The doctrine of evil.
II. The conception of the relation between bad and good, as reality opposed to reality, is mythological and religious (Parseeism, Manichæism, Jewish-Christian doctrine of the devil, etc.). But evil had already begun to reveal itself to the philosophical reflection of the ancients as the unreal, the not being; and this is explicitly affirmed in Neoplatonism. It was not, however, possible to understand this function of unreality, real in its way, without a general dialectical conception, which became very slowly mature. Without a dialectic conception, evil, conceived as unreality, becomes mere illusion, not so much a moment of the real as an equivocation of man philosophizing. This is clearly to be seen in Spinoza, who opposes the full laws of reality to the narrow laws of human nature, saying: Quidquid nobis in natura ridiculum, absurdum aut malum videtur, id inde venit quod res tantum ex parte novimus, totiusque naturae ordinem et cohaerentium maxima ex parte ignoramus, et quod omnia ex usu nostrae rationis dirigi volumus, cum tamen id, quod malum esse dictat, non malum sit respectu ordinis et legum universae naturae; sed tantum solius nostrae naturae legum respectu. For indeed, if evil, error and wickedness were something that had essence, God, who is the cause of all that has essence (continues Spinoza), would also be the cause of evil, of error, and of wickedness. But this is not so, because evil is nothing real. Neronis matricidium (he observes) quatenus aliquid positivum comprehendebat, scelus non erat: nam facinus externum fecit, simulque intentionem ad trucidendam matrem Orestes habuit, et tamen, saltem ita uti Nero, non accusatur. Quodnam ergo Neronis scelus? Non aliud quam quod hoc facinore ostendit se ingratum, immisericordem ac inobedientem esse. Certum autem est, nihil horum aliquid essentiae exprimere, et idcirco Deum eorum non fuisse catisam, licet causa actus et intentionis Neronis fuerit[5] But Spinoza was not able to determine in what sense Nero was really ungrateful, implacable, and disobedient, nor in what way such a judgment could be justified, owing to his idea of Substance, not as subject, spirit, activity, but as cause.
Kant did not succeed in understanding the nature of evil; for him good and evil were "the categories of freedom,"[6] and the view of Fichte who makes the radical evil to be vis inertiae, laziness (Trägheit,) which is in nature and in man as nature,[7] represents progress in respect to the Kantian position. But only with the Hegelian dialectical view of evil, understood as negation, is evil at the same time given its right place; and its unreality, contradiction, which is no longer the product of illusion of thought, but of things themselves, in intimate contradiction with one another, if it be a blemish, is shown to be the blemish, not of human thought, but of reality.[8]
Decision and freedom.
III. Free will, too, is not considered as a quality and character of complete liberty, but as its negation, will as contradiction, in the Hegelian philosophy. It was preceded in this respect, not only by Kant, but also by Descartes. Descartes wrote of the decision of indifference: Cette indifférence que je sens lorsque je ne suis point porté vers un côté plutôt que vers un autre par le poids d'aucune raison est le plus bas degré de ma liberté, et fait plutôt paraître un défaut dans la connaissance qu'une perfection dans la volonté: car si je connaissais toujours clairement ce qui est vrai et ce qui est bon, je ne serais jamais en peine de délibérer quel jugement et quel choix je devrais faire; et ainsi je serais entièrement libre, sans jamais être indifférent.[9]
Among the false formulæ of the freedom of choice can be mentioned that of Rosmini, who calls it bilateral freedom, or that of performing or not performing a given action.[10] But since the spirit cannot be reduced to complete passivity, not to perform a given action is equivalent to performing a different one; and if this other action that presents itself before us be also not willed by us, then it will be another, and so on. Thus it is not a question of bilaterality, but of multiplicity of tendencies: not of the choice between two volitions, but of the synthesis of many appetites in one, which is the will or freedom.
Conscience and responsibility
We may mention the disputes that have been preserved in the Memorabilia as to the greater responsibility of him who knows more (or wills more), as compared with him who knows less (or wills less), as to whether he that acts voluntarily be more unjust than he who acts involuntarily (ὁ ἑκὼν ἤ ὁ ἄκων). In this connection it is to be observed that he who voluntarily does not write or read well is certainly more grammatical than he who reads and writes ill through ignorance; and therefore that he who commits injustice while knowing what is just, is more just than he who commits it because he does not know what is just; and that he is better, who says what is false when he knows what is true, than he who says what is false, not knowing what is true. The dispute leads to the celebration of knowledge of self, or, as we should say, of knowing and possessing oneself.[11]
These thoughts are discussed anew in the Hippias minor, where the multiple difficulties are placed in relief and a conclusion reached that does not even satisfy those who propose it.[12] It is henceforward clear that the question must be solved in the sense that he who is conscious of sinning is certainly a sinner, whereas he who is not conscious of so doing, does not sin at all; but this being even incapable of sinning is in itself a sin, and places the man who is in such a condition yet a degree lower. In the polemic of Pascal with the Jesuits—who maintained that in order to sin it was necessary to be conscious of one's own infirmity and of the suitable remedy, the wish to be healed and to ask it of God—the Jesuits were theoretically on the side of reason. Croira-t-on, sur votre parole (wrote Pascal), que ceux qui sont plongés dans l'avarice, dans l'impudicité, dans les blasphèmes, dans le duel, dans la vengeance, dans les vols, dans les sacrilèges, aient véritablement le désir d'embrasser la chasteté, l'humilité et les autres vertus chrétiennes? Nevertheless, it is inevitably so, if those acts of theirs are to be judged to be vices (and if they really are so). Hegel places himself on the side of Pascal, who accepts and refers to the following argument and reduction to the absurd: Ils seront tous damnés ces demi-pécheurs qui ont quelque amour pour la vertu. Mais pour ces francs-pécheurs, sans mélange, pleins et achevés, l'enfer ne les tient pas: ils ont trompé le diable à force de s'y abandonner.[13]
A reduction to the absurd which is not such: because the formula given as absurd expresses at bottom a very simple truth, which Hegel too stated in his own way, when he said that it was necessary to prefer self-will, evil, the erring Spirit, to the innocence of plants and animals, or of Nature.[14]