The Currency of Evil

On a lovely afternoon Nosher and I were sat on our old deckchairs in the warm sunshine, enjoying a glass of chilled fruit juice from the solar-powered refridgerator in Nosher's old shed.
'It occured to me' said Nosher 'that the discussion we had yesterday about Britain being the home of bad manners has some relevance to our earlier discussion on the idea of a moral economy.'
'Very much so' I replied, wondering where Nosher was going with this.
'Well, I can see that people who are rude and inconsiderate are contributing negatively to the moral economy' he continued 'and that they are exploiting the tolerance and goodwill of others - but what about the problem of evil - how does that come into it? Are ill-mannered people evil?'
'Evil is a concept with doubtful application' I explained 'some religious believers take the view that Evil is some kind of entity in the world, directly opposed to Good; others think it is merely the absence of Good. I'm not sure whether we need the concept of evil in order to sustain the moral economy.'
'But surely you need some kind of concept of the moral status of acts and events that contribute negatively to the moral economy?' queried Nosher.
'Of course: but all we need is the concept of something that undermines or damages the fundamental values that underpin a morally healthy civilised society, such as basic human values and rights, plus respect and consideration for one's fellows. I don't think we need to label conduct which transgresses these values and rights "evil", although we may wish to label them "bad" in the same way that we label the morally-positive conduct "good".'
'So what should our society be teaching children about the idea of a moral economy?' Nosher persisted.
'From the earliest age children should be taught that everything they do (and sometimes don't do) can have an impact upon others, and to behave with respect and consideration for others - in other words as a morally-responsible being - one should take care to maximise the good that comes of one's actions and at the very least minimise or prevent any possible bad consequences. The idea should be that if one does not do this, there is no moral basis for demanding the same of others.'
Nosher thought on this for a moment. Then he said:
'So are you saying that the enjoyment of rights is dependent upon observing concomitant responsibilities?'
'To a certain extent, yes, that is the case' I confirmed 'an individual who transgresses the rights of others has created a situation where others have a moral right to take action to put matters right, and that may involve imposing upon the transgressor some restriction on the freedom he or she enjoys, and also upon the nature and extent of the demands he or she can make upon others.'
'Would that involve the transgressor forfeiting their human rights?'
'Yes, it might, but which rights and to what extent would be an extremely complex issue' I replied. 'The limiting case, in theory and practice, would be forfeiting the right to life, as in the imposition of the death penalty. Why human rights lawyers get all steamed up about the forfeiture of less fundamental human rights has more to do with legal technicalities and an over-reliance on the notion that no state or civil authority should have the power to deny us anything other than our freedom as punishments for transgressions. But the issues are such that to take this monovalent view is to destroy the essential subtlety of the moral economy, which functions every day at an informal level whether or not lawyers are involved. That's what society needs to grasp, and that's what we all need to understand.'
Nosher ruminated upon this for a while. Then he declared:
'Well, until more people in the Dis-United Kingdom grasp this, Britain will continue to be the home of bad manners.'
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