posted
Well, in my opinion ignorance fits very well into my defintion of evil. Ignorance is basically ignoring the things that go around, because it makes life easier to handle and what not. Basically people are unwilling to accept the pain and effort that being aware of everything might bring.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
That is something that I can not personally believe in Holes, not that I hold it against you and I can understand where you are coming from. But I as a person honestly believe that even if there is god, and I do believe there is, even what he considers to be good and evil are still his own opinions. I don't know if I would find it a good intelligent and moral thing to ignore those opinions, but opinions they still are.
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posted
However, I agree that there are actual true absolute things which we can discover about what's really evil and what isn't. I think we aren't just making this up as we go, in other words, but that life is the crucible in which our moral theories are formed and tested against an ultimate moral reality, which they stand or fall by, in a way similar to the way scientific theories stand or fall by their ability to successfully explain the outcomes of experiment.
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, for instance, had a theory about morality that he tested out and found failing.
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quote: But I as a person honestly believe that even if there is god, and I do believe there is, even what he considers to be good and evil are still his own opinions.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one, Black Fox.
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posted
Good and Evil, the things that we decide are so, tend to be on things that improve the efficiency of society. It makes sense not to kill every human being that you meet etc. That and yes an animal can be evil in the eyes of a human being, because what it is doing is something we would find evil if another human being committed the act. Think of every group of people as a seperate beast in that sense. The Rabbit probably finds the fox evil, it eats his children , eats him, it ends his existence. The Fox might find the Rabbit to be good, it gives him food. The fox doesn't find eating the rabbit to be evil however, for doing so brings him the good things. We find the Rabbit and Fox both not evil in this act as we are an outside party, we can look in through the heavens so to speak. We find their actions to be "natural" an action that takes place thousands and millions of times and sustains itself well over a long period of time. Now if your pet rabbit was eaten by a fox you may not like the fox very much to say the least.
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posted
Chris: Evil is seeing other people as less-than-human.
Dagonee: Chris, your definition seems far too limited. Are you saying evil only exists with respect to other people? Is there such a thing as victimless evil (ignoring the actor as a potential victim and leaving theological victims out of it)?
I make a distinction between "wrong" and "evil." I could never interpret simple ignorance as evil, but willful ignorance could be.
Many of the things that have been listed in this thread as being self-evidently evil come as a result of intentionally ignoring the worth of other people. Evil, to me, requires intent.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
I think that evil arises from a lack of sympathy for other people, and an unwillingness to sacrifice your own interests.
In other words, a truly evil person is one who utterly lacks compassion for anyone other than themselves, and considers their own enrichment over all other consideration.
Thus, a rapist is able to do what he does because in his mind, satisfying his desire to rape is the only important factor, and his victim's screams fall on deaf ears. A murderer can kill for gain because the gain is all that matters to him. The person who was murdered doesn't deserve a second thought.
To some small degree, all of us share this mode of thought, particularly when we are young, and have not yet learned that other people feel as we do, and that there are good reasons to give up our own desires for the sake of others. I think that when good people make this realization, it alters the course of their lives. When evil people make this realization, it only makes their evil acts more subtle.
When someone fails to ever make the realization at all, then I think that is where you have the "ignorant evil" that ak is talking about. That sort of evil is merely immaturity, to be pitied more than feared.
Now, the "truly evil" person I described above, for whom the lack of empathy and selfish motivations are pure and unadulterated, is exceptionally rare, and must be cultivated to be achieved. But when a normal person chooses to sacrifice someone else for their own interests, exploit people for gain, lie and offend to cover their faults, or hurt other people to escape minor inconveniences ... that shows a degree of evil in that person.
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quote: Aristotle said that a sophist is "one who makes money by sham-wisdom."(Edwards 496) They were despised as needy people who, as citizens, did little or nothing in service to the state. Labeled as incompetent pretenders, tricksters, and cheats, they had little or no support near the end of their era. Sophists were widely recognized as educators for a long while, but soon enough, questions arose concerning what exactly the sophists were teaching.
posted
Dagonee - me, either, I just didn't know how to modify my definition to include other instances without watering it down. Dog said what I said better, I think.
