Post by Admin on Mar 2, 2022 4:27:49 GMT
Chapter 9 - Power, Resentment, and Justice
Job complains that trying to defend himself against God is not fair since there is such a power imbalance. Job concludes that God destroys both the righteous and the wicked. Job starts to hint at resentment for all the examples of suffering that God allows in the world. Job wishes someone could bring him face to face with God so he could discuss justice.
*Enlightened Suffering*
When you are sheltered from suffering, you exist in a state of ignorant apathy. By never experiencing it, you have a hard time understanding other's experiences. One of the effects of unjust suffering is the realization of how evil suffering is as a concept. A process of enlightenment unfolds when you learn how deep the metaphysical well of suffering goes. You start to gain insight into how others might be experiencing their own suffering. You can extrapolate from your own experience to imagine how other types of suffering function in other's lives. This process increases empathy for all types of suffering.
*Character*
To me, character is being willing to suffer for doing what is right. A lack of character might be to do what is wrong for an advantage. The way I often define psychological goodness is wanting to make the world a better place; conversely, psychological evil is wanting to make the world a worse place.
*Slippery Slope of Resentment*
Suffering can provide the temptation to resent existence. It can make you desire the destruction of existence itself. The greater the suffering, the greater the temptation to view larger and larger systems as worthy of destruction. Perhaps it is not only the individual's life that should be destroyed but also the bullies at school? What about the entire school for allowing the suffering? What about the entire culture? What about the entire political structure? What about the entire economic superstructure? What about the entire race? What about the entire nation? What about the entire world? What about proclaiming the entire universe as an evil system worthy of ultimate destruction?
*Resist Resentment*
Character, then, seems to be the ability to resist that temptation and say that despite the suffering, what good can be achieved? How can the world be made better in the face of this suffering, rather than desiring to make it worse?
*Resentment is Good*
Now to play devils advocate - it would seem that revenge impulses have their evolutionary utility. Game theory simulations show how "tit for tat" morality is one of the most successful systems. If your neighbor steals your food, you need to steal their food to balance out the game. If they kill your family member, you kill them. Those who don't get revenge will lose the evolutionary game over time because they keep incurring costs and their DNA dies off quicker relatively. A revenge ethos would then be useful for increasing the cost of unethical behavior. When humans evolve social systems, revenge becomes more complicated because you can be harmed by a system rather than an individual. So, getting revenge on a system might make sense as a way to punish bad systems and motivate the evolution of systems that don't manufacture unfair suffering.
*Resentment Must be Accurate*
But, despite the evolutionary benefits of revenge - the moral calculation necessarily demands accuracy in getting revenge. If you get revenge on the innocent members of a system, your actions betray a principle of justice - in that people should only be punished for their own sins. Justice has been found to be a naturally important principle to some animals. Even monkeys understand the principle of fairness - that which is unfair is an abstraction of something that can hurt your relative development and therefore hurt your evolutionary chances. Relatively less food (unfairness) means less energy and less ability to compete in the game of natural selection. We naturally want to reward those that treat us fairly and punish those that treat us unfairly so we motivate collective evolution down a more cooperative path. If we randomly punish the innocent in our flaming rage - we punish the wrong people, and hence harm the evolutionary chances of those that we should actually want to succeed.
*Forgiveness Is Superior To Revenge*
Yet, most types of harm don't fully require revenge. Human error causes resentments to build, but it is often less than intentional, or a product of miscommunication, bad timing, circumstantial stressors, etc. Evolutionary game theorists have also noted this phenomenon. When a certain amount of "noise" (inaccurate signaling) is injected into the interactions between simulated creatures, they start to misinterpret each other. Perhaps one creature thought his food was stolen, but it wasn't really the case. So when the frustrated creature steals food in revenge, the victim of revenge doesn't understand why they were punished, so it turns into a cycle of unnecessary revenge that makes them both less evolutionarily successful. The trick is to evolve forgiveness. Once one of the creatures chooses to forgive, the cycle of revenge stops.
*Natural Evil is Untouchable*
But the phenomenon of revenge and forgiveness are mainly functional within the scope of human-caused evil, or moral evil. The philosophic problem of evil covers both man-made evil and natural evil. We can solve our resentment towards man-made evil with revenge or forgiveness. When it comes to natural evil - like disease, death, chronic pain, hunger, disability, discomfort, and emotional agony - revenge and forgiveness are no longer tools to deal with evil. There is no way for man to get revenge on God, nor to punish the elements. Forgiveness becomes empty when there is no way to get nature to repent of its evil ways in the face of your forgiveness.
*Obsequiousness Solves Resentment Towards Natural Evil*
Perhaps the religious impulse towards obsequiousness is to stave off the potential danger of resentment that lies in the path of thinking you deserve something better than what you have. In this way, perhaps the Bible is on to something in proclaiming anything that other than obsequiousness a sin. By setting your expectations to zero, you stave off resentment. Perhaps expecting something from reality can be a route to evil - an initial sin that leads to resentment and the desire to make the world a worse place.
