Pitch's idea : what is evil??

[duchess of malfi]

I think I feel more comfortable with that definition (Mhoram's), than with the selfishness. Selfishness can certainly lead to evil, but can also be neutral, if it does not harm others.

Example: one of my friends buys a lot of books. His wife is always upset with him, she says he has enough, that he is being selfish with their money, etc. But they are very well off financially and he enjoys it. In his wife's eyes, he is being selfish -- but it truly does no harm to any other people. I certainly see no evil in it, anyway.

[Fist and Faith]

Evil seems to me to be simply: A lack of that which is good.

I couldn't possibly agree with that, because, for my definition, there has to be human intent. Whereas is seems that, for you, a natural disaster that ruins all drinking water is, or causes, evil.

[Fist and Faith]

Example: one of my friends buys a lot of books. His wife is always upset with him, she says he has enough, that he is being selfish with their money, etc. But they are very well off financially and he enjoys it. In his wife's eyes, he is being selfish -- but it truly does no harm to any other people. I certainly see no evil in it, anyway.

I have a difficult time thinking of collecting books as evil!!!!!!!!! And wouldn't book burning be a way to rid the world of that evil? lol

[duchess of malfi]

But people can do great harm to others without intent to harm or do/be evil.

Sometimes it out of ignorance, or simply not thinking about what they are doing. But the resulting pain is the same as if the intent was there.

[Lord Mhoram]

Fist,

Whereas is seems that, for you, a natural disaster that ruins all drinking water is, or causes, evil.

I don't quite understand this example. Care to elaborate?

[Vector]

I still stick with selfishness as being the root of evil, I would just qualify it as extreme selfishness. Personally I think everyone has to be a little selfish and that does not make us all evil, it is knowing the balance of how much we need to look after our immediate interests vs. what we need to do in the context of the larger society we live in and understanding the ramifications of what our actions are, knowing that if we set an example of a particular behavior then that person should expect the same treatment in return.

For example in a hypothetical society, mankind needs to be "selfish" in protecting his own property, and if everyone does this, then to some degree it is all right (naturally this is a simplification - there need to be rules). However, if one person thinks that the best way to protect his property is by killing his neighbors, then clearly this person has lost track of the fact that if this is how he thinks people should behave in society then he can expect to be killed by his neighbor as well. So the point is, a "sane" person sees this interrelation of actions and selfishly does NOT kill his neighbor (or strives to create a society where people do not kill their neighbors). Whereas the other's extreme selfishness causes him to lose track of the larger picture, and this inability is what makes him evil.

[Fist and Faith]

But people can do great harm to others without intent to harm or do/be evil.

Sometimes it out of ignorance, or simply not thinking about what they are doing. But the resulting pain is the same as if the intent was there.

Yes, the pain is the same, but I don't call accidental pain evil.

Fist,

Whereas is seems that, for you, a natural disaster that ruins all drinking water is, or causes, evil.

I don't quite understand this example. Care to elaborate?

Hm, I'm not sure how to say it. More examples maybe? There's a particular wasp that hunts down a particular spider, stings it with a paralyzing venom, and lays eggs into it. When the eggs hatch, the baby wasps eat the living spider from the inside out. I don't call that evil. It's certainly nasty by human standards, but it's simply the nature of that wasp. And trees die and decompose, but there's no evil. For that matter, death is not evil. But it can be evil for a person to intentionally cause a person's, animal's, or plant's death, depending on the reason and method.

[Lord Mhoram]

Fist,

When the eggs hatch, the baby wasps eat the living spider from the inside out. I don't call that evil. It's certainly nasty by human standards, but it's simply the nature of that wasp. And trees die and decompose, but there's no evil. For that matter, death is not evil. But it can be evil for a person to intentionally cause a person's, animal's, or plant's death, depending on the reason and method.

Well, I agree with these points. But killing to survive is surely not an absence of good, nor is the natural lifecycle of a tree. But as you pointed out, evil would be me chopping down a perfectly healthy tree (or even a not-so-healthy one) for no good reason; for this is a privation of good intentions, etc.

