gr. κακόν, kakón (tó), mal. Latim: malum. Plural: kaká (tá). No masculino: kakós (ho); malvado, aquele que comete o mal. O problema do mal (geral ou moral) não suscita de início a reflexão dos filósofos. O mal não é um problema, ou pelo menos é um escândalo, mas só encontra uma explicação oficial, a da mitologia, repetida pelos poetas que lamentam a infelicidade da humanidade, inclinando-se diante dos ditames irrevogáveis da divindade.

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Plotinus   borrows many ideas from the Stoics, but a central idea will be studied in the next section, that matter is, or is the source of, evil, 1.8, and this idea is derived [96] especially from Plato’s Timaeus   and from Alexander. The idea facilitates another one stressed in 1.9, that evil is a non-being, and matter as prime matter, the ultimate subject of properties, is like a shadow, the point at which light fails to produce anything (4.3 [27] 9 (2Iff.); 1.8 [51] 7 (17ff.)). Plotinus at 1.8 [51] 7 stresses that such a shadow is inevitable, and at 1.8 [51] 3 that the intelligible world, consisting as it does of real being, cannot contain evil. [SorabjiPC2  :96-97]

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But if it is matter that is evil, Plotinus must avoid the conclusion that evil is possessed by the higher causes of matter. He meets this problem by saying that what is harmonious at a higher level of reality, like the ingredients in a seed, may be inevitably unharmonious when realised at a lower level, 3.2 [47] 2 (16-31). Similarly, evil can result from a combination of goods 4.4 [28] 39 (27-9). It is stressed in 4.4 [28] 41 (9-12); 4.4 [28] 39 (23-6), the first translated under 6(k), that the physical harm which comes to people is not intended. When good people are physically harmed, 4.3 [27] 16 (6-9), this is not a natural outcome, nor a principal (proêgoumenon, a Stoic term) objective, but something that merely follows (hepesthai). These ideas bring us closer to Proclus  ’ view of evil as an unintended and unnatural parasitic outcome (parupostasis) analogous to Aristotle  ’s coincidences. [SorabjiPC2:97]