Why Does Evil Exist?

pat · September 1, 2011, 10:53pm

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
If we are talking about good and evil it is necessary to understand that people are neither good nor evil; rather it is the actions people take that are good or evil.
[/quote]

What is it about their actions that makes the actions good or evil?[/quote]

Because it is an ethical question. Ethics inherently refers to actions only.

And just let’s analyze the statement: He is evil.

How do we know? What are the measurements? This is a statement of

fact so we must have some way to be sure we are making a factual statement otherwise it is just nonsense.

Instead change the verb “to be” to “to do” and it is philosophically more correct: he does evil.

Now you just have to define what evil is. Ethics.[/quote]

Your last sentence is what I was actually talking about. In your view, which actions are good, which are evil, and why?[/quote]

Evil are those actions that intentionally harm people.

Good are those actions that bring about goods.[/quote]

What about doing ‘harm’ to bring about good, like spanking?

LIFTICVSMAXIMVS · September 1, 2011, 11:03pm

[quote]pat wrote:
What about doing ‘harm’ to bring about good, like spanking?[/quote]

If spanking a child is doing it good then how is it harming it at the same time? This seems very contradictory to me. Is physical pain a sufficient criteria to know that harm has been done or are there other qualifiers to consider?

Also, I am skeptical that spanking brings about anything good, especially if it causes resentment in a child’s psyche and or might cause this child to become violent later in life.

edited

pat · September 1, 2011, 11:36pm

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
What about doing ‘harm’ to bring about good, like spanking?[/quote]

If spanking a child is doing it good then how is it harming it at the same time? This seems very contradictory to me. Is physical pain a sufficient criteria to know that harm has been done or are there other qualifiers to consider?

Also, I am skeptical that spanking brings about anything good, especially if it causes resentment in a child’s psyche and or might cause this child to become violent later in life.

edited[/quote]

I think the latter is bullshit, in terms of a well placed spanking. That being said, while I reserve the right, I very seldom use it.

The problem is that pain and evil are often linked, but like in the case of surgery, it’s not an evil thing…It may be necessary.

groo · September 2, 2011, 1:20am

[quote]Ben_VFR85 wrote:
Would you consider a gorilla killing another gorilla evil? Or an ant killing another… is that evil? You’d just say it was nature and thats what happens. Yet in human culture, it is seen as evil because why? We know better? Because we have a more complex language and we’re aware of the consequences of our actions? Possibly our ability to be empathetic and put ourselves in someone elses position means that when someone does an act that we would feel guilty of, that is evil?

[/quote]
How about a gorilla that decided he didn’t like chimpanzees and convinced all the other gorillas they should get together and wipe all of them out?
This thread is all about human evil. I wouldn’t call a gorilla killing a man evil or a flood killing 1000’s evil because I don’t subscribe to a supernatural metaphysical force driving these actions. If someone did they could certainly conceive of these things as evil.

To me evil is a descriptor. I can throw out moral statements that I believe are correct like promiscuous killing and torture is evil. I am merely describing what I feel is immoral behavior. It is a point of view someone that is religious is going to have a different view of what is evil than a hedonist than a utilitarian. We can obviously come to agreement on a lot of cases but not all of them, and its in these cases where most of the interesting moral arguments lie. Abortion, death penalty, some wars, these are all issues that rational people can see as evil and others do not simply because of the moral system the person belongs to.

Cortes · September 2, 2011, 3:38am

Problem with these discussions is that both sides start splitting hairs and then the relativists use that as an excuse to say “See! We can’t agree on what is and isn’t evil. Therefore evil doesn’t exist.”

Thing is, what we argue about is details and then use those as a metonymy for “evil.” Real evil is easy to define, as is real good. I can show you.

Someone please split hairs with me on this:

Evil:

Murdering an innocent person
Harming an innocent person
Pure selfishness
Pure greed
Malicious lying for personal gain at the expense of others

Good:

Charity
Honesty
Honor
Self-sacrifice in the service of others
Selflessness

I can enumerate more for each side but you get the picture.

