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EVIL - a different question about an common topic
Posted by cseab • 1/01/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: devil, evil, free choice, free will, good, morality, religion, Satan, Spirituality
What is evil? One dictionary definition defines it as: morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked.
No one can deny the existence of evil. My first question is:
What is the source of evil?
Satan? It's not my fault, the Devil made me do it!
Evolution? Evil has survival value for the species.
Free Will? Humanity creates evil from their freedom to choose.
God?
???
User Comments
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I can not say there is a specific source of evil. If we could properly identify and remove this source will pain and suffering also be removed from the Human Experience? The best definition I can use to define evil is any destructive act towards the universe including our fellow man. But not all destructive acts are evil since new stars may be born from the ashes of a dead star and new trees reborn from the death of old ones. But even this definition is filled with holes.
What about Homosexuality? There must be healthy reproductive adults to keep a species alive. Even then not all of them are needed to keep the species going (there are 6 billion of us) but we have a better chance of surviving our self inflicting annihilation (destruction of the environment, etc) with more adults. But a lot of people still consider Homosexuality destructive to society. My marriage to my wife is not the least bit affected by a homosexual couple getting married. Even if it passed into law how would that affect us? Would it affect our children? Maybe, but I would never alienate our children if they became homosexuals. Period. I didn't mean to get into a rant about Homosexuality but I was just using it as an example of a gray area in defining Evil.-
[define evil is any destructive act towards the universe including our fellow man]
What if you change "act" to "attitude" in your difinition? Then it becomes the intent rather than the actual event that is evil. Under this understanding, natural disaster (earthquake, hurricane) is not evil. Killing someone because it is the only way to prevent them from raping your daughter is not evil. Killing someone simply because they have different beliefs is evil.
Furthermore, it is the event/action that is evil, not necessarily the person. If a drunk driver causes an accident, he/she does evil, but may not be evil. This is similar to the “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument and has significant implications about how we deal with evil.
I also think this understanding of evil helps us address social issues such as homosexuality, euthanasia, pornography, ...
A final thought, only humankind can, by this definition, do evil since only humankind fully understands cause and consequence. -
That is a very interesting thought and makes much more sense. I never thought about it that way. This is something I will have to look more into. So how do we shape our attitude to avoid committing evil?
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Human beings have a tendancy to do good or evil
Doing good will make us feel good on a spiritual level
Doing evil will make us feel bad (guilt), for a while.But after that the guilt goes away and there's some sort of egotisitical pleasure that remains.
Why do people commit evil? Well either:
-They are forced to: starving man kills a rich man and takes his money.
-They enjoy it:Psychopathic killer
-They dont see it as evil: Man taking revenge by killing the man who killed his brother.He doesnt see it as evil.But others do.
-They justify it to themselves: Man cheats on his wife and tells himself "Its ok what she doesnt know wont hurt her"-
Is there a long-term consequence to habitually doing evil?
What about habitually doing good?
Does habitually doing evil/good promote more of the same? Or, if we habitually "try" to do good, then does that make it "easier" to be good?
Another aspect: is there a quantitative aspect of doing evil? Is throwing your gum wrapper out the car window evil? What about dumping your weekly garbage along the road? A city's garbage, waste, pollution? industrial contaminants?
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I think Evil is an extra-ordinary undesirable act or result usually fueled by a deep malace or extreme anger
The source comes from ones inability to deal/reason with something in a logical manner, either ignorance, or pure dillusional behavior, mis-guided thinking, over-zealousness, and/or the sense of righteousness or pride...
Too much of any one of these things can cause people minds to become drunk with mis-information.
However, not everything is truely Evil, even if many people see it has such. For example, there are always two-sides of a story, like Beowulf and the opposite story Grendel... different perspectives allow you to see things differently. If you are open to any perspective, you will be able to decide in a clear fashion whether or not something is truely wrong.
Too many times, zealots, be it religious, politicial, or some other agenda are blinded by there sense of righteousness, correctly, absoluteness... that they become blind to other possibilities, other outcomes, other facts, and truths.
Think about it.
