had he gone by what Epicurus had said, then saying that I was following orders would have been enough to save him. However, the presence of good and evil can be judged without perception since society, laws and rules all give us stringent criteria for what is good and what is bad. Aristotle’s Ideas This idea was also supported by the moral theory of Aristotle who places the center of our being and our happiness as a moral compass for what is good and bad in his Nicomachean Ethics (Parry, 2004). Epicurus would have to eat his own words and consider his own self to be morally bad if he engaged in something which he did not enjoy therefore seeking happiness through the act of thinking or being a philosopher which according to Aristotle is good would only be a futile exercise in Narcissism as per the dictates of Epicurus. Aristotle refines the concept of having a happy life by considering all options such as a life of enjoyment with friends, the life of being politically active, the life spent in schools and academies and even a life full of bodily pleasures alone. In these terms while happiness can be an objective and perceptive measure; virtue is not and neither is good nor evil (Parry, 2004). Aristotle seems to be in agreement with the Epicurean idea of the good in life being based on the perception of an individual but a person working with Epicurean ethics may think that murder is good, killing innocents is good and that committing acts of terrorism is a good thing. In the larger scheme of events those actions are anything but good because collectively, we as a society do not accept them as good. Undoubtedly, there may be others who see the acts mentioned about as a good thing and even support and promote them. However, it must be realized that as per the arguments given by Arendt (1994) it is an internalization of society given values and the banality of evil which makes them consider such acts as morally acceptable. Going by the dictates of Aristotle, that society seeks its happiness in a different moral good therefore it is not the individuals perception which makes things good or bad but the dictates of what the larger community wants. Those who do not accept what society demands of them are outsiders who may have to tag along with what is required of them or be ejected from their social circles. Conclusion I feel that simply basing good and bad on our perceptions of what good is or what bad is will only lead to anarchy and conflict since without a commonly accepted premise of how a society should guide itself towards the good and avoid the bad, it simply could not function as a cohesive body. Undoubtedly, the hedonistic ideas presented by Epicurus are attractive at the first glance since they might let a person think that they are free to do exactly as they choose. However, once we understand that others around us would also be allowed to come into their animal form and not have anything holding them back from doing whatever they wanted, the idea becomes less attractive. It is not that I do not trust my fellow man to respect me and my privacy, but I feel much safer in knowing that there are certain things accepted to be good in our system which are also attached with penalties for being bad. Word Count: 1,348 Works Cited Arendt, H. (1994). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Penguin. Parry, R. (2004). Ancient Ethical Theory. Retrieved December 1, 2006, from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy web site: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-ancient/#3 Konstan, D. (2004). Epicurus. Retrieved December 1, 2006, from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy web site: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/ Read More