If we are to agree that one of the core values of our society is security, then the next question we must ask ourselves is to what extent, and to at what cost, are we willing to achieve it? Is surrendering your personal liberty in exchange for burdensome cost and regulation in the name of greater security a good trade?
To better understand the answer to this question, it is constructive to understand what it is we desire to be secure from. Given the seemingly endless array of things to be fearful of in this world from the numerous threats to our physical, economic, or political safety it would seem a daunting to task to examine each threat to our security. However, if we were to begin categorizing all of these threats we can see that there are two fundamental threats that we wish to be secure from. They are evil and tragedy.
The concept of evil is a fascinating one and a study in itself that is far beyond the scope of this topic. For the purposes of brevity, let’s discuss evil in the context of the capacity for, or potential of, evil due the imperfect nature of man. Let us further distinguish this source of evil from that of tragedy. Tragedy could be described as the result of evil, and evil is certainly one source of tragedy, however, tragedy could also be realized independently from evil. Evil is one, but not the only means to achieving tragedy.
For example, the death or destruction caused by an unavoidable natural disaster, such as a tornado, is indeed tragic but it is not the result of intelligent or malevolent intent. For the purpose of this discussion, we will consider any tragedy that was the result of evil, to be itself evil, and will reserve the term tragedy to account for all forms of unfortunate events that did not result on account of man’s imperfect nature or of ill intent.
Having distinguished between evil and tragedy we will focus this examination of security to the scope of achieving security from evil. The topic of securing ourselves from tragedy will be discussed elsewhere in terms of self reliance in the context of being prepared for life’s unforeseen circumstances and natural disasters along with what we can do to mitigate those types of risks. For now, it is sufficient to accept that the risk of unforeseen accidents, natural disasters, and even death are unavoidable consequences of living in a physical reality.
Origin of Human Evil
Our thought processes always starts with observation. We observe that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. This observation leads to a desire, that of placing ourselves on the other side of the fence. This desire is our will. We have a will to be in greener pastures. Whether or not we choose to act on this will, as well as the manner in which we do act, should we choose to, is directed by our behavior.
The initial behavior is the deliberation to choose whether or not to act upon our desire. Initially, it would seem the deliberation is more to do with our rational thought process than with our behavior, however the process of thinking is itself an act, and therefor governed by our behavior. For instance, a rash person may disregard the deliberation altogether and immediately act upon his desire with not so much as a single thought regarding the potential consequences of those actions. Similarly, a cautious person may choose to deliberate indefinitely upon their desires and never realize an outcome. Both the rashness and the cautiousness are elements of our human behavior.
We can see that there are two distinct elements at play here. The first is our freewill and the second is the behavior in which we act out our freewill. We can observe that humans have been given unrestricted freewill. Read about human rights for a more detailed discussion of this. Our freewill manifests itself in not only various desires but also in various types of behavior enacted during our pursuits of those desires.
Variation
It is readily apparent that we do not all share the same desires or aims in life. There is wide variation in not only what each of us desires to do with our lives, but also, and perhaps more importantly, wide variation in how we go about achieving our desires. As such, it can be easily shown that our human behavior is not immune to the laws of natural variation.
Natural variation is the observable law of nature that no two things are ever exactly alike. Consider the leaves on a tree. From a distance they all look alike, but if you compare them to each other you will find that no two are identical. Each one has a slightly different shape, size, pattern or color. We call this phenomenon natural variation.
This same law of natural variation can be observed in human behavior. Few of us are saint like throughout our entire lives. Similarly, few of us are what we would consider evil. We all make mistakes or surrender on occasion to our various vices or temptations which is evidence of our imperfect nature, and also excludes us from the strictly righteous end of the human behavior spectrum. In the same manner, few of us succumb to our vices to the extent that we wind up as an illustrative example of evil in the dictionary. So too, most of us are excluded from the strictly evil end of the human behavior spectrum. The overwhelmingly vast majority of people fall somewhere between the two extremes.
While most of us do not lie on either extreme, the variation in human behavior exists none the less. So long as human beings possess freewill and sole autonomy over themselves, variation in our behavior along with the positive or negative effects it will have on others will continue to exist. Our freewill makes each of us capable of evil. Some will defy that potential for evil with great success. Others succumb to it at their earliest convenience.
