Lets make the quote's implicit more explicit.

"To not resist evil is to be an accomplice to it." Thus if we switch, "To not resist good is to be an accomplice to it" still works.

I think this is a fairly accurate statement. If you see evil being done, but do nothing about it when you have the power to, then you are allowing it to happen. Now that doesn't mean you have to stop it right then. You can also be smart about it. If you see a person robbing your neighbor's house, it doesn't mean you have to get your shotgun and go over there. You can call the cops.

If we all did this. We could likely eradicate evil. The same of course applies to letting good happen without you interfering.

“To ignore evil is to be an accomplice to it” — Legato

I believe that is just a colorful way of saying “ignoring evil is bad”. And I don’t think it’s very fruitful to categorically make such a judgement. Judgement should depend on the level of evil and the chances someone has to affect it.

Ignoring a person robbing your neighbor's house → bad.

Ignoring a dictator in a far away country → not bad.

A similar quote is attributed to Einstein: "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."

There is much wisdom in these quotes. They tell us about people and society. Why don't we take more responsibility in standing up to that which causes harm? This is one of the heaviest burdens on my own heart. I have watched intellectuals play abstract games with each other while the civil world burns. They will not take responsibility, they live in a kind of academic utopia of private journals and social clubs. Perhaps the most important contribution of Arendt was her exhortation to intellectuals, their lack of social responsibility leads to the breakdown of democracy and freedom. It's common sense. The masses get hi-jacked by propaganda that they have no defense against. This is not their fault, they don't have the critical education to be able to resist it. Meanwhile the intellectuals, from their Ivory Towers, look down with contempt and the charge of ignorance, which is really nothing more than boasting in their privilege. They are not better, they have just received more benefits from the very society they look down on with contempt. This makes them more responsible, but one almost never sees it, instead intellectuals often use their social benefits to gain a higher standing in society for themselves. I believe this is a new kind of class awareness that has not yet entered into the consciousness of the species. We make many false assumptions about educated people.

Seconded. To ignore evil means to be aware of the evil. And I'll go further. We all need practice in confronting evil. And there is lots of minor evil to be confronted, often mainly as ignorance in practice. With appropriate discretion, also learned through practice, confronting evil is (a) good.

And for most of us, the evil we encounter is our business, not merely in any moral/ethical sense, but usually much more directly, and that because the evil-doer makes it our business, having failed to keep it exclusively his own.

At the same time, confronting does not carry the necessity of preventing because that may not be possible.

Confronting evil is also a positive act in that it establishes limits and boundaries, limiting theirs and possibly expanding your own.

What is a working definition of evil? Any act that diminishes in any sense any person.

Is this a fair judgement? What if one individual’s sense of evil differs from another’s? — Legato

It sounds good as a personal creed, but due to the subjective nature of good and evil it is entirely unworkable beyond that.

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I noticed that you used the term "minor evil." This implies that there are various degrees/shades of evil. If that is the case, then is it possible to be absolutely certain that one person's view of what is good/evil is the same as another person's view? Furthermore, does the surrounding context add or take away meaning to the "evil?"

For example, what was considered evil to most a hundred years ago is no longer considered evil to most now. In the face of a constantly shifting moral compass, is it fair to accuse the silent of being accomplices to evil? During the Salem witch trials, people actively went out and accused people of being witches because the idea that witchcraft=evil was so dominant and they thought they had to do something about evil. Not too long ago homophobia was so prevalent because many people believed that homosexuality=evil. Now if a well-intentioned person had followed that quote and acted on it in some way, would that be good or evil? How about someone that had stayed silent and kept their beliefs to themselves?

Alas people change and society as a whole changes and thankfully this is not the case anymore.

I guess what I'm trying to articulate in my question this: Does this quote take away the neutral position? It has you believe that you are either doing good or doing evil. Is there truly not a neutral stance?

Thank you for your thoughtful response. So if I do nothing in the face of good, it is still considered being an accomplice to good? And by doing the same thing in the face of evil, I am an accomplice to evil? How can the same action have such contrasting interpretations?

Since the idea of good and evil has been ever-changing (refer to my above response to tim wood), how can we judge someone's silent neutrality as being accomplices of evil or good?

