Responses to Evil, Even as It Has Grown within Social Structures

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 12 Jan 2026

Prof. Antonino Drago – TRANSCEND Media Service

Abandoning a religious ethic of absolute commandments emanating from a higher Being and abandoning the concept of ethics as determined by nature itself, human reason has sought a new basis for ethics in a philosophical ontology (such as that of an Olympus of virtues assumed as axioms, as in MacIntyre, or a new ontology, such as in Jonas’ ethics) from which to deduce the best personal behaviors. However, the fundamental failure of all past ethics—both religious and rational, with the exceptions of Nussbaum and Sen—has been their silence on the evil represented by social structures. Only Lanza del Vasto (1901-1981; LdV) suggested an ethics that remedied this general failure, describing both the evil that grows from the individual to social life and the positive personal response to it. His ethical theses are listed below.

i) Human behavior is essentially ambiguous. Rational interpretations range from a person’s essentially positive nature (then misled by social life: Rousseau) to an essentially negative nature (Hobbes). Ancient Jewish religion represented this ambiguity through Genesis 3 (original sin). Lanza del Vasto’s book (1959, chap. 1) interprets it as a decline from contemplative knowledge into calculating knowledge aimed at achieving selfish advantages. Regarding interpersonal relationships, the nature of original sin is essentially social and is committed by everyone at all times.

ii) Evil actions are those commonly denied by all current state legislations around the world. In reality, they articulate the transgressions of the social commandments of the Decalogue of the three Abrahamic religions. There are essentially four commandments: 1. You shall not kill. 2. You shall not commit adultery [= treason] (including its internalized version, the tenth Christian commandment). 3. You shall not bear false 4. You shall not steal (including its internalized version, the ninth Christian commandment).

iii) The evil that grows in social life is described by LdV essentially through two steps. As a first step, the multiple transgressions of the above commandments, supported by the unconscious behavior of honest people, give rise to four scourges that LdV recognizes in those “man-made” among the scourges described by Revelation 6: 1) Wars. 2) Sedition or violent revolution. 3) Servitude. 4) Misery. They correspond one for one to the previous personal transgressions.

iv) The second step of this growth of evil is global evil, generated by universal actions prompted by the profound motivation generated by the selfish calculation of knowledge. The merit of Jonas’ ethics is that he recognized the global evil generated by the social power of technology; at present it threats humanity’s physical suicide. However, he ignored humanity’s spiritual and political suicide and did not detail the origin and social pathways leading to suicide. Revelation 13 depicts global evil as two Beasts dominating humanity, one representing the hubris of the pursuit of mythical goals representing actual infinity and the other leading to organizing humans according to the material happiness of total servitude; LdV interpreted these two Beasts as modern science and technology. For example, AI can both generate complete domination over all humanity through robots and lead each of the four plagues to humanity’s suicide.

v) What response to social evils? In retrospect, Marx’s structural analysis of evil in society considered only two plagues, Misery and Servitude; his response was to apply another plague: Sedition and/or violent revolution. Liberation Theology considered the same two plagues as Marxism, Misery and Servitude, and suggested the other two plagues as a response: Sedition/revolution plus the possible (nuclear) War waged by socialist countries against capitalist countries. Nussbaum’s ethics sought to address structural evils through human rights politics, but this politics is a mere extension of interpersonal ethics and therefore incapable of responding, for example, to War and technological threats. Sen’s ethics of justice addresses the two plagues of Misery and Servitude, but says nothing about the other two plagues. In chapter 5 of the aforementioned book, LdV indicates the Beatitudes as the positive ethical attitude. They represent the responses to the evil indicated not by the transgressions of the four commandments, but by the social evil of the four scourges: the first four Beatitudes represent internal reactions to them (although in the order 4-2-1-3), and the second four (provided the sixth is completed with appropriate words) social responses; in other words, each Beatitude is the promise that, by countering each scourge with a response coming from within, it will be transcended. The Beatitudes are therefore paraphrased as follows: Against Poverty, blessed are the wise persons who voluntarily choose poverty, for their life is the true human life. Against Sedition, blessed are those who mourn, for they will be consoled by the coming events. Against War, blessed are the mites, for they will form the basis of social life. Against Slavery, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satiated by the coming social upheavals. Against Misery, blessed are those who yield to mercy, for they in turn will receive mercy. Against Sedition, blessed are those who engage in social issues with a pure heart, for they will be able to see the divine in people. Against War, blessed are those who are able to make peace with others, for their lives will be defined as superhuman. Against Servitude, blessed are those who fight injustice while still awaiting persecution, for they live a full life. All these responses represent a complete policy of conscientious objection and civil disobedience.

