We’ve been obsessed with it since we first started scratching stories onto cave walls. It's the central hook of every blockbuster, the fever dream of every philosopher, and the one thing every religion promises right at the finish line. I'm talking about the end of all evil. It sounds like a fairy tale, honestly. A world where nobody gets hurt, nobody lies, and the concept of "bad" just sort of evaporates into the ether. But if you look at how humanity actually functions, the idea is a lot more complicated than a simple "happily ever after."
Is it even possible?
The short answer is: it depends on who you ask and how they define the word "evil." To a neuroscientist, evil might just be a series of malfunctions in the prefrontal cortex or an empathy deficit. To a theologian, it's a cosmic separation from the divine. To a victim of a crime, it's a very real, tangible weight that changes their life forever. Getting to the end of all evil isn't just about stopping bad people from doing bad things; it’s about re-engineering the human experience itself.
Defining the Monster Under the Bed
Before we can talk about the end of all evil, we have to pin down what we’re actually trying to end. It's not just one thing. Most scholars, like Dr. Julia Shaw—who wrote Making Evil—argue that "evil" is a label we slap on behaviors we find incomprehensible or devastating. We use it to distance ourselves from the darkness we all carry.
Think about it. We’ve seen historical attempts to "end" evil that actually ended up creating more of it. Think of the 20th-century utopias that turned into killing fields. They thought they were purging the world of bad elements, but they became the very thing they hated. This paradox is why most serious thinkers get a little nervous when people start talking about a total solution to human malice. It’s the "Utopia Problem." If you want to eliminate all friction, you usually have to eliminate freedom, too.
Could Technology Be the Magic Bullet?
You've probably heard the tech-optimists talk about this. They think we can code our way out of suffering. In the world of technology and bioethics, there’s a growing conversation about "moral enhancement." The idea is that if we can map the brain well enough, we could potentially use CRISPR or neural implants to dampen aggression and boost altruism.
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Basically, we'd be hacking our souls.
Imagine a world where you physically couldn’t feel the urge to hurt someone. Some researchers, like Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu, have suggested that as our technology becomes more dangerous—think nukes or rogue AI—we might actually have to undergo moral enhancement just to survive as a species. It’s a wild thought. We’d be choosing the end of all evil by surrendering the choice to be bad. But is a person "good" if they don't have the option to be anything else? It’s a bit like a computer program. A calculator isn't "honest" because it tells the truth; it's just programmed that way.
The Evolutionary Baggage We Carry
We aren't blank slates. Our brains are built on layers of evolutionary survival tactics that served us well 50,000 years ago but feel like "evil" today.
Greed? That was just resource accumulation to survive the winter.
Violence? That was defending the tribe from a real threat.
Deceit? A way to navigate complex social hierarchies.
Evolution doesn't care about your moral purity; it cares about your DNA making it to the next generation. To reach the end of all evil, we’d essentially have to declare war on our own biology. We are the descendants of the survivors, and the survivors weren't always the nicest people in the cave. This is why "evil" feels so persistent. It's baked into our hardware.
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Real-World Reductions in Harm
Even if we can't reach a total, cosmic end of all evil, we’ve actually made massive strides in reducing it. This is the part people usually miss because the news is so depressing. Steven Pinker’s work in The Better Angels of Our Nature points out that, statistically, we are living in the most peaceful era in human history.
It doesn't feel like it, does it?
But look at the data. State-sponsored torture is mostly illegal and condemned. Slavery, while tragically still existing in the shadows of human trafficking, is no longer the global economic standard. We’ve developed "human rights" as a concept, which is a relatively new invention in the grand scheme of history. We’re basically trying to build a cage for evil using laws, empathy, and international cooperation. It’s not a perfect end, but it’s a massive improvement.
The Role of Restorative Justice
If we want to see the end of all evil in a practical, daily sense, we have to look at how we handle the "evil" that has already happened. The old way was "an eye for an eye." We've seen how that goes. It just leaves everyone blind.
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Lately, there’s been a shift toward restorative justice. This isn't about being "soft" on crime. It’s about recognizing that harm creates a cycle. If you just punish someone without addressing the root cause, you’re often just seeding the next act of "evil." Experts like Fania Davis have shown that by bringing victims and offenders together to actually discuss the harm, you can break the cycle. You stop the "evil" from propagating. It’s a slow, messy, and incredibly difficult process, but it’s one of the few things that actually works in the real world.
The Philosophical Wall
We have to be honest about the limitations. If you took away everything we call evil—pain, loss, struggle, betrayal—what would be left?
Some would argue that beauty and goodness only exist because they have a contrast. If every day is sunny, you eventually stop noticing the sun. This is the "Theodicy" problem that theologians have wrestled with for thousands of years. If a truly good world requires free will, then the possibility of evil must exist. Otherwise, we’re just puppets.
So, maybe the end of all evil isn't a destination where the bad stuff is deleted from the universe. Maybe it’s more about a shift in how we respond to it.
What You Can Actually Do
Talking about the end of all evil feels huge and overwhelming. It feels like something for presidents and popes to figure out. But if we’re looking for actionable insights, it starts much smaller. It starts with the "evil" we're capable of in our own lives—the small cruelties, the easy lies, the moments where we choose our own comfort over someone else's safety.
- Audit your empathy. We all have blind spots where we stop seeing people as human. Usually, it’s people who disagree with us politically or socially. Recognizing that "dehumanization" is the first step toward any great evil is a vital check.
- Support systemic change. Individual goodness is great, but systems (like the law or the economy) can automate harm. Supporting transparency and accountability in these systems does more to end wide-scale evil than almost anything else.
- Practice "micro-restoration." When you mess up or hurt someone, don't just apologize. Ask what you can do to repair the specific harm. It trains the brain to see the ripple effects of our actions.
- Stay informed, but don't drown. The "mean world syndrome" is real. If you consume nothing but bad news, you’ll start to believe that evil is the only reality. Balance your intake with stories of human cooperation and resilience.
We might never see a world that is 100% free of darkness. That might even be an impossible goal given how we're wired. But the pursuit of the end of all evil is what keeps us moving forward. It’s the North Star. Even if we never reach it, the act of walking toward it is what makes us better than we were yesterday. We are the only creatures on this planet who look at the world and decide it isn't good enough. That, in itself, is a pretty powerful start.
The most effective way to combat the presence of harm isn't through a single, world-changing event, but through the consistent application of better systems and deeper individual awareness. Focus on reducing the "evil" within your immediate reach—the gossip that ruins a reputation, the greed that hurts a neighbor, or the silence in the face of unfairness. By tightening the circle of what we tolerate in ourselves and our communities, we contribute to the only version of a better world that has ever actually existed: the one we build piece by piece.