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The Worst Evil

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eetest01

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"Live free or die. Death is not the worst of evils." -- General John Stark

Cox and Forkum (www.coxandforkum.com)

I saw the above cartoon by Cox and Forkum and began to wonder about the worst of evils.

If life is the standard value, and that which promotes it is good while that which detracts is evil, then is death the standard of evil? If so, is there anything more evil than death?

Irrationality is evil because it can ultimately lead to death (at the very least unhappiness). Irrationality is sufficient for death, but it is not necessary. Irrationality is evil because a consequence of it is death. Is death more evil than irrationality since irrationality is subordinate to death?

Am I making too much of death by calling it the standard of evil?

What is an evil worse than death and why is it so?

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What is an evil worse than death and why is it so?

A life of slavery and torture, with no hope of freedom. You don't want to be too hyperbolic in equating paying taxes with actual slavery, but the point is that there are circumstances under which you cannot possibly live as a rational being, that there is no purpose to life because there is nothing that you can work to keep. In that case, being forced to remain alive would be worse than death, since if you were dead, you would not have to constantly face the fact of an unbearable existence. This supposes that you are in a situation where life really is unbearable, not just uncomfortable. YMMV.

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A life of slavery and torture, with no hope of freedom. You don't want to be too hyperbolic in equating paying taxes with actual slavery, but the point is that there are circumstances under which you cannot possibly live as a rational being, that there is no purpose to life because there is nothing that you can work to keep. In that case, being forced to remain alive would be worse than death, since if you were dead, you would not have to constantly face the fact of an unbearable existence. This supposes that you are in a situation where life really is unbearable, not just uncomfortable. YMMV.

An excellent illustration of this situation is in the movie (and the book) The Great Escape. Over and over the Allied POW's risked their lives in attempts to escape from Nazi prison camps. A similar illustration is Kira Argounova's attempt to escape the prison of the Soviet Union.

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There is another excellent quote from some Mexican revolutionary. He was probably a socialist but presented in the right context it still holds true and blends well with the discussion here.

This is a paraphrase as best I can remember (and in English):

"I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees!"

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It sounds to me like what you guys are saying is that life is the standard of good and life is the standard of evil. The measure of evil is how far it is from the ideal. As Capitalism Forever said, "The worst evil, then, is life qua UN-man."

Making death the standard of evil would be a mistake. It would mean death is the highest evil, of which one invalid consequence is that there could be no rational justification for suicide. This is clearly incorrect as pointed out by DavidOdden's example.

I should have thought of The Great Escape, it's one of my favorite movies.

Thanks for helping me clear that up.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Irrationality is evil because it can ultimately lead to death (at the very least unhappiness). Irrationality is sufficient for death, but it is not necessary. Irrationality is evil because a consequence of it is death. Is death more evil than irrationality since irrationality is subordinate to death?

Am I making too much of death by calling it the standard of evil?

What is an evil worse than death and why is it so?

With current technology, death is inevitable. To make it the standard of evil, is to make evil inevitable. Death is not an evil when you've lived your life to it's fullest, your body no longer can function, and your mind is loosing it's grasp. I wouldn't call it good though. At this point, as one's existence approaches it's end, one is ceasing to be human, and ethics no longer apply. Ethics are for the living.

When I read the topic title, I thought you were addressing the other side of this - is it more evil to kill than to enslave ? And I thought of Galt's statement:

Whoever, to whatever purpose or extent, initiates the use of force, is a killer acting on the premise of death in a manner wider than murder: the premise of destroying man's capacity to live.

If you turn this around, having force initiated against you is an evil worse than death - a destruction of one's capacity to live. Why is this worse than death ? Because in life, qua Man one has the ability to achieve values and happiness - a positive state. In death, there is nothing - death is a neutral state. To be thus enslaved by force, one would be in a condition of being aware of existence without the ability to achieve values or happiness - in perpetual frustration - a negative state, more evil than death.

Don't equivocate about involuntary labor (to pay taxes) being any kind of freedom. It is actual slavery - the most commonly experienced and evaded form.

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