Evil is the consequence of freewill and natural variation in human behavior.
The reality is that evil within any human society is the irreparable consequence of our freewill and of natural variation. This is not to say that man’s freewill or the variation in human behavior is the only source of evil, but it is certainly a source. As such, evil cannot be eliminated from our world without first destroying both man’s freewill and natural variation. Even destroying these two things would not guarantee the elimination of evil unless it can be shown that man’s imperfect nature is the only source of evil.
There is another fascinating aspect of human nature that must be recognized. Understanding that man is both imperfect in nature and that he demonstrates wide variation in the rightness or wrongness of his behavior, one is compelled to ask if man is naturally more inclined towards rightness or wrongness, or to some mean condition between the two ends of the spectrum.
Ask yourself if it is easier to maintain strict discipline on a task or to procrastinate? When you have been wronged, is your first and natural tendency towards anger and resentment, or to forgiveness? Is it easer to like or to dislike a stranger you passionately disagree with regarding some subject of personal importance? The answer to each of these, or any similar question is that it is easier to tend towards base behavior than towards virtuous behavior. Virtue requires both knowledge and discipline to achieve, and more yet to maintain. Base behavior requires only that we submit to our vice through laziness, lack of knowledge, or lack of character.
There are two ways in which humans think, rationally or irrationally. Rational thought uses observation and logic to find the truth. Truth is always the goal of rational thought, irregardless of preference. In most subjects there exists ample evidence for or against a certain conclusion. Consistently arriving that the correct conclusion requires careful observation and deliberation. It requires that we be skilled in reason and can consider a subject dispassionately.
Irrational thought on the other hand, is not concerned with the truth, but in justifying the conclusion you wish to be true. This does not require careful observation or disciplined logic, it requires only that you ignore any evidence you don’t like and fixate on the evidence you do like.
Evil appeals to your irrational thought process, not to your rational thought process. It is evident then, that to arrive at a decision for evil requires only irrational thought which is generally easier than rational thought. Conversely, to arrive at a good decision requires effort. It is for this reason that man is in constant danger of realizing his potential for evil and why it is said that there are two paths to evil; evil thought, and thoughtlessness.
Very few of us wake up in the morning intent upon evil. As such, truly evil thought is rare in humans but certainly a potential that each of us holds. Thoughtlessness however, is unfortunately not rare at all. Many of us simply don’t take the time or energy to carefully think through each and every potential outcome of every decision we are faced with throughout our day, let alone our lives. It is much easier to accept that something you want is right and ignore any possible negative consequences, especially when those consequences may not effect you directly, than it is to consider that subject dispassionately, potentially arriving at a conclusion you dislike.
From this phenomenon of human nature we are forced to accept that while some rare altruistic individuals exist and maintain that level of behavior throughout their lives, the natural tendency of populations as a whole is to atrophy towards base behavior. We do not atrophy towards virtue. Virtue is an active condition that must be continually maintained.
It is also important to realize that the enactment of evil within a society requires only a single individual to act with evil thought or thoughtlessness. For a society to escape evil requires the 100% success of 100% of its members. But this defies the law of natural variation and is why there has never been any society devoid of evil. Due to the imperfect nature of man, his freewill, natural variation, and finally his tendency to atrophy towards evil behavior, no society can ever rid itself of the constant threat of bad behavior. Evil is the irreparable consequence of these things.
Reducing Evil
Knowing that we can never eliminate the potential for evil, we are left with only two courses of action. We can find the most effective means of reducing evil to the greatest extent possible, and we can maintain a system of defense to stop evil as efficiently as possible when it does occur thereby reducing the impact of evil on society.
Because evil is the result of our freewill and of natural variation in our behavior, the reduction of evil requires that we either reduce our freewill or we control our behavior. We have already observed that we possess unrestricted freewill. There is simply no means at reducing the freewill of others. Furthermore, it can easily be argued that the very act of attempting to reduce the freewill of others is itself an act of evil.
