What Is Evil
Is it totally relative to religion/culture you were brought up in? Or is there a totally SECULAR way to define it? Well, that’s the biggest question in philosophy! Ex: is killing Evil? What if you kill a person who has hurt many people? My definition of Evil is “That Which Increases Suffering (in magnitude or in numbers). In my definition for instance, the Catholic Church is evil because it’s No Birth Control policy has caused overpopulation and poverty to MILLIONS! Joe Rogan agrees and he was born Catholic. I deny the Abrahamic god and in my definition that god is Evil.
Comments (54)
So rock-climbing and football are evil, because people get hurt. Cars are evil because there are traffic accidents. Your definition is the antinatalist definition, and results, when you think it through, in life being evil, and death good. because life increases suffering and death reduces it. This seems completely backwards to me.
Quoting Trey
So I understand this to be your judgement of your own life, and possibly by extension, a judgement of life in general. Now if you are in constant terrible pain because of some untreatable medical condition, then I do not presume ... However, I hope this is not the case, and then it will be my judgement of your judgement that it is a misjudgement.
I would not say it is evil, but perhaps evil could come of it. But the Christian tradition, or a Christian tradition anyway, understands sin to be "missing the mark" (the mark being the target an archer aims at, for instance). I like the flavour of this, because it puts evil in the world of good, as in a sense always a mistake. This is not much taught these days, and it may seem an extravagant idea.
The whole point your missing is that Abrahamic Religion is not the definition of good and evil to everyone. I’m reaching for a totally independent definition (not in the Bible). What would an alien see as evil?
The dictionaries effectively define evil as that which is immoral. As morals are made up in our mind, evil would be relative to each person.
Someone born Catholic disagrees with Church doctrine? Mirabile dictu!
Quoting Trey
Other aliens, I would guess, for one thing.
So, morality would be RELATIVE to each person’s culture. BUT... can we (as open philosophers) come with a “Universal/Non-Biblical/independent”definition of Evil?!
Quoting Trey
Even people of the same culture sometimes have different morals. It is most accurate to say morality is relative to each person.
I agree with your definition of evil:
Quoting Trey
However this cannot be universal, as other people think there are things that take precedence over suffering. For example, as you have alluded to, taking away the right to vote of those less intelligent, may lead to less overall suffering, but people see democracy as more important than this.
Let's say I want to break a law as determined by good ethics and leadership, such as 'do not kill' - evil (in this case impersonal evil; against another good), is the activity, thought process, or even the passivity and subliminal thought, or further, involved in breaking that law.
Inherently the best of people are both good and evil, sacrifices are sought after in vein, but balance is ought.
Evil is incomprehensible!
Quoting Trey
I think so, but the only ultimate reason we think reducing suffering takes precedence over democracy is because we feel it should, which is the same reason others have for taking precedence of democracy over reducing suffering. We can't have an objective standard for morality or evil, when they are contingent on our feelings.
I think he is as much asking for a theory of evil as a definition. Although exploring what people mean by the word is interesting in this case. Definition and theory blend I think with this concept.
So, if my dog (who I love and is not very intelligent) FEELS like running the neighborhood free is moral, then I should allow that even though he may get hit by a car or kill my neighbor s cat, etc.??
Quoting Trey
I didn't say we should comply with other people's (and animal's) moral standards. We should fight for ours.
Just that we can't have an objective moral standard, because each persons morals are dependent on their feelings.
You may be right, but I don't seem to be communicating a theory either.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
Do you not notice that folks tell each other and themselves what they ought to do, and they generally contrast it with 'what one feels like doing. A dog ought to do what it is told, and an obedient dog is a good dog. People are a bit more complicated...
Quoting Trey
I like your definition of "evil" and I agree with it as a viewpoint. However, there's much more to say about that, which can prove that "good" and "evil" are or should be considered as objective things (attributes, attitudes, acts, etc.)
Yesterday I wrote a reply on a very similar topic: Thoughts on defining evil. So, if you are interested, you can read that reply at https://thephilosophyforum.com/profile/comments/10626/alkis-piskas
Oh, I think that I now understand why you started another thread on what is evil. You thought that mine was based on religious assumptions. That is fine, but I will simply reassure you that I was not really coming from that angle, and I, and others in the thread embrace the question in the widest possible way.
Quoting unenlightened
Yes, like the "ought" just came out of thin air.
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
In an other instance, when a war is raised, one side thinks the other to be evil.
So I think the perception of good , or evil is just mere words and there are no true definition of good or evil.
It is how we perceive a situation or a person or anything that gives us the concept of it being good or evil.
