How do you define Good or evil? In your answer, consider the conflict between sympathies and duties that Bennett discusses. What do you think

Answer 1

This is one of philosophy's most enduring questions, and Jonathan Bennett's work on the sympathy-duty conflict gives us a powerful framework for thinking about it clearly.

First, let me offer a working definition: Good consists of thoughts, words, and actions that benefit all affected parties while harming none. Evil is the inverse: prioritizing benefit to some at the expense of others, or causing harm that could be avoided. Evil is almost always easier than good because it requires less cognitive work. You optimize locally (for yourself or your group) rather than globally (for the entire interdependent web of affected beings).

Now here's where Bennett's sympathy-duty conflict becomes crucial. Bennett examines historical figures like Himmler, who felt sympathy (emotional distress at the suffering he caused) but overrode it with duty (loyalty to Nazi ideology). This reveals something essential: the capacity to feel sympathy isn't enough to prevent evil if we subordinate that feeling to abstract principles or loyalties.

The conflict works both ways though. Sometimes duty demands we cause harm to prevent greater harm (a doctor performing painful surgery), while our sympathies scream at us to stop. Other times, sympathy might lead us to enable destructive behavior in someone we love, while duty would require tough boundaries.

Here's my key insight: Evil flourishes when we allow abstract systems (ideology, "just following orders," economic logic, tribal loyalty) to override our direct empathetic response to suffering. Good requires that we hold both sympathy and duty, but that we subordinate duty to the deeper principle of minimizing harm across the whole system, not just to those we consider "ours."

The hardest cases are when these genuinely conflict: when every choice causes some harm. In those moments, good means choosing the path of least total suffering while taking full accountability for the harm we couldn't avoid, rather than hiding behind duty to absolve ourselves.

Bennett's work warns us: beware of any system that asks you to silence your sympathy in the name of higher principles. That's the mechanism by which ordinary people commit extraordinary evil.