What really is, "Evil"?

[Touch Of Death]

So..if there is no definition of evil. Is there a distinction between "right" and "wrong"?

That is relative to what you are refering too.
Sean

 

[Touch Of Death]

I see what you're saying. To take the boy in the Cry Wolf story as an example. Even though he had a desire to be noticed and important, he had no desire to harm the village.

This would suggest that evil is not defined by culture and perception. What happened to the village was evil, not evil due to perception or cultural bias.

I have thought about this and I would say the wolves killing all the sheep and the villiage starving to death as a result is not the evil, but the original repeated bearing of false witness.
Sean

 

[Makalakumu]

So..if there is no definition of evil. Is there a distinction between "right" and "wrong"?

It depends on what the people around you think and it depends on whether or not they have the power to force that standard on you.

This can also work the other way around. Someone else on the outside of your "community" can have the power to force their standard on you.

The bottom line is that their are no absolute standards for either.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

So take a heinous crime (in MY definition of the word) like kidnaping a little girl, sexually abusing her and then killing her. In some places that would be "right"? Depending on your "relative" view?

 

[MBuzzy]

So take a heinous crime (in MY definition of the word) like kidnaping a little girl, sexually abusing her and then killing her. In some places that would be "right"? Depending on your "relative" view?

Depending on your relative point of view, that is correct. If in your own moral and SOCIAL moral standard this is acceptable, then who is to say that it is evil? i.e. if everyone around you thinks it is ok, is it still wrong?

This applies on many levels - even with cultural standards. In some muslim countries, a woman exposing skin is considered evil or wrong. In America, we think that is absurd - but if an american woman goes there, she can be put in jail just like anyone else if she doesn't follow their rules.

 

[Makalakumu]

So take a heinous crime (in MY definition of the word) like kidnaping a little girl, sexually abusing her and then killing her. In some places that would be "right"? Depending on your "relative" view?

What if you lived in a culture where that sort of behavior was okay? How would you go about show those people that the behavior was bad?

 

[Touch Of Death]

So take a heinous crime (in MY definition of the word) like kidnaping a little girl, sexually abusing her and then killing her. In some places that would be "right"? Depending on your "relative" view?

You are dead on, unfortunantly. If a mongol horde has it in their religion to populate the earth with their offspring then raping the enemy is not a bad thing.
Sean

 

[Touch Of Death]

Depending on your relative point of view, that is correct. If in your own moral and SOCIAL moral standard this is acceptable, then who is to say that it is evil? i.e. if everyone around you thinks it is ok, is it still wrong?

This applies on many levels - even with cultural standards. In some muslim countries, a woman exposing skin is considered evil or wrong. In America, we think that is absurd - but if an american woman goes there, she can be put in jail just like anyone else if she doesn't follow their rules.

Before we condem the Muslims we need to stamp out the Amish.
Sean

 

[CoryKS]

Before we condem the Muslims we need to stamp out the Amish.
Sean

Dude, trust me - you do not want the Amish Jihad.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

You are dead on, unfortunantly. If a mongol horde has it in their religion to populate the earth with their offspring then raping the enemy is not a bad thing.
Sean

Only if youre a Mongol. Im sure they wouldnt want you doing the same thing to THEIR women. Thats the difference as I see it. Do unto others as....

 

[zDom]

... repeated bearing of false witness.
Sean

Yep. That's evil.

 

[Carol]

Part of the problem with defining evil is that some of the terms used to define evil acts also vary from culture to culture, and even person to person.

For example...I think all cultures thing "murder" is evil.

But what is murder?

There is the premeditated killing of another person, such as an assassination. There is felony murder, a homicide that happens when committing a felony. An example could be a buidling denizen that perishes when an arsonist sets it afire.

Some people also think that euthanasia is murder, others think abortion is murder. That tangles the matter up substantially.

 

[MBuzzy]

Do unto others is a christian belief, that doesn't mean that it is a part of everyone's moral code.

