Evil

[vSv]

True altruism is a hard thing to come by. I can identify only a handful of instances in my history where I feel certain I was acting completely without any idea of gain. I believe a constant altruistic state is possible but only achieveable through intense or ultimate self awareness.

But isn't that also self-gain, and then no longer altruism, to do something one wants so badly, for example train oneself for awareness to do something stated as "good"?

 

[Smellfungus]

But isn't that also self-gain, and then no longer altruism, to do something one wants so badly, for example train oneself for awareness to do something stated as "good"?

I don't mean training yourself to do something perceived as good, or even to strive to act in any way, shape or form. Self awareness is not simply acknowledging that you exist, self awareness is the understanding that you exist.

 

[arbygil]

I believe evil exists in the world, but I also believe that certain people can create uncomfortable experiences for themselves. Not necessarily karma, but justice.

But if good and evil are arbitrary concepts, why have justice? Would you say justice is even a factor if the "rules" governing good and evil are arbitrary? Are there limits to what we say is "good" and what we deem as "evil" and can our limited common sense really understand the differences between the two?

(Just to add another set of parameters to the discussion...)

 

[vSv]

I believe evil exists in the world, but I also believe that certain people can create uncomfortable experiences for themselves. Not necessarily karma, but justice.

But if good and evil are arbitrary concepts, why have justice? Would you say justice is even a factor if the "rules" governing good and evil are arbitrary? Are there limits to what we say is "good" and what we deem as "evil" and can our limited common sense really understand the differences between the two?

(Just to add another set of parameters to the discussion...)

Absolutely, "justice" would be the balance in which measured by "good" and "evil".
Equal living standard, equal money to buy for, equal intelligence, equal whichever.

If you believe in evil as an absolute factor, then I would want to ask you, is it "evil" to kill another person?
If yes, then for example, is an comet that kills everything on earth "evil" or must there be some sort of free will first or is it only humans that can be evil?
Is a creator evil, even if he did not know what would happen to his creation just as well as is a person evil if he does make an certain act that leads to "evil" even if he does not know what it will lead to it to begin with?

 

[arbygil]

It's always an interesting question. Someone invariably asks the question, well, if evil isn't relative, that means you shouldn't kill because you think killing is evil. Therefore evil is subjective based on your viewpoint.

But in whose eyes is it subjective? We're still putting some qualifier on relativity. What is relative? What is equality? By whose standards are things relative and/or equal?

Money in of itself is a thing. So are guns and bullets. *We* put the qualifiers on those things and decide what they become. But, I believe there are certain inherent things that we automatically deem as "Evil" or at the very least, unjust. I wouldn't necessarily use the word evil but I *would* use the word unjust. So I will qualify things as either "just" or "unjust" and then I will interchange the "just" with "good" and the "unjust" as evil.

Meh. I'm not a philosopher, though. I usually deal with absolutes.

 

[Quinlan]

I agree with the OP, the same basic psychology that lead to Nazi Germany, Slavery, the Crusades etc. still exists in all of us today.

It's a little more subtle and repressed these days but it's out there.

 

[anica]

The bible is full of contradictions, thanks for pointing out the obvious.
Religion is absolutely absurd. If anything, it only exists to justify the destruction humans do to one another and the planet.

No, things are not better or safer now than in millenia past. Things are worse. This planet will not sustain us as our civilization is. Someone made a point to me that has stuck with me: "We forget we are walking and building and living atop something that is also alive. Either we will destroy it or it will destroy us to save itself."

Every single one of us lives each day, falsely. We cope by building rickety erector set towers of "truth" and "solution" always building and fixing, causing problems only to avoid them by solving them.

I agree. I believe that fear and greed have been the motivation of most of civilization at least since the Industrial Revolution and that decisions motivated by fear and greed are what will eventually destroy the planet. It will not be able to sustain life, at least human life and we will pass from this earth much like the dinosaurs, only we did it to ourselves. I don't know if that's evil per se; more like sheer stpidity.