[Fist and Faith]

OK, I'm coming to understand what you mean. I can go along with that.

[Lord Mhoram]

Fist,

I'm glad you understand now. I just wasn't sure of how those examples fit into my defintion of a lack of good. But I'm glad I've cleared it up.

Now, I thought the first response to my defintion would be "What is good?" But this is the "What is evil?" thread, and "What is good?" is an even more difficult question!

[Fist and Faith]

Well, good is simply like unto Fist & Faith.

[Lord Mhoram]

Fist,

How simple! Centuries of philosophy, answered in one sentence!

[Fist and Faith]

Glad I could help.

[duchess of malfi]

But people can do great harm to others without intent to harm or do/be evil.

Sometimes it out of ignorance, or simply not thinking about what they are doing. But the resulting pain is the same as if the intent was there.

Yes, the pain is the same, but I don't call accidental pain evil.

Perhaps I should use an example so you can see what I am trying to get at.

A drunk driver wouldn't get behind the wheel with the intent to cause a serious accident. But if that accident happens, with the result of serious property damage/destruction and serious injury/death -- the result of this thoughtless act (driving while drunk) might be seen as the result of evil -- unintentional evil, but quite possibly evil all the same.

[Fist and Faith]

Ah, I see what you mean. There's a paved hiking/skating/biking trail nearby. An assistant D.A. for the county is bi-polar, and he stopped taking his lithium. In a manic phase, he drove onto this trail, slammed into a guy who was skating with his wife of one month, drove for a half-mile with the dead guy on his hood, and finally stopped and ran from the scene.

As I said before, evil is as evil does. I don't care that he didn't intend to do all that. He DID intend to stop taking his lithium, despite knowing damned well what happens often enough when bi-polar people do that. I know what happens, and I don't have nearly his experience with the subject. He couldn't be bothered to consider anyone around him. The pain he caused was only accidentaly by a technicality. Kind of like a lie of omission. I say he's a murderer, and I sure as hell don't want him anywhere near me or my kids.

Unfortunately, he is, because they found him not guilty.

[Avatar]

Fist,
Now, I thought the first response to my defintion would be "What is good?" But this is the "What is evil?" thread, and "What is good?" is an even more difficult question!

That was the first question that occured to me when I read that post of yours.

I think we're well within the parameters of this topic to define "good". Afterall, if we're talking about "evil" we need some point of reference, right?

Fist-- I see what you're saying there, but I'm not sure you could classify that as "evil". Wrong certainly, but as you mentioned earlier, "evil" to me at least implies some sort of intent to harm.

Vector-- Societal evil? Isn't the question of evil determined by societal development anyway? Society decides what is evil, at least insofar as our perception thereof. If we lived in a society where killing your neighbour was normal, we'd be unlikely to see it as "evil".

--A

[Vector]

Vector-- Societal evil? Isn't the question of evil determined by societal development anyway? Society decides what is evil, at least insofar as our perception thereof. If we lived in a society where killing your neighbour was normal, we'd be unlikely to see it as "evil".

Actually, I wasn't arguing societal evil at all, though I can understand how that can be interpreted. The reality is that I typed that in a hurry because I was in the middle of debugging code and needed to leave for dance rehearsals soon after.

And of course, now as I am trying to type this and am having a baby crawling all over me, which doesn't help the concentration...

In a nutshell I am arguing how the inability to see the greater good, to see the ultimate consequences of ones own selfish actions on himself, that this type of moral blindness makes for evil. I think we need to follow moral guidelines for our own good, and people who are unable to see this are the ones most likely to commit evil.

I think that this type of moral blindness is due to a number of factors, for example lack of empathy or at least the ability to mentally place oneself in another's shoes. As I have said, I do not think that selfishness as far as looking after one's own needs is evil, but to do so at all costs for one's own advancement.

[Avatar]

Actually, I was arguing societal evil. See, the "greater good" is a nebulous concet at best. The greater good for whom? Who decided? And what sort of greater good are we talking about anyway?

And while I see your point about the "ultimate consequences", you seem to imply that "evil" (or selfish actions) will have ultimate consequences on the person acting, when that is not necessarily so.

