Good Without Evil?

As nearly every nefarious evil doer in every 80's fantasy movie will tell you, you can't have light without darkness, joy with out sadness, good without evil. They tend to go on to say something about needing each other, and then they usually get smited by a shining sword (or a unicorn horn, or a beam of light, or the power of love, or something).

Its an important question, because if its true, then those of us who want to do good in the world are in for some major disappointment. Imagine if every time you helped someone with their groceries or gave blood, you actually caused something horrible to happen. As the universe sought balance it would undo the ultimate good of our actions.

Its more than just an fantasy cliche. I've met people who really believe this. I've even met people who wanted to believe it because it was optimistic! Wow, major downer.

Ok, lets consider. Clearly there are some dichotomies that must have one for the other. Right and left, for instance are defined in relation to each other. Up and down are similar. I'm pretty sure inside and outside rely on the other.

Now, what about light and dark? Even though they are cast as opposites, it dosn't seem to me that they are strictly reliant on the other for existence. Sure, a gradiation in the lighting needs brighter for darker to make sense, but light and dark could be separate. A universe with no suns, no phosphorescent anything, would be dark. No light anywhere, just totally dark. Clearly not all opposites need each other to exist.

Now, would the strange creature that lived in darkworld know that it was in the dark? No, probably not. Similarly a resident of lightworld would not really have an experiance of darkness, and never really be put through the trials of wandering around in the dark. Its very possible that they could completly ignore the fact that they were surrounded by lighting, and not likely to be grateful for the boon.

How, then, do we know if 'good and evil' are like 'left and right' or 'light and dark'? Lets look a bit deeper.

Right and left are in reality two distinct ideas along the same axis. They are defined as opposite. To go even further, right and left don't exactly exist in the world, but are rather ways of understanding the world. There is not phenomena of leftness... no event in the world that is leftward. I think that is the same of up and down, and inside and outside. Now, I'm not saying that feet aren't inside shoes, or that one shoe isn't the right one. Clearly things exist that are right and inside. But right and inside themselves are human notions, categories used to describe physically existent objects.

What about light and dark? I believe that light is a event in the world, an actual phenomena caused by factors in the world. Dark, on the other hand, is the absence of light... a human notion. This is why light and dark can be true without the other, because instead of being two parts of a spectrum, they are in effect a way of saying X or not X.

Now the 20 dollar question: are the notions of good and evil human ideas that don't exist in the world apart from humans trying to describe events? Or is good an event in the world, and is evil the absence of good?

I suspect disagreement on this issue. Some are likely to say, "Of course they are human notions! Consider the man on the other side, who sees left as right and right as left. Get on the other side of a moral issue and right is wrong and wrong is right! Cultures define different things as right and wrong, and without the notion of punishing the bad there would be no reward of the good."

On the other side, I imagine them saying, "No, good is the world in its right state (be that a utilitarian notion or a proximity to the divine... whatever). Evil is the lack of good (a disordered world or distant from God)."

Formulate your opinion.

I think there's room for a nuanced opinion here. If you have read any other of the posts here, you probably suspect that I am of the second persuasion. You would be right. I believe in the reality of good, and that the good is the right functioning of the world. By extension then, there can be all good without any evil, that would just look like everything in order. But I do believe that there are cultural versions of morality... and since those are human ideas defined in opposition... I guess you can't have a cultural good without a cultural ill.


One further concern...
Would you know if you lived in a utopia? Would people appreciate it? Yes, yes you would. Part of a perfect world is gratitude. Besides, if the people in an all good were acting all good, in accordance with reality, that would probably indicate that they have a perfect understanding of the world. They would know that they were living in right order with the universe.

And besides, even someone clueless about their utopia would, ummm, still live in utopia. Not a bad place to be ignorant!