Good and evil are two coins of a perception. If we put it in a philosophical way, there is no such thing like good and evil philosophy in this hypocrite world. A good to one, can be an evil to another and an evil to one, can be good to another. It’s all about the receiving end of a mind that defines the belief, ethics and morality dominating the wisdom. One’s perception may change in the course of time.
Art by Huma Hussain
George Bernard Shaw, a political activist once described his own inner struggles in this manner - “Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, the one I feed the most.”
A deep-rooted belief of a person defines his own good and evil philosophy, that may impact on fellow beings. Our emotions and personal values are always the determiners of our moral assessments, and these two factors are entirely different from person to person. Within the same person, ideas of morality can change throughout our lives. For instance, what I thought of as “bad” many years ago now I consider to be “good”.
In general, there is no morality. It is relative from culture to culture. For example, killing other people is normally immoral. But when wartime begins, we suddenly rationalize that killing is not only OK, but the more “enemies” you kill, the more respectable you become. What we fail to realize is that on the other side of war, the enemies also consider themselves to be the ‘good’ guys protecting their ideals, beliefs and ways of life. Morality establishes the idea that there is an objective way to assess another person based on the values they hold. In simple phrase, good and bad is simply what is popular at the time.
Intelligence and knowledge are tools that help us process and play with the ideas of the fragmented reality that our minds create. Wisdom, on the other hand, is the sensor that experiences a direct connection to it, it is the sentient perceiver of our existence, the pathway straight to the heart. Morality and wisdom are quite different things. One person’s morality can contradict another person’s morality, but one person’s wisdom can never contradict another person’s wisdom. Hence, let one’s wisdom define his own good and evil philosophy, rather than being impacted by morals, culture and religion around him.