But can we truly use it as a creed to live by? Can we really trust our own moral compass? Many people think they are doing good at one point in their life, but later regret their actions after the sands of time shift the moral topography of society.

Personally I feel like there should be a neutral stance....not "you either do good or are an accomplice to evil." That type of mutual exclusivity pushes people into a corner. :(

But can we truly use it as a creed to live by? Can we really trust our own moral compass? — Legato

Though there is value in these questions, you already admit to the existence of destructive harm, so you can keep on playing the abstract game or you can decide how to act to remedy the evil you see. The nature of this thread is a validation of my position. 'I have watched intellectuals play abstract games with each other while the civil world burns. They will not take responsibility...' At what point does this apply to us?

Thanks for your response. I'm not sure I follow. The destructive harm I was referring to was caused by following this quote as a creed and acting on it. What if by trying to remedy the evil I see actually makes things worse? I've been burned many times; whenever I try to shine light into the world, though it seems better at the moment, eventually I am haunted by the shadows that are cast as a result. It's almost as though all I had done was reallocate the evil somewhere else... :(

This is when I truly think it would have been better to have stayed silent. Most of the regrets I have in life are of things I said or did (with the best intentions at that time)....not of things I didn't do. In fact I can't even think of any regret of something I didn't do.

Douglas Hofstadter, in Godel, Escher, Bach... Introduced an acronym, JOOTS, standing for "jump out of the system." And there are (at least) two ways out. 1) to learn what the system is (so as to be able to explicitly jump out of it), and 2) to have one's own system and thereby to be in a perpetual state of always already having jumped out of the system. Most of us, imo, are mostly in #2 in an uncritical and informal kind of way. Thus when there's trouble, sometimes we're confused, even very confused. And sometimes we regard that confusion in others, depending on which way it goes, as heroism or cowardice.

An example: most firemen are members of communities with multiple deep ties to their communities, very often married with children and with other family and community commitments. In many cases these firemen have given pledges of such a nature that all that is left for their profession of fire fighting is the commitment to exercise professional judgment based on knowledge and expertise. But what happens all too often? A fireman or men are killed because they crossed the boundary of professional competence, and in so doing, in getting killed, betray every other commitment, those other commitments being usually prior and absolute. That is, in having made those prior commitments, they cannot give nor should honor nor be held to honor any subsequent that is in itself a betrayal. If a married man should not commit adultery: he certainly cannot go and get himself killed.

So if we have our own system, then we ought to be students of it so that we can hope to be not confused when we act. Part of that is self-legislating for ourselves what evil is. I do not mean reinventing the wheel, but rather accepting what should be accepted and making it one's own: doing the best one can. By "minor evil," I mean greater or lesser in terms of immediate consequence. @Philosophim gets all of this in a simple sentence: "You can also be smart about it."

I like the quote often attributed to Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

I think this is true, at least in the common sense of the term “evil”. Though I suspect some philosophers would justify their waffling and inaction with a stern analysis of what evil means, by then the evil would have prevailed.

The destructive harm I was referring to was caused by following this quote as a creed and acting on it. What if by trying to remedy the evil I see actually makes things worse? — Legato

I wish I had time to give this the response it deserves. This is surely an important question. However, I find it to also be a praxis reducing question... look for qualitative actions that have obtained positive results and try to replicate them. There is a real danger of paralysis, where the abstraction of the question ends up negating the actual world. Intellectuals do this all the time, though I think it is probably a subconscious attempt to evade responsibility. Those that are aware that it's an evasion are truly despicable.

Thank you for your thoughtful response. So if I do nothing in the face of good, it is still considered being an accomplice to good? And by doing the same thing in the face of evil, I am an accomplice to evil? How can the same action have such contrasting interpretations? — Legato

Humans are not fully good or evil. We are a mix. Sometimes we choose evil, sometimes we choose good. I don't see a contrast here, but feel free to point it out if I am missing it.

Since the idea of good and evil has been ever-changing (refer to my above response to tim wood), how can we judge someone's silent neutrality as being accomplices of evil or good? — Legato

The only way to be neutral is to not realize that something is good or evil. In that case, not acting on another person's action, or acting on another's person action would not be a support or fight against good or evil. But if one has knowledge of good and evil, one can no longer be neutral when one sees it in action.

