The Incoherence of (Ontological) Evil
Why it's wrong to celebrate a Nazi's suicide.
When I started my blog, I made a promise to myself that this would not become a place where I just wrote out my longer tweets. I do intend to keep that promise. Know Your Frenemy #1 is on the way (starring a fan-favorite Italian communist) and I have other longer form essays I plan to write soon too! You can read Know Your Frenemy #0 here!
BUT in the past week there has been a lot conversation on Twitter about what is okay or not okay to do to bad people, and what is okay or not okay to celebrate. I want to talk about that, so here we go.
א. The non-ontological nature of evil.
There is a meme that you’ll see often when you start saying that there are limits to what you can do even to your enemies, that says that evil is ontological characteristic of people. That is, that someone’s being is itself evil, and their being is therefore marked by their evil and places them within a distinct category of being, to whom no moral restrictions apply.
Yesterday, when I tweeted that it was gross and wrong for a sitting congressman to celebrate the suicide of a nazi awaiting sentencing for a drug-dealing charge, I received a reply with the meme pretty quickly.
This is a load of $#!%. People are not born evil, and if they are, there is no method to distinguish those people from the people that weren’t born evil, but do evil just the same. If you are skeptical of this proposition, ask yourself if you have ever done anything wrong. If you answer yes (and you should, because lying to yourself is unhealthy) ask yourself a follow-up question: am I ontologically evil? If you answer no (and hopefully you do, otherwise please seek therapy and be nicer to yourself) then you must acknowledge that people can do evil without being ontologically evil.
The argument that ontological-evil-ists want to make next is to say “fine, but there are some views that reflect an ontological evil.” This is going to come up time and time again, so let’s get the pre-eminent (and if we’re being fair, most compelling) example out of the way: Nazis. The ontological-evil-ists want to say that surely Nazis are an example of people who are categorically different than I, and all the other evil-doers-but-not-ontologically-evil people, are.
This is sadly similarly false, because lots of people stop being Nazis. Please read this article on the subject, it is a wonderful piece of journalism and offers a compelling portrait of deradicalization. It also proves what we know, which is that Nazis, just like the rest of us, can do evil things without having some form of evil intrinsic to their selves.
The final gasp of the ontologically-evil-ists is to say: fine, but when people are being nazis, they are evil in such a way that makes them categorically separate. They might even go so far as to say “when I did something evil, I was also being ontologically evil at that time, and so could be considered separate.”
This is actually a very different argument, more different than you might expect at first glance. It’s a bait-and-switch that makes use of the word “ontological” referring to being, so now people can say, “when I call someone ontologically evil I’m just saying that they are being evil.” But here’s the problem: if when you refer to someone being evil you imply that they belong to a whole new category of moral considerations, you are signing yourself up for a whole host of problems.
בּ. The problems.
There are three groups that should be concerned by those who want to deal with evil in a way unbounded by moral restrictions: the evil, the self-imagined just, and the rest of us.
First, those who are evil are still people who deserve to be treated with the dignity that all people deserve. There is no benefit to torturing the evil beyond what it takes to prevent them from doing further evil. If you are a utilitarian, there is no utility gain. If you are a deontologist, it surely violates whatever moral law you subscribe to. If you are a virtue ethicist, it dishonors the recipient of the torture in a non-educatory way.
Second, it harms the self-imagined just, in two ways. First, it will not soothe or save you. People who want revenge will not be made whole by it, and they will not get back what they have lost. Second, it can make you the evil one. Most evil is done in the name of real or imagined past injustice. How often do you hear people justifying their worst action in the language of retribution. “I stole her toy because she stole mine”—“I cheated on them because they had been ignoring me”—“We had to exterminate the jews because they degenerated our way of life and were subverting our society.” I am not making any statement on the content of these claims, though of course some are obviously far less valid than others. The important thing to note is the form of the claim. It’s all justified in the name of retribution or revenge.
Third, the tit-for-tat and ultimately escalatory nature of this pattern is why the danger to all of us emerges. It’s why it’s important to call out when people start justifying morally-exempt action. A society rooted in constant reprisal is awful, dangerous, and as far from just as you can imagine. This is only more the case when the people in power are the same people that believe they’re harmed.1
Retribution is satisfying. It responds to an urge that runs through all of us. It feels nagging to tell people not to want it, not to cheer it on. Maybe it is! But a good world cannot be built by satisfying our wants all the time, all the more so when our wants are to harm. We need to do better than that, even—and especially—when others aren’t.
This is why I find it uncompelling when I was told not to complain about a U.S. congressman celebrating the suicide of a Nazi, like things like this don’t matter. When government officials start saying it’s okay that people face death rather than criminal punishment, things are not going well. When our public discourse celebrates it, things are going even worse.
Philosophy has evolved from being in response to others’ newspaper articles and letters to being in response to twitter debates!
It’s a little conspicuous not to mention one of, if not the, most common defenses of limitless torture: its dissuasive effect on other people, for which there is no obvious upper limit. If it has to be deployed apparently it isn't enough.