Restricting freewill is an act of evil because it inevitably must violate the natural rights of people. Because we cannot limit freewill directly, we can only attempt to limit it by outlawing certain acts or property. We do this by constantly creating new laws and regulations to retroactively outlaw every conceivable immoral act.
The problem with this strategy is that it will never achieve the peace and security it claims to seek. We could restrict every single element of human behavior to where people live in jail cells, are under constant supervision, and are barred from possessing any physical objects or the freedom to direct their own lives in any matter, but even still we would have not in the slightest decreased the freewill inherent to every human being. Bad behavior would still manifest itself. The scenario we have just described is exactly that of a prison, widely understood to be the least safest places.
There are no weapons or liberty in prisons yet people find ways to fashion objects to kill each other or themselves despite constant supervision. That is because physical limitations are all but completely useless against our freewill. Physical limitations may make it harder, but if there is a will there is a way and someone will find it and evil will be enacted just the same.
While making it harder for people to enact evil by restricting their freedom may reduce at least some instances of evil, the freewill of people and the variation in their behavior will continue to find new and creative ways of pursuing their desires. These actions will require the outlawing of more and more activities and property until our desperate attempt at securing ourselves from evil results in tyranny which is arguably the greatest from of evil. Any continued attempt at regulating evil through limiting the freedom of people can only result in complete tyranny. You will never eliminate evil, you will only eliminate liberty. This is why trading your liberty for security is fools errand.
Additionally, the cost of enforcing draconian laws and punishing the ever increasing illegal acts of liberty will result in an unsustainable burden of government on the people. Obviously, you cannot simply outlaw certain acts for only evil people, because we have no way of knowing who will submit to their vices or in what manner they will submit. To restrict evil requires that we not only restrict evil people, but any person capable of evil. As noted, we are all capable of evil. For this reason, you cannot limit tyranny to only those fools who deserve it.
Our only other option for reducing the occurrences of evil within a society is to address the issue of human behavior. The reason that physical limitations are so ineffective against restraining freewill is because physical ability and inanimate objects are not the cause of human behavior. When we attempt to regulate physical action or inanimate objects we are not addressing the cause of the immoral behavior. The cause of behavior being left perfectly in tact, it will continue to seek out other means to fulfill its will.
Freewill cannot be taught, behavior can be taught. We cannot teach people to reduce their freewill, but we can teach them how to behave and give them the tools to effectively manage their own freewill. This is the most effective method we have of reducing the potential for evil within any society.
This can be achieved by developing a culture of common morality where each member understands the difference between right and wrong and has been taught how to control their emotions, live with virtue and character, and holds some level of personal responsibility over their own lives and actions. Developing a nation of high moral character is the most effective means we have of reducing evil, but since variation in human behavior cannot be eliminated, and freewill will alway exist, there will always be some level of evil present, even in the most virtuous societies.
Security Against The Inevitable Evil Remaining
What is left after developing and promoting morality, is reducing the effects of evil that does occur. There is nothing sophisticated or profound to offer here. Mitigating the evil in this world that is unavoidable is simply counter destruction. This is why reducing its likelihood through widespread morality is absolutely critical. When someone kicks in your door and is intent on causing you harm, or a hostile force lands tanks on your beach, it is past the point where promoting morality will save you.
There are two main reasons for establishing and maintaining a strong physical defense system. The first is that it is a last resort to save the innocent from the destruction of the small portion of the population that resides on the evil side of the human behavior spectrum. The second is that it works cohesively with the widespread promotion of morality.
If we are to accept that man is by nature imperfect, and subject to vice, and furthermore that it is easier to succumb to vice than to rise to virtue then we must accept that fear of personal injury is a stronger deterrent to evil than that of compelling the general population to act unfailingly altruistic. For this reason, the threat of counter destruction to those who might otherwise not think virtuously of their actions will give them to reason to act with some virtue, even if they have rejected morality.
Because evil cannot be fully eliminated without destroying the very nature of what it means to be human, and because the ultimate defense against any evil that cannot be stopped through morality is destruction, we can never hope to live in a world devoid of violence. Trading every element of your’s, or our neighbor’s, liberty for security will not make your world more peaceful, it will only promote tyranny.