-Eric-
Eric, is there, then, such a concept as an absolute evil? That is, something that is evil under all circumstances? Example: murder? rape? deceit? hate?
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I believe that yes there are things that are evil under all ORDINARY conditions. I can count just few things in them.
1. Rape and similar acts for the sake of mere pleasure
2. Misguidiing young children. For example, selling drugs/ arms to people untill they are fully aware of the consequences.
However, under extreme cases, even these can be justified. For example, if it comes to the end of human race and the only way to save humanity is to force an unwilling female it doesn't sound as bad!!!
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There's nothing "different" about this topic that I can discern. The exploration of "evil" has give rise to 60 pages of posts on this forum. www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/search.php?q=evil
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i always believe that evil will not exists without goodness. sameway as the right would not exist if there is no wrong.-
Yup, thats the way I see it. Evil is the absence of good. -
We know that evil is the opposite of good, or the other half, but that doesn't explain what it is, you are just saying what is it not.
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Is it goodness that creates evil or evil that creates goodness?
Many say that God defines/makes real goodness and Satan defines evil. If evil is the absence of good, then there can be no Satan. What, then, is the SOURCE of evil?
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Evil is as made up a concept as Santa Claus. It's something we use to give name and title to the things we choose to do. And like beauty, it's in the eye of the beholder.-
I do not think all beauty is in the eye of the beholder.There are somethings that are universally agreed upon.Not to mention that certain mathematical ratios between the dimensions of the object of beauty, make the that object appealing to the eye (see golden ratio).
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Evil does not exist of itself. Actually, this is not an easy question. I believe it was Saint Augustine who spent ten years pondering over what evil is, before concluding that it is the absence of good. Metaphysically, good is a transcendental (convertible to being), whereas beauty is (sometimes) falsely considered a to be a transcendental.
On the notion of good.
beingandquirckiness.blogspot.com/2008/12/good.html-
Interesting statement.
You can not have "Good" without "Bad", as they both stand to define each another.
In the absence of one, the other is indefinable.
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It comes from mutant chicken farts-
That explains everything!
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What is evil or the notion of evil is dictated by your moral compass--and is driven by intent, therefore a product of intelligence.
Are animals evil by our standards? Even if they murder? Is a landslide evil if it kills people? Is HIV or Cancer evil?
The tricky part is reconciling what you consider as "evil" with the concept of a "good" universe or "good" God. You either drop the notion of evil altogether or say that the universe and God (if you believe in one) is also capable of evil.
The Problem Of Evil is a classic theological and philosophical question:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil -
Evil is whatever society says it is at any given time. It is mutable and dependent upon public opinion. Hitler was a villain to some and a hero to others. Aside from the fact that most people would agree with me, it doesn't matter that I, personally, think he was a psychotic monster. There are those who don't see it that way. Good and evil both are dictated by the majority opinion. Things that are considered evil today were not always maligned in the past (homosexuality for example was not considered evil in ancient Greece and Rome, but some Christians call it such in our era and tell good people that they will go to hell for their "evil" ways). Though we may think this is because we are so much more civilized than our forbearers, the truth is that somewhere down the road when our society is dust, some other civilization will probably look at us as incredibly backwards.
My point is, evil and good, are subjective terms, not objective. The definitions change with the sentiments of the people. Individuals will have their personal opinions, but by and large, if one's personal opinion does not mesh with the commonly held beliefs of the majority, then they will either be ostracized or they will keep their beliefs on the down low.-
you are giving a moral connotation to good and "evil".
again
beingandquirckiness.blogspot.com/2008/12/good.html -
Evil/good are, then, defined only by individual experience and can and will be all things simultaneously???
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God creates Good. God creates Evil. That's a concept from Jeremiah, as I recall. So it seems to me that even the Biblical view accepts the relative nature of Good and Evil. One still can find evil in a Christmas gift and good in a flood or "uncontrolled" fires. What's the real kicker is coming to grasp with human good and evil. I haven't figured that one out yet.-
"Good" and "Bad" are extremely relative according to a person's point of view.
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Majority decides what is acceptable and what is not.
Evil is generated by the belief that there is no connection between cause and effect. That you can escape what you have done. By thinking that what you do to others can not happen to you. -
Too late to edit previous post.
