Reply #126: In Courtesy To Your Original Query Here, Sir

[The Magistrate]

It seems to me the essence of evil is a disregard for other human beings in favor of oneself, and acting towards others in ways one would protest if worked against oneself. Obviously the matter is less simple than the simple statement of it. The basic ethical question, indeed, is when one is acting properly to disregard the interests of another in favor of oneself: it is clear from the conditions of life that there are instances where this is proper, and equally clear that to act in such a manner always would be monstrous. It seems to me that one of the attractions of a resort to claimed absolutes is the hope these hold out of not having to judge what is proper in each instance, because that is a troublesome exercise, but it seems to me a necessary one. No system of absolutes can possibly anticipate every contingency; it woud be like trying to draw a landscape using only straight lines.

As to the particular item being discussed above with Mr. Brentos, it does not seem to me any great philosphizing is required to view an order to exterminate a populace as not an act of good, and to conclude that an entity issuing such an order is not a good one. Such an act may in some instances be expedient, even seemingly necessary from some pont of view, but it cannot be good.