I can't answer for the 5-part argument above, but yes, a lot of the points in this chapter seem to do with "negative evil," or evil as a lack of The Good. Pseudo-Dionysius goes extensively into this area, and I find it persuasive on an ontological level, though less so as a lived reality (i.e. it is my experience that there are people who derive pleasure from suffering).
I would have to go back and review the text some, but...does Sallustius not even bother to define evil? That in itself is interesting.
Even in the above case (of people who derive pleasure from evil), though, Sallustius (and Pseudo-Dionysisus, perhaps) might reiterate the points about the adulterer and the murderer: even if the outcomes of these folks' actions is suffering for other, yet it is the very pursuit of gratification itself which is a refraction, as it were, of The Good itself...in this case, pleasure, which, however distorted, remains an inclination toward the positive (regardless of how repugnant the outcomes may seem to us, the observers). In these cases, the seeking of pleasure (a manifestation of The Good) only benefits the person seeking it, but even in this, the argument goes, it is still a measure of The Good.
How compelling such an argument remains to someone on the receiving end of gross misfortune or other sufferings remains open to question, I would say...
no subject
I would have to go back and review the text some, but...does Sallustius not even bother to define evil? That in itself is interesting.
Even in the above case (of people who derive pleasure from evil), though, Sallustius (and Pseudo-Dionysisus, perhaps) might reiterate the points about the adulterer and the murderer: even if the outcomes of these folks' actions is suffering for other, yet it is the very pursuit of gratification itself which is a refraction, as it were, of The Good itself...in this case, pleasure, which, however distorted, remains an inclination toward the positive (regardless of how repugnant the outcomes may seem to us, the observers). In these cases, the seeking of pleasure (a manifestation of The Good) only benefits the person seeking it, but even in this, the argument goes, it is still a measure of The Good.
How compelling such an argument remains to someone on the receiving end of gross misfortune or other sufferings remains open to question, I would say...