"Evil comes in four flavors. There is the insane--which is a sickness that may mean it is not evil at all, just results in carnage. There is the uncaring, which results in evil actions because it was no one's job to stop it. There is the evil hearted, who seek personal pleasure with a sociopathetic heart. However while they come closest to evil, they care only for their personal pleasure. Their evil is as petty as the others.
However, for true, historical, grandiose evil. That, my friend, comes from the vituous seeking to promote their holy virtue of choice, that gives them the passion, the energy, the moral strength to do truly evil deeds. Whether its flying planes into buildings, blowing up busses, designing Auschwitz, or leading millions to die in the Chinese rice fields, each leader believed with all their heart and soul, that what they were doing was pursuing some virtue that history would approve of.
That is why villians are so interesting my friend. The true villians, the masters who have climbed above the petty and pathetic, they are the virtuous hero's of today, minus the spin."
So says one of my characters, Mendax the Demon, to one of his would be victims.
Thoughts on the idea that much evil comes from virtue unregulated, misdefined, or improperly prioritized?
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Can somebody be "virtuous" and still force their virtues on others? Seems like a contradiction.
If I had a virtue of responsibility, would that alone make me a "virtuous person" to say nothing of forcing my beliefs on others?
Seems like somebody who becomes a "virtuous" person cultivates many many virtues. And it is to be assumed that once you reach a point of virtuousness you would aquire the virtue of wisdom and patience.
But I dunno I could be wrong
Certainly the person who tries to accomplish good through evil causes the most damage and as you said, "Carnage".
I would think the greatest evil is accomplished by those who know their cause is evil, but have effectively presented it as righteous, using that perceived righteousness as a means to accomplish that evil.
The person who stupidly pushes his/her virtue on others is guilty of being just that stupid. The evil person who uses perceived righteousness knows what he is doing is wrong, and is worse because of it.
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I think it's a good thing for a "demon" to say.
The best lies are the ones that have a kernel of truth. In this case, the "lie" is the creation of the impression that virtue carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction, and of the most overwhelming evil. When, in fact, the evil arises from a twisted form of that virtue.
If I understand you correctly...
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Being virtuous and believing you are virtuous are two very separate things. Not often found together.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Being virtuous and believing you are virtuous are two very separate things. Not often found together.
Many definitions of 'virtuous' lead the qualifications to be subjective. However, in the presence of absolute truth and knowledge, being virtuous is not subjective.
I personally really like the quote, Dan, as it rings in correlation to my own thoughts.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Being virtuous and believing you are virtuous are two very separate things. Not often found together.
Who decides virtue? That's what the passage made me think. Who decides what is virtuous and what is evil? Or is that one of the facets of virtue, that it has to be percieved as evil by some. That is what Mendax is saying, just flipped around. I know its semantics, but I think it puts it in an interesting light.
Is there such a thing as "absolute virtue"? Or is virtue simply decided by the victors.
Lots of interesting thoughts on this topic, but yet again, my words fail me. Hopefully this discussion will develop though, because I'd enjoy seeing what other people think on it.
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Absolute virtue exists only in a scenario of absolute truth/knowledge. Anything past that is biased.
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Some of the comments reminded me of a book I used to have. One of the characters in The Cross-Time Engineer" talks about the saying, "my strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure." He said that it doesn't matter whether the person's heart if pure good or pure evil - that it is pure is where the strength lies.
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Our verson of virtue is a western, or maybe even American version of virtue.
Our virtue isn't ancient Greek virtue, it isn't Chinese virtue, it isn't Macedonian, incan, egyptian, elvish, dwarfish, orcish, demonic, royal, peasant, medieval, holy, etc etc virtue.
I think it is very much in the eye of the beholder. Virtue in one society can mean the defeat of some nebulous evil culture, but in that culture, it might mean the opposition of whatever the forces of "good" stand for.
I take issue with there being so many levels of evil maybe. Insanity doesn't make evil innocent, it makes it tragic. If you're fighting a crazy man, or a perfectly sane man, but both are representing the same evil ideal, do motivations really matter? Maybe to the scholars, but to the soldiers? To the citizenry? Tragic I'm okay with calling it, but not innocent, not "not evil at all."
