The problem of evil doesn’t necessarily prove the nonexistence of god. But have you fathomed the depths of evil? The evilness of evil is a truly great plight. It’s the presence of wickedness and suffering beyond measure. What does it mean to live with endless, unrelenting, perpetual evil and its consequences? How is a world and its peoples to endure? Are we to surrender to pessimism, defeatism, and nihilism?

The problem of evil is fundamentally not a problem of religion and theology, but an existential problem that calls out to the essence of Dasein. It can be seen in the political, the social, and the moral, but before all else, in the everyday and the mundane. Is life worth living in the plight of evil? Is there a proper response to evil? Is there a grounding for this response?

The problem of evil as an argument for the nonexistence of a god isn’t an essential problem, but an elective and vulgar one. The essential problem is a plight of existential Dasein which concerns the whole of the world and the possibility of world death—an unworlding of the world. What remains of an essential relation toward the meaning of beings under a plight of evil? What is it to be finite mortals faced with mortal evil?

Immortal mortal evil reveals the finitude of finite mortals and reveals the revelation of death. In the plight of great torment and the confrontation of death, evil strikes a sensitive chord in us which releases the attunement of care—care for the affliction of others. “I suffer, and so I do not want to see the suffering of another. Because I am tormented, I do not want to see another being tormented.”

1.

We posit that evil is ascendant, a sort of state of nature. The problem needs to be made into a more pressing sociopolitical problem, and not one of purely religious and theological pontification, injudiciousness, disinclination, and nonparticipation. True evil and its nature are not merely objects of study or research delimited only to the domain of religion. Evil is not “spiritual:” supernatural, supernormal, or paranormal; it is a happening entirely in the sociopolitical sphere. This means that evil is an ontic affair, happening in a present-at-hand sense. However, to discuss evil in its sociopolitical character necessitates a reflection on a “spiritual” question—the question of whether a god exists. It is also necessary to briefly reflect on morality. But the discussion must not get bogged down in pedantic theological arguments. This detour onto the question of the existence of god (and a discussion of morality) is not even the point per se and will be leaped over, a leaping onto a phenomenon that is closer than spirituality and always already closest to us.

2.

A reflection on the ontic nature of evil as a present-at-hand happening in the sociopolitical sphere will open us up into a leaping over its essentia, all of its traits, and into its existentia, the proper phenomenon of evil in its essence.

3.

The problem of evil will have as a supplement the problem of divine hiddenness to reinforce the complete absence of any god.

4.

The final point is about action and proactive protection. Horrible and horrid things go on under either the inaction or absence of a god. Infantile counterarguments consisting of justification of an inactive existent god through a mysterious and unknowable “divine plan” will be ignored outright. The conclusion is solely about identifying the origin and essence of evil and then to react violently against it and to bring about its destruction as far as is possible, while bearing in mind that the claims we are making about evil, and in the using of the word itself, are detached from spiritual, religious, and theological notions about it.

5.

We said evil is a sociopolitical happening, an ontic and present-at-hand affair. What we mean to say is that evil is barred up within the social and political sphere. The cause for evil, we posit, is due to, in a very large way, capitalism, and then social hierarchies. At the outset, capitalism can be seen as the origin of all social hierarchies. It necessitates a ruling class at the expense and simultaneous creation of a lower class. This is already a creation of a social and economic hierarchy. This introduces a poignant struggle for survival for the lower class. It introduces, a priori, all inequalities; including racial and social inequalities. Society itself becomes an arena of struggle and war in the striving to secure sustenance and resources necessary for survival. The lower class is made to compete with each other and destroy themselves in the name of prosperity.

6.

This is the general structure, shape, and bounds of society. From here we can derive all other hierarchies and social dominance. It is, moreover, the reason why all struggles are connected: all intersections of oppression and hierarchy exist within these bounds of capitalism. We say all struggles and oppression are “worldlike.” They have a character of worldhood: they each have a structure of referential relations that point to each other. We call this intersectionality. My struggle and oppression points to and is bound up with your struggle and oppression. As we said, the origin of all of our struggles, oppression, and inequality is this bounded structure of capitalism. From the top level broadest perspective, macroscopically, there exists the structure of capitalism-imperialism-colonialism. At the lower level, microscopically, zoomed in on one’s daily life, there exist structures of social hierarchies: patriarchy, transphobia, homophobia, misogyny, antifeminism, sexism, racism, white supremacy, fascism, antisemitism, xenophobia. All these are derived from capitalism which necessitates domination, competition, struggle, war, and oppression.

