What, exactly, is evil?

[moon1969]

People like Dalai Lama, pastor Sun Myung Moon, Radovan Karadžić, Ratko Mladić, Goran Hadžić, Robert Mugabe or Omar al-Bashir are evil people. Those people are what true evil is. That is what evil is.

 

[Mark Felt]

There is a very objective standard for good and evil. Good is that which serves human life. Evil is that which voluntarily destroys it.

So kidnapping an eight year old, keeping her tied up in my closet and raping her nightly wouldn't be evil? I'm not going to kill her in this thought experiment.

 

[gdnp]

People like Dalai Lama, pastor Sun Myung Moon, Radovan Karadžić, Ratko Mladić, Goran Hadžić, Robert Mugabe or Omar al-Bashir are evil people. Those people are what true evil is. That is what evil is.

Dalai Lama? I'm having a hard time figuring out how he belongs in this group.

 

[Nosaj]

SaulOhio,

Not really. If killing is necessary in order to defend life from people who would kill many others, then it is justifiable. But defense of life is the ONLY moral justificiation for killing.

And you do not see the apparent contradiction here, i.e, that this supposedly objective basis for evil, that which voluntarily destroys human life, is contingent upon things like motive?

Jason

 

[Piscivore]

Not really.

Well, your simple metric went right out of the window pretty quickly. So much for "objective".

If killing is necessary in order to defend life from people who would kill many others, then it is justifiable.

"Many"? How about just one? How about when you don't know if the victim is going to be killed or not? How about if they are only being tortured? Do we just sit and watch, secure in the knowledge it will eventually end and the victim may eventually recover, smug in the self-satisfaction we have "served life" by not intervening if it may cause the torturer's death?

But defense of life is the ONLY moral justificiation for killing. Ever.

So it's absolutely, unequivocally wrong for a police officer to shoot a man who was raping a child, then? Or beating an old woman, but not killing her?

Just sitting by like a pasifist while some psychopath or tyranical dictator goes around killing people is not a way to practice the principle of the sanctity of life. By taking out such a person, you are serving life, even if you need to kill the killer to do it.

Too bad life so very rarely offers us such clear cut moral choices, isn't it? How few opportunities most of us get to "serve life", then, what with the dearth of psychopaths and tyrannical dictators, eh?

Or does your "objective morality" only count for absurd hypotheticals?

BTW, Piscivore, I am keeping my distance from you. I was born in the middle of March.

Probaobly a wise idea, no matter what your sign.

 

[Ethnikos]

Evil is a virus. Some people have a better immune system, to fight its spread, than others.
People can have normal thoughts, like, "My neighbor bought a new car that is really nice."
If you were good, your response might be, "I should go to the dealer and look into possibly buying a similar car."
If you were infested with evil and it was in an advanced state, you might say to yourself, "I wish I could murder my neighbor and steal his car."
I wish my parents had taught me more about evil when I was young because I had neighbors who were evil and I did not understand their mentality and got taken advantage of.
Maybe I was better off being a little oblivious and kept my thoughts on good things.
Adam and Eve would have been better off if they went on not realizing how evil the snake was that offered them forbidden knowledge.
Maybe the question should be, can someone who is totally good see the evil intentions in another, who is evil?
Eve saw the serpent as the most beautiful creature in the garden and did not see through its outside appearance to see the evil inside it.
Would she have been better prepared if she had eaten some fruit of the knowledge of good and evil Lite?
Or is even a little knowledge of evil just too dangerous and could cause a serious infection of evil?
Could they have been inoculated against evil?
Were they the inoculation, for the human race?
Could this planet be the inoculation for the entire universe?
Is this the only place where evil has taken hold and the rest of the universe looks on to see how it works out?
To get back to the original question, evil is not the absence of good.
I do not have an argument to support that.
I think you could take a very evil person and a very good person and edit their lives down to where you show them as being the opposite of what you would perceive them as.
So, it can not be as simple as one or the other being absent in a person.
You can take a superficial look at the Bible and conclude that Pharisees were bad people.
Some were and some went on to be converted to Christianity.

 

[SaulOhio]

So kidnapping an eight year old, keeping her tied up in my closet and raping her nightly wouldn't be evil? I'm not going to kill her in this thought experiment.

You aren't letting her live her own life. In fact, you are warping her entire life and destroying her ability to enjoy it. She might in fact prefer death to such treatment. That makes it even more evil than just simply killing her.

SaulOhio,

And you do not see the apparent contradiction here, i.e, that this supposedly objective basis for evil, that which voluntarily destroys human life, is contingent upon things like motive?

Jason

Of course motive is important. My definition does include the element of choice, doesn't it?

Well, your simple metric went right out of the window pretty quickly. So much for "objective".

No. Just dealing with situations where it may be necessary to make difficult decisions.

"Many"? How about just one?

I think I included self-defense. That is the defense of one person.

How about when you don't know if the victim is going to be killed or not? How about if they are only being tortured? Do we just sit and watch, secure in the knowledge it will eventually end and the victim may eventually recover, smug in the self-satisfaction we have "served life" by not intervening if it may cause the torturer's death?

By "life", I don;t just mean continuing to take air into our lungs and pumping blood through our veins. I mean the totality of a human life, and that includes the ability to enjoy life, to think and make choices, to choose the course of our lives. Everything that makes us human and makes life worth living.

So it's absolutely, unequivocally wrong for a police officer to shoot a man who was raping a child, then? Or beating an old woman, but not killing her?

If shooting is necessary to stop the rapist or thug, he should do it. Like I said, its not just about blood circulation and bowel movements. Its about being alive and able to appreciate it.

Too bad life so very rarely offers us such clear cut moral choices, isn't it?

It doesn't always, but the coices are clear cut much more often than that. In fact, most of the time it is very clear-cut. Its just difficult when we have to think about it. If a situation was easy to deal with, we wouldn't have to be thinking about it.

How few opportunities most of us get to "serve life", then, what with the dearth of psychopaths and tyrannical dictators, eh?

Serving life isn;t just about stopping psychopaths and dictators. Its about creativity, production. Don;t be so negative all the time. Its about enjoying life, living your own in the pursuit of happiness, and appreciating other people's lives vicariously.

Or does your "objective morality" only count for absurd hypotheticals?

As a matter of fact, Ayn Rand, the person who worked out the basics of this morality, scoffed at the use of absurd hypotheticals. I'm not the one who brought up any hypotheticals. This morality is for living life on Earth, and was derived by observation of life as it is.