Uncaring evil I think assigns too much intent, or maybe too much blame to the apathetic. In a society ruled by an insane ruler, supposedly not at fault for his evil actions, then is the worse evil from the apathetic people who do nothing to stop him?
I'd say with your four flavors of evil:
The first isn't excused evil, it's tragic evil, it's preternaturally evil.
The second I have trouble calling evil. Apathy is neither evil nor good, where is the grey area? Not doing good isn't automatically evil, which seems fair given that not doing evil is certainly not automatically good. Thereforce, not acting, especially for fear of one's own safety does not imply complicity in evil, or support of it. Therefore I take issue with calling apathy evil.
The third I would agree is evil, and I'd almost call it the worser form of evil. I don't call it that because it's the most damaging, but because it's the most malicious. The man isn't removed of his choice by being insane, and he isn't deluded into thinking he's protecting his virtues, he willfully chooses to do acts he knows to be evil for his own personal amusement or profit.
The fourth you are dead on about. By theory of virtue they can charm the hearts of the innocent and convince them to do evil biddings under the guise of virtue. They aren't necessarily evil by nature, but they are the most dangerous and implacable foes, not just because of their ambitions and the havoc they wreak, but for this: Behind every virtuous evildoer you find a golden voice. They spawn their evil virtue in the hearts of their followers. It's not as malicious as the man who chooses evil at face value, but it's perhaps much more scary, that a golden voice can convince a man to do evil and at the same time convince him he's doing good.
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I highly doubt this line: "comes from the vituous seeking to promote their holy virtue of choice, that gives them the passion, the energy, the moral strength to do truly evil deeds".
I think what happens, for instance in the examples your demon gives, is that the evil person (in one of the first three senses) is smart enough to know that a virtuous person can be manipulated because of his virtue. The evil one, pretending to share this virtue, lies to the virtuous one and harnesses that energy and passion to achieve the evil one's ends.
The point is that I would have a hard time constructing a scenario in which a virtuous person, acting on his own, performs an act with really evil consequences.
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I think it's misleading because I think most people think they are virtuous. Most people think they are right. Guilt is an unsustainable emotion, and evil people justify their acts instead changing them to fit truly virtuous principles.
If a virtuous person is doing something evil, then they aren't actually a virtuous person.
I don't like the statement because it looks like saying an evil act from someone who is trying to be good is worse than an evil act from someone isn't trying. That...sounds more like an agenda against people trying to be good than truth.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I don't like the statement because it looks like saying an evil act from someone who is trying to be good is worse than an evil act from someone isn't trying. That...sounds more like an agenda against people trying to be good than truth.
Which in my mind would make it a good statement for the devil or demon to make. It would be nice if the hero has the discernment that you do, and is able to interpret it in a beneficial way.
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The hard problem here, at the end of the day, is the principle of first harm. When we bombed Hiroshima, we were meaning to do good -- and killed far, far more innocent people in so doing than, say, Ted Bundy. But did their deaths serve a greater good? If so, were their deaths not justified?
And if you can justify one death, why is it difficult to come up with justifications for others?
So we have to draw two lines: the principle of first harm, meaning that people have the right to harm someone else only to stop them from harming others; and the principle of self-determination, meaning that people have the right to make their own choices.
The problem is that both of these principles can in fact harm the greater good in the short term; sometimes people make bad choices, as individuals or as a society -- and sometimes it might be better, on average, to harm someone (by imprisonment or death or exile or slavery or forced mental treatment or whatever) than to wait for them to commit harm. That brings us, of course, to the question of harm itself; who gets to decide what constitutes "harm?" Do alcoholic beverages harm people? What about cigarettes? Should we harm someone for selling alcohol and cigarettes, if so?
Is "harm" different from compulsion? Can you harm someone by persuading them to do something?
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Harm, in my opinion, comes from influencing someone to achieve a negative outcome from the viewpoint of that person, that the person normally would not have done without said influence.
If you, and you alone, pursuade someone into giving up hope and killing themselves, are you not harming them, by helping them to harm themselve?
By my definition, harm is subjective, and is determined purely from the viewpoint of those harmed.
quote:the principle of first harm, meaning that people have the right to harm someone else only to stop them from harming others;
I see this as a catch 22 with my definition. If I have the right to harm someone to stop them from harming others, whats to stop someone harming me to stop harming the original person?