Think of an abortion argument. We seldom hear the pro-abortion side argue that yeah it’s a child but it doesn’t matter (except from our resident moral nihilist T2, apparently). We get a twisting of semantics and redefining of terms, an argument that does everything possible to avoid calling abortion murder. Why? Because that falls under the category of Murdering an innocent person and we all know that that is evil.

In fact, you cannot even conceive of a world in which true moral relativity exists, I’ll wager. Try and imagine a world, for instance, where lying, selfishness and backstabbing is seen as a virtue. Is it even remotely possible that any society based upon this principle has ever or would ever exist? Of course not.

That’s because there really are some things that are black and white.

Cortes · September 2, 2011, 3:41am

[quote]Ben_VFR85 wrote:
Touche. Thanks for the discussion.[/quote]

Holy crap guys I just saw a unicorn on PWI.

Did you see it?!?!

Cortes · September 2, 2011, 3:49am

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]Ben_VFR85 wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Evil isn’t a thing. It isn’t the opposite of good. Evil is the perversion of good. Good exists on it’s own, evil does not.

It’s kind of like light and dark. People think of them as opposites, but in truth, there is only light. Darkness isn?t a thing, it’s the lack of a thing.

God didn’t create evil, because evil isn?t a thing. He created good only, we perverted his good.
[/quote]

Is evil really just the absence of good? By that definition, a dead body would be evil because it isn’t good. Wouldn’t evil have to be more like actively fighting against the good?

Maybe less like light and darkness, and more like matter and anti-matter?[/quote]

No, I was claiming evil is the perversion of good. The light thing was a metaphor. Showing that they werenÃ???Ã???Ã??Ã?Â¢??t opposites. And that only one exists.[/quote]

So you see evil as the perversion of good rather than the absence of good?

How then do you define good?
[/quote]

Did you not pretty much define good as living in accordance to nature and helping out in society to help advance and maintain a good quality of life?

My question to you is why do you state that people who do “Evil” are less evolved?

What constitutes good actions and bad actions? What must you consider in this, yourself, or the greater good of your race? Who is most important to you?[/quote]

I defined good for myself earlier, but was interested in DD’s take.

I was suggesting that the species would be most likely to survive when people evolve traits that contribute to the best interest of the species, even at personal cost to themselves. There’s a new study by Samuel Bowles finding support for the “Survival of the nicest” model, where altruism in Australian aboriginals, African tribes, and Inuits was shown to improve the overall fitness of the group.

Altruism makes sense, from an evolutionary perspective. What I find especially interesting are cross-species altruistic behaviors, like when dolphins support sick animals by swimming under them and pushing them to the surface so they can breathe, or when dogs adopt ducks, squirrels, or even cats to help raise them.[/quote]

The argument for altruism from evolution falls flat on its face at every turn from the start of human history to now. We are by nature greedy, selfish, murderous, voracious monsters. We are also loving, caring, charitable, selfless, kind natured angels.

For every dolphin that saves a tuna, there’s a gang of chimpanzee’s mauling and killing another chimpanzee. For every dog that makes buddy buddy with a kitty, there’s one that grabs a cat by its spine and crushes it between its jaws before shaking it violently, snapping its back. And then not eating it. I actually witnessed my dog, sweetest, most gentle dog I’ve ever known, do this to a neighborhood cat. Thankfully one that no one owned.

If the argument of altruism from evolution was really valid, we would not see it violated so egregiously over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again throughout history up unto this very day.

groo · September 2, 2011, 4:43am

[quote]Cortes wrote:
Problem with these discussions is that both sides start splitting hairs and then the relativists use that as an excuse to say “See! We can’t agree on what is and isn’t evil. Therefore evil doesn’t exist.”

Thing is, what we argue about is details and then use those as a metonymy for “evil.” Real evil is easy to define, as is real good. I can show you.

Someone please split hairs with me on this:

Evil:

Murdering an innocent person
Harming an innocent person
Pure selfishness
Pure greed
Malicious lying for personal gain at the expense of others

Good:

Charity
Honesty
Honor
Self-sacrifice in the service of others
Selflessness

I can enumerate more for each side but you get the picture.

Think of an abortion argument. We seldom hear the pro-abortion side argue that yeah it’s a child but it doesn’t matter (except from our resident moral nihilist T2, apparently). We get a twisting of semantics and redefining of terms, an argument that does everything possible to avoid calling abortion murder. Why? Because that falls under the category of Murdering an innocent person and we all know that that is evil.