NEXT: Chapter 10 - Divine Epicaricacy
Job complains that trying to defend himself against God is not fair since there is such a power imbalance. Job concludes that God destroys both the righteous and the wicked. Job starts to hint at resentment for all the examples of suffering that God allows in the world. Job wishes someone could bring him face to face with God so he could discuss justice.
*Enlightened Suffering*
When you are sheltered from suffering, you exist in a state of ignorant apathy. By never experiencing it, you have a hard time understanding other's experiences. One of the effects of unjust suffering is the realization of how evil suffering is as a concept. A process of enlightenment unfolds when you learn how deep the metaphysical well of suffering goes. You start to gain insight into how others might be experiencing their own suffering. You can extrapolate from your own experience to imagine how other types of suffering function in other's lives. This process increases empathy for all types of suffering.
*Character*
To me, character is being willing to suffer for doing what is right. A lack of character might be to do what is wrong for an advantage. The way I often define psychological goodness is wanting to make the world a better place; conversely, psychological evil is wanting to make the world a worse place.
*Slippery Slope of Resentment*
Suffering can provide the temptation to resent existence. It can make you desire the destruction of existence itself. The greater the suffering, the greater the temptation to view larger and larger systems as worthy of destruction. Perhaps it is not only the individual's life that should be destroyed but also the bullies at school? What about the entire school for allowing the suffering? What about the entire culture? What about the entire political structure? What about the entire economic superstructure? What about the entire race? What about the entire nation? What about the entire world? What about proclaiming the entire universe as an evil system worthy of ultimate destruction?
*Resist Resentment*
Character, then, seems to be the ability to resist that temptation and say that despite the suffering, what good can be achieved? How can the world be made better in the face of this suffering, rather than desiring to make it worse?
*Resentment is Good*
Now to play devils advocate - it would seem that revenge impulses have their evolutionary utility. Game theory simulations show how "tit for tat" morality is one of the most successful systems. If your neighbor steals your food, you need to steal their food to balance out the game. If they kill your family member, you kill them. Those who don't get revenge will lose the evolutionary game over time because they keep incurring costs and their DNA dies off quicker relatively. A revenge ethos would then be useful for increasing the cost of unethical behavior. When humans evolve social systems, revenge becomes more complicated because you can be harmed by a system rather than an individual. So, getting revenge on a system might make sense as a way to punish bad systems and motivate the evolution of systems that don't manufacture unfair suffering.
*Resentment Must be Accurate*
But, despite the evolutionary benefits of revenge - the moral calculation necessarily demands accuracy in getting revenge. If you get revenge on the innocent members of a system, your actions betray a principle of justice - in that people should only be punished for their own sins. Justice has been found to be a naturally important principle to some animals. Even monkeys understand the principle of fairness - that which is unfair is an abstraction of something that can hurt your relative development and therefore hurt your evolutionary chances. Relatively less food (unfairness) means less energy and less ability to compete in the game of natural selection. We naturally want to reward those that treat us fairly and punish those that treat us unfairly so we motivate collective evolution down a more cooperative path. If we randomly punish the innocent in our flaming rage - we punish the wrong people, and hence harm the evolutionary chances of those that we should actually want to succeed.
*Forgiveness Is Superior To Revenge*
Yet, most types of harm don't fully require revenge. Human error causes resentments to build, but it is often less than intentional, or a product of miscommunication, bad timing, circumstantial stressors, etc. Evolutionary game theorists have also noted this phenomenon. When a certain amount of "noise" (inaccurate signaling) is injected into the interactions between simulated creatures, they start to misinterpret each other. Perhaps one creature thought his food was stolen, but it wasn't really the case. So when the frustrated creature steals food in revenge, the victim of revenge doesn't understand why they were punished, so it turns into a cycle of unnecessary revenge that makes them both less evolutionarily successful. The trick is to evolve forgiveness. Once one of the creatures chooses to forgive, the cycle of revenge stops.
*Natural Evil is Untouchable*
But the phenomenon of revenge and forgiveness are mainly functional within the scope of human-caused evil, or moral evil. The philosophic problem of evil covers both man-made evil and natural evil. We can solve our resentment towards man-made evil with revenge or forgiveness. When it comes to natural evil - like disease, death, chronic pain, hunger, disability, discomfort, and emotional agony - revenge and forgiveness are no longer tools to deal with evil. There is no way for man to get revenge on God, nor to punish the elements. Forgiveness becomes empty when there is no way to get nature to repent of its evil ways in the face of your forgiveness.
*Obsequiousness Solves Resentment Towards Natural Evil*
Perhaps the religious impulse towards obsequiousness is to stave off the potential danger of resentment that lies in the path of thinking you deserve something better than what you have. In this way, perhaps the Bible is on to something in proclaiming anything that other than obsequiousness a sin. By setting your expectations to zero, you stave off resentment. Perhaps expecting something from reality can be a route to evil - an initial sin that leads to resentment and the desire to make the world a worse place.
NEXT: Chapter 10 - Divine Epicaricacy
