What really is, "Evil"?

[Bob Hubbard]

"If somebody has no concept of what they are doing being evil, is it still an evil act."

I found this question in a discussion on MAP, and it got me thinking.

What really is Evil?

Take for example the Mayan priest, killing sacrifices as part of their religion, or the ancient Spartan practices of removing the imperfect from their society. Today, we consider both to be evil acts, but at the time, neither society saw anything wrong. Animal sacrifice was a big part of the Christian bible's old testament, and a part of the Hebrew faith. But, set up an altar and kill a goat today, and the SPCA will show up with the sheriff.

So, what makes something truly, "evil".

 

[Hand Sword]

Anything the dominant culture labels as evil. It changes culture to culture, even generation to generation.

 

[MBuzzy]

This is a huge philosophical debate that has been going on for thousands of years. It actually relates back to the basic debate of the definition of Ethics.

There are many different schools of thought toward how ethics work and what is right and wrong and good and evil. For example, the idea of intrinsic good - good of the sake of itself, with no other intentions than the act itself. Of course, all acts have some result....so does it exist.

Then there is the idea that ethics are "in the eye of the beholder." Basically, what you belive is right and wrong....is. But may not be for others.

Or the idea that right is the action that produces the best results for the most people. "The needs of the many are more important than the needs of the few."

Obviously, I'm talking about good here - because Evil is the opposite of good - whatever your definition may be...So I suppose what true Evil is simply depends on your frame of reference.

Evil is also frequently defined FOR us by society and government...

 

[Shaderon]

Perception.

Everything is down to perception, how the person labelling the thing sees it. If that Mayan Priest doesn't see what he's doing as Evil, and no one else does then it's not, it might be in his eyes necessary to appease the gods. If someone kills someone else in a morbid nasty way and enjoys doing it just for the kicks, then I see that as evil.

Also people's perception of their religion will dictate to them what is evil, I really enjoy doing Chinese Character Analyses, however my mother who is a born again christian, sees that as evil because she says it's "occult" and therefore must be evil.

Good and bad are all relative to each other, as are good and evil.

 

[MBuzzy]

So where is the line between one person's perception and another person's rights?

If it is my perception that it is right for me to walk around kicking old ladies in the head....it may be right for me - but what about the old ladies?



And the cops that come to arrest me?

 

[mrhnau]

Evil is also frequently defined FOR us by society and government...

Laws tend to not ascribe morality, but legality.

It might not not be legal to jay-walk, but is it evil? Spitting gum? Nose picking?

 

[MBuzzy]

Laws tend to not ascribe morality, but legality.

It might not not be legal to jay-walk, but is it evil? Spitting gum? Nose picking?

Very good point - laws do not relate to morality...but I would maintain that Society does.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

I'm going to take the other side.

Evil is simply the willingness to watch or cause others to suffer for your own gain.

Cultural, political, social factors are irrelevant. The concentration camps were evil, even with governmental approval. Human sacrifice is evil now, and was evil when the Mayans and others practiced it.

Because willingness and personal gain are factors, it is possible to commit an evil act without being evil (as martial artists, we understand about having to hurt somebody without wantint to).

A wise man once wrote "The world is black and white. Gray is just white you let get dirty." Evil is not a relative thing.

 

[Andrew Green]

Evil is simply the willingness to watch or cause others to suffer for your own gain.

Isn'r suffering a big part of Christian beliefs? Especially older ones? If memory serves even Mother Theressa was a believer of suffering bringing people closer to God.

Anyways, back to the question:

Evil is a relative word, with it at one end and "Good" at the other. Like Big and small they have meaning in relation to other things, but not on there own. Is a Elephant Big? In relation to a Insect or a planet?

It is also culturally defined. Is Christianity "Evil"? In 21st century North America? The Middle East? How about 1st Century Rome?

Was Paganism? Pre-Christianity? Dark Ages?

Even nowadays we have fuzzy issues. How about Capital punishment? Eating Meat? Scientology? Fundamentalist religious beliefs (Islam or Christianity)? Preemptive attacks on countries that are unable to effectively defend themselves (Iraq)? Communism? Capitalism?

But lets take one, Human sacrifice, something we all will agree is pretty bad, and I'll see if I can defend it

Whether it is evil or not would at least partially depend on what you believe the reprecutions of it to be would it not? So if for example, you believed that a sacrificed person would be greatly rewarded by the Gods, as well as the village recieving a better harvest or some other thing that is good and saves lives. Is it evil? Our beliefs tell us that sacrificing a person won't improve the harvest or bring rain or a appease any Gods we believe in. But, if your beliefs say that it will, does that change things?

Let's say you see a man who is starving, and you give him some food, warm clothes and a place to sleep. This act is "good" is it not? Now suppose he dies of a unknown allergic reaction from something you gave him, does that make you evil all of a sudden?

No, you're belief was that these things would help him, possibly save his life. You where acting out of generosity and kindness, trying to do some good, and through no fault of your own the man died due to a condition no one knew about.

