The metaphysical-ontological evil
01
Feb
We understand evil as the absence of the Good or its fragility, and with this we overcome Manichaeism,
we understand in a certain way the moral evil as one that has a direct relation with the ethical behavior, and indirectly with the religion and very rarely with the history of the philosophy , although this is essential for understanding “moral evil”.
The idea that has been developed during several aspects analyzing the Well of this classic antiquity, can address the problem of metaphysical-ontological evil.
Augustine of Hippona addressed the subject in the book I De libero arbitrio that Augustine through two questions that is specifically concerned, namely: What is the cause of the practice of evil (malefacere)? And what does it mean to behave badly?
In another work of Augustine (City of God) he states: “Every movement of the soul tends toward or toward a good to be acquired or preserved, or away from an evil to be avoided or discarded: the free movement of the soul to acquire or avoid something is at will. ”
This concept is important in a society marked by fatigue and anxiety, since every will must be satisfied immediately, just to exemplify, despite the prohibition it is common to see people who immediately consume the product they are buying in supermarkets or sales stores.
It is in a way, among many others, the so-called “malaise of modernity”, reaches the human being in the most intimate sense of life, not only the social, but reaching the social.
In confessions he states: “Evil is not only a deprivation, it is a deprivation that resides in a good as in its subject”, that is, a direct relation between object and subject, in other words: “the object of desire” the will is human.
Thus, we are led to make a reasoning of Augustine, free will is characterized as a medium good whose nature is good, but whose effect may be evil or good, according to the way in which man uses it, so evil does not resides in the object, but in its use.
Thus the metaphysical-ontological evil, which was already present in Augustine’s writings, refers to human contingency and finitude, imperfection and lack of harmony in the environment that we have our will, from the history to the human-existential context.
