I don't believe in good or evil.

Endersgone said:
I got a bit off track... anyway, I'm just saying there's a possibility of finding objective (universal) moral truths (they may not be readily understandable/discernable - depending on our current pressures/influences/circumstances), but they can be found.
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Actually, I think they would be too complex, given that you would have to account for every possible contingency and define morality in a manner that was perfectly consistent. I don't think it would be very meaningful to us. If you disagree then simply ask, what is the purpose of morality?
 
Peace said:
Actually, I think they would be too complex, given that you would have to account for every possible contingency and define morality in a manner that was perfectly consistent. I don't think it would be very meaningful to us. If you disagree then simply ask, what is the purpose of morality?
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They don't have to be completely consistent; but they are beliefs/truths that hold some merit across societal/cultural boundaries. Like I said earlier, human life has some intrinsic value, that value can be disagreed with...but not entirely negated. The purpose of morality can go beyond survival (or tribalism-survival of the group); slavery helped us... why didn't we keep that policy? Why undo what keeps us living comfortably, after all societal norms at the time made it an acceptable practice. What made us challenge our beliefs at the time... why bother?
 
Endersgone said:
They don't have to be completely consistent; but they are beliefs/truths that hold some merit across societal/cultural boundaries. Like I said earlier, human life has some intrinsic value, that value can be disagreed with...but not entirely negated. The purpose of morality can go beyond survival (or tribalism-survival of the group); slavery helped us... why didn't we keep that policy? Why undo what keeps us living comfortably, after all societal norms at the time made it an acceptable practice. What made us challenge our beliefs at the time... why bother?
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As the society changed, slavery was no longer as necessary for survival. It is no coincidence that the decline of slavery coincides with the industrial revolution. It was helpful in an agrarian society, but not so much in an industrial society.

Slavery also served an economic function, and actually nearly became infeasible in America since it was too costly too maintain. It was the invention of the cotton gin that saved the slavery industry in America. However, slavery more or less fell out of style with the rest of Western society because it was just too darn expensive.

The industrialized part of the country that traditionally did not have slaves was at war with the agrarian part of the country that did have slaves, and the industrialized part of the country emancipated all the slaves in the agrarian part of the country. In other words, one side imposed its beliefs on the other side during the bloodiest war in American history. As you may remember, the South ended up instituting policies of segregation and red lining that lasted until the civil rights era, so the morality of the South never really changed and the prevalent racism that continues to exist there even today is further proof of it.

Ultimately, I think as humans progress we are developing a more sophisticated knowledge of what moral rules help us survive as a global community. However, the moral rules are different in localized or regional communities.
 
Peace said:
As the society changed, slavery was no longer as necessary for survival. It is no coincidence that the decline of slavery coincides with the industrial revolution. It was helpful in an agrarian society, but not so much in an industrial society.

Slavery also served an economic function, and actually nearly became infeasible in America since it was too costly too maintain. It was the invention of the cotton gin that saved the slavery industry in America. However, slavery more or less fell out of style with the rest of Western society because it was just too darn expensive.

The industrialized part of the country that traditionally did not have slaves was at war with the agrarian part of the country that did have slaves, and the industrialized part of the country emancipated all the slaves in the agrarian part of the country. In other words, one side imposed its beliefs on the other side during the bloodiest war in American history. As you may remember, the South ended up instituting policies of segregation and red lining that lasted until the civil rights era, so the morality of the South never really changed and the prevalent racism that continues to exist there even today is further proof of it.

Ultimately, I think as humans progress we are developing a more sophisticated knowledge of what moral rules help us survive as a global community. However, the moral rules are different in localized or regional communities.
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Alright, so slavery wasn't the best example...The only point I'm really trying to make is that for some reason humans see value in the lives of other humans, it's something that seems to cross (go beyond) cultural/societal - moral rules/boundaries (on various occasions/circumstances). - I'm just saying that a moral law doesn't necessarily have to serve only survival... maybe seeing inherent human value is just a natural inclination towards co-operation/survival on a personal level (or it could just be our personal upbringing), but I think there's more to it.
 
Endersgone said:
The only point I'm really trying to make is that for some reason humans see value in the lives of other humans, it's something that seems to cross (go beyond) cultural/societal - moral rules/boundaries (on various occasions/circumstances). - I'm just saying that a moral law doesn't necessarily have to serve only survival... maybe seeing inherent human value is just a natural inclination towards co-operation/survival on a personal level (or it could just be our personal upbringing), but I think there's more to it.
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I recognize that a belief in inherent human worth is a common quality of most cultures, but I also recognize that value tends to disappear when it comes to elements viewed as threatening to the survival of the community. For example, the Nazis valued human life, but not so much Jewish human life. Or as another example, America is absolutely known for valuing human life, and yet we have a death penalty and we recently just killed about 100,000 people in Iraq.
 
Peace said:
I recognize that a belief in inherent human worth is a common quality of most cultures, but I also recognize that value tends to disappear when it comes to elements viewed as threatening to the survival of the community. For example, the Nazis valued human life, but not so much Jewish human life. Or as another example, America is absolutely known for valuing human life, and yet we have a death penalty and we recently just killed about 100,000 people in Iraq.
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I don't think they dissapear as much as they can be overcome via distance/the moral "slide". Bombing is an easy way to take a life, killing a man with your bare hands is completely another matter (distance/dehumanizing makes life less valuable). We can come to accept different moral terms, depending on societal influences/pressures - but I don't think these values ever completely dissapear. For example in Nazi Germany, there were many who felt what was happening was "wrong" (even some of the Nazi higher ups- but many of them weren't actually doing the act of killing/mass murdering), they couldn't muster the moral "resources" to take action (some did though). It's pretty clear that most people will object to killing/massacring other people (at first). We can make atrocities easier to undertake via the moral slide, killing an armed soldier in combat isn't very different psychologically than killing a civilian (morally it is of course) but when one kills a soldier first hand, it's not nearly as hard to make the jump to killing civilians. Hence the moral "slide", this can be seen in all facets of society not just the military, as long as the moral change isn't abrupt societal values can continually degrade. Distance (and the moral slide), as I already mentioned can override the psychology that comes with taking a life - but these are adaptions that go against natural inclinations, I wouldn't say that these are acts are of our nature - we are overriding what is already imprinted.
 