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quote:Originally posted by T_Smith: Harm, in my opinion, comes from influencing someone to achieve a negative outcome from the viewpoint of that person, that the person normally would not have done without said influence.
If you, and you alone, pursuade someone into giving up hope and killing themselves, are you not harming them, by helping them to harm themselve?
By my definition, harm is subjective, and is determined purely from the viewpoint of those harmed.
quote:the principle of first harm, meaning that people have the right to harm someone else only to stop them from harming others;
I see this as a catch 22 with my definition. If I have the right to harm someone to stop them from harming others, whats to stop someone harming me to stop harming the original person?
Depends on the reasons the 3rd person stopped you.
This sounds like ethical surgery though.
If he knew, you by killing that person would cause greater damage, he would be justified in stopping you. Basic JS Mill. If he saw you point a gun at somebody else, but was ignorant as to why, it would be most likely right for him to stop you as reasons to prevent a killing outnumber the reasons to allow killing IMO.
This all reminds me of Minority Report, where they simply stopped all murders. They didnt worry about anything else. What I didnt like about Minority Report is that they simply arrested people and locked them up in a dream state regardless of the degree of murder. Premeditated was treated the same as a crime of passion, and they didnt even mention voluntary/involuntary man slaughter.
I need to think about where it is justified to kill for the sake of a virtue. Ill post later.
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Be careful not to confuse the prideful view that you are a virtuous person with the almost subliminal feeling that you are just trying to do the right thing. I'm not really able to put together my thoughts on this very well, but they seem to be different things to me.
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quote:People who believe themselves virtuous usually aren't even close.
I don't think I agree with that. I've known some spectacular hypocrites, but I also know some people who work very hard at being kind, charitable, fair and honest and who think themselves to be fairly good people. They aren't wrong.
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I think that one has to be pretty prideful to believe that they can justify evil means to achieve what they consider a virtuous end.
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But thats the point, then. What is evil means, but a subjective idea. As an example from the religion I believe, Nephi killed Laban because God commanded him, in the efforts that the righteous should not dwindle and perish. However, many would say that killing, regardless of intent and outcome, is and of itself an evil means. Without knowing why he did it, could we tell if what Nephi did was an evil act, or righteous act?
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I think that may depend on whether or not someone believes in a God that commands someone to kill. We may differ on that.
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The key thing I was trying to make in that is exactly that. That without absolute truth/knowledge (i.e. God's will), we only have our own beliefs of right and wrong to guide morality (and nothing is more subjective than what people believe). Without that absolute truth/knowledge, the context of peoples actions change.
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It is those people who are sure that they have absolute truth/knowledge that do things that absent that absolute truth/knowledge are clearly wrong. That is why the prideful conceit that one has sufficient absolute truth/knowledge to employ any means is prone to evil.
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quote: That without absolute truth/knowledge (i.e. God's will), we only have our own beliefs of right and wrong to guide morality (and nothing is more subjective than what people believe). Without that absolute truth/knowledge, the context of peoples actions change.
I don't think I agree with this. Even if God did tell Nephi to kill, it still seems like an evil act to me. It might be less evil than the alternative, but taking a life is not an act of righteousness.
quote: Who decides virtue?
From the context in Dan's quote, I interpreted his meaning to be "believing you are doing good" rather than any concrete definition of virtue.
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Sorry I can't add as much to this discussion as it deserves, especially since I started it.
First, in defense of the divisions of evil:
1) Insanity is as evil as cancer, a typhoon, or an earthquake. All are natural occurances that are destructive, devastating, and totaly impersonal. They have no soul to be "evil" yet you cannot deny their destructiveness.
2) The uncaring is almost as dangerous as those seeking too much of one virtue. The uncaring allow people to suffer instead of acting to stop it. This was part of the problems that faced post-Katrina support. Evil can only fourish while good people ignore it. Yet I do not mean to imply that if you do not routinely do heroics, you are a villian.
A child is playing in the middle of a street. A car comes speeding down the road. The hero would rush out into the street to save the child. The majority of us would scream, jump, do something to avert the coming disaster. The uncaring would look at the child, think "Its not me. Its not mine." and walk away.
