Editing Problem of evil (section)

===Evil as the absence of good===
{{Main|Absence of good}}
[[Paul Elmer More]] says that, to [[Plato]], evil resulted from the human failure to pay sufficient attention to finding and doing good: evil is an absence of good where good should be. More says Plato directed his entire educational program against the "innate indolence of the will" and the neglect of a search for ethical motives "which are the true springs of our life".<ref name="Paul Elmer More">{{cite book |last1=More |first1=Paul Elmer |title=The Religion of Plato |date=1921 |publisher=Princeton University Press |edition=2, reprint}}</ref>{{rp|256–257}} Plato asserted that it is the innate laziness, ignorance and lack of attention to pursuing good that, in the beginning, leads humans to fall into "the first lie, of the soul" that then often leads to self-indulgence and evil.<ref name="Paul Elmer More"/>{{rp|259}} According to Joseph Kelly,<ref name="Kelly2002p42"/> [[Clement of Alexandria]], a neo-Platonist in the 2nd-century, adopted Plato's view of evil.<ref name="Paul Elmer More"/>{{rp|256; 294; 317}} The fourth-century theologian [[Augustine of Hippo]] also adopted Plato's view. In his ''Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Love'', Augustine maintained that evil exists as an "absence of the good".<ref name=jeffrey49/>

[[Schopenhauer]] emphasized the existence of evil and its negation of the good. Therefore, according to Mesgari Akbar and Akbari Mohsen, he was a pessimist.<ref name="Akbar and Mohsen">{{cite journal |last1=Akbar |first1=Mesgari Ahmad Ali |last2=Mohsen |first2=Akbari |title=Schopenhauer: Pessimism, and the Positive Nature of Evil |journal=Knowledge (Journal of Human Sciences) |date=2013 |volume=67 |issue=1 |url=https://www.sid.ir/en/Journal/ViewPaper.aspx?ID=408681}}</ref> He defined the "good" as coordination between an individual object and a definite effort of the will, and he defined evil as the absence of such coordination.<ref name="Akbar and Mohsen"/>

Arguably, [[Hannah Arendt]]'s presentation of the [[Eichmann in Jerusalem|Eichmann Trial]] as an exemplar of "the banality of evil"—consisting of a lack of empathic imagination, coupled with thoughtless conformity—is a variation on Augustine's theodicy.