The Meaning of «Restrain Evil»

Exploration of Evil

In explaining each Primal Injunction in the previous section, reasons for the difficulty in obeying were offered. In every case, the cause lay in self-centred concerns. That means that our evil tendencies are rooted in our very self.

Evil refers to:

  • choosing a lesser good—when something better is possible and available;
  • violating human nature—physically, socially, emotionally, intellectually, or spiritually—when this is unnecessary and unjustifiable.
    (So this is a special extreme case of a lesser good.)

► Compare this to an equation of «evil» with «bad».

Primal Injunctions appear to be constructed to sustain personal freedom and growth by encouraging a movement towards the greater good. However, obedience is required because our natural inner tendencies are often satisfied with a lesser good that suits our ego/self. We often fail to notice this as a manifestation of evil—or disregard it.

ClosedWhy not Fight Evil?

Remember: However, it may appear, evil is within ourselves, not out there. It is in the nature of evil, that any engagement with it drags you into that sphere. The result is either a compromise that sustains evil, or even one that leads you to increase or become part of the evil being fought.

So it is far more satisfactory (i.e. a greater good) to energetically sustain and enable what is good than to attack or fight what is evil.

Our Existential Duty

You can remove the mystery around the notion of obeying Primal Injunctions to release a better Self by asking a rather unusual question:

  • What obligations or duties, if any, do I have to humanity? 

    Or more specifically, and taking an evolutionary perspective:

  • What must I do or be to ensure humanity survives and deserves to survive?

The widely appreciated answer, confirmed here in THEE, is that we must enable good and restrain evil. This question of «existential duty» relates directly to humanity's Achilles' heel: i.e. evil as an expedient or reflex response, typically to handle vulnerability and fear.

Ignoring or neglecting the good is automatically a lesser good. This evil generates a vacuum in the pleroma. Perhaps the vacuum expands due to additional evil—as activities unequivocally harmful emerge to reduce boredom or increase power for its own sake.

The historical record is unambiguous: our societies and social institutions, like governments and religions, cannot be wholly trusted to guide us, despite their claims and best intentions. So we must develop and use our better Self to handle vulnerability and live peacefully with others.

This depends on, among other things, being guided by the set of universal Primal Injunctions-RH" bequeathed to mankind by evolution.

These questions of essential duty have pre-occupied philosophers and theologians for centuries. Many refer to what God expects of us. The THEE analysis has located divinity and you can see here that Primal Injunctions are placed within the divine willClosed.
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This was not planned, but nor is it a coincidence. «Obedience to the divine will» (whose details are unstated and left to personal conscience) is well-established in religions, and it corresponds to the spiritual and non-sectarian Primal Injunctions.

However, there is no intrinsic need to appeal to an external divinity when considering what we each ought to do or be as human beings independent of our society's values. It would simply be an imaginative projection of what is good within us. This view aligns with that of Adam Smith, whose Theory of Moral Sentiments provides an account of our intrinsic moral nature.

Adam Smith wrote: "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it". Theory of Moral Sentiments is a wonderful book. It takes for granted the power and necessity of the imagination. Adam Smith explicitly removes egocentricity by using the notion of the impartial spectator. This is an imaginary figure, well-informed but uninvolved, whom we can, do, and should use as the arbiter of whether any conduct deserves approval (i.e. as right &/or good). Man's experience is the measure of man. Utility is not the issue and there are no independent external standards or infallible rules.

This exploration of evil will:

Originally posted: 7-Dec-2012