Baskervillain Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 don't believe in the concept of evil, I use the word but only as a descriptor in place of bad or other negatively viewed concepts Link to post Share on other sites
Orthonomous Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Evil is that which rejects it's duty to conform it's actions to those which are right by the moral law. The only basis for moral goodness is a good will. Happiness cannot be the basis of morality because bad things can make people happy. Personal preference is irrelevant, if something is wrong, it is wrong no matter how many people it makes happy. Since no number of "is" statements can form an "ought" statement, the moral law must be discovered through intuition, and only through intuition. Hurt is not the definition of evil because some people deserve to be hurt to a degree, such as the criminal that we put in jail for their crimes. But hurting those who have done no wrong is clearly an act of evil. If you choose to reject this in favor of moral relativism, then would you think it wrong of me to believe that you should be violently beaten and murder for your belief? Would you regard my actions as evil? But of course you can't, because you don't believe such a thing exists. If you believe that one thing is objectively wrong, you believe in a moral law. From there it is just a matter of figuring out what it consists of. This is the soul duty of man. Link to post Share on other sites
Prairie Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Orthonomous, here's a summary of what I understand of your view. People can act. Through some means, you divide actions into two groups. If someone does something from one group, it justifies hurting them. The purpose of this is to keep all acts in the other group. The purpose of this is to serve something named duty. Link to post Share on other sites
Himegami Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 I'm enjoying this thread too much. And will not share my opinion because I can be quite the "devil's advocate". Link to post Share on other sites
Orthonomous Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Orthonomous, here's a summary of what I understand of your view. People can act. Through some means, you divide actions into two groups. If someone does something from one group, it justifies hurting them. The purpose of this is to keep all acts in the other group. The purpose of this is to serve something named duty. That is not the purposing of hurting them, this is not a matter of behavioral management or conditioning, it is a matter of justice. The only reason we lock up criminals is because we believe that they deserve it. If we locked them up merely to achieve some ends that would not be just. Link to post Share on other sites
Robin L Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 Hurt is not the definition of evil because some people deserve to be hurt to a degree, such as the criminal that we put in jail for their crimes. But hurting those who have done no wrong is clearly an act of evil. Define "crime" and "wrongdoing" Link to post Share on other sites
ThaHoward Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 Seriously? Something that is illegal.. Link to post Share on other sites
Robin L Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 Seriously? Something that is illegal..So basically you're basing morality on something that doesn't necessarely represent human morality? Link to post Share on other sites
Orthonomous Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 Hurt is not the definition of evil because some people deserve to be hurt to a degree, such as the criminal that we put in jail for their crimes. But hurting those who have done no wrong is clearly an act of evil. Define "crime" and "wrongdoing" Crime would be something that is illegal in the given state, and wrongdoing would be something that is morally wrong. I recognize the difference, but the belief of those who make laws which allow the police to detain and arrest criminals is such that (or at least it ought to be such that) the actions of the criminals are considered to be morally wrong, rather than just inconvenient for society for example. Of course, this means that the state could get it wrong, as was the case in Nazi Germany. But the only reason that we can say that Nazi Germany had it wrong is because there is a standard of morality which is correct, in the same way you can only talk about fake money because their is such a thing as real money. Link to post Share on other sites
hekky1 Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: absence of good immorality often describes as supernatural force Basically, deeds which are not only not good but even below neutral. Link to post Share on other sites
MaxAmoeba Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 Evil, I'd say is a live force. It makes you do things which are manipulative, harmful, greedy, grotesque and senseless. Something that'd make you hate a person. Link to post Share on other sites
ThaHoward Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 Seriously? Something that is illegal..So basically you're basing morality on something that doesn't necessarely represent human morality? I am answering to you asking what the defintion of crime is, like it is something entirley subjective. In fact it is very objective; illegal. However what may be defined as a crime is relative to country to country. But again many countries have made things they deem "immoral" or "evil" as crimes. Let it be murder, theft, hustling or even sexualities. Link to post Share on other sites
