Several Applications of the Word "Evil"
Beside the attempt to clarify the non-existential nature of evil, Muslim philosophers commonly explore the different applications of the term "evil". Taking these various uses into account helps us to have a better understanding of what an evil is like and prepares the way for distinguishing several aspects of the problem of evil in correspondence to several types of evils.
Avicenna distinguishes between four uses of "evil":
Evil is spoken of in [various] ways. Thus "evil" is said of the blameworthy acts, and "evil"
is said of their principles in moral dispositions.
"Evil" is said of pains, distresses, and their like.
"Evil" is [also] said of the falling short by each thing of its perfection and of its loss of that which would naturally belong to it. (Avicenna, 2005, p 343)
According to the above passage, "evil" is applied to four categories:
1. the immoral actions and wrong doings.
2. the principles of these actions in the agent's dispositions.
3. the pains and distresses and like.
4. the lack of an expected perfection.
One may wonder whether the above classification is in accordance toTNNE
, since the first three categories in the list obviously are of an existential nature. Facing this problem, Avicenna makes some more analyses in order to disclose the hidden relation of those categories, the nonexistence. He thus goes on to claim that the third class, i.e., the sufferings and pains, "even though their meanings are existential, not privative, follow [from] to privation and deficiency." (Ibid) Therefore, suffering and pains are called evil just as far as they are the result of some privation. (I shall discuss this view later under the title of "Apprehension Evil").
What about the first and second types? Their connection to nonexistence is stated as follows:
Evil in acts is also [evil] in relation to the one who loses his perfection by its reaching him, as with injustice, or in relation to a perfection necessary in the religious regime, as [when] adultery [takes place]. Similarly, moral dispositions are only evil by virtue [of such acts] proceeding from them. And they are connected with depriving the soul of perfection that ought to belong to it. (Ibid)
To sum up, we can say that several categories which normally are called evil are either non-existence and privation (as the lack of the deserved perfection) or originate somehow from nonexistence (like the pains) or bring about some privation whether directly (like malefic actions) or indirectly (like the vices and immoral dispositions). So, we find that in all these various categories, what originally should be considered as evil is nothing but nonexistence and privation.
The Grounds ofTNNE
How are the adherents ofTNNE
to justify their belief? In the works of Muslim philosophers, we may distinguish three different approaches:
I. To claim that TNNE is self-evident
Mulla Sadra expresses this claim in the following passage: "There is no doubt that existence is, in itself, good and glory and nonexistence is, in itself, evil. And this is the judgment of the primordial nature." (Mulla Sadra, 1990a, p. 121)
It is helpful to notice that if we accept this claim we should consider philosophers' exploration and analysis of several types of evil to disclose its non-existential nature as mere admonitions (tanbihat) and reminders. This is because Muslim philosophers commonly maintain the possibility of some evident proposition being obscure for some people (due to certain reasons). In this case some reminders and admonitions may be required in order to make the proposition acceptable.
However, it seems that most of Muslim philosophers were not ready to confine themselves to this claim and thus tried to provide some further grounds.
2. To explore several types of evil
The second way is to explore several types of evils in order to show that in all cases the essential evil is a kind of privation (We considered one example of this approach in Avicenna). This approach sometimes has been considered as an attempt to present a kind of inductive argument.
This interpretation, however, has raised an objection based on the weak logical status of induction: inductive arguments are not logically valid arguments and thus, can not result in certain conclusions. Therefore, no inductive argument can conclusively provide adequate support forTNNE
.
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, for example, puts his objection in this way:
This [i.e., to justifyTNNE
on the basis of exploring several types or instances of evils] is to rely on just a few examples and you have known that this does not cause any certainty. (Al-Razi and al-Tusi, 1404, part 2, p. 80).
It is clear that this objection is based on the aforementioned interpretation. But we may interpret their project just as an attempt to provide some evidences forTNNE
and to answer some possible alleged counterexamples.
Mulla Sadra, after examining the nature of several types of evil such as immoral dispositions and actions as well as some physical evils such as extreme heat and frigidity, puts his defense of this approach in a clear way:
The objective of mentioning these examples is not to argue for this claim by means of induction or analogy, but to answer the counterexamples and clarify the distinction between essential and accidental evils and abolish the confusion between these two and reveal that evilness in all things seen as evil refers to or originates from a non-existential aspect. (Mulla sadra, 1981, p. 62)
3. To present a deductive argument
There is no doubt that the main ground forTNNE
, if any at all, could be a deductive argument. Philosophers who adopted this approach proposed different formulations some of which are more complicated than others.
Mulla Sadra's argument, though long and almost complicated, deserves to be cited in detail:
And the argument is that if evil was an existential entity, it would be evil either for itself or for another object. [But] it is impossible for it to be evil for itself since otherwise it couldn't have existence at all because the existence of an object cannot require its nonexistence or privation of one of its perfections. And if an object requires the privation of some of its perfections, the [real] evil will consist in that privation and not that very object…. And it is also impossible for an evil, given that it is existent, to be evil for another being since it would be evil either because it obliterates that object or obliterates one of its perfections or does not obliterate anything. So, if it is evil because it obliterates that object or one of its perfections, then the evil is nothing but the nonexistence of that object or the privation of its perfection and not that existential entity itself. And if it does not obliterate anything, then it will not be an evil for that object since we certainly know that whatever does not cause the nonexistence of an object, nor the privation of its perfection could not be regarded an evil for that object since that object is not harmed or damaged by it. (Mulla Sadra, 1981, pp. 58-59)
In order to criticize this argument I need a broad space. In short, one may say that it commits the fallacy of begging the question for in some stages Sadra proceeds in a manner as if he already has presupposed a non-existential nature for evils. For example, he says that it is impossible for an object to be evil for itself since "the existence of an object cannot require its nonexistence or privation of one of its perfections." It seems that this requirement itself is based on an assumption about evil being necessarily linked to some kinds of nonexistence, but this assumption is what the argument seeks to establish. If this objection is applicable here, then we may conclude that the argument is nothing but a detailed pseudoargument which reveals one's intuition about the non-existential nature of evils.
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Author: Muhammad Sa‘idi-Mihr