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Well what you seem to find as evil A rat named god is what a lot of people, at least myself, consider to be greed. Something you might find it odd to be the no.1 American value, and that of most of the world to be honest.
I think of it like this, there are many things that I honestly consider to be evil for me to conduct, but things that I should not use against other human beings as being weakness or evil. Besides the insane most evil people have an honest reason for doing what they are doing, even if it is only pleasure. That and to do an evil act only because say your needs are higher than the other persons needs. Well, that sounds like a lot of the things I see told to people when they become adults. "look after yourself"
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posted
Evil's a hard one. I don't know how to define it precisely, but I do know that when I treat myself as intrinsically more valuable (in body, spirit, wish, desire) than others, it's time to examine my actions more closely.
This makes for more of a red flag than an unerring a priori judgment, but it has been a good rule of thumb for me.
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posted
lol, I know Rat. I was just saying that You and I are living in a culture which for the most part is based on something you consider evil, and I'll be honest I consider evil as well. mmm The Evil Empire.
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posted
This has probably already been said, but I think that not being able to empathise with others (including animals) leads to evil. When you are unable to understand - or refuse to understand - the feelings of others then it's easy to hurt them, physically and emotionally.
posted
Dog and I must have had the same philosophy class... I agree with what he said. I think evil comes from not caring. And perhaps the ultimate stain, our Original Sin, is that we don't care about other people, other living things, and our world.
When you start caring about things, even rocks seem to have spirits. You have to deal with death as both terrible and good. You can always develop a deeper compassion.
Most people do not care about insects, and so are cruel to them. Is that evil? It is the exact same emotion that the rapist, the murderer, and the genocide posess. It is less than me, it annoys me, and I will have my way with it.
What happens when you must examine your actions and face the issues of life and death through the lens of compassion? That is when you realize that darkness resides in your own soul, and that indeed for every action there is a proper time and season.
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posted
I didn't know what the true defintion ofsophist was.
Anyway, while I believe that there are no universal codes of evil, and that nothing is truly evil, I do have some personal, irrational convictions of what is evil.
Stuff like severly manipulating people is up there on my list.
Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
Evil is whatever I do not like. No, not as in whatever I do not like in the sense that it is not currently working for my interests. Evil is whatever you would not wish to happen to you.
Note that I say "whatever" and not "whoever" because "whoever" makes positively no sense, is entirely subjective, and therefore has absolutely no value. For example, which types of people were evil in the decade after the French Revolution? Depends who you ask. If you combine all answers, you get: Socialists,Republicans, Democrats, Royalists, Beurocrats, Philosophes, Reactionaries, Laissez-faire economists, mercantilists....I could go on and on. Everyone called each other evil. But I know that what the Terrorists (as in Robespierrists) did was evil because they did not want to be guillotined.
Killing or injuring in self-defense IS evil, in that the actual shooting was an evil occurance-nobody would like to be shot. However, you cannot be faulted for self-defense, because the evil action would take place anyways-only with you the victim.
Soldiers who are good people murdering each other is evil, but neither one can be faulted.
A truly necessary war is evil, but a country defending itself cannot be faulted. That is to say, all European powers are to be blamed to WW1, but not for WW2 because some were defending themselves. Appeasement, the avoidance of fighting an already necessary war, was an evil occurance because it led to hundreds of millions of deaths. Those behind Appeasement can be faulted.
People can be responsible for evil events without being evil themselves. Everyone who kills is responsible for an evil event. The question is whether they had another option.
An evil occurance (something which you would not want to happen to you) is evil, PERIOD. It should be avoided at all costs. However, if it can not be avoided, it can not be avoided.