That is evil
3) The evil lover, or the man who would pull up a seat at the above just to watch the child die, is evil, yet that evil is self-defeating, alienating, and, well, petty. Unless it falls in the hands of a powerful person, it is usually limited in scope. Unfortunately, such people seek out positions of power--including police, teaching, coaching, military, politics, and even the church. As Tolkien shows us, even petty evil is vitally destructive on a personal basis.
As for as the rest of the discussion, it may crop up edited as the story progresses. Yes, Mendax is tempting a hero away from the path of doing what's right.
"Being virtuous and believing you are virtuous are two very separate things. Not often found together" answered Greg, trying to ignore the large dapper demon before him.
"Clever," thought Mendax to himself, "but I am the demon of cleverness." He stepped right up Greg and whisphered in his ear, "So, does this make you think you are Virtuous?"
The argument brings up another story I have half-written. A brilliant scientists is hired by an aging Jewish financeer. He designs and builds a time machine. Then, under the financeer's guidance, he takes on the identity of a 1940's Jewish Austrian and goes back in time. There he is about to assasinate Hitler which, the elderly man believes, will allow his family to not have been brutally killed by the Holocaust.
As he is about to pull the trigger he is accosted by, well, himself, who had traveled back in time from a different future--one where a lone Jewish gunman killed and made a martyr of a young Adolph Hitler. The resulting atrocities, genocide, and eventual war is laid at his feet, as WWI is laid at the feet of the Serbian who assasinated Arch Duke Ferdinand. To stop this tragedy, he of the alternate future, has been assigned to go back in time and stop the man who shot Hitler.
Good and Evil, Virtue and Villiany, if it was easy to tell them apart all the time life would not be so interesting.
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"We need to keep an eye on our means as well as on our ends. "
I agree that the ends do not justify the means. The problem is, from my perspective, is that you can not adaquetely judge the means to be good/evil without knowing the context. In a situation of law, you can judge whether legally right or wrong. In a situation of absolute truth/knowledge, you can judge good/evil because you know the entire context, and you can judge everyone on the same definition of good and evil. I agree that if I judge an act to be evil and wrong, I can not justify doing said act for greater good. I can not applaud anyone who knowingly does evil for the greater good. But those are biased upon my own beliefs, not a belief structure that governs everyone.
As a side note, I believe that killing Laban was righteous, in the context presented in the Book of Mormon. God/gods/A God/Flying Spaghetti Monster, is absolute truth/knowledge, and he defines right/wrong, good/evil on a level basis for everyone. I believe God can not be evil. Him telling Nephi that it was his will that he kill Laban, by my beliefs, inherently makes it righteous.
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quote: I believe God can not be evil. Him telling Nephi that it was his will that he kill Laban, by my beliefs, inherently makes it righteous.
This is a tangent conversation, but one I find interesting. Could the best possible choice in a given scenario still be evil? In my opinion, I think so. Killing somebody in self defense could be the best possible choice, but I don't think it makes killing any less evil. It's choosing the lesser of two evils. Do you disagree?
[Edite to add:] The God of the Bible and BoM clearly thinks that killing is wrong since it's in the 10 Commandments. In my mind this makes it clear that if He were to advocate a murder, it would not be because he found murder acceptable but because it prevented something even worse than murder.
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The God of the Bible does not condemn killing in the 10 Commandments. He condemns wrongful killing, i.e. murder. He orders several killings and commits thousands more Himself throughout the book, but does not once "murder."
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"Killing somebody in self defense could be the best possible choice, but I don't think it makes killing any less evil. It's choosing the lesser of two evils. Do you disagree?"
I do disagree, since accepting one's death at the hand of another is not evil on my account. From a personal standpoint, if it came down to a choice of my life or someone who was trying to kill me, I would choose my own life for self defense, but that only proves my weakness, and hypocracy (it's one thing to say what is ethically moral, and another to live and die by it- I consider myself a coward for this). If I could protect myself and avoid killing that person, I would.
It's a completely different scenario if I believe wholeheartedly, without doubt that God is telling me that killing the person trying to kill me is the right thing to do. I do not know of a scenario where God would say that, since I believe he advocates to turn the other cheek, but who am I to understand God?
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quote:People who believe themselves virtuous usually aren't even close.
I don't think I agree with that. I've known some spectacular hypocrites, but I also know some people who work very hard at being kind, charitable, fair and honest and who think themselves to be fairly good people. They aren't wrong.
