The simple act of passing moral judgement implies an appeal to objective and impersonal criteria. Even when one says, "I was wronged," one speaks not only in one's own favour but on behalf of some impersonal criterion for Justice. If I were to say, "I deserve better," I am not simply saying, "I want more," nor only "give me more," but rather: "There is some criterion by which I've earned this." That remains my right only in so far as that criterion exists, and in fact ANY action I take on my own behalf implies the existence of such a criterion, since all such actions imply the conviction that I possess some measure of objective worth which justifies the pursuit of my benefit.
One might always question the
existence of such objective and impersonal criteria. Yet by so doing one
eliminates the possibility of acting morally. One acts on one's own behalf in a
seeming vacuum, except that, were such criteria to exist, then such actions
would not occur within a vacuum at all; they would remain of moral consequence,
but one would simply be UNAWARE of them.
Supposing that objective criteria
for moral behaviour exist, then acting as if they did not exist would not
simply be less than moral; it would be IMMORAL, for it would be action out of
deliberate ignorance. Yet one cannot preclude the POSSIBILITY that such
objective criteria exist, especially since so many people have insisted that
they do, and anything that anybody does may very well be informed by such
criteria.
While not all possibilities are
actualities, the FACT that a possibility EXISTS remains an actuality. I may
deny that objective criteria are facts instead of possibilities, yet I cannot
deny the fact THAT they are possibilities. Thus at least one fact is incontrovertible:
that objective moral behaviour is POSSIBLE, as is objective moral judgement.
Because this one fact is incontrovertible, I AM obligated to behave AS THOUGH
other objective criteria exist, even if I do not know what they are.
This implies that any action
carried out on one's own behalf is, either consciously or unconsciously, an
affirmation of one's presumed objective worth. Even those who deny the
existence of objective human value nonetheless, by seeking their own interests,
consolidate the existence of this same value. It also follows that those who
seek their own interests without respect for others' value are not only
untrustworthy but fundamentally self-contradictory. While they may yet prove
others to be objectively inferior in value, they cannot deny the grounds for
such a proof, and on those same grounds the opposite may be proven. Those who
suffer as a consequence of someone's actions retain the right to prove
themselves deserving of better treatment and perhaps even compensation.
This ALSO implies that one can
never become Evil except by choice. The simple pursuit of one's own interests,
a practical inevitability, produces the objective grounds for Ethical
Behaviour. This also creates the constant possibility of Unethical Behaviour.
To willfully perform unethical behaviour is Evil, by definition, since it is to
willfully deny the same objective grounds by which one pursues one's own
interests. So long as one aspires to be Good, however, one does NOT deny such
grounds, and any errors one makes in UNDERSTANDING those grounds may be
forgiven. The Evil Person chooses to be Evil, because one has in order to be
Evil to PRETEND that such objective grounds do not exist.
It also follows, therefore, that we
can silence talk of "Good Intentions producing Evil Results". While
we cannot preclude the possibility of error, the framing of this error in TERMS
of a "Good" and "Evil" implies an objective distinction
between the two. So long as one is accused of being Evil, this implies the
existence of Evil; so long as one is accused of pursuing the Good, this implies
the existence of the Good, and the synthesis of both of these accusations
implies the existence of both as OPPOSING FORCES, one of which ought to be
preferred to the other in the context of producing Results.
So long as Good must be preferred
to Evil, then one must intend for the Good to be the Result, and so long as one
INTENDS for the Good to be the Result, one avoids Evil, REGARDLESS of the
Results, since simply by having Good Intent one affirms the distinction between
Good and Evil, the preference for the Good TO the Evil, and the objective
grounds which make all of this possible.
In short: Good Intentions cannot
produce Evil, and the consideration of such a possibility proves this to be a
constant. What produces Evil is DELIBERATE Evil, which is either the conscious
affirmation of one's own willfully Evil Nature or, worse yet, the denial of a
distinction on objective grounds. The Road to Hell is paved not with Good
Intentions, but with an absence of Discretion, and there remains no substance
underlying any sort of judgement if such Discretion is lost, since such a loss
would be a descent into Evil by the only available means by which to descend.
**[({R.G.)}]**