Now lets take another case, you are a doctor and a patient has cancer. If you do nothing you believe the patient will die within 6 months. However you can save the patient by amputating his arm. You do so, and the patient lives out the rest of there life healthy, but armless. This is a "good" act. Now 3 months later someone else cures that form of cancer, had you not sacrificed the arm the patient would have been able to have been cured, and lived out the rest of his life healthy with both arms. Was making the sacrifice evil?

No, you acted on the best information you had to do what you believed to be best for the patient as a whole. The fact that it was cured could not have been known to you and you acted with good intentions.

Now how about a military situation, where the entire crew is going to die if a problem is not fixed. One person could fix the problem, but doing so will cost them there life. You order someone to go, saving the lives of everyone else through sacrificing a human life. Is it evil? How about if rescuers arrive minutes later and could have solved the problem without costing a life, but you did not know that at the time?

Now you are the leaders of a village, you and the entire village believes the Gods have been angered and require a sacrifice. You ask for volunteers, and someone steps up to sacrifice there life for the good of the village. You and they both believe this as strongly as you believe feeding a hungry man will help him, or amputating a cancerous arm will help a patient, or a Christian priest believes in God. Is it wrong to make the sacrifice?

Where does the evil line get drawn?

 

[bushidomartialarts]

Crom laughs at your fuzzy morals.

That sort of argument, though intellectually compelling, is part of the problems we see in our society today. Serial killers are labelled 'insane' and given free room and board forever. Child molesters are 'sick'. Irresponsibility and evil are too often justified by mental gymnastics and legal maundering.

To address suffering: willingly accepting pain and trouble is laudible. Willingly inflicting or permitting suffering is evil. Mother Theresa noticed that living with pain can be a path to enlightenment, while working to alleviate suffering.

The Christian church was an institution and therefore incapable of any human trait: evil, good, love, hate. Individuals within the church were sometimes evil and committed evil acts.

Your doctor with the arm was good. He didn't willingly inflict suffering. Same for the military operation you suggest. In either case, the person in question was required to cause some suffering in order to avoid larger suffering. A 'necessary evil' as they say. If either willingly performed the sacrifice, or enjoyed the suffering it caused, then yes that person would be evil.

Evil is a constant. You can have more evil and less evil, just like you can have more alcohol or less alcohol. But 140 proof whiskey is different from near beer only in quantity, not quality.

 

[Andrew Green]

If either willingly performed the sacrifice, or enjoyed the suffering it caused, then yes that person would be evil.

And right there is where the fuzzy comes in. You are making whether or not it is evil at least partially dependent on there beliefs about there actions and whether they enjoyed it.

Assume in the case of the human sacrifice they believed it to be absolutely neccessary, and did not at all enjoy it. From there POV the sacrifice was as neccessary, and as regretful as the military commander ordering someone to do something that will kill them, or a doctor chopping a arm off.

Evil is a constant. You can have more evil and less evil, just like you can have more alcohol or less alcohol. But 140 proof whiskey is different from near beer only in quantity, not quality.

Ok, but if you want to claim that evil is a constant, and not dependent on the persons belief system and motivation, which you seem to go back and forth on, does that not rule out our ability to determine what is good and what is evil? As we may, like the priest performing the sacrifice, be wrong in our beliefs?

 

[bushidomartialarts]

You make a good point about the Mayan human sacrifice. It's not my most familiar mythos, but weren't they convinced it would hold off the end of the world?

In that case, it would boil down to -- as you say -- personal motivation. I'm sure some of the priests were servants of the greater good. That one who laughed maniacally and always volunteered for dagger duty -- he was evil.

I guess you could say that since my definition is about motivation, beliefs do have a role. Doesnt' change my basic thesis: Evil is the willingness to cause suffering.

Where you see a moral ambiguity, I see a trap.

 

[mrhnau]

"If somebody has no concept of what they are doing being evil, is it still an evil act."

I found this question in a discussion on MAP, and it got me thinking.

What really is Evil?

Take for example the Mayan priest, killing sacrifices as part of their religion, or the ancient Spartan practices of removing the imperfect from their society. Today, we consider both to be evil acts, but at the time, neither society saw anything wrong. Animal sacrifice was a big part of the Christian bible's old testament, and a part of the Hebrew faith. But, set up an altar and kill a goat today, and the SPCA will show up with the sheriff.

So, what makes something truly, "evil".

I have had this discussion in various forms over the years... The core concept remains the same. I tend not to get too involved with these conversations... generally, the thread author has some angle, mostly among the following:

1. thread starter seeks to soothe counciousness/excuse some broken social more by seeking moral relativity
2. Desire for no greater authority to answer to (responsibility), since everything is determined by social structure, not any form of diety or underlying principles that everyone must ultimately answer for
3. desire to lessen the religion de jour, more often than not Christianity. Generally the author has some beef w/ that religion.

Not an exhaustive list, but the threads tend to degrade quickly into arguements about faith and obscure cultures that worship rats and think murder is fine. Or something like that

Not saying these are your motivations Bob, but in general, this is what I tend to find..