Good is convertible to Being, or what is, and reality is quite obblivious of the opinion you may have of it to be what it is!-
I don't see what bearing your essay has on my reply to this question. My argument is that good and evil both are based on social mores (which is pretty much what you said as well). Were you disagreeing with me or agreeing?
However, I don't ascribe to the idea that either good or evil are inspired or encouraged by outside forces, nor do they exist on their own outside of people's actions and reactions. A tree is not evil that falls on your house, a shark is not evil for biting someone in the leg. But a person is evil if their peers judge them to be so. Good and evil are subjective terms arrived at through contemplation of events. Even people we consider evil seldom see themselves in that light. It takes someone to judge another person or their actions evil, or at the very least malicious.
Good can mean a variety of things from... that's a good cake to that's a good idea to that clergy-person is a good person. When used in conjunction with the concept of evil, it is elevated to the level of ideal. When discussing "good and evil," no definition really suffices for either word except as its opposite. Good is not evil; evil is not good. Synonyms can be used to further develop our understanding, but in so far as the terms are concerned, they are defined by the other. I do not entirely agree with your assessment that good is outside ourselves beyond the notion that what is currently good is defined by society's standards. I personally believe that if a person acts in a righteous fashion (not to be confused with religious fervor) and without selfishness, then they contain "goodness," for want of a better word, beyond that which is determined by their society. But this wanders into the realm of personal ethics, which few people ever contemplate. Most people act in accord with the dictates of their society without worrying whether something is right or wrong. For instance, I'll go back to my example of homosexuality. Many Christians condemn homosexuals as "evil" because their Church tells them that this is so. Do they ever stop and think about what they are doing? Likely not. What they define as goodly action based on the dictates of their society (the Church), I would define as evil based on my personal code of ethics. Therefore as you say in your essay, the "good" exists outside of them; it is something they use. Whereas my "good" exists inside of me, it is something I am. I have made the jump from accepting what I am told to think, to thinking for myself.
My definitions of good and evil are incontrovertibly linked to the concept of selfishness. The more selfish someone's actions or beliefs are, the more "evil" I consider them. The less selfish (and more charitable) a person's actions or beliefs are, the more "good" they are. A person who thinks ahead about how their actions might not only benefit (or accidentally harm) themselves but the people around them and the larger world, is a good person. A person who never thinks beyond themselves, or never thinks at all, only reacting, is a "bad" person (I hesitate to say evil since I think actual evil implies malice... a bad person hates others for their beliefs, an evil person acts on that hate).
I do agree with you on the state of "morals" today. But as you can see by my argument, I consider the mere fact that people do not think of their morals, instead allowing other institutions to dictate their code of conduct, to be "evil." Your definitions are based on social mores, the same as mine, but where I dismiss morality dictated by society on a personal level, you embrace it as coin of the realm. I am not so dependent upon public opinion to define my sense of right and wrong. My person definitions of good and evil I outlined above. Societies definitions of good and evil I outlined in my first post. Obviously whatever keeps people from doing harm to one another is a "good" thing, but (as the ancient Greeks and Romans could tell you) what is defined as harm changes from generation to generation.
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The un-desirable or...
The imposing of one's will upon another’s own free-will. -
Harmony,
Not planning in getting in protracted exchanges.
Good is convertible to being.
Evil is opposed to good.
Thus evil is not something positive, but a negation, better yet a deprivation.
To take a classic example, blindness is an evil for man since it is in his nature to see, but it is not an evil for a stone, since a stone's nature doth not include sight.
This is very important in metaphysics (first philosophy) since it implies that a being is never evil because it is, but because it is not. Of itself, blindness doth not exist; what exists is a human who is deprived of sight.
A humans nature is to see, so his being is imperfect if he is blind, and this is not a moral consideration.-
Why not protracted exchanges? That's the fun thing about philosophical debate... but any way...
The fundamental difference here is in the definition. What you can evil, I call a quirk of fate. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet (or in this case stink, as the case may be). Again it comes down to what society does and does not accept. Blindness is unacceptable, so it is evil? That doesn't necessarily follow. Blindness might be acceptable if death had been the alternative.
