To Deal with Dracula, Don’t Become Mr. Hyde

War, it is said, is not an intrinsic evil. What, exactly, do people think this means? Do we want to say that any act of war, no matter how horrible and vile it is, because it is an act of war, is now less evil than the act of lying (which is an intrinsic evil)? In his war efforts, could Hitler argue that he really wasn’t that bad? Could Lenin be allowed to say that the Communist Revolution in Russia was fine, because it was a civil war, and we really can’t judge the ethics of war? If one views a mother is at war with their child, does it make abortion somehow less evil?

Obviously, the answer is no. Whether or not a thing is evil in and of itself is different from the quality of evil, once a thing is recognized as evil. Just because a war is not necessarily evil does not mean a given war is not worse, more evil, than something which is recognized as evil.

Everything, even things which are intrinsically evil, are done according to some moral scale which sees a good in place of the evil. What is it that makes people do evil? What good is it that they are trying achieve? Look for that, and address it. Transform the evil from within. That’s the way to conversion.

Any other reaction, you end up making a monster out of yourself.