What is "The Idea of Evil?"

[Low Laika]

There's many things that are considered evil. "To kill another human being." is a common example, but is killing for revenge still evil? Is destroying another person's life because they ruined yours evil? People say revenge is good and revenge is evil. What do you think? What is the idea of evil?

P.S. Since this subforum deals with philosophy, I thought this would be a great question to ask.  

[bluecherry]

*re-posting comment now that the thread is here* ninja


I'd say evil is not merely "in the eye of the beholder"-- it CAN be given one solid definition, just not everybody will agree with it. However, just because not everybody agrees on it does not make it wrong or them right. After all, no matter how much somebody believes "2+2=5" that does not make it correct. That definition of "What is evil?" I'd say would be anything/anyone which seeks to undermine and/or destroy the ability of any creature(s) possessing high enough normally functioning rationality (this mainly being humans, and ones that are not under or improperly developed due to things like very young age or disease or accident, but I extend the meaning to say "creature" for in the case of works of fiction primarily where there are often other species possessing intelligence comparable to that of humans) to freely seek the achievement of their own happiness within their own rights. ("within their own rights" again though still allows for things like self defense of course. wink ) Also, it should be noted here that evil is something done purposefully, it's a moral judgment and such things can only be understood by intelligent enough creatures to begin with, meaning only other things/people capable of being victimized by evil are capable of evil in the first place. Something like a storm can not truly be called "evil" even if it kills many people and destroys lots of stuff. It has bad results for people, yes, you are in the right for sure to fight against and/or avoid the damages it could cause, but you really can't call it evil since it has no will of it's own (or in the case of less intelligent animals, they can't understand stuff well enough even if they do have the ability to make choices to an extent) and therefore can't even try to make moral decisions like "Oh hey, it looks like I might kill some people if I zap my lightning bolt right there. Seeing as that's the case, should I really be zapping that lightning bolt right there? Would it really be a good thing for me to do or not?"



(By the way, this topic would fit well in the philosophy subforum. ninja )

 

[Iron_Felix]

Mankind needs no superior being of evil such as Satan, for man alone is capable of incomprehensible evil.

(I wont reply, because I wont be back)  

[bluecherry]

A different way to put it I suppose, but it does fit well enough I guess even with what I said. Evil is a moral judgement, something only people can do, so evils are only capable of being commited by people. All evil ever committed has been by people, and there's been plenty of it. However, the reverse is true too remember. There's been so much good and that as a moral judgement can only be done by people. 3nodding

 

[lnk1001]

Kind of going off on a tangent...

Revenge in all forms is wrong... just flat out wrong! No one likes having something done to them, but... why would you lower yourself to that person's level by revenging yourself.  

[AllyBabba93]

lnk1001

Kind of going off on a tangent...

Revenge in all forms is wrong... just flat out wrong! No one likes having something done to them, but... why would you lower yourself to that person's level by revenging yourself.

That's easy to say. I'm not so sure that you would stick to that benevolent and self-righteous moral if you or your friends and family were put in a terrible situation.  

[bluecherry]

So now we're on the subject of revenge I see. smile

How I see it is it's ridiculous and only inviting yourself to become a target to allow people to go unpunished when they have really wronged you. It's called standing up for yourself. However, you have boundaries within which you can act for yourself. Once the wrongs done to you are bad enough, that's what the criminal justice system is for, to do the things you can not to right the bigger wrongs where your rights are being violated. And when it comes to wrongs done between nations, that's when you get wars. (something in another topic actually.) War is a large scale version of the idea of "standing up for yourself" with whole countries standing up for themselves, wether it be the government for those it governs or the people being governed standing up against it's government when that has become intolerably corrupted to the point it can not and will not be fixed by means other then scrapping it and starting again.

 

[Baulder]

Meh. To me, there is no good, and there is no evil.
Good and evil are merely opinions. Like beauty, politeness, skill. Simply put, it is all a matter of one's perception.  

[bluecherry]

But if all good and bad are a matter of opinion, then would you say there is as much valididity to the claim of someone that shooting people randomly is good as anything else? You'd say that their belief of such is just as valid as any other? And skill in slight degrees of difference or on comparing things from different aspects may sometimes be debatable, but I think someone with no skill at all is often easy to call from somebody with lots of skill if the qualifications on what to judge by can be agreed upon. Like I think a driver who despite their best efforts can't even manage to stay on the roads is pretty easy to call a bad driver, especialy compared to somebody who may be a professional stunt driver who's very living is made through being skilled at driving.

 

[Baulder]

Well, if someone shoots people randomly, then obviously there was reason behind it, whether it be mentallity, or revenge, there is a reason.

And woh, woh, woh, you have misinterperted the second part about skill. I was merely using skill as an example. In the eyes of one very skilled, they could possibly consider someone less skilled than them, but sitll very skilled, to not be skilled. And so on.  

[bluecherry]

True that people do things for reasons, but suppose the greatest extent of their reason for shooting people is that they have been rasied, for some reason, to believe that just going out and shooting people for it's own sake is good. Why somebody would raise a kid to believe this I do not know, but the point is that there is now a person who thinks it's just a good thing to go kill other people for the sake of killing other people. Would this still be as valid as any other opinion on what is good?

And ah, ok. Skill as how it effects outlook, how you set your standards.

 

[Baulder]

Yes, yes it would still be valid. If that is what they believe, then to them it would be good. Just like how people used to believe that sacrificing to the gods was good, it is all a matter of opinion. And opinion changes with each generation.  

[Wertish]

What Baul is trying to say (Atleast how I understand it) Is that the reasons for shooting would be good for the person who is doing the shooting while we would extrapolate our other interactions with other people and "normalicy" and base the shooter's actions upon just a comparison and find that he is bad. But to the shooter himself, he is not a bad person, but a normal person doing normal things. For instance if the whole world were raise to kill and ask later, wouldn't a humanitarian look the outcast and to be a "bad" person?  

[bluecherry]

Mmm, but though that is what they believe is good does that make it so? Especialy consider that they now act upon this belief. They are out taking away other people's lives when the other person has done nothing to them first. The person doing the shooting thinks this is a good thing he has done, but when it comes down to it he has now excersized his "morality" into reality. And now that it's real, concretized, the effects of his idea of what is "good", you've taken it from a disjointed idea with no connection to reality into something that is tangible. Now that it's got real world implications it can be judged solidly. Actions, consequences, this is where the real problem of just letting it be said that "you can think whatever you want is right" comes in. People's actions are based upon their thoughts. If everybody is as right as everybody else on what's good and what's bad no matter what they believe, even direct opposites, what do you do about laws? "John over hear thinks murder is good, so we can't prosecute a guy for doing something 'good.' But Ted thinks murder is 'not good' though. So what do we do about the murder John committed if both of them are just as right as the other? It may be worth noting we know the person john killed did not want to be killed and thought murder was bad too." To some extent what people think is good and bad may not always get in eachother's ways when things are kept part of their personal lives, but what do you do about them acting upon things that will affect other people? Everybody could be having things done and doing this to others that they think is good but the other person thinks is bad. You have no such thing as "Rights" to dictate lines in the sand where some things just are not OK because to have "Rights" would mean declaring some things are always "right" and some always "not right." It would mean telling some people that they are not right some times, that if they disagree their opinion is NOT as valid.

 

[Baulder]

...I'm sorry, but I can't even understand what your point is. Are you saying people shouldn't have rights?