I worded my thoughts wrong. I should have said people who know they are virtuous. I too know many people who believe they are fairly good people - that they're trying to do a good job - but that's a far cry from knowing you are virtuous.
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Hmm...as an utter side note, I wouldn't have one character say another character is clever. It's essentially the author calling himself clever since he puts the words in both their mouths, and I don't think that's effective. If the words and writing are clever, they don't need a commentary saying so.
For that a passage, I think the same effect would be achieved more cleanly by eliminating Mendax's first sentence. Eliminating that sentence would show that 1) the first guy said something worth answering, and 2) Mendax can twist it and outsmart him. --
quote:I worded my thoughts wrong. I should have said people who know they are virtuous. I too know many people who believe they are fairly good people - that they're trying to do a good job - but that's a far cry from knowing you are virtuous.
The percentage of people who KNOW they are virtuous is vanishingly small, I'll bet. I've only known one, and I've lived in places filled with people whose entire purpose was to try and do the work of the Lord.
A character who KNOWS he is virtuous is so extreme he is almost a cartoon.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: The God of the Bible does not condemn killing in the 10 Commandments. He condemns wrongful killing, i.e. murder. He orders several killings and commits thousands more Himself throughout the book, but does not once "murder."
True Story.
Also I think the ends DO justify the means. The problem is is that people think they can simply gain outcome A by doing action B. ALOT of the time we confuse causation and correlation. It is then we are shoked when action B yields result C, when we fully expected A to occur.
Utilitarianism only works if you are reasonably sure of the outcome, dispite what the means would require. "reasonably" depending on the magnitude of the means. The greater the suffering your means causes the more sure you ought to be about the ends.
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My faith is in a God who can achieve His ends without asking his followers to commit evil acts. If I thought that God was asking me to kill someone, I wouldn't doubt God but I would doubt my own senses.
When we start believing we are sure that we know God wants us to do something that, in a different context, we would consider evil, it gets very dangerous. Almost always people who believe that have been proven horribly wrong. See: Crusades.
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If you believe in the truth of the Old Testament, then there are countless examples of God commanding his chosen people to commit what you consider to be evil acts. They were even reprimended the times that they failed to fully comply with the command.
So in your opinion, was Israel of the Old Testament the greatest kind of evil because they believed they were following God's commandments, but in fact were not; or is God evil?
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My opinion (no surprise) is that the Old Testament (and most of Scripture) is a recording of humanity's relationship to the Divine from the point of view of the people writing it. I do not think that those people got it right all the time anymore than we do.
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So when Israel took Jericho, that would be an example of the worst kind of evil as described by Dan.
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Are you asking me? I feel so much more confident in the veracity of "God Said So" when God isn't recorded as saying, "Go, Take That Because I Like You Best." I think that those places where God is recorded as saying, "Go, give that to somebody else" are much more credible. Or how about, "Those other guys, the ones not writing this down, are really just as 'favorite' as you are and understand Me just as well."
As for your example: "Worst" seems to imply something outstanding in its badness. There are many, many examples of this kind of badness. (See again: Crusades)
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Sorry, I wasn't very explicit. I meant worst in regards to the four types of evil that Dan described.
It's interesting that you view things being less credibly from God if it benefits a person. However, if it goes against our nature and benefits someone else, you seem to view it more credibly. The conclusion that makes most sense to me is that you believe that God mostly (or even exclusively) asks us to do things that are against our nature or not in our self interest. Is this accurate? If not, perhaps you could explain more. If so, do you think you got this perspective in part from Catholicism, or is it kind of a personal thing with not a lot taught for or against it in your religion?
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I think that the degree of evil lies in the degree of harm as well as in the motivation. So someone who did a small harm believing that his supposed virtuous ends justified it would be less evil than someone who did great harm because he enjoyed it. But if you get a lot of people thinking that doing harm is virtuous you can do evil on a pretty enormous scale. Whereas true sociopaths are fairly rare. Does that make sense?
It isn't that I God doesn't tell us to do things that benefit us. I think that we are inclined to believe that God tells us things that are in our self interest. Which would most people rather believe - "God says I'm best and you should give that to me" or "God says that you are as good as I am so I should share everything I have"?
I think that the motivation for believing the latter is more true and more credible. I also think that believing the latter will lead us to both good means and good ends.
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