Human nature, like the nature of anything else, is to be. Whether it is to be blind, or deaf, or mute... human nature finds a way to express itself despite the inequalities of fate. Fate in itself is neither good, nor evil, and therefore what comes through no fault of your own is neither good nor evil unless it was done in malice. -
work, these discussions can go on an on
Again you are reducing good to a moral consideration. Physical blindess is not morally evil, it is just an imperfect state, given that it is in a humans nature to see. A blind persons being is not fuly in Act.
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etymologically speaking: eve. -
Philosophically speaking, by its own nature, will always wants good. Evil is not willed per se, what is willed is an inferior good. Evil is thus the deprivation of a superior good which results in the fact that will has focused on an inferior good. Lets take the example of a kid whose mother tells him, “If you eat this cake, you will be sick”, and despite this warning the kid eats the cake. Did he will to be sick? Ie did he will to be deprived of health? Obviously no, he wanted the pleasure of tasting the cake, which is undoubtedly a good... Evil resides in having willed an inferior good, despite ill-health as a consequence. In the same vein, the man who commits suicide wants nothing else but for his sufferings to cease, which appears to him to be a good compared to continuing to live.
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Darkness is the absense of light. And Satan is called the father of darkness but Jesus Christ is the Light of the World.-
Indeed, darkness is the absence of light, just as sickness is the absence of health, and evil the absence of good.
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Harmony, seems to me you are arguing two different points.
ONE: evil is defined by popular vote. I strongly disagree with this position. You’ve used several examples which seem to argue against it as well. I’ll add slavery which has been supported by “most” people up until recent times. Even the Bible supports it. Today, we understand better, society has matured a notch, slavery IS and WAS evil.
Today, societies argue issues such as homosexuality, abortion, and euthanasia. As our understanding/awareness of the good/evil aspects of these issues matures, our laws change to follow.
Issues such as environmental pollution (autos, coal plants…) and alcohol abuse (DWI, wife-beating...) must also be more closely examined because they cause great harm to many. Is killing your child by cancer caused by pollution from your “right to drive” morally justified?
How do we “know” these things?
TWO: you have argued that you have an inner sense of right/wrong, good/evil. What is the source of this sense and why is it so common across most cultures? Could it be that you are tapping into some sense of an absolute “moral law” built into our cosmos? Perhaps your personal and cultural experiences influence how morality is expressed, but, at some deep level, are we all tapping into the same well?
I’ll use my gravity example. Gravity is as it is whether you believe in it or not. It is and has always been the same (as best we know!). Humanity’s growing understanding of gravity and how it affects physical processes from ballistics to galaxies has changed many aspects of our societies. Gravity is a physical “law” that we can investigate and learn about how it works. Humankind has been working on the science of gravity for a long time. We still don’t know exactly what gravity is, but we have a pretty good grasp on how it works, at least at the macro level.
Is there an equivalent metaphysical/spiritual/moral set of “laws” built into the design of the cosmos that humankind is just starting to recognize? Laws that we are struggling to define and understand? Is this where our sense of good/evil originates?-
cseab...
Actually, yes, I was arguing two different points. In my initial post (2 days ago), I described how evil is defined by people, i.e. society. That is, by consensus. When society agrees something is evil, then it is outlawed. It hardly matters if some people see it as evil and others don't. Let's not forget that a civil war was fought over the issue of slavery. In the issue of slavery, some people saw it as wrong while others did not, and still do not. Slavery still exists in the world, unfortunately. You and I are in agreement that slavery is evil, but others are not. In America, there is a majority of people opposed to slavery and so we do not have it. In other countries, slaves are kept officially or unofficial. In some countries, being a woman is enough to make one a slave (even unofficially). To me, that's evil. To people in our country, that's evil. To people over there, it's acceptable. So evil is not a universal label to be applied to all things we dislike, but it can be understood that we agree on what is evil, even if we disagree on its source. Some would say that the source of the evil of slavery in those other countries is socio-economic or that they simply "don't know any better" or they are just "bad people." But therein lies the fundamental origin in evil... it is in perception. We, coming from our society perceive evil in slavery where other societies do not.