At one point in history, Christians thought that murder was perfectly acceptable - they called it the Crusades. Of course, that also depends on your definition of murder. It wasn't evil to them, they thought they were doing good.

 

[morph4me]

Do unto others is a christian belief, that doesn't mean that it is a part of everyone's moral code.

At one point in history, Christians thought that murder was perfectly acceptable - they called it the Crusades. Of course, that also depends on your definition of murder. It wasn't evil to them, they thought they were doing good.

People all over the world have decided they could end evil with torture and murder, the Inquision, Jihad, The Holocaust, various Genocides. I guess if you're trying to eliminate evil, the ends justify the means.:idunno:

 

[MBuzzy]

Very true! Unfortunately, it comes full circle - to do that, you have to know what evil truly is! The people who have decided that are no more qualified to make that decision than any of us!

 

[Blotan Hunka]

But someone HAS to make that decision somewhere along the line. If you sit back and do nothing than "evil", no matter whos definition, is going to be done on someone. Its easy to be "relative" when you are not having "evil" done on you or your loved ones. Its an excuse to keep your *** safe IMO. Why risk yourself for the welfare of another when its all "relative" in the long run? I find the idea has very distasteful repercussions.

 

[morph4me]

But someone HAS to make that decision somewhere along the line. If you sit back and do nothing than "evil", no matter whos definition, is going to be done on someone. Its easy to be "relative" when you are not having "evil" done on you or your loved ones. Its an excuse to keep your *** safe IMO. Why risk yourself for the welfare of another when its all "relative" in the long run? I find the idea has very distasteful repercussions.

You're right, someone has to make that decision, you do, or more to the point each individual has to, based on his interpretation of evil. In each case, both sides thought they were doing the right thing and confronting an evil, the victors were correct, because they wrote the history. If Germany has won WWII we would believe that Hitler was a hero who destroyed the evils of the Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Handicapped etc. Those engaged in Jihad think they are fighting an evil, the great Satan. Every example of evil, and those fighting it, are based on individual interpretation.

 

[Touch Of Death]

But someone HAS to make that decision somewhere along the line. If you sit back and do nothing than "evil", no matter whos definition, is going to be done on someone. Its easy to be "relative" when you are not having "evil" done on you or your loved ones. Its an excuse to keep your *** safe IMO. Why risk yourself for the welfare of another when its all "relative" in the long run? I find the idea has very distasteful repercussions.

We Generaly think of that what the Spanish did to the Indians was Evil, but they land in the Americas and find the dominant tribe slaughtering roughly 40,000 people a year for blood sacrafice. How could they not act?
Sean

 

[HKphooey]

Could not resist....

 

[heretic888]

Do unto others is a christian belief, that doesn't mean that it is a part of everyone's moral code.

Actually, the "Golden Rule" (treat others as you would wish to be treated) is a common tenet to many religions and philosophies around the world. It is not unique to Christianity.

The reason being, of course, that such moral principles are the product of third-person moral reasoning (what Lawrence Kohlberg identified as "postconventional" morality). This is somewhat independent of environment and indoctrination (assuming no developmental arrest occurs along this domain of growth). It merely requires that one develop the cognitive capacity to put psychologically imagine oneself in the position of another (which, admittedly, most people probably don't possess).

This is why I don't buy into moral relativism. There is an axis of moral development that human beings are born into. The problem is that this axis is not found in a predetermined set of rules or laws we are to follow, but in the continual growth and maturation of our sociomoral faculties (to use Kohlberg's language, preconventional to conventional to postconventional).

However, upnorthkyosa is correct that this axis of moral development is also predicated, to a degree, on the effects of one's environment. You will only develop to a level of moral reasoning that your environment demands of you (those that are significantly "below" or "above" the social norm tend to be ostracized). This also ties, predictably enough, into level of education (better educated individuals are statistically more likely to develop higher levels of moral reasoning).

In any event, the issue is far from black and white. Both absolutism and relativism fail to provide us with answers.