Socrates Was Right: No One Can Knowingly Commit Evil

on the nature of evil

Socrates claimed that no one chooses to do evil knowingly.

This seems wrong. Of course, people choose evil. A serial killer or a genocidal dictator can commit atrocities deliberately and through their own rational faculties. They may clearly explain the steps of their actions after the fact, without any regrets.

They might even choose to perform an evil act because it is evil. Evil acts might just be one of the set of actions that any rational agent with free will can perform.

Yet, Socrates's claim still holds true. To truly know evil is to recognize it as arbitrary destruction—something no reasonable person could ever freely choose.

The Meaningless View of Evil

There is a mundane way that Socrates is correct, shown below.

1. All people pursue the good.

2. “Evil” is, by definition, not good.

3. Therefore, no one pursues evil.

But this syllogism is useless. We can imagine someone pursuing evil and knowing that evil. Such evil might be deemed “good” for the person performing it, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are still pursuing evil, contra Socrates.

Yet by its nature, evil is something that no one could ever choose if they understood what evil is. An evil act is to freely choose to threaten the freedom of another outside of the bounds of reason. It transforms a conscious, moral being into something like a cancer within the moral community.

Try to imagine a wise sage choosing to become a wild beast. Such a choice would logically contradict what it means to be wise. But to see this more clearly, we should know what evil is.

What Is Evil?

Evil is the unjustified destruction of the freedom of others.

This proposed definition has two essential elements:

1. Destructive: Evil is seriously harmful and incompatible with others’ freedom.

2. Unjustified: Evil is without reason, or without an objective explanation, such that it could never be warranted or understood.

Evil is more than just inconvenience or simple harm. It is inherently an existential threat. The freedom of others is intrinsically incompatible with evil, for evil cannot coexist with others, as it’s a destructive force.

By “freedom” I mean the capacity to act and pursue one’s values. We are free to act under the reason-based rules of the moral order, but we can also act outside this framework by choosing to commit evil.

Evil is not only destruction, but morally unjustified destruction, for it lacks a true objective explanation. For instance, killing someone in an accident or while unconscious are not “evil.” These types of killings are still an existential harm to others, but they have explanations. They’re deadly actions, but not evil.

Yet killings motivated by factors like malice or cold indifference are not objective justifications. If someone murdered someone because they didn’t care or even enjoyed it, no moral person could ever accept or even understand such “explanations.”

True evil can never be explained. It rests on no principle or reason that others could recognize.

People may act irrationally, but harmlessly. They might have their own personal quirks or eccentricities. But evil is different: it is destruction without an objective explanation. Evil is not merely harm, but serious destruction entirely outside the bounds of reason

We might understand that people act based on their own impulses or idiosyncrasies, but performing a destructive act for essentially arbitrary destruction makes the act incomprehensible and, therefore, evil.

Let’s take an example. Suppose someone owns a venomous snake and fails to secure its cage. The snake then escapes and kills a child. This is negligence. It’s harmful, criminal, and a threat to the freedom of others, but still not evil. We can understand negligence. A person failed to satisfy their duty for the safety of others. We can hold them morally accountable, but not condemn them as evil.

Now, say someone instead intentionally released the snake to kill the child. Then, that would be evil. Such an act could never be justified. Even if the perpetrator tried to explain this action by claiming they enjoyed watching the child die, or that they felt no concern for the child, these explanations could never be accepted as reasons. No amount of utility could ever warrant acts of evil.

There is a debate on whether evil requires something like sadism or psychopathy. But it doesn’t matter what explanation evil actions have; for it to be evil, they require no objective explanation—no free, conscious person could ever understand them. Evil doesn’t require malice, cruelty, or indifference, for evil is just the absence of a reason.

Evil and the Moral Community

As I’ve argued, morality is that set of principles that is grounded by reason, which would be agreed to in the original position by free parties who accept reason.

To perform an evil act is to breach this moral agreement. It is effectively an act of contractual termination, where one has abandoned the foundations of morality (freedom and reason). As a result, an evil person isn’t dealt with like a free, conscious person is, but as a cancer.

For by committing an act of evil, one threatens the freedom of others without reason. And by such evil, one’s freedom becomes incompatible with the freedom of others. Therefore, the freedom of one who commits evil is itself unjustified—it has no right to exist, since it cannot co-exist.

To freely commit evil is to forfeit one's right to freedom; it is to warrant being expelled from the moral community.

While it seems that people can choose to do evil, if someone truly knew the nature of evil, they could never choose to commit it. No one who knows what evil is could ever perform it, for that would contradict the nature of a rational being.

How Philosophy Can Detect Evil

Evil can never be understood. It is a contradiction; it is a destructive action without explanation. Socrates was right; no one can truly choose to perform a mindlessly destructive act. We can only know the nature of evil choices by understanding what evil is.

Philosophy’s task is to understand and unmask evil. To judge whether an act is evil, we need to ask two questions:

1. Does this person’s freedom threaten the freedom of others?

2. If so, can that threat be morally or rationally justified?

If no, then the act is evil. And when evil is given freedom, we invite chaos. For freedom unbound by reason is chaos.

Evil thrives outside of reason. Philosophy can destroy it by subjecting evil to reason. In fact, the greatest value of philosophy is understanding and defeating evil. If anyone were to ask what philosophy is good for, stopping evil is a worthy answer.