Forced Goodness or the Choice of Goodness

“It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. It may be horrible to be good. And when I say that you I realize how self contradictory that sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?”

This passage is spoken by a Chaplain just before the Ludovico Treatment as they call it, that Alex is about to undergo which is a physiologically imposed behavioural modification that is supposed to transform Alex ridding him of the capability of performing evil deeds. The central question in the passage is a question posed, really, throughout the story and its a philosophical one: is an evil human being with free will preferable to a good individual without it? The idea of free will we must understand really includes the option to be bad. The chaplain feels that good acts have no value if performed without free will and he wonders if forced goodwill is actually more wicked than evil.