In fact, you cannot even conceive of a world in which true moral relativity exists, I’ll wager. Try and imagine a world, for instance, where lying, selfishness and backstabbing is seen as a virtue. Is it even remotely possible that any society based upon this principle has ever or would ever exist? Of course not.

That’s because there really are some things that are black and white.
[/quote]
I think almost everyone would agree promiscuous killing is wrong. The debate comes from the cases that aren’t so clear. Is it wrong to have the death penalty imposed as punishment? Is it wrong to kill people in a war. particularly if that war isn’t necessarily for the nation’s survival but for economic interest? Is it acceptable to curtail someone’s freedom for nine months? Is it ok to use torture to find a kidnapping victim? Or to potentially prevent a greater harm? Would it be ok to use the Nazi’s experiments on holocaust victims if the potential was there to help reduce suffering now?

Its relatively easy to say something like murder is wrong, but it breaks down in cases and is relative. Dresden carpet bombing? Hiroshima? 9/11 all ok to some people all acts of evil to others.

dk44 · September 2, 2011, 5:06am

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Ben_VFR85 wrote:
Touche. Thanks for the discussion.[/quote]

Holy crap guys I just saw a unicorn on PWI.

Did you see it?!?![/quote]

Seriously, that was beautiful. Very good discussion and a great ending. Hats off to all of you guys.

SexMachine · September 2, 2011, 5:30am

@groo

You compare strategic bombing and the decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima to 9/11? Why don’t you look at the motivations of those in involved in the decisions?

RAF commander ‘Bomber Harris’ who advocated aggressive incendiary bombing by RAF at night and high explosive bombing by USAAF during the day. The intention was to bring about the collapse of the Nazi war effort. Of course the sooner Nazism collapsed the less allied casualties and civilian deaths from Nazi bombing raids on Britain and later V1 and V2 rocket attacks - just one example why ending the war quickly was thought to be a ‘good thing’.
Truman who made the decision to drop atomic bombs in order to end the Pacific war quickly and eliminate the need to invade mainland Japan which could very well have cost several million casualties.
Osama bin Laden - Intention was to kill 100,000+ civilians by toppling the twin towers. He had been involved in an effort to do the same thing in 1993 of course. He made a little video with some sort of Islamic parable about people being angry at the sheep because it bit the wolf or something. He’s supposed to be the sheep presumably. And that’s why he spent a decade murdering thousands of civilians all around the world. I mean seriously WTF? How can you compare 1 and 2 with 3? Truman and bin Laden? Wake up to yourself!

TigerTime · September 2, 2011, 5:37am

Evil is the opposite of good. Like a coin, one side is good, one side is evil. But the same coin, nonetheless.

Ben_VFR85 · September 2, 2011, 9:04am

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Ben_VFR85 wrote:
Touche. Thanks for the discussion.[/quote]

Holy crap guys I just saw a unicorn on PWI.

Did you see it?!?![/quote]

I dont know if thats a compliment or an insult, heh

groo · September 2, 2011, 9:25am

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
@groo

You compare strategic bombing and the decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima to 9/11? Why don’t you look at the motivations of those in involved in the decisions?

RAF commander ‘Bomber Harris’ who advocated aggressive incendiary bombing by RAF at night and high explosive bombing by USAAF during the day. The intention was to bring about the collapse of the Nazi war effort. Of course the sooner Nazism collapsed the less allied casualties and civilian deaths from Nazi bombing raids on Britain and later V1 and V2 rocket attacks - just one example why ending the war quickly was thought to be a ‘good thing’.
Truman who made the decision to drop atomic bombs in order to end the Pacific war quickly and eliminate the need to invade mainland Japan which could very well have cost several million casualties.
Osama bin Laden - Intention was to kill 100,000+ civilians by toppling the twin towers. He had been involved in an effort to do the same thing in 1993 of course. He made a little video with some sort of Islamic parable about people being angry at the sheep because it bit the wolf or something. He’s supposed to be the sheep presumably. And that’s why he spent a decade murdering thousands of civilians all around the world. I mean seriously WTF? How can you compare 1 and 2 with 3? Truman and bin Laden? Wake up to yourself![/quote]