7.

Capitalism brings about the basic condition for violence, exploitation, slavery, domination, and all other such subjugation.

8.

Such is also true in the case of feudalism, the precursor to and origin of capitalism. Feudalism has the basic structure of capitalism; capitalism is feudalism sans an aristocracy. However, it could be argued that a kind of aristocracy is still in place under capitalism, and that is the ruling class. The ruling class here is first the State and its governments, local and federal, which make up the authority of the land. Second are corporations which are owned and operated by billionaires. Both the State and corporations hold all the wealth and resources, and corporations and billionaires hold incredible influence in the political sphere (along with the church), collaborating with the State or else bribing it.

9.

The feudal caste system is still very much in place under capitalism with a few adjustments to the hierarchy. The lower class remains while a middle class is made up of specialized workers and business owners, while knights and vassals are replaced by the police, and the nobility and aristocracy are replaced by the church, billionaires who make up corporations, and the State respectively.

10.

Along with feudalism and capitalism on the origin of all hierarchies, the creation of money is the essential origin of all hierarchies. It is astute and discerning, and above all ironic, that the apostle Paul had this to say in 1 Timothy 6:10: “For the love of money is the root of all evil [my emphasis]: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

11.

On the essence of evil: its essence, in the general and everyday sense, its essentia, can be summed up by “negative” behavior which produces “negative” actions which result in “negative” consequences such as violence, suffering, injury, abuse, death, and worse. We use scare quotes to indicate a vague sense of the word “negative” and the need to elucidate exactly what we mean by it. What is meant by the word is so much deeper than what the spoken or written word immediately conveys. The negativity of evil is its essential trait: the evilness of evil. Evil is the cause of every negativity and negation of good, or positivity. The origin of evil psychologically is the formation of ill, negative, malevolent, malicious, destructive—evil—thoughts, which form behavior, which forms actions, which form cruelty and wickedness.

12.

Psychologically, the formation of negative, evil, thoughts through ideation form the seeds and groundwork of beliefs. These beliefs are essentially sick, diseased—vile—toxic and contagiously corrosive. The infection of evil beliefs begins to cause them to burst outward in the intention to act on them, the intention to cause harm.

13.

The cause of harm or the bringing about a state which causes suffering: the ontic essence of evil. Evil is the presence of great harm and suffering. (But not mere presence. To have broken a bone by accident is certainly not “evil.” To be evil, something seems to necessarily have a certain intention, intentionality: the evil intention.) The real and physical state of nature, the natural world, the state and environment of wildlife, is then evil. “The state of nature is not evil, it merely is.” —The banality of evil.

(Taken from a Christian perspective, or any theist or deist one, the cosmos was created by a creator. This includes our universe in which we exist on earth. They claim all creatures were created by this creator, including natural wildlife. This includes the environment in which wildlife lives, wherein all creatures mercilessly compete for food and resources. Survival of the fittest through natural selection is a brutal state of being. The wilderness is an environment of competition, suffering, and death, wherein the aim of life is to reproduce. Why and how is it a god could create this environment? How is it that one can care for animals while disregarding this state of nature? Certainly, if one had the power to intervene and change this brutal state of nature, they would. If god exists, did it create this state of nature with intention, intentionality? If yes, it is not the case that wildlife in the state of nature “simply is.” The state of nature having been created in the will of god is then evil, due to intentional cause of the presence of harm and suffering, the condition for the environment of suffering through evolution. But we take it that no god exists. How are we to ground valuations from an is?)

14.

Assertions of evil are moral valuations which assume a particular subjectivity of a subject, as do all moral valuations. To say that such and such is evil, to assert a moral judgment, is to enact a subjective moral valuation. But what is meant here by subjective? It must be shown that asserting moral valuations authentically is a type of knowing. A type of knowing which calls out in a bringing forth, a bringing forth of an unconcealment of and toward beings. Beings in their relation to and with us are unconcealed in a moral character, here in the evil moral character. That which is seen in perception is perceived in its unfreedom—in its affliction of suffering and cruelty. But what has happened here? A moral judgment seems to bottom out in an appeal to emotion: a certain standing of nature or a happening in it causes the “moral agent” to feel a certain way. These negative and visceral feelings get, in the history of the tradition of Western metaphysics, applied to certain moral principles in accordance with “good.” And the foundation for what exactly good is has been attributed to god and has been used as a tool for authority of all types to preserve dominant hierarchies in the realms of State, religion, and politics. What good is has been invented and grounded by people and institutions of authority in order to conserve and profit from that authority. In this sense, Nietzsche was farsighted and keen in his going beyond good and evil.