 

[anica]

Evili

I want to modify my rant above based on an experience that happened between then and now. Right after I wrote what I did--took my dog out for his walk. About two blocks from my house--in full sun with no shade nearby, my chair suddenly stopped dead. The joystick was completely unresponsive and I couldn't budge, so there we sat. My dog is a woolly Malamute with tons of hair and gets overheated easily, so I was really worried about him. I had my cell with me (I never leave home without it for precisely this reason) and called everyone I knew who might be able to help but couldn't raise anyone. I was feeling helpless, frustrated and a little desperate as I watched my dog get hotter and hotter.

Suddenly a red pickup pulled up beside us and a young man asked if everything was okay. When I told him what had happened, he got out, released the brakes on my chair and pushed me and the chair--combined weight of about 300 lbs--the two blocks to my door and into my house.

This doesn't modify what I believe about the world in general, but I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment by this random act of kindness.

 

[acd]

I want to modify my rant above based on an experience that happened between then and now. Right after I wrote what I did--took my dog out for his walk. About two blocks from my house--in full sun with no shade nearby, my chair suddenly stopped dead. The joystick was completely unresponsive and I couldn't budge, so there we sat. My dog is a woolly Malamute with tons of hair and gets overheated easily, so I was really worried about him. I had my cell with me (I never leave home without it for precisely this reason) and called everyone I knew who might be able to help but couldn't raise anyone. I was feeling helpless, frustrated and a little desperate as I watched my dog get hotter and hotter.

Suddenly a red pickup pulled up beside us and a young man asked if everything was okay. When I told him what had happened, he got out, released the brakes on my chair and pushed me and the chair--combined weight of about 300 lbs--the two blocks to my door and into my house.

This doesn't modify what I believe about the world in general, but I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment by this random act of kindness.

Our culture is destructive, not necessarily individual people. That's what's so strange. The majority of individuals are genuinely well-meaning, it's just that we're swept up and enslaved to a system that is out of control.

Our economic system is comparable to a sociopathic person.
Capitalism squanders resources without abandon and destroys anything that gets in the way of profit.


Have you seen the documentary The Corporation ?

An interesting book that is related to this topic is A language Older Than Words by Derrick Jensen.

 

[anica]

Our culture is destructive, not necessarily individual people. That's what's so strange. The majority of individuals are genuinely well-meaning, it's just that we're swept up and enslaved to a system that is out of control.

Our economic system is comparable to a sociopathic person.
Capitalism squanders resources without abandon and destroys anything that gets in the way of profit.


Have you seen the documentary The Corporation ?

An interesting book that is related to this topic is A language Older Than Words by Derrick Jensen.

Yes, I agree; that's what I meant to convey in my first post but obviously didn't. I've neither seen the documentary nor read the book you mentioned, but I intend to now. Thanks for the tip.

 

[acd]

Yes, I agree; that's what I meant to convey in my first post but obviously didn't. I've neither seen the documentary nor read the book you mentioned, but I intend to now. Thanks for the tip.

No! I'm sorry.

You did convey your point. Quite well, I thought.
I was just agreeing.. and elaborating.

 

[Norton]

True altruism is a hard thing to come by. I can identify only a handful of instances in my history where I feel certain I was acting completely without any idea of gain. I believe a constant altruistic state is possible but only achieveable through intense or ultimate self awareness.

But isn't that also self-gain, and then no longer altruism, to do something one wants so badly, for example train oneself for awareness to do something stated as "good"?

I donate platelets once every three or four weeks. It takes about 90 minutes of sitting there with a needle in both arms, one for removing blood, and the other for pumping it back in, minus my platelets. It's slightly uncomfortable and I get nothing out of it except that it gives me an immensely good feeling to help out people with leukemia, anemia, etc. Somehow, I know that this is unquestionably a good thing to do and I'm trying to recruit other people to donate. Is this altruistic or do the psychological rewards make it a selfish act? The larger question, I guess, is whether altruism is inherently selfish.

I believe evil exists in the world, but I also believe that certain people can create uncomfortable experiences for themselves. Not necessarily karma, but justice.

