I think that it's true that our deepest fulfillment lies in aligning ourselves with the good, the true, and the beautiful.
So I believe that it is true that to be George W. Bush or Idi Amin or Pol Pot or Dick Cheney would be in most fundamental ways a very un-good way to feel, for reasons having to do with their evil.
But again the order is incomplete. It seems untenable to assertthat the human population can reliably be graphed so that the more virtuous the happier. Some wonderful people suffer greatly. Some rogues get to enjoy a certain kind of pleasure.
My solution to the problem of evil --which religions like those of the West, which believe in a good and omnipotent God, have never solved in a way that I think makes logical sense-- is to see the project of creating moral order in the universe as an ongoing one, one which the rise of humanity has made somewhat urgent, and one which is still far from successful completion.
But it is not only the religious tradition that has failed to clarify the problems of the moral order of the world. So, too, the philosophical tradition.
For example, those foundational Greek philosophers (like most of the world's religions) don't want the moral order to be a TENDENCY of things, but to be impeccable and inviolable and complete. Hence the need for bogus arguments. (Or at least, so I see it; I have philosopher friends who find their arguments more worthy of respect than I do.)
Take a look in the REPUBLIC at where Plato has Socrates so-called "prove" that even if the just man is made into a veritable Job --deprived of every source of pleasure but that of being just, even undergoing torture-- he is still happier than the unjust man who is on top of the world. What a farce of an argument!
I'll spare you my critique of the circular reasoning, and defective reasoning, that underpins Aristotle's argument to "prove" that virtue is the true source of happiness (eudaemonia).
No, the dark questions that Woody Allen raises in CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS --and answers ambiguously (in my opinion and in the opinion of Professor Sandy Lee, who has written a book about the philosophical ideas in Woody Allen's films)-- are not so easily dealt with as Plato pretends.
Nonetheless, I think that Aristotle's and Plato's conclusions nonetheless contain a germ of an important truth. I think that they are right that there IS a kind of moral order in the world, of a kind that includes the idea that virtue CAn indeed a profound source of happiness and that a person TENDS indeed, as you say, Todd, to be "punished BY their sins."
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Postscript: With someone like George W. Bush, whom I see as basically sociopathic, I do not believe that he will be punished BY his sins in the sense of his suffering the pain of bad conscience. With him, it is less that being GWB is or will be miserable because of his sins as that it is because of his being such a miserable and damaged person that he is inclined toward doing evil. It was never in the cards, after GWB had been initially formed (or deformed) that he was going to be one of those who enjoyed the fulfillment that's given those who align themselves with the good, the true and the beautiful.
The wounds came first. It was within the wounds that the evil took root.
Indeed, I think a lot of the evil of the world is of this sort-- that people become carriers of a disease of brokenness. That's why I do not really look at evil such much in terms of blame or punishment as of a matter of injurious patterns being transmitted in the human system.
At one level, it might be said that the German nation that followed Hitler and the American nation that has followed the Bushites suffer "punishment" for their sins. But I believe at a more fundamental level, even the evil-doers are carriers of a disease, victims of evil more fundamentally than its source.
So at that level, even though it is true that people and nations tend to be punished for their sins, that punishment isn't necessarily "justice" in a fundamental sense. Ultimately, what the world needs is healing, and punishment is justified ONLY if it contributes ultimately to the healing of the world.
I do believe that there's a sense that it was right for the punitive structure of the Old Testament to give way to the ethic of forgiveness and grace that, albeit quite completely, the New Testament offers as a possibility.
Love can do more to create the ideal world than righteous rage.
So I believe that it is true that to be George W. Bush or Idi Amin or Pol Pot or Dick Cheney would be in most fundamental ways a very un-good way to feel, for reasons having to do with their evil.
But again the order is incomplete. It seems untenable to assertthat the human population can reliably be graphed so that the more virtuous the happier. Some wonderful people suffer greatly. Some rogues get to enjoy a certain kind of pleasure.
My solution to the problem of evil --which religions like those of the West, which believe in a good and omnipotent God, have never solved in a way that I think makes logical sense-- is to see the project of creating moral order in the universe as an ongoing one, one which the rise of humanity has made somewhat urgent, and one which is still far from successful completion.
For example, those foundational Greek philosophers (like most of the world's religions) don't want the moral order to be a TENDENCY of things, but to be impeccable and inviolable and complete. Hence the need for bogus arguments. (Or at least, so I see it; I have philosopher friends who find their arguments more worthy of respect than I do.)
Take a look in the REPUBLIC at where Plato has Socrates so-called "prove" that even if the just man is made into a veritable Job --deprived of every source of pleasure but that of being just, even undergoing torture-- he is still happier than the unjust man who is on top of the world. What a farce of an argument!
I'll spare you my critique of the circular reasoning, and defective reasoning, that underpins Aristotle's argument to "prove" that virtue is the true source of happiness (eudaemonia).
No, the dark questions that Woody Allen raises in CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS --and answers ambiguously (in my opinion and in the opinion of Professor Sandy Lee, who has written a book about the philosophical ideas in Woody Allen's films)-- are not so easily dealt with as Plato pretends.
Nonetheless, I think that Aristotle's and Plato's conclusions nonetheless contain a germ of an important truth. I think that they are right that there IS a kind of moral order in the world, of a kind that includes the idea that virtue CAn indeed a profound source of happiness and that a person TENDS indeed, as you say, Todd, to be "punished BY their sins."
*****************
Postscript: With someone like George W. Bush, whom I see as basically sociopathic, I do not believe that he will be punished BY his sins in the sense of his suffering the pain of bad conscience. With him, it is less that being GWB is or will be miserable because of his sins as that it is because of his being such a miserable and damaged person that he is inclined toward doing evil. It was never in the cards, after GWB had been initially formed (or deformed) that he was going to be one of those who enjoyed the fulfillment that's given those who align themselves with the good, the true and the beautiful.
The wounds came first. It was within the wounds that the evil took root.
Indeed, I think a lot of the evil of the world is of this sort-- that people become carriers of a disease of brokenness. That's why I do not really look at evil such much in terms of blame or punishment as of a matter of injurious patterns being transmitted in the human system.
At one level, it might be said that the German nation that followed Hitler and the American nation that has followed the Bushites suffer "punishment" for their sins. But I believe at a more fundamental level, even the evil-doers are carriers of a disease, victims of evil more fundamentally than its source.
So at that level, even though it is true that people and nations tend to be punished for their sins, that punishment isn't necessarily "justice" in a fundamental sense. Ultimately, what the world needs is healing, and punishment is justified ONLY if it contributes ultimately to the healing of the world.
I do believe that there's a sense that it was right for the punitive structure of the Old Testament to give way to the ethic of forgiveness and grace that, albeit quite completely, the New Testament offers as a possibility.
Love can do more to create the ideal world than righteous rage.
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