It is better to be wronged than to do wrong

The argument between Polus and Socrates is a thought provoking one. Which is the greater evil, to do wrong or suffer wrong Socrates believes that it is better to suffer wrong than do wrong. He believes that by doing wrong you are sentencing yourself to eternal punishment. That if you punish someone for their sins in this life, then their will be no punishment in the after life. It is this principle that is the basis for his argument. Polus believes that suffering wrong is the greater evil. To do wrong. When you suffer of wrong you are able to understand and empathize with those who suffer and draw connection to those around you and they will empathize with you. When you do wrong you divide yourself from others and create a sometimes impenetrable boundary and sometimes it's impossible to connect with that person anytime in this lifetime because you became so selfish that you were unable to see yourself in them or see them as sentient and they'll be repulsed by you. It's self destructive and incredibly damaging because you don't just terminate the ability to connect with that person, but also all "six degrees of separation". That happen to be those who know them, those who know of them, and eventually those who don't know them, and those who don't know of them. The end result is it soils your reputation and mindset permanently in causation and will manifest slowly until the effect you created is fully realized and people will be repulsed by you. Is it better to suffer evil or to commit evil? {Part I of II} This is the main question of Plato's Republic, and he answers unequivocally that it is better to suffer evil than to commit evil. This moral principle is a foundation stone of Western culture, accepted universally by Jew and Greek and Christian alike. And there are similar arguments made in Indian and Chinese philosophy as well, even if they did not achieve quite the same dominance there. Now, one of the justifications that some give for permitting or even promoting torture is essentially that it is better to commit evil than to suffer it. Their argument is a direct rejection of this foundational principle. But, since I'm not one to take a principle just because it's old, I thought I'd explore just why it is better to endure evil than to commit it. What makes me happy? Does anyone not want to be happy? Isn't happiness exactly what we're after when we ask, "Is one thing better than another?" Don't we really mean, "Which will make me happier?" Nor are we just talking about individual happiness: justice in a society is, among other things, what allows the members to pursue happiness and to be happy together. And happiness is not simply pleasure. We grow tired of pleasures, even if we move from one to another. Happiness is not merely a state of well-being. Such states come and go. Neither is happiness an emotion. I myself have felt very sad at the same time as knowing deeply that I was happy. Indeed, sometimes the certainty of happiness comes in times of pain, of sickness, of sorrow - exactly because we can see that what we have is worth any of these other things. So, what is it that we have? St. Thomas defines happiness as the knowing possession of the good. Nice and abstract, that definition. What he means, in 21st century terms, is that we both have what is good for us, and weknow that we have it. And what is good for a human being is whatever makes us to be more human, to be more ourselves. As Christians, we say, it is to be who God made us to be, and to answer his call. In a word, what is good for humans is Love. What does suffering evil do to us? Now, if the goal of life is to love, then what are the obstacles to that? What can keep us from being happy in this full sense? Already, I've mentioned that physical or emotional pain cannot take away happiness. They cannot prevent us from giving or receiving love. But I've said elsewhere that torture can break a person's will, can damage his or her ability to think clearly, to use reason essentially, to be human.

This state of brokenness can sometimes permanently render someone incapable of loving in the full sense. The mind may never recover, or the ability to empathize may be damaged beyond healing. Another kind of permanent suffering is death. A dead person cannot act in any way, so cannot love or be happy. Obviously, the Catholic doctrine of resurrection to life with God answers that neither of these sufferings are truly permanent. For that matter, Plato's notion of the transmigration of souls and the similar idea of reincarnation prevalent in some Eastern religions give essentially the same answer. But I think they can also be answered in a way that atheists could accept, without recourse to specifically religious belief. This post is already too long, though. So I will finish the argument in a post tomorrow. Is it better to suffer evil than to commit evil? {Part II of II} In {Part I}, I argued that the apparently permanent nature of some sufferings could be answered by the religious ideas of resurrection or reincarnation. I also said that I thought that an answer could be given without relying on religious doctrine. To do so, however, I need to approach the question from the other side. What does committing evil do to us? It is important to recall that the human person is most him- or herself when loving or receiving love. Again, this is not merely romantic love - though romantic love is a true and noble expression of love. Every form of love calls on the whole of a person, body and intellect and emotion and appetite, to seek the fulfillment of the whole of another person. This is even true of proper love of oneself, because the fulfillment of oneself involves loving others. Now, an evil act is an act that is contrary to another's fulfillment. It may be directed at an individual or a group. It could do direct damage, or it might just present an obstacle. But what makes it evil is that it opposes someone's fulfillment. This is an active opposition. People make mistakes, which end up hurting others, but these are not moral evils because they are actually contrary to our intentions. Also, no one person can bring total and perfect fulfillment to anyone - not even to oneself. So there is no absolute obligation to do every good that is possible for every person one encounters. However, there are some cases where a deliberate witholding of a necessary good thing, like witholding first aid from an injured person when there is no one else to help, does constitute an evil act: a sin of omission, in traditional language. So, in order to commit an evil act, a person has to act contrary to love; that is, he or she has to act contrary to his or her own fulfillment, as well as contrary to the fulfillment of another. (This, by the way, is why the Catechism says that "Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart.") Every evil act damages or even destroys both one's relationship with another and one's ability to relate to other people. It damages one's ability to love. Why committing evil is worse than suffering it So, it seems that both the worst kind of suffering and the worst kind of committing evil lead to the same result: a person is incapable of loving, and therefore is incapable of living a fully human life. But the inability to love that results from suffering evil comes from the obstacles placed in one's way. A person is denied the opportunity or the practical ability to love. A person who commits evil strikes at the root of love itself: he or she "hardens his or her heart" and twists his or own faculties of loving. So, even when the opportunities arise and the person has the practical ability, he or she does not have the moral ability to love. Moreover, this is not only the result of the worst acts of evil. It results from the smallest injustices and the slightest sins of omission. These extend, like cracks in a windshield, through the whole depth of one's life, weakening one's moral resolve, and - if left unchecked - will eventually lead to a complete break-down of one's moral life. Even in this life, even if there is no resurrection, I submit that this is a worse fate than suffering evil, including suffering death. "Then who can be saved?" Now, I am not suggesting that any of us are morally perfect. We all have "dings" in our moral "windshields". We all have the responsibility to keep the cracks at bay as much as possible. For Catholics, at least, this includes recourse to the mercy of God through the Sacraments, prayer, and penance.

But this also means that, Catholic or not, we have to be aware of and guard against anything that might add a new kind of moral damage. It seems to me that the issue of torture - disgused, as all temptation is, by a great good: national self-defense - is exactly a way to attack our moral integrity where it is as yet undamaged. Those who rightly stand up for the dignity and the rights of the defenseless, especially the unborn in the womb, allow their very ability to love the basic dignity and rights of every human person to be smashed by allowing torture into their moral lives. Of course, it is far worse actually to torture someone than merely to defend the State's torture of someone. But creating such justifications in one's mind still chips away at the basis of love which is the core of human happiness and good. It is a small evil, but a dangerous one nonetheless. If left unchecked, it will destroy everything that we love, and our very ability to love. Nothing can justify that loss. It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong (473a- 475e) Polus: Suffering wrong is worse than doing wrong... Soc: But you agree that doing wrong is "uglier" than suffering wrong. And what makes an unjust act "ugly" is that the action is "bad" (i.e., ethically wrong). Thus "doing wrong" is WORSE THAN "suffering wrong" (it is "more evil" than suffering wrong). [Note the distinction between the "bad" and the "painful" that is implicitly drawn here.] Therefore, all must agree (despite initial opinions) that "it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong."