EVIL IS MORE THAN JUST IGNORANCE

Wisdom is more than just study and acquiring knowledge. Instead, we are often culpably ignorant. We just don’t want to see, especially discomforting things about ourselves. However, Stoic Philosopher and atheist, Maximo Pigliucci, believes that the ultimate evil is ignorance, rather than the will, which chooses ignorance:

·       The notion is Socratic in nature, and it is found, for instance, in this famous phrase, which Diogenes Laertius attributes to the most famous Athenian philosopher: “There is only one good, knowledge, and only one evil, ignorance.” (Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers, II.31) https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/do-people-commit-evil-out-of-ignorance/

·       So what Socrates and Epictetus maintain here is that the best someone can do is to achieve understanding of how things work (and therefore of how to act in life), while the worst is being unwise, and therefore engage in actions that one mistakenly, as it turns out, thinks are right.

A heart that plans evil lies outside of Pigliucci’s considerations. Consequently, he cites Epictetus affirmatively:

·       “What is the reason that we assent to a thing? Because it seems to us that it is so. It is impossible that we shall assent to that which seems not to be. Why? Because this is the nature of the mind — to agree to what is true, and disagree with what is false, and withhold judgment on what is doubtful. … Feel now, if you can, that it is night. It is impossible. Put away the feeling that it is day. It is impossible. … When a man assents, then, to what is false, know that he had no wish to assent to the false: ‘for no soul is robbed of the truth with its own consent,’ as Plato says, but the false seemed to him true.” (Discourses, I.28)

“…he had no wish to assent to the false?”  According to this analysis, we do wrong because we are ignorant and need further education and not because we culpably reject the truth and choose deception. In fact, there is a massive amount of evidence that we are willfully ignorant, especially about ourselves. Self-delusion seems to be the rule. One representative study reported:

·       “In one study of nearly a million high school seniors, 70 percent said they had “above average leadership skills, but only 2 percent felt their leadership skills were below average.” Another study found that 94 percent of college professors think they do above average work. And in another study, ‘when doctors diagnosed their patients as having pneumonia, predictions made with 88 percent confidence turned out to be right only 20 percent of the time.’” (Abcnews.go.com; “Self-images Often Erroneously Inflated,” 11/9/05)

Many such studies demonstrate that self-delusion is pervasive. Although we have the inner resources for self-knowledge, we seem to lack the willingness to make use of them. In “Positive Illusions,” psychologist Shelley Taylor sums up the evidence:

·       “Normal people exaggerate how competent and well liked they are. Depressed people do not. Normal people remember their past behavior with a rosy glow. Depressed people are more even-handed…On virtually every point on which normal people show enhanced self-regard, illusions of control, and unrealistic visions of the future, depressed people fail to show the same biases.” (214)

This demonstrates that these “self-enhancing biases and illusions” are entirely human and serve to explain why we flee from self-knowledge into ignorance and denial. We are simply addicted to the pleasure of having an inflated self-esteem, and we will reject anything that might threaten our self-chosen addiction.

This problem doesn’t arise out of ignorance but a willful rejection of truth and wisdom:

·       “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you. Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof…[the ignorant] are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them. (Proverbs 1:22-25, 32)

Ignorance is often culpable. It is like the child who covers his ears and cries, “I don’t want to hear it.” Consequently, this kind of “ignorance” exacts its price. It will also eventually alienate us from others:

·       All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit. (Proverbs 16:2)

However, Pigliucci concludes with a rhetorical question:

·       What do we gain by curing ourselves of amathia [ignorance], and moreover by recognizing that people who do bad things are not “evil,” but rather sick? A lot, as it turns out.

If there is no evil, there is no injustice. If no injustice, there is no justice or any meaningful protections of the innocent against the guilty—a perfect prescription for social chaos, vigilantism, and decay.