15.

Certain moralists and moral nihilists ask, “How is it that we go from valuations to nature itself? How do we go from ‘what is’ to valuations about it? If we valuate about nature, is it then the case that nature comports itself under that valuation in its essence?” The origin of these questions is old Hume: the is-ought problem. It is impossible to get, to infer, an “ought” from an “is.” This problem seems to be the origin of every kind of moral nonrealism, which says that moral statements are not propositions with truth value—that moral judgements do not describe anything real out in the world and so do not belong to truth—moral judgements cannot be correct or incorrect. Hence no ought from any is. A factual description of beings, which deals necessarily with truth—correctness—can say nothing about what you should do. There seems to be a gap between is/ought, between description and prescription. And so moral philosophers have trudged around—not entirely fruitlessly—in pedantic “metaethical” games and contrivances, and have at least gotten…somewhere. And this seems to be the place of moral quasirealism. This, the current place of moral philosophy.

16.

The current place of moral philosophy. What is this place? It is merely a region of a domain which presumes it can find out if it can know the truth of morals, the essence of morality, that it can find out if moral judgments actually do correspond to beings—that it can know, epistemically, that moral judgments are true or not—if they correspond to reality. It is a place that is concerned with the relation between morality and beings. But to say this is misdirecting. It is the relation itself that moral philosophy is concerned with—the correctly corresponding relation between the moral agent and beings. Idealism once again rears its sleepy head from the abyss and delights in the pit of all pits. The ground itself is ungrounded: a pit, a gap between us and everything which is. Moral philosophy today is nothing other than a plight of transcendentalism. All are concerned once again with correspondence and correctness as the essence of truth. Morality here is neither and can never be a kind of realism or nonrealism; it is only and merely idealism with another transcendental subject-object gap: Hume’s guillotine, the is-ought problem.

In its essence, morality is concerned about truth. It is only that Western philosophy has concerned itself with a particular understanding of truth: truth as correctness. It has not conceptualized truth taken as correctness as itself a problem, a fundamental problem in need of a more fundamental grounding. It must be shown, it ought to be shown, and indeed has been shown by Heidegger, that there is a more fundamental conception of truth which gives rise to the vulgar understanding of truth as correctness—and that is truth as aletheia: as unconcealment of beings in their being. Unconcealment of beings is at the same time disclosure of beings—in their being, their most fundamental essence. This is fundamentally different than truth as correctness. It is an explicit fundamental difference due to an essential ontological partition between beings and being. Being is not itself another being among beings. We call this the ontological difference. The being of beings is the meaning of beings, the essence of beings. The essence of beings is the truth of beings: the truth of beings in the unconcealment of beings.

The two conceptions of truth:

1. As correctness—in a correct correspondence to beings.
2. As aletheia—an unconcealing of beings in their being.

Moral philosophy is concerned with this correct correspondence itself: the appropriate and correct relation to beings. Hume’s position is that moral judgments do not have a relation at all with beings: they do not correctly or incorrectly correspond to beings because they have no correspondence to beings at all. The kind and type of relation between moral judgments and beings is one that is transcendent. Moral judgements do not even reach beings, let alone touch them. Since Hume, moral philosophy has merely tried to expand on this idea in that it has sought to prove or refute his claim. This has resulted in the ordering and categorizing of morality into a domain with various regions: cognitivism and noncognitivism, realism and nonrealism—and now quasirealism. Moral philosophy today is nothing other than Cartesian and Kantian transcendental idealism. This plight cannot be overcome at all in the current standing of moral philosophy as currently understood as “metaethics.” This is because the whole project presupposes the conception of truth as correctness. There must be altogether an abandoning of truth as correctness (but this isn’t an abandoning of truth as correctness per se, as truth as aletheia gives rise to, is the condition of, the possibility of truth as correctness), and a fundamental rethinking of the conception of truth—as aletheia: unconcealment and disclosure of beings in their being. Morality essentially occurs.

17.

All this ordering and categorizing of morality has gotten us nowhere essential. The fundamental problem at hand in moral philosophy still remains as Hume’s position, and this before all else, before all transformations of moral judgments into propositions which can be judged as correct or incorrect, or the judgment of intentions which form and lead to actions, or the evaluation of moral judgments as expressions of feelings. The problem of is/ought is still without resolution. The question of a way to bridge the gap remains open. All these questions of what and how morality is and of its provenance—all these must be overcome at once, in the situation and standing of what is currently called “metaethics,” and we must for once and for all go back to the things themselves: back to the basic experience of beings.

