Definitions of Good and Evil

Our definition of the Hebrew word TOV (טוֹב) includes things and conditions favorable to the perpetuation of a cycle of life on earth. We posit that evil (רַע) is simply the opposite: the unnecessarily destruction of life. We did not come to that conclusion through a literal reading of the creation story in Bereshit. We simply looked for an early example of the word TOV and the lesson was inescapable.

Keep in mind while reading about good and evil, we are discussing them an nouns, things that have substance, things that exist. Good and evil are also adjectives, which people carelessly and emotionally throw around.  They reveal the speaker’s bias, as when current commentators cannot resist labeling information as “false” information.  One person’s good job may realistically be a failure. Were we to say a miserable failure, we would betray our own bias, while the other party is still celebrating a job well done.

Why Bereshit?

We prefer to call the  story as Bereshit instead of Genesis because it’s an ancient Hebrew story that should be interpreted as the writer intended. Alas, we are not the scholars who can unravel ancient Hebrew and there was no such single author.  Instead we have consulted several translations to confirm the ancient meanings of good, evil, and the strange way woman was created from whatever was taken from the man’s side. 

Bereshit is the first book of the Torah, traditionally attributed to Moses but scholars agree that there were many authors. Textual evidence suggests several types of authors identified by scholars as the Jahwist (J), Elohist (E), Priestly (P), and Deuteronomist (D) traditions. Each represents a different historical and theological perspective.

Philosophical Perspectives

Our definitions differ from the speculations of most of the philosophers from the time of Maimonides until the present.  Here we cite a few philosophers and briefly dismiss their speculations.

Maimonides (1135–1204)

Core idea: Evil as Privation of Good. : In Guide of the Perplexed 3:10–12, Maimonides  argues that only God creates good, and that “evil” is not a “thing” at all but a privation, an absence of some good quality. He applies this both metaphysically (evil has no positive being) and psychologically (suffering prompts self-examination). 

We argue that evil is an affirmative destruction of the conditions for life by conscious beings, namely human beings,  but watching some animals in the wild kill things for what seems like entertainment might arguably be called evil. 

Augustine of Hippo (354–430)

Core idea: In Confessions and De libero arbitrio, Augustine holds that evil is “non-being” or corruption of the good, resulting from misused free will. God, being wholly good, did not create evil; human choices do not add a new “substance of evil,”  the choices only subtract from good. 

We hold that both good and evil are caused by affirmative actions by conscious entities.

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)

Core idea: Following Augustine and Aristotle, Aquinas also defines evil as the privation or absence of a due good (Summa I, q. 49) and argues that necessary “evils” (e.g., bodily decay) serve a higher harmony in God’s providential ordering. His ideas constitute Catholic theology mixed with ideas of Aristotelian natural philosophy.

We suggest that bodily decay is not evil at all. It’s just a function of life, tied to biochemical processes and laws of thermodynamics.

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) 

Core idea: In Leviathan, “good” and “evil” are simply what each person desires or hates.  (Self Interest). Evil is associated with actions that disrupt social order and threaten peace. He suggests that fear of death is what makes humans seek safety and avoid evil actions.

Our take on Hobbs: Too entwined with political philosophy to be useful to decide what’s good and evil.

Gottfried W. Leibniz (1646–1716)

Core idea: The actual world is “the best of all possible worlds” where good prevails over evil; evil is permitted insofar as it contributes to the greater overall harmony. “Necessary evils” are those that produce a greater good. He coined the word translated into English as theodicity. (Théodicée (1710))

Our opinion: experience teaches us that good does not universally prevail and misplaced optimism is a bad strategy.  Theodicity adds unnecessary complexity.

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)

Core idea: “Radical evil” in human nature.  Evil arises when people subordinate the moral law to self-interest. Kant uses the term evil to include what we would call “little white lies” all the way to murder.

Kant’s idea of evil shares features with the creation account, namely “evil continually,” but including moral corruption defined in religious dogma does not rise to the level of evil needlessly destroying life. 

G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831)

Core idea: Hegel views evil as a moral phenomenon, specifically as a pernicious subjectivism undermining social and institutional conditions for ethical action. He suggests that good and evil are not fixed but are shaped by historical and cultural contexts.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

No core idea: Nietzsche rejects any objective notion of evil; moral judgments are expressions of particular “wills to power.”  He claimed previous philosophers created the world in their own image, their words confirming their own biases. Evil in Nietzsche’s view is anything that denies life, creativity, and individual flourishing. 

Our view: It’s hard to agree or disagree with Nietzsche. He seems overly concerned about individual flourishing. He gets a of of things right and we can’t understand the rest. 

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

“The banality of evil”—most atrocities result not from monstrous intent but from thoughtlessness and conformity.

John Hick (1922–2012)

Core idea: “Soul-making theodicy”: god is kind and all-powerful allowing suffering and evil for moral and spiritual growth – soul-making. He believed that all experiences of good and evil ultimately lead to a greater understanding of divine goodness.

Alvin Plantinga (b. 1932)

Core idea: Plantinga defines good as that which aligns with God’s nature and character; evil as a privation or absence of good, rather than a substance in itself, going full-circle to Maimonides, brother philosophers separated by centuries.

Modern Skeptics Who Deny “Evil”

J. L. Mackie (1917–1981) – Moral anti-realist: “evil” has no objective existence; moral values are human constructions (“argument from queerness”).

Moral Nihilists (e.g., Richard Joyce) – All talk of “evil” reduces to expressions of approval/disapproval, not to any metaphysical property.

Secular Psychologists and Neuroethicists – Explain harmful behavior in terms of psychopathology, social conditioning, or evolutionary drives, denying any sui generis “evil force.”

Summary

Our definitions  or good and evil center on the activity of sustaining versus destroying life. In contrast, most classical and medieval thinkers treat evil as a privation or absence of good (Augustine, Aquinas, Maimonides), or as necessary for greater goods (Leibniz), or as a by-product of free will (Augustine, Plantinga), while modern rationalists and skeptics largely deny any objective evil, reducing it to subjective, social, or functional phenomena (Hobbes, Nietzsche, Mackie).

Only by reinstating a life-centric criterion: good = that which perpetuates life cycles; evil = that which actively, and we must add needlessly,  dismantles them—do we regain a robust and irreducible notion of evil that underpins moral discourse itself.