Good and evil

Good and evil can only be defined relatively. For example, the act of killing a person as a sacrifice to the gods among semi-civilised tribes is, for them, good, but for us it is evil. Or when Hitler drove the Nazi German army to invade everywhere. The general who won battles was regarded as a hero by the Germans, but as a bandit by the people of other countries.

An act is regarded as good in one place but evil in another. It seems that nothing is entirely good for everyone at the same time.

More concretely, we can say that an act is called good when it brings benefit to others, such as giving to the poor, comforting the suffering, releasing captive animals, repairing broken stretches of road. Clearly, the poor household benefits from the alms, the suffering person benefits from the comfort... So benefit is the standard for judging the value, good or evil, of a karma. The more benefit to others, the greater the value of good.

However, even an act called good carries some aspects of evil. For example, building a road is a very great good deed. But while building the road, the person must also dig up and turn the earth, pour out soil and stones, and pile up tools that obstruct traffic for a short time. That too is evil, but a small evil compared with the great and lasting value of the good that follows.

For example, a mother takes money to give to the poor. That is a good deed towards the poor because it helps them through the pain of hunger, but it reduces the family's property and makes the children lose a little of what they can spend. So the mother is good to the poor and evil to her husband and children. But, comparing, with that sum of alms the poor escape the terrible torment of hunger, so the value of good is very great, while the family members are not much affected, so the value of evil is not large.

Before doing anything or saying anything, we must see clearly all its aspects of good and evil. If we see very little evil and much good, then do it. If good and evil are about equal, we should avoid it.

For example, spraying pesticide to protect crops. This has the good aspect of producing food for people to use, and the evil of killing some insect pests. Suppose the evil of killing pests is small and the good of producing food is great. But besides that, pesticide also kills beneficial insects and pollutes the environment harmfully to human health... This harm increases the value of the evil, which may come close to the good above.

At present researchers of agricultural chemicals are looking for ways to reduce the evil, such as pesticides that will not pollute the environment, will not kill beneficial insects, will not affect the health of people and livestock... They are even researching biological pesticides that do not need to kill the pests but only make them unable to go on reproducing. With these new kinds of pesticide, the evil is limited to the utmost and we can use them more confidently than before.

For example, a philosopher zealously opposes the evil of superstition sheltering under the banner of religion. This seems good because he makes the truth clear and helps people leave mistaken understandings. But besides that, he also damages the honour of monastics who exploit superstition for profit, and at the same time leaves some believers who have accepted such forms floundering and bewildered. Nonetheless this is only a small evil compared with the benefit that eliminating superstition brings to society. It is the same in every age: new, progressive ideas are always bitterly attacked. Only later are they accepted and welcomed by people, and by then the author may already have died. Religion, with theories from several thousand years ago, surely has points that need adjusting to fit the discoveries of science. Some religious people have accepted this view, but they are always met with ill feeling from colleagues accustomed to following the old. Yet it is precisely such brave people, who know how to search and how to doubt, who can leave life many good and correct ideas.

It seems no deed is purely good or purely evil. It is good in one aspect and evil in another. Even some acts regarded as evil sometimes have unexpectedly good effects. For example, starting a war is a great crime, but for the economist Malthus (1766-1834), war, famine and disease are necessary to reduce the growth of the human population. According to him, food increases very slowly while population increases very fast. The more people there are, the more forest must be cleared for fuel. When forests are destroyed, ecology is disturbed; the rainy season brings many storms and floods and in the dry season the springs dry up. Hydroelectric power is seriously affected, the air is not cleansed... All economic experts worry about population, so much so that some countries encourage abortion in defiance of religious opposition.

In short, nearly every deed is a mixture of good and evil, good in one aspect and evil in another. Before acting, let us weigh carefully whether there is more good than evil. If we find that the good is very great and the evil negligible, then begin.