Man between good and evil

Sufism affirms that evil is deception, and adopts the same view of good sometimes, but it still maintains that reality in its entirety is good. It can be seen in Heraclitus both propositions: “The good and the bad are one,” and he says again, “Everything is just, good, and right with God, but man holds some things wrong and some right.” Spinoza has a similar dual position to this except that he uses the word “perfection” when he wants to talk about something beyond the abstract human good. “By reality and perfection I mean the same thing,” he says. But in another place we find the following definition: “I will mean by good what we are certain of its usefulness to us.” Therefore, perfection belongs to reality as part of its nature, while goodness is relative, depends on us and our needs and disappears in impartial scrutiny. I think that something like this differentiation is inevitable in order to understand the ethical perspective of Sufism: There is a lower worldly kind of good and evil that divides the world of phenomena into what appear to be conflicting parts; But there is also a higher kind, a kind of inner good that belongs to reality and is not opposed to the evil associated with it of any kind.

It is difficult to make a rational defense of this position without realizing that good and evil are subjective, that good is just a feeling we have about it, and evil is just another kind of feeling we have about it as well. It is necessary to have the ability to differentiate between good and evil, or at least the best and worst in our practical life, where we must exercise the choice between two possible actions, and prefer this over that. But this distinction, like anything about action, belongs to what mysticism considers to be the realm of illusion, even if it is simply related to time in the first place. In our contemplative life, where action is unnecessary, one can be neutral and transcend the moral ambivalence that action demands, provided we only remain neutral. Then we can be content to say that the good and the bad of actions are illusions. But if we see that the world is worthy of love and sanctification, as we must if we have a mystical outlook, then we see:

"Earth

And everything that falls on him...

shrouded in celestial light”*

We will be able to say that there is a higher good for that act, and that this higher good belongs to the whole world as it really is. In this way, the dual behavior and apparent vacillation of Sufism is understandable and justified.

The possibility of this universal joy and love in all that is, is of the utmost importance for the conduct and happiness of life, and it confers invaluable value to the mystical sense far from any of the dogmas that can be built upon it. But if we are not going to be led by false beliefs, it is necessary to comprehend what is manifested by the mystical sense. It shows the possibility of human nature—the possibility of a life nobler, happier and freer than any of the other avenues that can be attained, but it says nothing of the nonhuman, or of the nature of the universe in general. Good and evil, and even the supreme good that Sufism finds everywhere, are reflections of our feelings on other things, and are not part of the substance of things as they are. Therefore, a neutral contemplation, free from all preoccupations with oneself, would not judge things for good or evil, although it could very easily be combined with that universal sense of love that leads the mystic to say that the whole world is good.

The philosophy of evolution, through the formula of ascension, is connected with the duality of the worst and the best, and therefore it does not only obscure the formula of scrutiny that rejects good and evil as a whole from its beholder, but also the mysticism that believes in the existence of good in all things. In this way, the difference between good and evil in this philosophy becomes arbitrary, like time, and a progression of thought concludes action and its selectivity. It seems that good and evil, like time, are neither general nor essential in the world of thought, but rather late and specialized elements within the intellectual hierarchy.

Although, as we have seen, mysticism can be interpreted as agreeing to the view that good and evil are not intellectual essentials, we must admit that we are no longer in verbal agreement with most of the great philosophers and religious teachers of the past. I do believe, however, that extracting moral considerations from philosophy is a scientifically necessary - though what I say would seem conflicting - and a moral advance.

The hope of satisfying our most human desires--the hope of showing that the world possesses this or that desirable moral quality--is not, I see, a scientific philosophy that can do anything and whatever to satisfy it. The difference between a good and a bad world is a difference in certain properties of certain things that exist in those worlds: it is not an abstract difference when it comes to philosophy. Love and hate, for example, are moral opposites, but in philosophy they are two closely related behaviors toward matter. The structure and general form of these two behaviors that constitute a mental phenomenon is a philosophical dilemma, but the difference between love and hate is not a difference in structure or formula, and therefore they belong to specialized psychology rather than philosophy. Thus the moral concerns that have inspired philosophers must remain in the background: a kind of moral interest can inspire a whole study, but it must not meddle in the details or be expected to be among the particular results sought.

If at first sight this perspective seems depressing, we can remind ourselves that a similar change is inevitable in all other sciences. It does not require the physicist and chemist to prove the moral significance of its ions and atoms; A biologist is not expected to prove the usefulness of the plants and animals he has described. This was not the case in ages before science. Astronomy, for example, was studied because men believed in astrology: the motion of the planets was thought to have a very important influence on human life. It is likely that when this belief eroded and a lukewarm study of astronomy began, many who saw astrology as amazingly glamorous decided that astronomy was not worth studying for its insignificant benefit to man. Physics, in Plato's Timaeus for example, is full of moral considerations: showing that the earth is worthy is a crucial part of its purpose. On the contrary, the contemporary physicist, though he has not the slightest desire to deny that the Earth is valued, is as unconcerned as a physicist with its moral character: he is interested only in discovering facts, not in consideration of whether those facts are good or bad. The scientific conduct of psychology is more modern and difficult than that of the physical sciences: it is natural to look at human nature in terms of good and bad, and therefore everything that is important in practice is also important in theory. It was only during the last century that morally neutral psychology began to grow, and here too, moral neutrality was essential to scientific success.

To this very moment, moral neutrality has rarely been pursued or almost achieved in philosophy. Men remembered their wishes and judged philosophies by their relation to those wishes. Philosophy has been a haven for the belief driven by certain sciences that considerations of good and evil must provide a key to understanding the world. But even by this last resort, if philosophy emerges from being a series of satisfying dreams, this belief must be carried forward. It is a given that happiness does not come to those who seek it directly; And it seems to be right for the good, too. Theoretically and under any circumstance, those who forget the good and the bad and only seek to know the facts are more likely to get the good than those who look at the world through the camouflaged medium of their own desires