vi) What response to global evil? In retrospect, both Marx’s theory and Liberation Theology shared the Western faith in the progress of Science and Technology. Both Nussbaum’s and Sen’s ethics do not address this. The positive ethical response to the global evil of the two Beasts is suggested by Revelation itself: “666.” Due to the lack of punctuation in ancient writing, LdV interpreted it as a mathematical series: “666…”. Therefore, he identifies the first Beast with modern mathematics and therefore, more generally, with modern science, which is essentially based on it. In other words, “666…” manifests the profound motivation to commit evil in pursuit of actual infinity. LdV interpreted the second Beast as the Machine; its evil consists in organizing human life as an artificial mechanism. The response to both Beasts is to reintroduce the capacity for choice into them by restoring pluralism within science and technology (and also in social life). Let us remark that falsely science presents itself as a unitary enterprise; finally, its historical development has revealed fundamental dichotomies. In Logic: intuitionist logic vs. classical logic; in Mathematics: constructive mathematics vs. classical mathematics; in Physics: relativity vs. quantum theory; in Biology: structuralism vs. functionalism; In social theory: Anthropology vs. Sociology; etc. Furthermore, the intelligent response to the global energy planning policy of the 1970s (an initial attempt by the United States to achieve global domination through the control of nuclear energy in all countries) was to successfully oppose a scientific principle, the second of thermodynamics (supported by the civil disobedience of a popular movement): another organization of national energy planning was possible.

Currently, the greatest social threat to humanity is AI. In light of the above-mentioned LdV ethics, the positive responses are as follows: 1) subject AI to the personal harm of state legislation, 2) prevent (through a strengthened UN) its ability to augment every current scourge facing humanity, and 3) deny (again through global political bodies) its responsibility for any human life, except in a medical context.

References:

Drago A. (2001), “The birth of an alternative mechanics: Leibniz’ principle of sufficient reason”, in H. Poser et al. (eds.): Leibniz-Kongress. Nihil Sine Ratione, Berlin, Druckhaus Berlin-Mitte, vol. 1, pp. 322-330.

Drago A. (2015), “Lanza del Vasto’s Structural Ethics on Peace and War”, Ramon Llull Journal of Applied Ethics, 6, pp. 67-80.

Lanza del Vasto (1959), Les Quatre Fléaux, Paris: Denoël (excerpts in Make Straight the Way to Our Lord, New York: Knopf, 1974).

Jonas H. (1984), The Imperative of Responsibility – In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age, Chicago: University of Chicago P.

MacIntyre A. (2007), A Study in Moral Theory, Reading: Notre Dame Univ. P.

Nussbaum M.C. (2009) The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, Princeton: Princeton U.P.

Sen A. (1987), On Ethics and Economics, Oxford: Oxford U.P.

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Prof. Antonino Drago: University “Federico II” of Naples, Italy and a member of the TRANSCEND Network. Allied of Ark Community, he teaches at the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU. Master degree in physics (University of Pisa 1961), a follower of the Community of the Ark of Gandhi’s Italian disciple, Lanza del Vasto, a conscientious objector, a participant in the Italian campaigns for conscientious objection (1964-1972) and the campaign for refusing to pay taxes to finance military expenditure (1983-2000). Owing to his long experience in these activities and his writings on these subjects, he was asked by the University of Pisa to teach Nonviolent Popular Defense in the curriculum of “Science for Peace” (from 2001 to 2012) and also Peacebuilding and Peacekeeping (2009-2013. Then by the University of Florence to teach History and Techniques of Nonviolence in the curriculum of “Operations of Peace” (2004-2010). Drago was the first president of the Italian Ministerial Committee for Promoting Unarmed and Nonviolent Civil Defense (2004-2005). drago@unina.it.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 12 Jan 2026.

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