What Influences One's Definition of Evil: Guzman and Pearson's Concept

On Thursday, November 7th, my local museum, International Museum of Art and Science held a presentation given by Dr. Dahila Guzman and Dr. Thomas Pearson over the philosophical concepts of evil. These two individuals are two extraordinary educated professors in philosophy at the nearest university, the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley. Since they were speaking over a philosophical view of evil, they intended the audience to have an interest in philosophy and possibly even a very limited knowledge on philosophical views such as evil, yet welcomed teenagers from South Texas Academy for Health Professions. They helped to spread and educate others over the definition of evil and how it is a very philosophical concept since evil is defined on a theoretical basis. They incorporated a few successful appeals to build a stronger connection with the audience such as  mentioning the idea of high divine power and adding commentary about mass genocide, however, it seemed to fail in establishing a trustful relationship with the audience.

At the beginning of the presentation, Dr. Pearson mentioned how the definition of evil can be impacted as well as contradicted through your belief of divine power. He mentioned how God is well known for being “omnipotent, omnibenevolence, omniscient, and omnipresent.”With the repetition of “God is..” he went on to say “God is all-powerful; God is all-loving; God is all-knowing; God is all present.” He continues his presentation by stating that the concept of evil must contradict these four words at some point. He challenged the audience to question and reflect their belief that their higher power cannot have these three characteristics and still have evil among us. He challenges our minds to understand how “IF GOD IS.. all loving how come he is able to be okay with it if he is also all-knowing and knew that evil would soon be upon you. He continued to challenge the four omni-’s creating a slight confusion on our prior knowledge and believe that evil is an ongoing conviction. He ends the discussion on divine powers after mentioning how many believe God is responsible for the being of evil through the creation of the devil and how God must then coexist with evil. Lastly, the concept of categorizing the two evils is introduced: moral/ethical evil vs. natural evil. He states examples for both beginnings with how ethical evil seems to be horrible actions done with intention and how natural evil is how the natural world brings suffering through natural events. He establishes a stronger connection with the audience since they are knowledgable and have experienced or seen both these classifications. The speaker’s contribution of ethical appeals strongly suited the topic and allowed for that vital early connection in the presentation between themselves and the audience.

Both speakers integrated appeals to the audience’s emotions. Especially Dr. Guzman mentioned particular people who had  experienced evil directly and published their encounters. One of the examples she mentioned to build a stronger connection with the audience was an author Hannah Arendt. She uses her well-known story to create emotion within the audience since Arendt was sent by the Newyorker to write journals over the trial of Adolf Eichmann. She analyzed how he simply convicted evil actions but never held evil intentions. He justified his malicious work by simply stating that these acts were his occupation and what sustained his family. The audience’s reaction was conflicted since he was the one to kill people, yet he never meant to do any harm and was blinded by the fact that it took those peculiar acts to get food on the table. This brought up the question, “So what boundaries are established among the definition of evil?” and the frustration of not being able to successfully define evil. This brought the urge to figure out this philosophical topic. It seemed to now mentally engage the audience into this challenge philosophers have been faced with: defining evil.

Lastly, as I analyzed this presentation I was able to notice that this presentation lacked logical appeals. We were given the information on knowing that the speakers were well educated only from their introduction given by a staff member of the museum and the speakers mentioning their students. However, they lacked the facts given behind evil. This may have occurred since philosophy does not always have any factual structure but rather is a theoretical study. The structure of this presentation was still a bit efficient since they were able to appeal to the audience through the usage of a higher power and non-fiction entries.

Overall, Dr. Pearson and Dr. Guzman designed a well-developed presentation. Their argument was well developed and understandable for many people whether not very knowledgable in philosophy or a well-educated philosopher. They were able to reach a large spectrum of people through emotional and ethical appeals which made up for the lack of logical appeals established.