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Full Idea
The view that evil is an illusion is self-refuting: that is, if there is no evil, the illusion that there is evil is certainly evil.
Gist of Idea
Evil can't be an illusion, because then the illusion that there is evil would be evil
Source
Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], 2)
Book Ref
'Questions of Time and Tense', ed/tr. Le Poidevin,R [OUP 2002], p.4
A Reaction
[The idea comes from McTaggart, and Le Poidevin is quoting Dummett on it]
15186 | In the tenseless view, all times are equally real, so statements of the future have truth-values [Le Poidevin] |
15187 | It is claimed that the tense view entails the unreality of both future and past [Le Poidevin] |
15188 | If things don't persist through time, then change makes no sense [Le Poidevin] |
15189 | Things which have ceased change their A-series position; things that persist change their B-series position [Le Poidevin] |
15191 | At the very least, minds themselves seem to be tensed [Le Poidevin] |
15190 | Evil can't be an illusion, because then the illusion that there is evil would be evil [Le Poidevin] |
15192 | We share a common now, but not a common here [Le Poidevin] |
15193 | The new tenseless theory offers indexical truth-conditions, instead of a reductive analysis [Le Poidevin] |
15195 | If the future is not real, we don't seem to have any obligation to future individuals [Le Poidevin] |
15196 | God being inside or outside of time both raise a group of difficult problems [Le Poidevin] |
15197 | Fiction seems to lack a tensed perspective, and offers an example of tenseless language [Le Poidevin] |