See No Evil

Perhaps it's simply a natural state of affairs, but as one who doesn't believe in supernatural Evil, I eventually stopped believing in human evil. I'm one of those sorts who sees more or less everyone as attempting to bring about a world that they understand will be better for everyone involved. It may not be perfect, and it may be an omelet that requires breaking more than a few eggs, but people are, as far as I'm concerned, looking to make the world an objectively better place. (Of course, as someone who doesn't believe that there's any sort of objective "better" in matters like this, I consider that to be a taller order than people give it credit for...)

It's not a perception that squares with most people's perceptions of the world and/or human motivation. I think that this stems from the fact that Thomas Nagel is right about most people; they understand their interest and harms as something that should carry moral weight with others. Injuries aren't just bad for them as individuals, they are objectively bad, period. And this extends to those people whom they like and care about. And so they don't see any real reason why others would seek to harm them outside of intentional wrongdoing. The idea that people act out of the best of intentions doesn't carry much weight in situations like this, because they can't see any way in which the harms caused by others could lead to what they consider a better world.

But if there isn't an object, self-evident standard for what makes a better world (and, again, I'm one of those people who believes that there isn't) then perhaps it's easier to see how something that seems pretty heinous could strike someone as a good idea. Or, perhaps more to the point, it's easier to see how something that seems pretty innocuous could strike people as egregiously wrong.

I have, throughout the years, met any number of people whose conception of God comes across to me as little more than a violent control freak. Sometimes one with poor aim and a curiously high tolerance for collateral damage. But if this is one's idea of the very embodiment of a universal intellect, it makes sense that one would be highly sensitive to perceived violations. And if one further believes that the divine law is somehow self-evident to all, behaviors, even common ones, that strike one as immoral can come across as grave sins that put more than just the sinner at risk.

And that's a concept that I often find difficult to convey to people. If someone considers what would otherwise be private activity to place themselves and those they care about at risk, they're likely to stop seeing it as something that they should regard as private, or as acceptable. But religion isn't the only venue in which people come to these sorts of conclusions. There are any number of secular viewpoints that view what non-adherents to be acceptable actions as threats to individuals or communities, and thus worthy of being suppressed, by force, if necessary.

Once groups with mutually-exclusive outlooks find themselves in proximity to one another, conflict is going to ensue, with both sides seeing themselves as on the defensive against and aggressive enemy. But to an outsider who isn't motivated to take sides, it can appear to be simply a tragedy all around, one brought about by mutual distrust and misunderstanding.