Choice between two evils: what is this choice?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:46

Choosing is always difficult. And even more so if you have to choose between two evils. Everyone knows this catchphrase. It will be discussed in our article.

Evil. What is it?

Strange statement of the question - to choose between two evils. What is so valuable in evil? In fact, people are accustomed in their lives to overcome obstacles, solve problems and deal with difficulties. Evil is a general concept that combines any difficulties, problems and ups and downs that naturally arise.

It can be some kind of danger of any origin, but it does not have to be life threatening. That is, evil in a well-known phraseological unit is called everything that is not pleasant and comfortable for a person.

Historical digression

From history it becomes clear that for a long time people have been choosing from several evils, that they began to make such a decision in ancient times. The wording of the phrase had various variations.

Aristotle (ancient Greece, 384 BC) wrote in his work "Nicomachean Ethics" about the need to choose "the lesser of evils".

It is known that Cicero, who also lived BC (43), wrote that it is important to choose the lesser of evils and find something good in it (the work "On Duties").

Available from the Britishan ancient proverb, here is its approximate translation - "Of two negative options, you need to choose the one that is less bad."

Russian Tsar Peter I (in 1711) used the expression "choose the lesser of two evils" in one of his letters to Apraksin, the Russian military leader.

Also, the proverb about the choice of two evils is in Dahl's Russian dictionary (1853).

Philosophical approach

Why do you need to accept evil? The fact is that from a philosophical point of view, a person always has a choice. There are no hopeless situations at all.

Ancient wisdom brought us the idea of the power of the human mind. He is able to make decisions in his favor (for survival) in any situation. And if there are several evils, what can prevent the brain from choosing? No, that's the law of nature. Otherwise, man as a species would have disappeared long ago, like many living organisms that previously existed on Earth.

There are options for reasoning about the existence of opportunities to "turn evil into good", "make plus out of minus" and others. These attempts fall into the same category of choosing from evils.

Examples from the classics

Russian writers used the proverb in their works. For example, A. N. Ostrovsky (the work "Late Love") put into the mouth of his heroine: "From the worst, you need to choose what is better."

The writer A. Tolstoy in his work about the death of Tsar Ivan the Terrible wrote that no one can doubt to take the lesser of two threatening evils, what isimpossible and "we have no choice".