Why Bad Things Happen to Good People
“Why do bad things happen to good people?” This is one of those questions that is often asked but rarely comprehensively answered or seriously thought about. I’d like to take a stab at it.
Yesterday I made the argument that core of the modern left’s political philosophy, that all people are worthy of equal concern, is reliant on determinism. I pointed out that this means that determinism is not merely an innocuous plaything for armchair philosophers, but a substantive moral position in its own right. This obliges us to take it out of its philosophical box and bring our worldview into consistency with it. I then posed two questions, which I intend to attempt to answer today:
Often historical figures are accused of having a “might makes right” attitude. The idea being that the one with superior military might is the one who is morally right. The Romans used the line “vae victus”, or “woe to the vanquished”. In moral philosophy, this is usually deemed a fallacy. Just because one is the stronger does not necessarily mean that one has ethical truth on one’s side. The strong have, throughout history, done many terrible things. However, I have begun to see a modern form of the same argument used in today’s society, and this I find very troubling.