JULIA Pannell (Letters, July 12) asks “What is the secular explanation for good and evil?” She also claims that the secular view does not explain anything. She deserves an answer as these are good and important questions.

The concepts of good and evil are human constructs and have nothing to do with either religion or any god, nor are they self-evident as religious people appear to believe. Indeed it is not a religion or a god that has determined good and evil, rather it is the other way round, as all that religions have done is to formalise codes of conduct that were already existent.

Good and evil are concerned with human notions of ethics and morality and are both relative and dynamic, in that they differ (sometimes significantly) between different cultures and are subject to periodic change and adaptation. Thus, good and evil are not absolute.

The human being is a social and sympathetic being and from the earliest times, humans have naturally formed groups and developed customs and practices to ensure the safety and ordered living of the group, as well as protecting the individuality of the group members. It was communal customs and practices that determined the do’s and don’ts of communal living and behaviour; what was considered right and good, wrong and bad.

As groups flourished and developed into recognised societies, many of the habits and customs became codified into formal law, but it was the custom that determined the law, not the law that determined the custom. Good and evil are concepts developed to define those habits and customs of life whose adherence or violation uphold or threaten the order and stability of the community, of those “folk-ways” that emerged to define acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. The criminal, the evil person, is the one who violates those habits and customs of life, those folk-ways.

As a result, humans did not develop morals from the application of rational, scientific, or religious analysis of right and wrong, good and bad, but from a shared communal experience, from trial and error. Morality in any given social environment develops from the experience of the behaviour necessary for social order, not from God or religion. As a result, it is a communal existence as opposed to the instruction or teachings of a god that determines the concepts of good and evil, and is why good and evil are cultural and relative.

As group living creates and develops the habits and customs that define acceptable and unacceptable behaviour from a shared experience, such habits and customs establish the values that are considered necessary for order, solidarity, and security and that lead to the development of an ethical and moral order that defines the do’s and don’ts of valued behaviour.

It is stating the obvious that humans lived and engaged in interactive exchange with other humans before they made laws or engaged in philosophy, or even worshipped gods. Indeed their gods emerged from superstitions and the need to have some form of supernatural protection from the many ill fortunes they were exposed to, and as they formalised their totems, incantations and rituals, they developed the formal method we call religion. It was only a small step from that to codifying their customs and folk-ways into “commandments”, rituals, and legal processes.

So, what is the secular explanation for evil? It is simply something Ms Pannell intensely disagrees with, and whilst I may heartily agree with her with respect to certain forms of behaviour, I am sure I will just as heartily disagree with her on others. It is all relative.

Peter Kerr
Kilmarnock