write a short essay on benevolence
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Answer:
Benevolence is always directed towards man’s life, in whatever form imagined, and so it is a sensible parallel to a morality directed by reason which invariably will place man’s life as its highest value. Comte’s altruism’s logical conclusions annul benevolence through the nullification of man’s value. According to altruism man in and of himself holds no value beyond that which he assigns to the purpose of others, and yet those beneficiaries in and of themselves hold the same null value beyond that attributed to other’s purpose. At this point exists a class of terms, each term valueless ad infinitum, establishing no over-arching principle regarding value without placing in that demesne an endless relativity of man as a means rather than end, as purely sacrificial fodder.
As previously observed, through so many mechanics, an epistemology of faith invariably extolls the virtues of Comte’s altruism, while once again providing motivation for such backwardness through the promise of salvation from an already dictated flawed existence.
How may a system of belief that holds man’s life as only sacrificial and endlessly flawed and evil even begin to be benevolent to, or encourage benevolence towards, him? The only answer lies in a diseased doctrine where morality becomes the enemy of man’s life, or joy; where one can only hope for benevolence to be shown to him in as much as a self-begrudging act of others as one does for others, exchanging not value but animosity supported by a loathing of duty. The only benevolence possible is a pretext covering man’s true desires oppressed by irrational edicts, and if man truly is flawed it is this ‘flaw’, this inconsistency in the face of such impossible demands, that allows him to survive. In essence, in this doctrine created by faith’s epistemology man’s own life is regarded as the terrible, as the ultimate implementation of evil, as the antithesis to good and is robbed of all possibility of originating benevolence through the attribution of such acts to the grace and glory of the supernatural. What morality could be more evil than this systematic, and unfortunately successful, destruction of man’s life, value, and happiness where benevolence lies only on an unattainable yet superfluous level?
Clarity of vision allows one to see that the simple discovery of reason’s efficacy in achieving a true benevolence points directly towards the parallelism enjoyed by a morality ruled by rational thought. This mirror-like juxtaposition finally fixes a purely rational morality as the originator of any truly consistent sense of benevolence, but we must answer how this morality brings about this true benevolence to fully convince ourselves of this conclusion.