18.

We must go back to the basic experience of evil. What is the basic intentionality of evil, in the pure perceiving of the happening of evil? What is the basic experience of the victim of evil? What is the basic experience of the observer of evil? What is the basic experience of the agent of evil?

(Psychology is a positive science in that it posits beings. In its positing of beings, it conceptualizes beings in a purely analytic, theoretical thinking. This is true for all positive science. Positive science is an ontic, present-at-hand mode of investigation and research. This means that positive science takes beforehand a conception of essence as essentia: whatness. It is concerned with whatness: “essential traits” of its objects. But perhaps psychology can provide a clue to the essential essence of evil in its analysis of evil psychological traits. All essential traits, essentia, hint at and refer to howness, existentia.)

In all these, there is a basic call of being. What is the structure of this call of being in its calling for a response?

19.

Concerning the attainment of ought from is: it is particularly interesting to witness “discourse” in religious and atheist spaces concerning morality and rational justifications to accept or reject the moral judgements asserted from both sides. So-called “secular” atheists or secular humanists might be surprised in the amount of common ground they have with the theists they argue with under the pretense of “logic,” “reason,” and “rationality.” There is a predominance of reactionary right-wing politics pervading these spaces of “freethinking” and reason. Even those who are more liberal and centrist reveal their reactionary ideology on things such as trans rights. Just as well, if they are not outright conservatives or even fascists, they will, perhaps out of ignorance, perhaps out of “freethought,” allow fascist entryism into their spaces, or else freely associate with open Nazis. For a great majority of these secular atheists have a plethora of common ground with right-wing and far-right currents. The only difference is god belief.

What is more, for all the discussion of reason and logic, and this goes for theists too, in all the invocations of logical fallacies and errors of thought, both the atheist and the theist, who are bound up in reactionaryism, will forego logical reasoning and contemplation on the is/ought problem, and will seek to enforce their oughts on every is.

For this is the point: the world, human society, the public and the institutions of the public, that is, every institution of authority and hierarchy, always and already exist to enforce their particular ought upon every is. This makes up the existential and ontological structure of publicness and human inauthenticity. Society in its ground exists, a priori, in its inauthenticity, to enforce a certain conformity: conformity of values and ideology, conformity to particular hierarchies, and conformity of dress. Conformity of dress is particularly of note, as conformity of values and ideology is cemented in conformity of dress. In this way, conformity to hierarchies is attained and maintained.

The public and social world already exist in the enforcement of oughts. This exists firstly in the State at all levels. Then institutions of authority at all levels, such as the police, the church, the school and university. What is more, it is particularly interesting to witness so-called thinkers and philosophers, theorists, politicians, and clergy manuscript writ, with full conviction and weight of enforcement, justifying their hierarchies and commandments—and even giving justification for them through rigorous academic appeals to the is/ought problem, or to god, or to duty, or to the nation. We are enforced with violence to adhere to and obey innumerable commandments of conformity, conformity to hierarchies and authorities, by the institutions of the public and the public itself. The grounding for moral judgements, in the public sphere and public institutions, including academia, consists of furthering and maintaining conformity to hierarchies by authorities.

That all churches are corrupt and the Vatican is a criminal organization: it is the law of god for you to continue to obey them and further violence against queer and oppressed communities. That all police organizations and prisons are evil institutions of the legacy of white supremacy: the law of the land must be obeyed, even if those laws are racist or provide profit to the authorities, and even if prison slave labor provides profit to the authorities. That all politics and political parties exist to maintain capitalism through the State via imperialism and colonialism: it is the supreme political principle and the law of the State that all political parties and candidates do not fundamentally disagree with each other and will not endanger the operation of the State or the established social order.

We are violently enforced to conform to the inauthenticity and oughts of the public and the public’s institutions. This serves to maintain authority, power, and adherence to hierarchies. The public and its institutions will either attempt to disarm revolt and rebellion against the establishment with academic epistemic riddles or it will enforce its authority and conformity with displays and volleys of power.

Concerning reactionary atheists and theists: how revealing it is that one of them will appeal against the other to epistemic problems and logical justification, while both will abandon that position altogether in order to attack, physically and in discourse and policy, and ultimately kill, trans people who are either merely existing or fighting for their human right to be allowed to participate in society.

Academic attempts to find justification for moral judgements or to ground them, whether in god or the State, are always already in furtherance of hierarchies.