Choosing a Course

 We have chosen to pursue a course that separates a discussion evil from a concomitant discussion of religion. So far, this has proven difficult, and will be more so, as we shall see. Disregarding the evil done in the name of religion requires that we sail by some of the great evils of history such as the Spanish Inquisition. That’s not a welcome task, particularly when we note that some of the actions of the Torquemada Band may have been aimed more at the accruing of wealth and the consolidation of power than achieving religious purity.

To maintain our intellectual rigging, we turn once again to concept that evil is done by real people against real people.

This leads into the choppy waters of free will. A person or group of persons must consciously decide to commit evil. Or is evil always a conscious decision? Let us postpone that discussion for the present in favor of a consideration of free will, notwithstanding its source or motivation.

A detailed examination of free would take us into unknown and perilous waters from which, like the Flying Dutchman, we would be doomed to wander eternally and hopelessly with no chance for rest in a comforting port. [i]

Let us, in arguendo,[ii] as our attorney friends would say, limit our concept to as sparse a concept as possible, to wit:

A person has some kind of power to control his or her actions.

When a person exercises free will over choices and actions, those choices and actions are up to them. In what way are those actions up to them? (1) They are up to them in the sense that hey are able to choose otherwise, or at minimum that they are able not to choose or act as they do. (2) They are the source of their actions.[iii]

In this “intellectually close-reefed” definition, we are able to examine a brief sampling of actions from ancient history to present times.

1.     Adolph Hitler exercised free will when making decisions that led to the Holocaust.

2.     Joseph Stalin exercised free will in actions that led to the death of over 20 million people, including entire families and close friends.

3.     Vlad the Impaler exercised free will in making decisions that killed some 20 percent of the population of Wallacha. I spare readers the details of the impaling, only noting that the same system was used by members of one sect over another in the religious wars of Europe which contributed to the mass migration to America and the insistence of its founders that religion and government would always remain separate.

4.     Pol Pot of Cambodia exercised free will in orchestrating the death of around 2 million of his countrymen, about 25 % of the entire population. Frightenly, one of the criteria for execution was the wearing of eyeglasses which, as is well known, indicates a person of learning and intelligence.

And so it goes.

On a minor scale, in an action of which most Americans are familiar, the individuals who attacked our nation’s capitol on January 6, 2021, who defaced and dishonored this noble structure from which Abraham Lincoln once appealed to, "The better angels of our nature,” threatened to murder our elected officials, and slaughtered, or attempted to slaughter, its police force, exercised free will, as did anyone who may have sought to motivate them.

Feeling a little seasick? Let us go below and rest.

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[i] Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2017, April 26). Flying Dutchman. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Flying-Dutchman

[ii] A Latin term meaning "in arguing" or "for the sake of argument".  When one assumes something arguendo, the person is asserting a hypothetical or other statement for the purpose of argument.

[iii] O’Connor, Timothy and Christopher Franklin, "Free Will", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/freewill/>.