TL:DR/Abstract: The term Evil is in conflict with itself. If evil is a primary trait then it is no more valid to blame an evil person for evil acts than it is to blame blame a duck for swimming. If evil is not a primary trait then does it even exist?
Full:
What constitutes evil? How do you define evil? Most people have a definition of evil akin to the government’s definition of pornography, that is, it doesn’t have one but it knows it when it sees it.
I’ve always had a problem with the whole idea of good and evil. As long as I have lived I have been a moral relativist. Now I didn’t know that was the term when I was five, but that’s what I was. Rules always bothered me for the same reason multiple choice tests bothered me. I could always find alternate interpretations or exceptions that were perfectly reasonable in my head. Fortunately, my parents encouraged this level of questioning. Yay for not being an advanced puppy.
I can’t think of a single example an any act which is universally evil under all circumstances without resorting to some set of all acts which are universally evil sophist semantic trickery.
I’m quick to add there are sets of actions which are for the most part practically universally objectionable, but as with everything in reality theory plays a key role, and in theory, any act can be rendered good or evil with the addition of context. What the series 24, or the movie unthinkable for some visceral needs of the many type defenses of this idea.
It seems that there may be a set of acts that within the confines of the human condition are universally evil, like no possible context additions could ethically shift any act of this set, but I can’t think of any.
It seems to me there’s a way to render ANY evil act, good. If said evil act prevents all future instances of said evil act without otherwise changing potential action. The last bit may be confusing but, its required to prevent system destroyers. Example: If the rule were simply the prevention of all future evil acts of that same type, then nuclear extinction of humanity could be a good act because it would prevent the same thing from happening again. Obviously that’s not good, but if I could kill a person and in so doing prevent all future murders without changing the rest of the world, then that’s a no brainer. Even if it’s me.
The same goes for good. If a person is just good, then why do we applaud them for acting on it? I mean if it’s their nature, how was it a choice? It’s like getting all excited when an ant carries something back to its colony. That’s its nature.
Like for example, my mother is proud of me because I gave some socks and a coat to a guy that was hanging out on my steps one morning. Now I’m thrilled to have my mother proud of me, but that’s part of my point. This act was not selfless. I receive pleasure when I can be of help. Am I still a good person? Or am I just a dopamine addict like the rest of us?
I would argue what makes me good is the fact that doing good makes me feel good as opposed to being a universal sadist. (we all have a little de Sade in us somewhere) But do I deserve credit for this? No. It was no more my choice than being tall or white. If anyone gets a back pat it should be my parents, but then one again has to ask why did they make their choices? And on and on.
It seems value judgments are impossible in any objective sense, and if we grant that good and evil are subjective, which is fine then do we not seriously need to rethink our social structure? Yup. Hence my life’s work you’re reading right now.
Choice is the root it would seem, but if I had a choice, be good or be evil, then my choice is the primary trait and evil and good become secondary, defined by that choice. At which point one must ask why were those choices made? Because as we just explored, context changes everything. And if context is always being added how can we judge in any objective sense the quality of an action?
Indeed it seems the universe is geared to short circuit such judgments. An absolutely good act would seem to by definition include a non halting state future, and thus context will by definition always be added after even a perfectly infinitely good act, so we’d never know ultimately if the act was good because we have to wait till the end of context addition to make the evaluation. So spotting the ultimate good is not possible. Same with evil. The ultimate evil act would seem to demand immediate halting just as surely as good demands continuation by definition, thus there would be no one left after an ultimate evil act to evaluate it. It’s like unknown unknowns and black swan events. It’s invisible, permanently.
Really, it seems to me that we have no choice but to reject the whole idea of good and evil as being more than a little broken.
#1 by Brad Barrett at August 2nd, 2010
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Evil, as I've come to understand and accept, could be defined as the privation of good — just as a donut hole is not a “thing,” but lack of donut. Though evil could be thought of in this way, as a complete lack of good, it also becomes clear that evil and good conceptually qualify one another. If there was no concept of good there would be no concept of evil. I have no problems up to this point. The question then becomes: Where does good (or what we qualify as good) come from? Western theologians of course think they've answered this question sufficiently by saying good originates from God's ontology. However, they fail to acknowledge (or admit) that this, too, would make God the author of evil. I find this surprising since Yahweh, Himself, is attributed as saying in Isaiah 45:7:
“I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the LORD, do all these things.”
It's no surprise to me this passage rings of Eastern philosophy, not Western theology. All that aside, I do not believe good and evil require a Supreme First Cause ontology. I do not believe good and evil are intrinsic, conscious-independent features of the universe like say, gravity. I believe good and evil are qualitative concepts, albeit necessary ones, that are byproducts of human consciousness. If no mind existed to conceive of gravity, it would still exist. However, I do not think good and evil would exist were there no mind to conceive them. Much more can be said of course.
#2 by Brad Barrett at August 3rd, 2010
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Well then I’d have to agree in that I do think our society is ethically wrong. America makes for a great idea in theory, but is riddled by a cult of hypocrisy and self-interest.
#3 by innomen at August 3rd, 2010
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I agree with your assessment of good's nature as a qualitative subjective entity. To me that much is obvious by simply considering the good/evil value of say, an electron. But that was assumed at the outset really, though I welcome the more fundamental comment. You're also right the yin and yang depiction of God's function is an eastern flavor of statement. But that too is somewhat clear.
What I was driving at was the more socially relevant, if less philosophically interesting, notion of good and evil as indicators for punishment and reward, the very foundation of our society.
The overall point being to make it clear than our whole culture is based on an infantile and logically inconsistent set of emotional reactions. The medieval primate desire to hurt those that anger or scare us coupled with the flowery rhetoric of our leaders and our lofty self actualized aspirations that occur in those rare moments when we aren't suffering and actually care about humanity as a whole.
Put simply society as of (8/2/2010 11:21 PM GMT -5) is ethically wrong and anything that can be done to hasten it's transformation into something fundamentally different is a good thing.