This doesn't mean that if you are a drug addict, you may spike someone else's drink and not bear responsibility, because it just doesn't mean the same to them as it does to you.
Evil occurances are also subjective. It all depends on who is responsible for the occurance. A tornado is probably an evil occurance, but nobody can really be faulted because...um...a tornado doesn't mind being blown around in circles the same way people mind. In fact, it does this to itself. In fact, it really doesn't actually "do" anything because it is a wheather phenomenon with no feelings. Tornados are not responsible for their actions.
I hope this makes sense. At any rate, I hope you get the general idea. EVENTS, and not PEOPLE, can be evil. Pain is evil because nobody likes pain. Killing is evil because nobody would like to die. Evil events are evil events. The Holocaust and the Soviet massacres and the Allied area bombings and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were all evil. However, that does not mean that they were not the best course of action, because they may truly have been necessary to prevent even more horrible events-such as Hitler beating the U.S. and Russia to the nuclear punch. Ignorance is evil. You are responsible only if you can prevent it. The more easily you can prevent it, the more resposibility you bear if it remains.
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quote:Most people do not care about insects, and so are cruel to them. Is that evil? It is the exact same emotion that the rapist, the murderer, and the genocide posess. It is less than me, it annoys me, and I will have my way with it.
I think there's a long way from being an egoist to being a murderer.
And I'll bet most "evil" people aren't that way for only their own self-interest. Even Hitler cared enough to "save" his country from the Jews.
My definition of "evil" is the exact opposite of Geoff's (which, hilariously, is me ). "Evil", to me, is the person who, intentionally or not, holds another down or back--the person who relies on the sympathy of others. The leech.
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I draw on M. Scott Peck's People of the Lie quite heavily in my definitions of evil. Basically it is selfishness, which is closely related to lack of empathy and objectifying others. I think Peck also draws on the idea of believing oneself to be infallible. That is, any who do not see themselves as potentially evil are going to wander into it. Kind of like a moral leprosy.
Certainly this is what members of both parties accuse the heads of their opponents of. (sorry for the dangling preposition.)
I think Chris put it more elegantly in his first post.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I would not say pain is evil, pain is in many frames discipline, for the most part people do not like to be disciplined, its that American thought that you should have free will over every course.
That and I as a person rebel against the fact that death or murder is inherently evil. It is simply thought by you to be inherently evil. The way I see it, as said before is that an event or person, or anything really is only evil to an individual. We all have mass opinions on something like say "Hitler is evil" yadda yadda. Now I honestly doubt that everything the man did was evil though.
I will be honest, I think that judging the world in thought that things are evil, good, bad, etc. is a poor frame of mind. I sort of have a mechanical mind to be honest, but things are better judged in efficiency. Efficiency isn't always very tangible ( note that the whole John Kerry threat about Nasa is a good example). People can not operate machines even if it would create the most output, but that also means you have to decide what is the best output. Many would say the greatest happiness, the greatest good, the greatest to the glory of god, the greatest to the glory of man, the greatest to the glory of himself etc. I honestly believe that all those things are wrong.
Everyone has some sort of inherent emotion, its not as if every belief or way you react is programmed into you by your upbringing, though much of it is. Many people are revolted by the sight of things, even if they want it to happen. An Excellent example is Heinrich Himmler who was appalled when a goodly number of Jewish people were shot in front of him. He fainted from the sight of all the blood. After that even he decided that they should come up with a method to gas the jews as it would be much more ethical and cleaner. He wanted them to die, but the sight of their death still revolted him.
Few people can honestly kill without remorse, sickness, or pain. Those that can for the most part are either missing a part of their humanity or have been highly programmed. It makes sense to have a genetic need not to kill except in rage.
Evil and good to me are simply rudimentary words used to measure the efficiency of an action. An Evil action tends to bring about less efficiency in one manner or another. A Good action tends to improve the efficiency of things in the long run. I've really babbled here, but I hope that I've made some sense.
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