This is prompted by a Tolkien passage that always struck me as, well, foreign:
I read this (and, I think, other passages elsewhere in the LotR oeuvre that I can’t recall now) as Tolkien saying that service to another is good in and of itself.
Now, as a red-blooded 'Merican, I don’t normally think of serving another as being good. My knee-jerk reaction is that NO ONE should have to serve anyone else–that’s aristocratic/classist/master-slave tripe that we did away with long ago.
But we regularly speak of the virtues of “public service” (and I don’t just mean working for the government, but volunteering for charity, etc.). But to my thinking, those sorts of things aren’t necessarily “serving another” so much as “pitching in together.” People pitch in to help their neighbors pick up the pieces after a house is destroyed by fire, or a loved one dies; they pitch in to clean trash from roadsides (where it’s not being picked up by people doing court-ordered “community service”, another “service” entirely).
But serving another–like being the secretary to a business exec or the president, or being someone’s housekeeper, is just a job, and neither good nor bad; actually, it’s often considered “lowly” in the scheme of things (the value of good secretaries, Secretaries, and housekeepers aside). Most people want to be the boss, or at least be their own boss (self-employed).
So does serving another make you a better person, in and of itself? Were Goering and Goebbels better than Hitler, because they served him?
No; it can even make you worse. If you do evil and claim you were doing you master’s bidding / just following orders, that means you add moral cowardice on top of whater evil you just committed.
I read this differently then you. I read it as meaning that the person serving is only less evil (or maybe substitute “responsible”) because they aren’t at the top of the chain of command. At least theoretically, in the military and in business, the person at the top is responsible for everything that is done below them in the chain.
In my opinion, voluntary service to another is a good in and of itself. By serving another, you increase his freedom to do good or evil. Whether the one you serve does good or evil is irrelevant, for increasing another’s freedom is the most universal definition of good.
Involuntary service on the other hand, is neither good nor evil for the one who serves (for you have no choice), but for the master, it is the definition of evil. To compell another to do your bidding, thereby depriving him of his freedom, is the most universal definition of evil. As a special case, killing another is a maximal evil because it deprives him of all further choice.
In the OP example, Sauron is less evil than his master only because he increases his master’s freedom. One strongly suspects that Sauron only serves his master because he believes his master will choose evil. Never-the-less, Sauron’s service must provide his master with greater freedom, and a greater opportunity to do good. But naturally, as Sauron intends, his master chooses only the most evil path.
On the other hand, in part, Sauron’s service is not service, because his evil inclinations reinforce the evil inclinations of his master. Sauron tempts his master to choose only evil, and in so much as Sauron’s temptation clouds his master’s mind removing any notion that he has a choice but to do evil, Sauron is not serving his master, but compelling him to do evil. Sauron’s service is partially a form of control.
If you serve someone who is in pain or turmoil that is automatically good. Not just because it is ethical but because it has numerous benefits including a longer lifespan and more positive emotions in life.
However we all serve each other in a more meaningless, selfish, expected way. I’m assuming it is only the altruistic, selfless, unexpected service that offers benefits to self and others. There would be no economy without service as someone has to buy your products. The farmer who farms the coffee beans and the trucker who transports it serves the boss just as much as the secretary who makes it for him. However anonymously buying coffee for a poor person at a coffee shop who can’t afford their own would be a meaningful form of service.
Yes, I think they were. Of course, they would have been even better if they hadn’t served them and hadn’t done evil. But loyalty is a virtue. It’s not the only virtue, and having loyalty doesn’t make other things you do ok…Goering and Goebbels, for example, were still evil. I don’t know if that makes sense.
Loyalty is neither a virtue nor a vice, simply a quality. Being loyal to an evil cause is still evil. Rommel and Robert E. Lee are historical examples of people helping evil causes out of a pathological level of loyalty.