Mundane Mesh Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 Concepts such as "good", "bad" and "evil" are very abstract and aren't black & white. They are relative and shouldn't be taken as absolute truths. Whether something is "moral" or "immoral" is an even more complicated topic. That being said, I define an action as evil if someone: "Willfully and/or knowingly does significantly more 'bad' than 'good' to others." Where "good" and "bad" are very vague words and depends a lot on who perceive it as bad. In this case it shouldn't be bad to others as in "to other sentient creatures" even if the person knows that it is bad for everyone affected (both in short and long term). Evil actions then means: "Willfully and/or knowingly causing significantly more negative feelings in other sentient beings than positive, both in short term and long term, directly and indirectly." This is still vague and hard to determine. I think a definition of evil could be objective, but judging individual cases will almost always have to be partially subjective or make assumptions, since there are so many factors that it depends on. The only way to objectively judge whether something is evil is to first agree on ONE definition of "evil" and then be near omniscient about every factor that can affect the outcome of the result. By the way, as you can see, the intent of the person plays a role in my definition of evil, but since you can never know this in real life, it is meaningless to take this into consideration when writing laws. Laws should prevent harm, not "evil". A person can have as evil intents as they want, as long as they don't cause any harm. In the same way, a person can do harmful things by accident, but that doesn't mean they didn't cause harm in the first place and should take responsibility for it. Link to post Share on other sites
DrunkardChu Posted April 19, 2015 Share Posted April 19, 2015 Anything written by Ayn Rand is my definition of evil. Link to post Share on other sites
ProfessionallyHuman Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 David Cameron, salad comes a close second Link to post Share on other sites
TooOldForThis Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 Firstly, I think that actions can be evil; I don't think that people can be evil. Even if a person committed only evil actions, that person would still be neither good nor evil, since in any given moment they have the option of acting in a good, evil, or neutral manner. I suppose one could in theory consider someone good or evil based on the statistical percentage of their actions which fell into one category or the other, but that would require an objective means by which to measure the goodness or evilness of individual actions, which we do not have. Emotions cannot be good or evil, since they are to some extent outside of our control; in ethics, ought implies can, so if we cannot control our emotions entirely then we cannot be praised or condemned for feeling a particular way. We can, however, choose whether or not to act on impulses and emotions, or for that matter on thoughts and reasoning, and our choices can be good or evil because they are under our control. Good and evil as terms in popular usage are too vague to work very well in philosophical discussion; the terms right and wrong typically end up getting tossed about instead. That's just a note; I think 'evil' and 'wrong' are being used synonymously in this case, but it's worth thinking about. As for what constitutes an evil action, that gets into very nuanced ethical theory. Context is always important when judging an action, as is motivation to some extent. Rather than offering a definition of evil, I'd suggest that there are objective standards (at which one can arrive by means of reason) of morality, which dictate (somewhat messily, a lot of the time) what the best course of action in any given situation is, as well as the worst course of action, the bare-minimum-acceptable course of action, and so on. That's all obnoxiously abstract, I'm aware, but then, that's morality for you :P I have a degree in philosophy and wrote my thesis on a topic in ethics, so I guess I might have made this more complicated than it really needed to be for everyday application. Oh well. Link to post Share on other sites
Yatogami Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 Morality is subjective, and a human creation. Evil/Good do not exist. The only reason it "does" is because of social survivalism. We work better in groups, so we had to chastise negative things, to preserve our overall survival so we don't fuck up our chances of reproduction. We don't kill and steal, because we can emphasize etc. Simple as that. Link to post Share on other sites
ChineseGirl Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 to me desire is evil Link to post Share on other sites
andreas1033 Posted July 12, 2015 Share Posted July 12, 2015 The problem is that everyone that is human really lives in there own world. So i doubt that anyone that does evil, thinks its evil, and goes out claiming they are doing this as its evil. Everyone rationalises everything they do, and even cannibals would rationalise it. Even though i think evil exists, the problem is that we all essentially live in our own world, so to define it, is alot harder. So although i think evil exist, to define it is impossible. As like i said, i beleive we all live in our own world. I think there is a dual nature to humans, with good and evil, but the fact that we live in our own world, means what is right for one, is not always right for another. Like others have siad, i doubt anyone goes out and really does evil, they rationalise it in there own mind thats its right, no matter what they did. Link to post Share on other sites
Rising Sun Posted July 12, 2015 Share Posted July 12, 2015 The problem is that everyone that is human really lives in there own world. So i doubt that anyone that does evil, thinks its evil, and goes out claiming they are doing this as its evil. Everyone rationalises everything they do, and even cannibals would rationalise it. Even though i think evil exists, the problem is that we all essentially live in our own world, so to define it, is alot harder. So although i think evil exist, to define it is impossible. As like i said, i beleive we all live in our own world. I think there is a dual nature to humans, with good and evil, but the fact that we live in our own world, means what is right for one, is not always right for another. Like others have siad, i doubt anyone goes out and really does evil, they rationalise it in there own mind thats its right, no matter what they did. You forget severe mental illnesses. Something evil can be done because the person thinks it's good, but for absurd reasons that can be so complicated and irrational that they're beyond any sane person's understanding. Link to post Share on other sites
ThaHoward Posted July 12, 2015 Share Posted July 12, 2015 Anything written by Ayn Rand is my definition of evil. So condemning racism and thinking racism is evil.. is evil? Link to post Share on other sites
