Plotinus on Good and Evil: Neo-Platonic Ethics Explained

Introduction: Plotinus and the Question of Good and Evil

The act of defining what shall be considered Good or Evil is a central part of many philosophies and religions. The subject is often approached with very little rationality and a great deal of passionate sentiment and heavy-handed authoritarianism, as sharp lines between Good and Evil are drawn in the metaphoric sand. It is no coincidence that in the East, Good and Evil are shown divided sharply into the two sides of the yin-yang symbol, or that in the West these two have often been imagined as the manifestation of competing spiritual forces — of God and the Devil. Amidst all of this, Plotinus is a refreshing voice precisely because he does not attempt to delineate sharply between the Good and the ill, but rather takes a broad view of the inter-relationship of all things with the divine.

To summarize quite bluntly: Plotinus believes that the true Good is the universal One — infinite in time and space, unchanging, unthinking, and unmoving, yet manifesting foremost in the Intellect and in the soul, and finally in the physical. Evil is nothing more or less than the furthest remove of the Good (in this case, the physicality of matter) and the addiction of the soul to that removal.

Plotinus's metaphysics have been described as neo-Platonic by his philosophical descendants, and he himself would certainly have attributed much of his philosophy to the master Plato. However, there also appear to be elements of his writing that imply further study under the religious leaders of the East, where he served in his youth. Plotinus's understanding of the universal One is eerily similar to what one may now read about Buddhism in China or Japan. This One is a source of endless emanation, with all energy and being flowing outward from it.

The One and the Emanation of All Things

Plotinus describes this as similar to the unfolding of a seed, in which the plant moves from a single all-encompassing source to develop its stem and bud and leaves and thousand petals, while remaining always rooted in its source. As the One is infinite, all things which are possible will come into being within it. The plenitude of the One is such that its creation cannot stop until it has produced all that can conceivably exist, even that which is far removed from its original forms and designs.

Plotinus suggests that the Intellect is among the first fruits of the One, but that the world of physical matter is among its last, most incomplete, and most corrupted manifestations. Insofar as the physical is the farthest removed from the One, it is lesser than the One. This means that if a man were to incline himself toward the physical instead of toward the transcendent intellectual and spiritual self, that inclination would be mistaken — it would, in Plotinus's words, be called Evil. (He would add, if such a thing could exist, for as will be discussed later, Plotinus is rather skeptical about Evil's independent life.) So Plotinus may be found saying that insofar as matter is a mere shadow in relationship to the form of the divine, and a mere layer of existence that is the least among many co-existing levels of life, matter and the physical constitute "the very essence of Evil."

It is worth noting here that Plotinus is a pantheist. One would be very far astray to suggest that he looks out at the exterior world and considers it, as some Gnostics would, to be the work of an evil demon, or even to be inherently flawed — as some Christians suggested. Rather, Plotinus imagined that nature was itself in tune with the forms. Each thing was birthed from the Source, which fills all things with soul. In this manner the sun and stars themselves, though they may be physical bodies, are also gods. In this manner mankind, though flesh, is part of the divine. Nature as such is not precisely Evil, as it too partakes in the divine. It is, however, incomplete. The act of valuing the incomplete over the complete is the original act of evil. Man ought to reject the material and focus his soul on gaining communion with the great overarching spirit of the One.

The Nature of Good and the Transcendent Intellect

The Good which is to be sought is identical to the One — it is that which is pure in being, true to Form, and filled with radiant power. The closest a man can come to the One without transcending identity itself is to identify entirely with the intellect and the soul. Plotinus argues for this transcendent intellect — which Plato never explicitly proposed — by using Plato's own description of a conversation with a slave boy in which the child "remembered" mathematics. Plotinus argues that we do not merely "remember" forms, because then we would never be seeing the form itself but only a representation of it. He argues instead that our intellect exists simultaneously within our bodies and in the world of forms, partaking in the glory of the One itself — if we can only learn to turn toward that glory and knowledge.

This is the Good: this flesh-denying focus on the things of the spirit and of transcendent glory. When mankind acts in accordance with the Good, he does so by putting aside his own desires and transcending the limitations of his mind and body to participate fully in the multitudinous nature of the One. These flights of religious transport prepare the soul for its final transition — from physical life into that physical death which may presage a greater life.