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<blockquote data-quote="The Shadow" data-source="post: 6382934" data-attributes="member: 16760">I didn't say it was the absence of good, I said it was a privation of good = a subtle but important difference. Evil is the lack of a perfection that ought to exist.&nbsp; It has no positive character.&nbsp; An evil man pursues good things in the wrong way or to the wrong degree.&nbsp; Nobody pursues evil for its own sake;&nbsp; it isn't even possible.&nbsp; They are pursuing pleasure, or power, or something else which is good, so far as it goes - they just pursue those things without proper regard for other good things, like the dignity of other people.Disease is a privation of health.&nbsp; A tumor in your body is trying to stay alive, which is fine so far as it goes, but it's compromising your life, which isn't.&nbsp; There is no state of Disease as such, with a capital D.&nbsp; There are only ways in which a person fails to be healthy.&nbsp; That doesn't mean disease can't hurt you - it certainly can!&nbsp; Likewise, there is no Evil with a capital E.&nbsp; There are only ways in which people fall short of virtue.&nbsp; It certainly can, and does, hurt them and other people.It would make no sense to talk about disease without reference to health.&nbsp; If we didn't have an idea of health, we wouldn't even be able to articulate what we meant by disease.&nbsp; In that sense, the concept of disease depends on the concept of health;&nbsp; but the reverse is not true.&nbsp; If there were no such thing as disease, people would still be healthy.(The analogy isn't perfect, because disease organisms like bacteria and viruses do have an actual nature of their own.&nbsp; Cancer is a better example, because it's your own body gone haywire.)Oh, it's real, all right, and not an illusion.&nbsp; It's just a real privation, not a real thing in itself.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="The Shadow, post: 6382934, member: 16760"] I didn't say it was the absence of good, I said it was a privation of good = a subtle but important difference. Evil is the lack of a perfection that ought to exist. It has no positive character. An evil man pursues good things in the wrong way or to the wrong degree. Nobody pursues evil for its own sake; it isn't even possible. They are pursuing pleasure, or power, or something else which is good, so far as it goes - they just pursue those things without proper regard for other good things, like the dignity of other people. Disease is a privation of health. A tumor in your body is trying to stay alive, which is fine so far as it goes, but it's compromising your life, which isn't. There is no state of Disease as such, with a capital D. There are only ways in which a person fails to be healthy. That doesn't mean disease can't hurt you - it certainly can! Likewise, there is no Evil with a capital E. There are only ways in which people fall short of virtue. It certainly can, and does, hurt them and other people. It would make no sense to talk about disease without reference to health. If we didn't have an idea of health, we wouldn't even be able to articulate what we meant by disease. In that sense, the concept of disease depends on the concept of health; but the reverse is not true. If there were no such thing as disease, people would still be healthy. (The analogy isn't perfect, because disease organisms like bacteria and viruses do have an actual nature of their own. Cancer is a better example, because it's your own body gone haywire.) Oh, it's real, all right, and not an illusion. It's just a real privation, not a real thing in itself. [/QUOTE]

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