praetorius Posted July 12, 2015 Share Posted July 12, 2015 I do not have a "personal" definition of evil, because I take the same stance on defining words that good dictionaries do: understanding the definition of a word is not about knowing what its "true meaning" is, but rather understanding how other people use it within a larger discourse. The word "evil" has been used in many ways to represent many concepts; sometimes insightfully and coherently, sometimes not. I don't feel compelled to take any one use as my personal standpoint; I judge whether or not the word "evil" is appropriately applied in some writing/speech not by adherence to a particular definition, but by seeing how the word functions in its context. The word is frequently used sloppily, sometimes intentionally so, in order to "prove" some point by equivocating between philosophically different applications of the term. Link to post Share on other sites
Chandler Klebs Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 My idea of evil is very simple. It's really nothing more than a synonym for pain or the causes of that pain. So generally pain, bad, and evil, all mean the same thing to me. I'm pretty sure that all definitions of what we call evil generally fall under that general idea. Link to post Share on other sites
Greenbeard Posted July 23, 2015 Share Posted July 23, 2015 My definition of evil? ...Well, I think, maybe, it's the single-minded pursuit of pleasure, of one's own (sometimes frivolous) desires, and/or of supposed self-betterment, accompanied by a total disregard for the harm - the suffering and the degradation - that your actions will (because you know they will) cause others. It's a combination of selfishness, wilful ignorance and a lack of empathy. It's members of the human race - acting either individually or in groups of varying sizes (sometimes entire cultures or nations) - in full-on animal mode, behaving as if they've just swung down from the trees instead of the rational, civilized beings they like to think of themselves as. Link to post Share on other sites
Anthracite_Impreza Posted July 26, 2015 Share Posted July 26, 2015 Morality is subjective, and a human creation. Evil/Good do not exist. The only reason it "does" is because of social survivalism. We work better in groups, so we had to chastise negative things, to preserve our overall survival so we don't fuck up our chances of reproduction. We don't kill and steal, because we can emphasize etc. Simple as that. This. Link to post Share on other sites
Unlabeled Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 So folks, what is your personal definition of evil? do you believe that objectively there can only be one definition? if not, would you like your own definition to be adopted by society? Also, can you really say that not doing evil is always right? I'll go first - my definition of evil breaks down into two segments: 1) Basing your moral values on anything other than rationality is evil (i.e. emotions). 2) Basing your actions towards other members of the group (Group is defined subjectively, for me it's intelligent life) on something other than your personal moral values. I believe that there are many definitions, and as for my own, I'd rather it not be adopted by society due to it's vague nature - society needs far more solid definitions in order to function. Lastly, I don't believe it's right to never commit evil, there are special situations in which our rationality is blurred and our environment - extreme, and so you cannot be completely held accountable for your 'evil'. I don't believe in good and evil. Just actions and consequences. My reasoning: - A soldier who kills their enemy in a war has killed someone. But we call that "good." At the same time though, the slain soldier's family might call it "evil." So who's right? - A terrorist who kills a non-combatant might be said to be "evil." But what about a soldier who drops a bomb or otherwise kills their enemy indiscriminately and kills some non-combatants along with the enemy? Is the soldier good, but the terrorist evil? Same event, but how it's described varies depending on who's describing it. Rather than good and evil being objective realities there's just actions and consequences. The action's the killing, the consequence is the dead person. Link to post Share on other sites
AK-Stoic Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 my definition of evil would have to be wholesale slaughter on an industrial scale! e.g. Josef mengele or Japanese unit 731 comes pretty close to the standard definition of evil! but that could be said of all conflicts on a mass scale. its easier to fight for ideals then to live up to them! as for soldiers and terrorists their basically the same, one persons terrorist is another persons freedom fighter.! all conflicts are just one big pissing contest with no winner involved! Link to post Share on other sites
SwirlyKitten Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 I don't really use the world evil that often as it is a very subjective term and I feel it is too simplistic to convey any real message. Besides, the world isn't black and white. If I had to give a definition of evil I think it'd be the same as sadistic. Having joy in seeing another person's pain, even if that person hasn't done anything to you. Lying just for fun, confusing people, playing mind games on them out of boredom. Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 I like Phil Zimbardo's definition of evil. Phil Zimbardo is the author of The Lucifer Effect, the psychiatrist behind the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment, and was an expert witness in the court proceedings in the aftermath of Abu Ghraib. Zimbardo' definition: “Evil is the exercise of power to intentionally harm, hurt, destroy or commit crimes against humanity.” I couldn't have said it better myself. Part of what leads to evil is dehumanization - when people start thinking in their minds that other people that they don't like aren't fully human. In Rwanda, where hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were murdered by Hutus, one of the local radio stations egged on the massacre by saying "They are cockroaches and murderers." Zimbardo's TED Talk is pretty awesome, BTW... I'm just posting to say that I agree and Zimbardo is one of the greatest people to look into what evil is. Zimbardo Link to post Share on other sites
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