My second post (1 day ago) in reply to harveyavatar was more a reply to the essay he directed me to in a link that an expansion on the subject of universal evil. More to the point, it was a description of my personal perception of evil. Though in most cases I would agree on what is evil, in my second post, I outlined my reasons for coming to the conclusion that something is evil. Whereas most people are content to take their cues from society, I actually think about why things are evil and arrived at the conclusion that evil is founded in selfishness and malice. Back to the subject of slavery... slavery as practiced by the Romans/Greeks was not the same as slavery practiced by the American South. Ancient forms of slavery did not take away a slave's identity as a person. I'm not going to say slavery in the ancient world was a good thing, because I don't think it was, BUT as it was practiced then, slaves had rights, were people, were part of the household, were not treated as things to be used, abused, and discarded, as they were in the American South... as they are today in "third world" countries. So slavery as it was practiced in the ancient world was not evil, because it was not selfish and malicious, but it was bad from my point of view because it subjugated the will of the slave. (I hate to say it but...)Just because you and I see it as evil now, doesn't mean it was evil then. We're generalizing because we know of slavery as it was practiced in America and the crimes that were perpetrated because of it, and are still perpetrated elsewhere, but in places like Rome and Greece and even Babylon, slaves were accepted as people and given protection under the law.
Now, back to my inner sense of right and wrong, that was in direct reply to harveyavatar who in his essay tried to argue that good and evil are external, not internal. In a general way, he's right because most people do not consider why something is good or evil. Instead they go with a visceral reaction ingrained in them from the social indoctrination they have received since childhood to label certain actions and events as evil, whether from a secular or religious standpoint. Evil is what mommy/daddy/church/politicians/the group says is evil. However, I disagree with him on an individual/personal basis because I have given it a lot of thought on a personal level.
I'm a fringe dweller. I am not part of the greater part of society. I am in fact part of a group that many might consider evil because their church tells them that witches and Pagans are evil/of the devil. That I have very strong moral and ethical values goes against what the majority of Christians have been taught. Because I do not take my cues from a society that rejects me or from a religion that condemns me for being an outsider, my sense of right and wrong, of justice and evil, are very personal and well thought out... simply because I have had need to defend my reasoning to people who would label me evil out of hand. My sense of good and evil do not come from my gods or from the society in which I was born... in fact, my gods appeal to me because they agree with my moral code, not the other way around. I am not told what to do, I tell myself what to do.
I like your comparison of gravity to an undiscovered law of right and wrong, but I can't agree with it. I wish I could, but I don't have that much faith in people. I think most people are sheep who do as they are told and think as they are told without ever digging down into their soul to figure out what they really think. (Sorry if that offends anyone.) If there's any law of the universe pertaining to good and evil, it's that Nature is Chaos and $4!7 happens. In the grander scheme of things, there is no good or evil, and a black hole feels no remorse for swallowing its brighter siblings.
No, the concepts of good and evil are a human construct. Whether it is a personal or social directive, it has nothing to do with universal laws. Good is not rewarded and evil is not punished except by our own hands.
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harveyavatar...
A Buddhist, or an idealist, would argue that "being" is an action. To a Buddhist, the act of being is what they attempt to negate to reach nirvana. To an idealist, the material world is a construct of the mind and so having a body is an action of the mind. Semantics, I know. ;-)
The eyes are merely a tool for the mind. In the absence of sight, the human mind develops other tools. To say that someone who is blind is imperfect is really a judgment call. Would someone who was born blind necessarily consider themselves imperfect or is that society's judgment on them? My eyes are blue which makes them more sensitive to light. If I follow true to my heritage, some day I will probably be blind. Does that make me less perfect than someone with brown eyes? Are my blue eyes therefore evil because they will fail me?
I don't think so. Rather I think that these are simple facts. Facts are not evil, they just are. It what we make of them that is good or evil. If I go blind, this is fate. If someone sprays acid in my eyes, this is evil. -
My Ex-Monster-n-Law.--had to go to her funeral just to make sure she was dead. When I looked up the word Evil in the Dictionary, it had her name next to it.
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