 

[heretic888]

"Evil" can be described, very simply, as The Other.

That is the one thing that all human cultures, regardless of the particular mores or mythos they adhere to, have in common. "Evil" is always Them, it is always something The Other does, it is the quintessential definition of What We Are Not. Whatever "evil" is, it is most assuredly Not Us.

Whenever a human civilization subscribes to a belief in an absolute "evil", this is universally what is meant. The culture is operationally defined as "the good", so that which strays from social norms and mores is operationally defined as "the evil". And, of course, the degree of deviation will regulate the degree of "evil" that individuals and their behavior is assigned.

Not once has their ever existed a human society that admits to a belief in absolute "evil" and then concedes that their own mores and cultural norms fall under this categorization. It has never happened and never will happen, precisely because "evil" is just an ex post facto rationalization for demonizing The Other.

You will notice that the ones arguing that "evil" really does exist rarely argue for a multicultural or pluralistic worldview, in which numerous mores and mythos are tolerated. They are also the ones that tend to dismiss things such as moral context, mental illness, and biological dependencies as "mental gymnastics" (to quote a recent post) and see awareness of such variables as a moral decline of society. Furthermore, they are the ones that tend to describe the perpetrators of said "evil" in dehumanizing terms such as "monster", "demon", "inhuman", "soulless" and so on. They key point is to paint reality in a rigidly divisive light, as Us versus Them.

This is not to say that certain actions are not immoral or unethical. But it is a world of difference to acknowledge something as unethical compared to defining it as "evil". "Evil", by nature, is absolutist in nature and uncompromising. Ethics, however, is largely a matter of context.

I would suggest signing up for some social psychology courses at your local community college. Most of this stuff is old news to the social sciences.

 

[Andrew Green]

You make a good point about the Mayan human sacrifice. It's not my most familiar mythos, but weren't they convinced it would hold off the end of the world?

Got me, my point was simply to point out that human sacrifice, depending on your background beliefs, could be seen as a good thing, not a evil one.

Although if the end of the world was at stake, preventing the sacrifice would be the evil, not doing it

In that case, it would boil down to -- as you say -- personal motivation. I'm sure some of the priests were servants of the greater good. That one who laughed maniacally and always volunteered for dagger duty -- he was evil.

Is that a realistic depiction though? Or a modern "slander" of past beliefs to make them seem more wrong (and by that, ours more right)?

Evil is the willingness to cause suffering.

But there I have a problem.

Some people believe suffering to be neccessary in order to be closer too God. Much of Christian belief is based around suffering and the "passion" of Jesus.

So would this imply that the Christian God is evil as he sent his son to suffer for humanity's sins? And all those followers that believed to be closer to Jesus they, and everyone else, also had to suffer?

 

[mrhnau]

But there I have a problem.

Some people believe suffering to be neccessary in order to be closer too God. Much of Christian belief is based around suffering and the "passion" of Jesus.

So would this imply that the Christian God is evil as he sent his son to suffer for humanity's sins? And all those followers that believed to be closer to Jesus they, and everyone else, also had to suffer?

And for a non-religious point, how about pregnancy? Isn't that suffering, at least in part?

 

[morph4me]

I guess you could say that since my definition is about motivation, beliefs do have a role. Doesnt' change my basic thesis: Evil is the willingness to cause suffering.

Where you see a moral ambiguity, I see a trap.

When it comes to defending oneself or one's family, some people are willing to do things that will cause someone suffering, either the attacker or his family, does that make the person defending himself evil?

If a doctor were to refuse to submit someone to treatment to save his life because the treatment is painful and he is unwilling to cause suffering, is he evil or not?

Good and Evil are concepts based on belief. Human sacrifice was believed to be necessary to keep the gods happy, which was good for the majority, and the priests who perfomed that duty believed he was doing a service. We now believe that it was wrong, because we know better.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Here a few definitions of evil to add fuel to the debate, not that any was needed, I'm just feelkng a little evil myself today I guess

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evil

evil - adjective
very bad; wicked; sinful
Example: evil intentions; an evil man; He looks evil; evil deeds; an evil tongue

evil - noun
wrong-doing, harm or wickedness
Example: He tries to ignore all the evil in the world; Do not speak evil of anyone

evil - noun
anything evil, eg crime, misfortune etc

 

[Shaderon]

And for a non-religious point, how about pregnancy? Isn't that suffering, at least in part?

I'll join in tomorrow more when I have more time, but I don't think pregnancy is evil, it can be quite enjoyable. Childbirth IS evil though, take it from me.

 

[JBrainard]

Good and Evil are concepts based on belief.

That, in a nutshell, is the fact of the matter. I would also add that good and evil are adjectives, not nouns. They do not exist. "Cool" does not exist, yet I use it to describe things that I think are neat.
So, even if you call someone like a child rapist "evil" or even "evil personified" you are using an adjective, one that is defined by the social norm, to describe them.
It seems to me that this is a common topic of contention because many people believe that evil is a "thing," something tangable. IMHO, there is nothing on this earth that is "Evil," only things we call evil.