Stephen asked:

Is fear the only evil?

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I don't think so, in fact I think fear presupposes an encounter with evil and that fear is an appropriate
response to evil.

If fear was the only evil then those who feared genocide would be evil, surely we don't want to say
that those who died were evil. Of course it could be said that those who perpetrated genocides did so
because of fear and this is certainly evil, so I guess it all depends on who is the fearful one. That's
why I said fear presupposes evil. The Nazis were not evil because they feared the Jews (if you will
allow me to phrase it like this), the Nazis feared the Jews because the Nazis were evil. In the face of
the evil of the holocaust the Jews were justified in succumbing to fear, this did not make them
themselves evil. Fear is a response to evil not the cause of it. Imagine what we would be like if we did
not fear evil, if we embraced it... that would be the most evil of all evils. But of course fear alone is not
enough of a response to evil, it's what I would call a negative response. However, evil cannot be
overcome on its own terms. It's true to say that evil cannot be defeated by more force, because that
just adds to the misery. I think formulating a positive response to evil is one of the pressing question
of modern thought.

Brian Tee