I said some people would call each action evil. I’d imagine the people in Dresden and Hiroshima were no fan of the bombings for example. Also Osama didn’t see the action as evil. And from a pure loss of life perspective the amount of civilians the US has actually killed in post 9/11 conflicts is much greater than the actual loss of life on 9/11. These actions weren’t picked to conflate them to each other. Just picked to show things that depending one one’s particular view would be evil or not. You arguments take a utilitarian perspective that an action is ok so long as the net suffering decreases. Or perhaps your moral view is a nationalistic utilitarianism where only the suffering of your countrymen counts?

In the end I picked those examples as its easy to see there are some people that would call each evil and some that would call each good. There are many more.

I still hold evil is merely a description of actions one finds personally immoral. If you want my view although I can’t particularly defend it using a philosophical argument so I’m not positing it as a moral theory. I believe there are some moral statements that are true and correct. Though I don’t particularly believe in absolutes like say Plato. A better philosopher than I might be able to defend them from a biological or logical perspective but unfortunately can not.

1 Promiscuous killing is wrong. Pretty much all killing of other humans other than self defense.
2 If someone’s behavior is not affecting you or others adversely you should ignore it as not mattering to you.
3 Take care of your kids.
4 The truth without compassion is merely cruelty.
5 Most people are simply trying to do the best they can, raise a family, be with their friends and lead a good and fulfilling life as best they know how and are allowed to by their current condition. This is across all countries and cultures.

There are many more but I am sure this post is boring enough already.

LIFTICVSMAXIMVS · September 2, 2011, 2:39pm

[quote]Ben_VFR85 wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Ben_VFR85 wrote:
Touche. Thanks for the discussion.[/quote]

Holy crap guys I just saw a unicorn on PWI.

Did you see it?!?![/quote]

I dont know if thats a compliment or an insult, heh
[/quote]

I think he was complementing your humility.

Something often not seen here.

Cortes · September 2, 2011, 3:30pm

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]Ben_VFR85 wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Ben_VFR85 wrote:
Touche. Thanks for the discussion.[/quote]

Holy crap guys I just saw a unicorn on PWI.

Did you see it?!?![/quote]

I dont know if thats a compliment or an insult, heh
[/quote]

I think he was complementing your humility.

Something often not seen here.[/quote]

Yes.

Sloth · September 2, 2011, 3:33pm

Because good exists.

forlife · September 2, 2011, 3:50pm

[quote]pat wrote:
What is evil? Well evil is something that primarily speaks to the human condition in terms of recipients. Evil is almost always an act of some sort. I would like to expand that definition to anything with conscious will can commit evil and receive evil.

I don’t believe God created evil, he created the capacity for it in free will. For what ever he bestowed freewill has the capacity to go against his will.
So I would describe evil as that which goes against God’s will. But if you are atheist, that doesn’t mean shit.

I do hate the problem of evil and I don’t pretend to understand it, but I hate it so much because it causes so much suffering to so many people that don’t deserve it.
[/quote]

Would god be able to prevent this undeserved suffering if he desired to do so? Or couldn’t he at least contain it, so that evil people are all on their own planet, and only hurt one another rather than hurting good people that don’t deserve to be hurt?

forlife · September 2, 2011, 4:04pm

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]Ben_VFR85 wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Evil isn’t a thing. It isn’t the opposite of good. Evil is the perversion of good. Good exists on it’s own, evil does not.

It’s kind of like light and dark. People think of them as opposites, but in truth, there is only light. Darkness isn?t a thing, it’s the lack of a thing.

God didn’t create evil, because evil isn?t a thing. He created good only, we perverted his good.
[/quote]

Is evil really just the absence of good? By that definition, a dead body would be evil because it isn’t good. Wouldn’t evil have to be more like actively fighting against the good?

Maybe less like light and darkness, and more like matter and anti-matter?[/quote]

No, I was claiming evil is the perversion of good. The light thing was a metaphor. Showing that they werenÃ???Ã???Ã???Ã??Ã?Â¢??t opposites. And that only one exists.[/quote]