Nicoline van Harskamp - DeLVe | Institute for Duration, Location and ...

GDJE SE SVE TEK TREBA DOGODITI / WHERE EVERYTHING IS YET TO HAPPEN
specific interplay between conflicting goods and degrees of evil. 19
But Foucault does not explain how evil could be understood in terms of an economy. The
source of this understanding is the teaching of St. Augustine. In early Christian theology
evil is no longer seen as the equal opposite of good. In the course of his break from Manichaeism,
St. Augustine stopped seeing evil as glamorously demonic but rather merely as
“the absence of good”, a deficiency of being that has no standing by itself. Evil is relative
and differential, an obstacle to perfection, that which stands between man and the good.
Because evil is not absolute, demonic or perfect it is forever on a scale of less and more,
lesser and greater.
It is through this conception of evil that St. Augustine addressed the problem of the
lesser evil. For Augustine, the lesser evil is not permissible, as it clearly violates the Pauline
principle ‘do no evil that good may come’. It could however be tolerated in certain
circumstances. For the “lesser evil” to be tolerated the situation has to be defined in such
a way that a possible resultant evil outcome is a necessary and unavoidable consequence
of the performance of individual and collective duties.
In his economy of lesser and greater evils, it is better to tolerate prostitutes in society
than to risk adultery, and it is better to kill an assailant before he may kill an innocent
traveler. 20 In this way the principle of the “lesser evil” is conflated with the concept of
preemption, and Augustine’s rationale for preemption is one of justice. Even war could
be just under certain conditions. Under the principles of just war, a war should be considered
‘just’ if those waging it do so with the intention of doing good or pursuing a just
purpose (such as, centuries later, the crusades), or with a desire to reach peace rather
than wage wars for one’s own gain or as an exercise of power. Furthermore, just wars
must be waged by properly instituted authorities of organized arms.
It is thus not coincidental that the discourse of the lesser evil developed at a time when
the Christian church acquired real appetite and the real ability to exercise political and
military power. Augustine, a fourth-century Christian, was teaching at the time Christianity
had acquired the power to govern larger societies, and tried to reconcile Christian
pacifism with the world of politics and the obligations of Roman citizens.
Importantly, Augustine saw the lessening of evil as part of a general inclination to pursue
the good and a quest for transformation. Unlike in the tradition of liberal ethics that
invoked him, in Augustine’s teachings progress towards a lesser imperfection is not
produced by or content with a lesser imperfection. Only the desire for perfection could
destroy in the soul these aspects of the evil that defile it. 21 This progress – the lessening
of evil – is the only way towards perfection and the ultimate transformation of the
kingdom from earth to heaven. The individual must strive for the kind of perfection that
would put her closer to God, overreach the earthly and thereby help transform it.
The general aspects of the problem of the lesser evil are also articulated in other theological
discussions about the economic basis of divine government – the question of the
origins and management of evil. It addressed the perennial question of theological phi-