It is because ,that there is no proper definition of good or evil that all kinds of chaos and wars are raised, for one something is good, for the other it is evil.
in the end "GOOD" or "EVIL" is nothing but just a standpoint , or how we perceive it.
but all semantics aside there is fundamentally only growth and decay what we call evil usually fits in the category of decay
Wherever it came from, it did not seem to come from 'what one feels like', but from 'what one does not feel like'. At the least, it is a divided feeling of 'I want to, but...'
Quoting Gellert Marvollo Potter
Why the 'nothing but just' there, as if caring about anything is trivial?
The trouble this runs into is it equates two things. We know not all suffering can be the result of evil. It's a good starting point because it casts a wide net and captures the bulk of what we associate with evil. But, it applies to things that aren't evil and simply result in suffering.
If I'm walking around the house in the dark and catch my foot on the leg of chair. There is suffering, but no evil. So, suffering alone can not denote evil.
I don't really have a cohesive theory of evil. It seems like a tool for story telling. To be evil would require the empathy to understand the harm that's been inflicted and desire it. Most of what I think would be called evil by mistake are actions taken without empathy. They are morally wrong in many cases, but to truly capture evil it would have to be something like "causing suffering for the sake of suffering". Evil would have to be an end in itself.
Perhaps then, since life as we know it entails evil it is evil to make more of it. Then the widecast net might be correct, but it just encompasses the continuation of life, something people don't want to think about due to their preferences and such.
Well, my complaint was casting too wide of a net by equating suffering and evil. The solution you are offering is broadening it and adding a specific implication. Then, supposing the emotional reaction to the implication; then explaining it.
If I'm thinking all suffering isn't the result of evil, then thinking all life which includes all suffering is somehow evil would require a contradictory logic I can't produce. I'd offer a narrowing down of the term which may still show creating more life is evil, but I don't know how.
I am saying that if you retain that all suffering is evil, and life entails suffering, then we can prevent evil by not procreating. The key here is whether life entails some sort of evil, like suffering. If it is almost a 100% inevitability.
Of course another ethic would be something like forcing (inevitable and known) bad on other people's behalf.. which procreation is eventually doing to someone else. Do not do that which is known to bring negative states to others if one can prevent it.
Once alive, suicide is rare, and a struggle, but not because torment and anguish is rare, because getting rid of one's very being in response to it, is a hard move to make unless in extreme psychological distress. Better to prevent the inevitable anguish in the first place rather than cruelly leaving it up to suicide or some sort of suffering-relief scheme once one is already born and must deal with the suffering in the first place. But then "most people" will use the "most people defense".. see here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11469/the-most-people-defense
Right, so I'm saying we shouldn't retain that bit. So, what follows in a sense doesn't from my position. Is the purpose of the first bit just to make the second part sound necessary? If so, it does sound like a point one could make, but it isn't a given.
I don’t see why not. Let’s put it this way, is it right to perform an action knowing that that action will lead to suffering for another person, and it wasn’t ameliorating an even greater suffering- you just preferred the outcome of suffering cause maybe you thought a) it’s worth the good or b) suffering itself is somehow good for that person?
Remember this decision is not for you but for someone else.
Somehow I think intent and agency have to be central to any definition of evil. Evil and suffering are not synonyms. Nature inflicts plenty of suffering and yet we don't attribute intention to nature. Doctors inflict plenty of suffering to patients but mostly with the intention of curing them or restoring them to a state of health. Most of us would think it was evil to intentionally inflict suffering upon another sentient being unless there was some greater good which was the ultimate goal. Somehow I think all definitions will be deficient and although we might all agree certain acts are evil and other acts are not, there will be a large categories of actions carried out with agency and intention on which not everyone will agree.
To Buddhists "Life is Suffering" in various degrees, but Life is not Evil.
Right, that's why the auto-discussion that follows doesn't really get started. If life doesn't entail evil or suffering doesn't entail then the following discussion about what to or not do changes.
Does life on planet Earth entail some amount of suffering?
Yes, now you've got the proper focus as far as building a basis for the remove people from the planet argument. Life on earth must entail suffering because that is the origin of the word suffering, but you need to show that suffering is always evil in order to get where you are going. Unfortunately, though evil may cause suffering; not all suffering is caused by evil. Which was noted by another poster here.
Quoting prothero
Labelling something as evil allows one to place it outside of our considerations... it's just evil, so we needn't give it further consideration.
But the unconsidered life is not worth living.
Calling something evil can be a rhetorical strategy. Homosexuality is evil. Atheism is evil. Fundamentalism is evil. So you can stop trying to make sense of it now.
