[davem]

Originally Posted by SpM

Personally, I don't subscribe to that view (and I have no idea whether Kuru does). While some aspects of morality vary little over time and space (and they are the aspcts that tend to be adopted within the framework of our self-imposed laws), other aspects can vary widely from one society or one age to another. In that respect, they are, as Fea has postulated, self-imposed by a particular society on itself (for the good of that society?)

Well, each society imposes its own laws on individuals, but their reasons for doing so may differ - some will take a utilitarian approach - what will bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number of us (but this begs another question - what do we mean by 'happiness'? Are we talking about what makes us feel good, or what is morally good for us?)

The other approach may be to ask 'What does God/the Gods require of us? Whatever that is we should do it, whether it makes us happy or not. A further difficulty may arise if the society decides that the happiness of its own people is more important than the happiness of other societies. At its ultimate extreme this leads to slavery/ genocide, at its 'best' a sense of moral superiority which leads to callousness in the treatment of 'other ethnic/religious groups.

So, Good & Evil are often relative, even in 'religious' societies. As I've had a few digs at Christianity in another thread I'll use another example of 'religiously' inspired behaviour which I came across on another board:

When it comes to wars of antiquity, Muslims waged no less than 80 wars against infidels in a 154-year period during the initial expansion from 623 AD to 777 AD - during that time they overran the whole of Spain and Portugal (with Portugal only getting liberated with the help of the Crusaders in 1147, and Spain in one of the longest wars in history - the 769-year-long Reconquista from 722 AD to 2nd January 1492 - and Charles Martel did defeat invading Islamists at Poitiers and Tours in 732 AD). And they murdered up to 80 million Hindus in what is now modern day India, Pakistan and Afghanistan (the Hindu Kush is named after the massacre of Hindus by Muslims).

Now, this behaviour was 'inspired' by the desire of Muslims at that time to obey the will of Allah/Muhammad - in other words they believed they were doing 'good'. Muhammad himself took part in more than sixty battles where non-Muslims were killed. Some of those battles were fought in self defence, others were part of a deliberate policy of expansionism of the Muslim empire. From the Muslim perspective it was highly moral behaviour because they were doing the will of God. From this perspective the Crusades (as Chesterton argued) were hardly an unprovoked invasion & slaughter of innocents but a very necessary self defensive action.

Of course, both perspectives are biassed. Christians have also taken part in the unprovoked slaughter of non-Christians in the belief that they were doing the will of God, & therefore doing a 'Good' thing.

All that to say, doing 'good' is more complex than at first it may appear. But the difference between a 'utilitarian' approach & a 'religious' one says a great deal about the society that chooses one or the other. Of course, if you happen to be in the receiving end of their 'goodness' you may find the difference quite academic.

To the original question. Evil in Tolkien's view was necessarily a perversion of Good. Now, it could be argued that Good & evil are equal & opposite, so it would be just as true to say that Evil was primary & 'good' is the corruption of it. The problem with this approach has been pointed up by Michael Harris:

However, this conception just doesn't correspond to reality. For example, who conceives of 'making love' as a distorted substitute of rape? Who accuses the moderate eater of twisting & warping proper gluttony? Who would admonish one who generously gives of their material resources, 'cut it out - you're making a mockery of greed & selfishness?'

So, logically, (Tolkien would say) Good has to be primary & evil a twisting of it by selfish individuals. For this reason, absolute Evil cannot exist, because while we can logically see how evil could come into being from Good, we cannot logically see how Good could come into being from evil. Evil requires Good for its very existence, but Good does not require evil. Evil needs something to fight against, to dominate, to destroy. Good does not.