Inherent Evil

[The Saucepan Man]

The Orcs, whether mockeries or direct corruptions, existed because of Morgoth. They are filled with Morgoth's evil, and it is because of this that they are not capable of good in any form. As I have said, their entire nature was twisted towards badness.

I agree with you, Gwaihir, that Orcs, as a race, were inherently evil. It makes little sense to me, in the context of the way that they are portrayed in LotR (and also in the Hobbit and the Silmarillion), that they should have any capacity for good. While we might (in much the way that Sam does in Ithilien) have some sympathy for the Men enlisted to fight on behalf of Sauron (and Saruman, in the case of the Dunlendings), we are given no such reason to feel sympathy for the Orcs, save to the extent that they cannot help their plight having been brought into existence as inherently evil beings.

But this brings me to my conundrum on this issue. Are Orcs capable of redemption after their death? It would seem strange that, being denied the ability to redeem themselves during their life, they should be given the opportunity to do so following their death. And yet the concept of a beings which (through no choice of their own) are born (or spawned or whatever) as inherently evil being denied any possibility of redemption does not, for me, square with the concept of Iluvatar as a benevolent and wholly good Creator.