See how uses it in this way.
The Oracle has spoken.
At least let him 'have a go'. I want to see how he bridges suffering and evil in the face of insurmountable evidence.
Apparently so. Suffering is not evil. @schopenhauer1 can do much more to differentiate these concepts.
Possibly, I think I'm missing subtext. Does he have some obvious nefarious purpose for this strange argument?
Is it? What is done in calling something evil?
The Evil Savage Other as Enemy in Modern U.S. Presidential Discourse
SO we can question the extent to which @Trey seeks an identity for himself by setting Catholicism as evil; @schopenhauer1 constructs his identity by denying life. The other is evil.
I don't think that's correct.
We can make a distinction between "Suffering is evil" and "Making someone suffer unnecessarily is evil". Even as an ardent antinatalist, I don't think parents are being "evil" by having children, even if they know that the result of their action will be some form(s) of suffering for the future child. I am purely using the term as "Suffering is an evil", as it is a negative state which we must endure.
This sums up the two uses in Western usage:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zhmhgk7/revision/1
Talking about the very common historical usage of Natural Evil:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zhmhgk7/revision/1
But no, I don't consider it non-sensical. I consider it an inevitability, and due to psychological and physiological features of being an animal in this world, it is almost assuredly entailed (whether the Buddhist sense or the Western sense of unwanted harms).
In my profile I parse the two kinds of suffering thus:
Perhaps there is a possibility of some post-human/transhumanist world, but that would be something different than the nature of the setup we currently have, and I consider that as something oddly outside of consideration other than description from a far away place.
Evil in the sense of moral evil is more to do with intent I would agree. But in terms of people suffering, I wouldn't call it "evil" for people to want progeny despite knowing generally, there is harmfulness in living. I would call it misguided and following preference over consequences. The intent is not to harm (usually), but the intent encompasses knowing of the harmfulness. I don't know how to characterize that (perhaps morally misguided), but I wouldn't call it evil.
In the usage of "natural evil", I do believe there to be a certain entailment of suffering in the regular animal "way of being" in the world. And in that sense I am using it. So a person who is not evil, can understand that there is a "natural evil" in the world, and bypass this understanding for their own preference and thus be morally misguided.
No not really:
Evil is a cause of human suffering. There are two types of evil:
moral evil - the acts of humans which are considered to be morally wrong
natural evil - natural disasters, such as earthquakes or tsunamis
These two types of evil can work together, eg human evil can make natural evil worse. If natural evil, eg a drought brought on by lack of rainfall, causes crops to fail, the policies of a government can make the food shortages for the poorest people worse (moral evil).
Natural evil would define suffering as evil.
It is evil to suffer, even if undergone for a better outcome. In this case evil is simply defined as suffering.
Even if all suffering isn't "evil", it doesn't seem to cohere that, "We should experience suffering because it is necessary for X". That is a value statement of one's preferences.. I think of a coach or drill sergeant wanting to spread their way of life to everyone.
EVEN if I was to grant you that you need a bit of suffering to "survive better" that doesn't mean that undergoing this process itself is a good thing (maybe not evil though). It's simply a hypothetical imperative that is a kind of informal "law" for how humans in this universe must achieve certain goals.
I still disagree, but it's good you have addressed the issue. It is much easier to make a tangential case that suffering is a reason to question the intrinsic value of future life. You don't need to even bring evil into the matter; and as other posters noted, it is such a loaded term that it hurts creditability from the onset of discussion.
This becomes about language. When you say something is evil it (for many anyway) imparts a sense of intention and agency on the part of the cause. We can say floods, hurricanes and disease are evil but it seems to anthropomorphize an agent that is without agency.
True enough.
Yeah, but both versions seem to be used historically. So, if evil as defined by "natural evil" is still on the table (and generally this is defined as enduring suffering from things like diseases, disasters and such), then this does become relevant in defining the concept. Perhaps it informs the other form of evil (human motivated). So if you wish harm on another (aka malice) and you have no other sense of wrongness in obsessing on these thoughts or acting on them, then that can be in the realm of evil. It would be similar to sociopathic, if that's the case. It could be simply having the power to do destruction without any care about the consequences to others. Certainly, suffering seems central to both parts of the equation... But I agree, in the human sense, other elements are involved.. Otherwise accidents, etc. would be considered "evil". But perhaps accidents ARE evil, but simply a natural evil. So thus, both options are covered with suffering as central concept.
Evil is basically just narcissistic behavior.
Good is basically just fair and cooperative behavior.
Wrong = unfair
Right = fair