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Meta-ethics is the study of the fundamental questions concerning the nature and origins of the good and the evil, including inquiry into the nature of good and evil, as well as the meaning of evaluative language. In this respect, meta-ethics is not necessarily tied to investigations into how others see the good, or of asserting what is good.
He wrote that "evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name 'evil.'" [14] Both moral and natural evil occurs, Augustine argued, owing to an evil use of free will, [4] which could be traced back to Adam and Eve's original sin, [7] which to him was inexplicable given the understanding that Adam and Eve were "created ...
Phrases similar to forbidding evil and commanding good can be found examining texts of ancient Greek philosophers-- Stoic Chrysippus (d.207 BC) and Aristotle (d.322) -- and the founder the Buddha. [27] A particularly similar formulation is found in the book of Psalms: "Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it". (Psalm 34:14)
Theodicies are developed to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil, thus resolving the issue of the problem of evil. Some theodicies also address the problem of evil "to make the existence of an all-knowing , all-powerful and all-good or omnibenevolent God consistent with the existence of evil or suffering in ...
Later Scholastics like Pierre D'Ailly and his student Jean de Gerson explicitly confronted the Euthyphro dilemma, taking the voluntarist position that God does not "command good actions because they are good or prohibit evil ones because they are evil; but... these are therefore good because they are commanded and evil because prohibited."
Manichaean theology teaches a dualistic view of good and evil. A fundamental belief in Manichaeism is that the powerful, though not omnipotent, good power (God) was opposed by the eternal evil power (the devil). Humanity, the world, and the soul are seen as the by-product of the battle between God's proxy—Primal Man—and the devil.
The good effect must be caused by the action at least as immediately (in terms of causality, not—necessarily—temporally) as the bad effect. It is impermissible to attempt to bring about an indirect good with a direct evil. [4] Also formulated as: The means-end condition. The bad effect must not be the means by which one achieves the good ...
Paul Elmer More says that, to Plato, evil resulted from the human failure to pay sufficient attention to finding and doing good: evil is an absence of good where good should be. More says Plato directed his entire educational program against the "innate indolence of the will" and the neglect of a search for ethical motives "which are the true ...