The Temptation of Eve 2 (2017) Dessin par Edwin Loftus

This drawing shows the critical moment when the serpent offers Eve the Forbidden Fruit.
It also celebrates the cute curves and angles common in the youthful bodies of females.
And it symbolically associates this event with the Yin and Yang symbol recognized in various Asian philosophies/religions.
Both of these symbols involve the interplay of dualities in the nature of existence, (or how we think about and experience existence. The Yin and Yang concept and symbol is relatively analogous. Two unlike qualities engage in a constant interplay, displacing each other, while both being elements of the same whole.
In Western tradition the concept of dialectics does not have so clear a symbol, and has become involved in the qualitative issue of Good and Evil in which the dominance of Good over Evil is perceived as the only satisfactory outcome.
The issues around Right and Wrong and how to determine what is which, has been the overriding issue throughout the history of civilization, is the overriding issue today, and appears likely to remain the overriding issue in all future to come.
Among theists, Right and Wrong are usually spelled out in the theology to which they adhere. But this is very less significant among Polytheistic systems and atheistic beliefs. Nonetheless, societies in which these dominate also aspire to establishing universally applicable concept of Right and Wrong, based on election of some deities over others as they effect one's life or, in atheism, the effort to determine a consensus in human opinion about what is Right and Wrong and whether that applies universally.
Jesus is quoted warning against being one of those who, "... can see the mote in another's eye, but cannot see the beam in their own eye." Right and Wrong tends to be relative to the circumstances of each human being and humans tend to be less sympathetic to the conditions of others than to their own conditions.
It would be beneficial to the idea of civilization for each individual to determine what they think is Right and Wrong, but only if they can apply the Kantian concepts of "The Limitations of Self Awareness,' and, 'The Prolegomena to All Future Morality."
Still more important, (perhaps), would be if every human being determined the Epistemologist's challenge; "What do I know and how do I know it?"
This would be important and everyone capable of reading this has already worked through the issues once, during infancy when they were rudely introduced to an objective environment. But few can remember that process of discovery and their formulation of assumptions about the nature and dynamics of reality, because those issues were pondered in a very different system of thinking based on experiential comparisons rather than linguistic symbolism.
This would be important and valuable to us all, but, realistically, few are ever likely to attempt it. Descartes attempted it in his famous; "I think, therefore I am. I can doubt that I am. But I cannot doubt it without thinking." He was applying what is known as an "apriori" test of knowing, (It cannot be doubted without demonstrating its validity).
Put simply; To find a universal sense of Right and Wrong, we would need to have a universally accepted idea of what reality is. But that can't happen if we can't even determine what our own sense of reality is. And that can't happen if we can't determine what our current sense of reality is built upon.
It's quite a conundrum. And to bring this full-circle, remember that the fruit the serpent is offering to Eve is the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, (or Right and Wrong, if you prefer).

Thèmes connexes

MoralityConcensusDualities