Analysis of The Frivolity of Evil Essay

The Story, The Possibility of Evil is a truly interesting story that demonstrates the evil of a community that seems almost perfect. This story demonstrates how there is probably no place on Earth that evil has not reached. The story bases itself on a small suburban town and the people that live there. The reader meets Miss Strangeworth who is a sweet little lady that smiles to everyone during the day and starts conversations, but by the time she gets home she starts writing letters revealing secrets and unpleasant facts of her neighbours and fellow townspeople and

The article "The Frivolity of Evil" by Theodore Dalrymple analyzes the causes of human misery. His work as a psychiatrist in Great Britains slums afforded him a great vantage point to analyze this topic "nearer to the fundamental of human existence." He concluded that the citizens of Great Britian willingly participated in precipitating their own misery. Their are three recurring theme in his article the lack of moral responsibility, extreme individualism and lack of cultural expectations. Dalrymple begins his article by showing the mind frame of a prisoner released from prison, who had the idea that he had paid his debt to society. In order to get his point across Dalrymple compares the prisoners situation to his very own, the 14

Mencius believes that the essential element of both pity and compassion. Mencius states that these two competent are the beginning of humaneness.

Theodore Dalrymple is an English writer and psychiatrist who recently retired as a prison doctor. His article “The Frivolity of Evil”, is one of his most well known from the book Our Culture, What's Left of It. He writes about how there is so much evil committed by individuals in his city in Britain even though they are not being compelled by a dictator of any sort to perpetrate it. He contrasts evil that is “unforced and spontaneous” to evil that is being dictated to individuals; beating a woman and breaking her arms out of jealousy in contrast to the 6,000 people that have been slaughtered by the president of Liberia, respectively.

In David Noonan's article " Doctors Who Kill You Themselves," he discusses about the suicide, untreated and undiagnosed depression problem among doctors and physicians themselves. Noonan states that there are roughly 300 to 400 physicians attempt to suicide each year, which concludes that physicians have the majority rate of suicide compared to other areas. The author explains that the reason why the depressed doctors choose not to involved in treatment and diagnosis system because they're weary of losing reputation, income and respect as a doctor. Noonan attempts to show that, the doctors expected their mentality to be as stable as possible in order to treat the sick ones and were afraid of having their depression treatment on their record. The author notes that

Makie begins with these three points. God is omnibenevolent, God is omnipotent, and Evil exists. A contradiction occurs when two more points are added to this list. If something is omnibenevolent, it is against all evil. If something is omnipotent, it has no limits to what it can do. With these two points being added, it proves an inconsistency within the first three points. Mackie is stating that if God is truly all good, he would wipe out all Evil in the world. This of course would be no great task for a being that is all powerful. If one of these five points were dropped, an adequate solution could be accepted. However, the majority of the people trying to solve the problem of evil will not abandon any of them. In Mackie’s paper, he takes a look at a variety of solutions, all of which temporarily do away with one of the five pretenses.

One of the oldest dilemmas in philosophy is also one of the greatest threats to Christian theology. The problem of evil simultaneously perplexes the world’s greatest minds and yet remains palpably close to the hearts of the most common people. If God is good, then why is there evil? The following essay describes the problem of evil in relation to God, examines Christian responses to the problem, and concludes the existence of God and the existence of evil are fully compatible.

The Problem of Evil A) For what reasons may suffering create philosophical problems for a religious believer? (10) B) Outline two solutions to these problems and comment on their success (10) A) The problem of suffering has been around since the dawn of time, or as religious philosophers believe; since Adam and Eve first sinned in the Garden of Eden. The first problem that arises from evil is that we believe that the God of classical theism has certain attributes.

In the world of the living, evil is not inherent and can change or influence a person’s aspect of the world based on the community they are in. Evil is the force of things that are morally wrong and the matter of suffering, wrongdoing and misfortune (Merriam Webster). Evil is not inherent because an evil community can change or influence a person’s way of thinking, can consume people the more they are relinquished to it, and can mold a person when a person has power or feel a certain way. Furthermore, evil can be claim as not inherent from reading about Josef Mengele, Stanley Milgram, and the Stanford Prison Experiment. I will persuade my point that evil is not inherent from the sources that depicts the claim of evil.

10 year olds, Jon Venable and Robin Thomson, abducted and murdered James Bulger, a two-year-old. Not only that, Venable shamelessly blamed the mother of Bulger for neglecting her child. Humans are born with inherent evil which cause such evil actions. Yale University experimented on toddlers because they are not adulterated by society. The objective was to observe their preference of good or evil, and the results concluded that children prefer goodness. However, they commit selfish and immoral acts in real life situations; their darkness is amplified with the help of society. Human’s evil deeds, in spite of their common morality, further insinuate inherent evil in everyone.

The argument from evil is the problem of reconciling the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good God. It states that if there was a God with those qualities, then he would know about evil, have the power to stop evil, and because he is good, he would stop evil.

The concept of morality plays an important role in human society. Through the discovery of what, exactly, determines that which is “good” and that which is “bad”, humans develop mechanisms that determine how they respond to or judge any given situation. What remains a mystery, however, is what, exactly, is the basis of morals. It is commonly believed that morals are learned through lived experiences, as well as, from those who act as each person’s individual caretaker(s). Even though these factors do play a significant role in determining morality, these factors alone neither create nor determine a person’s moral compass. In Paul Bloom’s work, Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil, we are introduced to the idea that morality, while partly learned, is something that is ingrained in humans from birth. Through multiple studies, performed both by Bloom as well as other psychologists, it is revealed that not only are babies able to perceive what is right and what is wrong, but also, from birth, babies are instilled with the innate knowledge of empathizing, valuing fairness and status, and valuing those who look similar versus those who look different. In spite of previous ideas, Bloom proves that babies are smarter than previously thought, while simultaneously recognizing the shortcomings of this “elementary” form of morality. Bloom’s finding prove to be revolutionary, in that they allow for the examination of different social structures, their shortcomings, and what

Ten children are killed every day in the United States by guns; people are murdered senselessly; Columbine High School; Over one-third of middle school children in Cascade County have used illegal drugs and over one-half have tried alcohol; innocent people in foreign countries are being wiped out (Kosovo); The Holocaust; Hiroshima; Vietnam; poverty, starvation and oppression in third world countries; Capitalism; environmental decay and neglect; the media; Oklahoma City; the uni-bomber; earthquakes, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, airplane crashes; domestic/child abuse; disease, birth defects and mental disorders. Why?Why?Why?… The question never changes and is asked over and over and over and

In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche discusses how he is not a believer in democracy. The principles of democracy were put together by levelers, or people that believe in democracy. These principles lead to equality that restrains life to one universal truth and Nietzsche did not agree with this idea at all. He believed that these principles caused people to form into one large herd. In this herd, people follow one another with no will to power, which results in the downfall of individual rights and instincts. This makes the herd the definition of morality in society, which Nietzsche disagrees with. But he brings up the idea of neighbor love. Neighbor love is the idea that we are all in one herd so we are all equal which creates us to all

“Evil” is only the word we place on our enemies. The meaning of “Evil” is a theoretical term, As there is no “Evil” just different choices we make. “Evil” is just another word that everyone likes to use against something that is bad.