But if good and evil are arbitrary concepts, why have justice? Would you say justice is even a factor if the "rules" governing good and evil are arbitrary? Are there limits to what we say is "good" and what we deem as "evil" and can our limited common sense really understand the differences between the two?

(Just to add another set of parameters to the discussion...)

I agree. What else would we label Hitler, Pol Pot, and many other monsters, if not evil? I think that in the spectrum between good and evil things can be morally relative, but the extremes are absolute.

 

[gloomy-optimist]

I agree. What else would we label Hitler, Pol Pot, and many other monsters, if not evil? I think that in the spectrum between good and evil things can be morally relative, but the extremes are absolute.

I disagree. Hitler and many of the people he led genuinely believed they were creating a better world for their people through their actions -- from their prospective, they were doing good. It was still essentially subjective.

 

[Norton]

I disagree. Hitler and many of the people he led genuinely believed they were creating a better world for their people through their actions -- from their prospective, they were doing good. It was still essentially subjective.

Because Hitler subverted all notions of human decency, ethics and morality among the German population (and others) and led the slaughter of many tens of millions of people by the silent majority of "good" people is precisely why he was evil. The very notion of a "better world" according to the Nazis was a clear manifestation of evil. Look up the work of the SS, particularly what they did for fun after their gruesome day's work was done, and tell that wasn't evil. There is nothing subjective about this. A trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC (there are others elsewhere) would be enlightening to arm chair philosophers.

 

[Quinlan]

I think they are broken not evil.

 

[gloomy-optimist]

Because Hitler subverted all notions of human decency, ethics and morality among the German population (and others) and led the slaughter of many tens of millions of people by the silent majority of "good" people is precisely why he was evil. The very notion of a "better world" according to the Nazis was a clear manifestation of evil. Look up the work of the SS, particularly what they did for fun after their gruesome day's work was done, and tell that wasn't evil. There is nothing subjective about this. A trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC (there are others elsewhere) would be enlightening to arm chair philosophers.

Don't worry; I know a thing or two about the Holocaust. I've been to a few prison camps in Europe.
And that doesn't make it clear-cut "evil." It was a distortion in values and perceptions, a warping of minds -- not all who committed those acts would have done so under any other circumstances. Such is the way of war and desperation; it drives people to measures and acts that they would not conceive of doing beforehand. I'm not saying all of them are blameless, but I am saying that not all, or maybe even most, of them were naturally sick evil bastards to begin with. In circumstances such as those, it's hard to really say they were so-and-so type of people, because the times basically totally annihilate and blur the distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, and survival becomes the only true thing.

 

[vSv]

I donate platelets once every three or four weeks. It takes about 90 minutes of sitting there with a needle in both arms, one for removing blood, and the other for pumping it back in, minus my platelets. It's slightly uncomfortable and I get nothing out of it except that it gives me an immensely good feeling to help out people with leukemia, anemia, etc. Somehow, I know that this is unquestionably a good thing to do and I'm trying to recruit other people to donate. Is this altruistic or do the psychological rewards make it a selfish act? The larger question, I guess, is whether altruism is inherently selfish.

I would say selfish.
I see it the same way whatever someone does, even if it is sacrificing oneself for just one or the sake of hundreds or thousands of people. I can't see what would drive a man to do it otherwise, maybe a dream about being a martyr of some kind or something similar, a self fulfillment if you will.

 

[Norton]

I would say selfish...

Then, interestingly, this leaves us with the logical paradox that not donating platelets is the opposite of selfish, that is, a selfless (non)act.

 

[vSv]

Then, interestingly, this leaves us with the logical paradox that not donating platelets is the opposite of selfish, that is, a selfless (non)act.

Not quite, try to remove the word altruistic for a moment and have only selfishness instead, then you will see that everything one does is for oneself, even if it is not donating blood or donating blood.

Not donating blood is selfish because [thousands different factors could be inserted here], while donating blood is selfish because of [another thousands of different factors could be inserted here].
The only reason to take one over the other is because one can see more potential personal gains from one.

 

[arbygil]

(Question for all): Say, hypothetically, that we could remove the word "evil" from every language in the world. What word would you use in its place, and why?