And before you think, "Well I'll just avoid all knowledge then," willful ignorance is often considered evil.

As for good and evil changing throughout history, you might be surprised that not much has changed. Organizations may claim certain things as good or evil, but generally there is an understanding that showing empathy for human beings, defending the weak, and not causing harm for our personal ego are all considered good, while the opposite is evil. Perhaps what is most important is what you consider good and evil in your heart and mind, and living according to that.

I recently came across this quote by Martin Luther King Jr. : “To ignore evil is to be an accomplice to it”

Is this a fair judgement? — Legato

If you are Black and everyone around you ignores the fact that some White supremacists are kicking the living daylight out of you, then ignoring evil is evil.

I think this is where the buck stopped for MLK JR.

It is not a true statement for all possible circumstances.

To ignore evil is to be an accomplice to it — Legato

But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. [7] So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

I guess this poor woman probably didn't get stoned to death.

“To ignore evil is to be an accomplice to it” — Legato

I believe it depends on awareness.
Consider subject A,B and C.
Subject A and C have a strong grasp of “good/morality and it’s contrasting state “evil/immorality”
Subject B has no grasp of either - he is morally ignorant and can’t discriminate between the two. He doesn’t know what causes harm and what causes benefit.

A chooses to behave/act/be good and moral while C chooses to behave evil/immorally.
If C manipulates B into being evil can we say B is evil? I don’t think so because he is ignorant and doesn’t know. It’s as if a young child were asked to push their mother off balance where she subsequently dies. The child didn’t know it would cause harm/ didn’t understand the consequences

Similarly if A manipulates or encourages B to be good can we say B is good? Not really. Agency and understanding determine accountability. Innocent by insanity is just that - you cannot hold the mentally infirm accountable for their actions.

So really evil is A ignoring Cs actions instead of intervening/discouraging them and good is A acting against C.

If a judge was caught stealing vs a poor uneducated person caught stealing which is worse?

I liked this illustration that you presented. We know that B does not have understanding of good/evil, but what if B thinks and believes strongly that he does? Conversely, how can we be sure that A and C have a good understanding of good/evil? Just because one believes something strongly, does it make it true?

I think beliefs of what is good/right colliding against each other gives rise to the greatest tragedies.

Jesus could do this because he had divine authority. Does the ordinary man have such authority?

Jesus could do this because he had divine authority. Does the ordinary man have such authority? — Legato

Jesus may have been divine. I don't know but give some thought to the words he spoke. They're about a fact that most of us, given the off chance that there's a divine being among us, will find hard to deny.

Sure. Now living to fight another day or to reach a position where you can actually do something about it is far from ignoring anything. It's really the only smart thing to do.

What is the average bloke going to do seeing someone wrong or injure someone on the street? Stop the person? Perhaps get shot in the process while not actually stopping anything and resulting in not only their death but the victims' as well?

It's not an easy choice in and of itself but when held to a backdrop of realistic outcomes it becomes ever so tolerable.

I like this perspective. It is not fair to brand someone as evil or an accomplice to evil just because of a lack of power to do anything. Like you said, action without power or thought may make the situation worse.

Does ignoring evil make you an accomplice to it?

It seems to me that it would be unfair and unreasonable to be held ethically responsible for something beyond your power to change or alter. An example would be those who loathe the evil exploitation of animals but lack enough power to put a halt on this atrocity.

However, I strongly hold that the emotional and mental attitude with which you ignored the evil is of great consideration. If you enjoyed some pleasure and gratification by seeing the evil done— for instance enjoyed pleasure in seeing a heinous dictator in a distant land oppressing his subjects or robbers abusing your hated neighbour and plundering their abode— even though you didn’t partake in the evil physically, the prospect of ethical consequences to be incurred due to your emotions and thoughts seems very reasonable; well at least to those who believe we are held responsible for all our and emotions and thoughts

Evil is a paradox. Yes, it exists...and it doesn't. Anywhere you find good, you find evil. That's why after casting the antichrist into a lake of fire and brimstone (mythological eschatonic sequence)..the whole of creation ends. Whatever you project into it is it. To cease projecting, though, and you may be onto something.