Moral blindness? My view is that we're using purely subjective criteria to define something. They only hold true for those who share those criteria.

Killing and eating part of your opponent was for ceturies, if not longer, considered perfectly normal and natural. Do we retroactively lable that as evil? Even the dead and eaten opponent wouldn't do that. He thought it was normal too.

--Avatar

[Vector]

Actually, I was arguing societal evil. See, the "greater good" is a nebulous concet at best. The greater good for whom? Who decided? And what sort of greater good are we talking about anyway?

I understand your point, however I think that it boots nothing to argue what is evil based purely on the societal level - that becomes an endless argument. I think most societies throughout history have always striven to improve themselves and even if their state at some point in time could be defined as evil by modern standards, they should rather be judged by how hard they were trying to improve and by how the state of the world around that culture forces them to behave. Also, we need to go beyond the level of primitive tribal cultures, because those are really at the incipient stage of there cultural/moral growth.

For example, I have no doubt that many of the actions of the USA and other cultures in the world will be judged as behaving in an immoral/ evil way by the standards of a future more advanced culture much as colonial Europe is now judged by us. However, based on the context of the world as it is now, I cannot say wholely that we are evil, though there is much to be desired in our behavior as a country.

So given that any person needs to live within the constraints of his culture and therefore needs to be given some lee way as to whether his actions can be defined as being evil, I would say that you can still judge a man by his ability to see the greater good of mankind (not of his nation) as far as his society allows him.

You say that a society that is based on killing one's neighbor implies that based on that society this action is not evil, I would rather argue that this society is simply at a more primitive level of development - and needs to develop beyond that point.

And while I see your point about the "ultimate consequences", you seem to imply that "evil" (or selfish actions) will have ultimate consequences on the person acting, when that is not necessarily so.

No, not necessarily at the micro level, at which level the perpetrator would indeed be judged as being evil by my standards. How ever the more common such actions are, the more likely they are to happen to you - when you perform an action on another which would be harmful if it happened to you, then in a sense you are promoting a state of affairs where that action could happen to you - which is what I mean by "ultimate consequences" (not divine justice as perhaps you interpreted).

So in affect, "Do not do unto others as you would not have done unto yourself" (the silver rule - I am not such a big fan of the golden rule for various reason since it promotes evangelization) should be the basic ideal tenet in any society, or at least where any society should be moving towards - and for that matter any individual.

Well, off to bed...

[Avatar]

I understand your point, however I think that it boots nothing to argue what is evil based purely on the societal level - that becomes an endless argument.

All arguments are endless on The Watch.

Does this mean that you're a proponent of an "objective" standard of evil? In other words, that there are things which are universally evil, regardless of popular view?

For example, I have no doubt that many of the actions of the USA and other cultures in the world will be judged as behaving in an immoral/ evil way by the standards of a future more advanced culture much as colonial Europe is now judged by us. However, based on the context of the world as it is now, I cannot say wholely that we are evil, though there is much to be desired in our behavior as a country.

So there isn't an objective, "irreducible" evil?

So given that any person needs to live within the constraints of his culture and therefore needs to be given some lee way as to whether his actions can be defined as being evil, I would say that you can still judge a man by his ability to see the greater good of mankind (not of his nation) as far as his society allows him.

Again, by whose standards? I think it would be to the ultimate good of mankind to control human breeding. You gonna agree that it would be a greater good?

You say that a society that is based on killing one's neighbor implies that based on that society this action is not evil, I would rather argue that this society is simply at a more primitive level of development - and needs to develop beyond that point.

Imposing our societies/civilisations view of what is "good" and automatically equating it with "what is developed"?

So in affect, "Do not do unto others as you would not have done unto yourself" (the silver rule - I am not such a big fan of the golden rule for various reason since it promotes evangelization) should be the basic ideal tenet in any society, or at least where any society should be moving towards - and for that matter any individual.

While I agree with this in essence, I think it offers the same problem as the "golden rule". What if you would have yourself sacrificed for the greater glory of god? It would be OK to do it to others? (Extreme I know, but you get the picture). How about, "Do unto others as they would be done unto"?

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