I totally disagree. That’s pretty much like saying honesty is neither a virtue nor a vice, because telling the truth to an evil person is evil. It sets up a dichotomy between “evil people” and “good people” that assumes that some people don’t have the freedom to be good. As soon as you assume that some people are just inherantly evil, and you can treat them differently because of that, you have crossed the line into evil yourself. You’re assuming they have no freedom, which is next in line to actually depriving them of their freedom.
Now, if you are loyal to a cause that is fundimentally evil, you may find yourself in situations where the only way to aid your cause is to make evil choices. In these situations, disloyalty may be the lesser of two evils – you shouldn’t have allied yourself with an evil cause in the first place; that was your sin. But that doesn’t mean that loyalty has no virtue.
Yes it is. Helping evil people is evil, and the truth is useful. They should be given none, unless believing lies is the source of their evil.
:dubious: Where in the world did I imply any of that ? !
No, loyalty to an evil cause is evil in itself. Mind you, quite often it’s a matter of the follower being a fool, rather than personally evil. It’s not like evil leaders never lie, after all.
An interesting thought. What about freeing an evil person from his just imprisonment (i.e., bustin’ hi out of jail), so that he is free to harm others again?
Busting someone out of jail removes the choice of those who imprison him. Imprisoning a criminal in the first place is evil, but adding one evil to another is no remedy. But that sidesteps the crux of your counter-example, which is a strong argument. The question is, when is it morally justified to restrict someone’s freedom to prevent them from doing evil. Should you tackle a mad man who is about to launch nuclear armageddon?
The answer is that people, because they are finite, mortal, and weak, all have a breaking point. There is a point at which they are no longer able to do good, and they resort to evil because the consequences for an act of good are more than they can allow. We imprison rapists and child molesters because we can’t tolerate their freedom. What rapists and child molesters do is evil, but when we imprison them, that is also evil. The lesser of two evils, but evil none the less. Our finiteness and weakness forces us to make these compromises. In a perfect world, the rapists and child molesters could exercise their freedom without impinging on the freedom of their victims. Our inherant limitations force us to counter evil with evil. But we should recognize when we do evil, even if it is for a cause. We should feel guilty about imprisoning those people. Their choices are no less important than ours. We should recognize that the only reason why we are making the choice to imprison them, and they are not making the choice to rape someone, is that we are in a position of power. That in and of it self gives us no moral authority.
I would feel remiss not mentioning that the vast majority of people in prison are there for crimes that have little to do with morality, e.g. minor drug offenses.
By lying to an evil person, you aim to restrict their choices. You aim to direct their thought in a direction of your choosing. What gives you the moral authority to do that? Shouldn’t people make their own decisions? What makes you so sure that you are not the evil one? Certainly that you are so weak that you have to lie to achieve your goals, instead of letting the truth play out in the short term. In the long-term, the truth will come to light, and then whoever remains will have to repair the damage caused by your lie, right the wrongs caused by your lie. When you employ tactics like that, you make the case that your enemy ought to be the victor. And what if neither side can win without lies? Then perhaps they should admit their weakness, admit their impotence to destroy the other, and instead reach an honest peaceful accord?
Yes, and what if your leader has lied to you? Perhaps if you’d told the truth to your enemy, he could point out the flaws in your leader’s lie, and then the two of you would know the real enemies.
My own judgment. At some point, you need to stop relying on mindless rules like “never lie” and make your own decision. The real world is too complex, too messy for a rigid set of rules to cover.
Most people are weak. I’m not a president or a general or wealthy or Superman. The world is full of people and things that could roll right over me. Mabye it’s sometimes necessary to be a martyr, but usually it’s just bad strategy.
Assuming it caused damage, and assuming that the damage it caused should be repaired, and not widened and deepened.
Oh, that’s just garbage. If my lie to a Nazi spares some Jew from death, that doesn’t make genocide any more noble. There are FAR more important things in the world than a shallow sense of moral superiority, especially if you send other people to their death to get it.
Or perhaps one side just won’t care, and keep the conflict going. Beside, why do you assume that telling the truth makes you nice ? The truth might be “I’m going to kill you, rape your wife and sell your children as dog food ! !”.