Endersgone said:
I wouldn't say that these are acts are of our nature - we are overriding what is already imprinted.
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Perhaps.

Although I personally feel that killing is very much a part of human nature.

However, this is all ultimately a matter of opinion. I'm hypothesizing that morality is a product of natural selection and is subject to change in accordance with circumstances that would enhance survival. Just look at how different the moralities between societies like Athens and Sparta were in regards to the value of human life. That debate between intellectualism and militarism continues to exist even today in modern American society.
 
Peace said:
Those concepts seem so strange to me. The concepts of "good" or "evil" tend to be relative to your culture or personal values. I don't really see any absolute standard for either idea. Why do people believe they exist?
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The concept of evil really only started to exist with the onset of Christianity. Before that it wasn't known in Europe. For example, in Latin there's no word for "evil", only for "bad". So if you said in Latin that someone was bad, it was more like saying "He's bad in tennis" or so.
 
Peace said:
Perhaps.

Although I personally feel that killing is very much a part of human nature.

However, this is all ultimately a matter of opinion. I'm hypothesizing that morality is a product of natural selection and is subject to change in accordance with circumstances that would enhance survival. Just look at how different the moralities between societies like Athens and Sparta were in regards to the value of human life. That debate between intellectualism and militarism continues to exist even today in modern American society.
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What you say is honestly the most logical argument; it’s a stance I’ve taken myself before… but I want to believe in more than survival. I’ve found that having a little faith in something more keeps me optimistic… I also play devil’s advocate way too often, for some reason I find debates/discussion entertaining (I’ve switched sides on this a couple times).

Morality/moral truths (to me) - serve as a higher principles = to keep societies in check and to stop moral degradation (if possible). Survival (as I’ve come to view it) will almost always take precedence over morality/moral truths (but that doesn’t make them invalid). Perhaps killing of other nations/peoples in order to strengthen our own group/tribe (and its survival) is in our nature (I would imagine so - tribalism), but I also think that there is some inherent value in a human’s life (as an objective truth) and that humans deserve some basic (universal) freedoms regardless of morality relative to location.
 
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Are you ready for my J to express? Okay...

I think it's foolishly and dangerously naive not to recognize that things like raping, torturing, and killing small children is evil.
 
Whether one believes in something or not does not change reality.
 
swing said:
The concept of evil really only started to exist with the onset of Christianity. Before that it wasn't known in Europe. For example, in Latin there's no word for "evil", only for "bad". So if you said in Latin that someone was bad, it was more like saying "He's bad in tennis" or so.
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- moral (adj.) mid-14c., "pertaining to character or temperament" (good or bad), from O.Fr. moral, from L. moralis "proper behavior of a person in society," lit. "pertaining to manners," coined by Cicero ("De Fato," II.i) to translate Gk. ethikos (see ethics) from L. mos (gen. moris) "one's disposition," in plural, "mores, customs, manners, morals," of uncertain origin. Meaning "morally good, conforming to moral rules," is first recorded late 14c. of stories, 1630s of persons. Original value-neutral sense preserved in moral support, moral victory, with sense of "pertaining to character as opposed to physical action." The noun meaning "moral exposition of a story" is attested from c.1500. Related: Morally.
- immoral 1650s, from assimilated form of in- (1) "not" + moral. Related: Immorally.
- amoral "ethically indifferent," 1882, a hybrid formed from Greek privative prefix a- "not" + moral, which is derived from Latin. First used by Robert Louis Stephenson (1850-1894) as a differentiation from immoral.
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Source: etymonline.com

Edit: I'm not agreeing or disagreeing. I mean to say that it is a semantic argument. See also:

- evil (adj.) O.E. yfel (Kentish evel) "bad, vicious, ill, wicked," from P.Gmc. *ubilaz (cf. O.Saxon ubil, O.Fris., M.Du. evel, Du. euvel, O.H.G. ubil, Ger.
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GracieRuth said:
Are you ready for my J to express? Okay...

I think it's foolishly and dangerously naive not to recognize that things like raping, torturing, and killing small children is evil.
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Agreed.

Don't let yourselves get caught up in the existential madness...
 
Matt3737 said:
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing. I mean to say that it is a semantic argument.
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Nice post. I took "evil" as posted by the OP as "evil" in the sense of an absolute force that is thoroughly destructive/bad/negative, as in the nature of the devil (by the way, does "devil" come "evil"?). And I understood "bad" as an attribute of people that deviates form the norm of the collective, or the technical term, respectively.

I think the earliest point in history where I've read about a concept of evil was in the religion of Zoroastrianism in the ancient Middle East. If I understood it correctly, that religion held the view that there's good and evil fighting in the world for supremacy. I assume that idea somehow diffused into Europe and into Christianity in the later centuries. So it really existed before Christianity, but not in Europe.

As for moral, I think moral does not necessarily need a concept of evil. I've read somewhere that in certain African cultures they have theologies that don't have a concept of evil, but only of good.
 
swing:

Some of the philosophers I've read argue that evil is the absense of good, the way that cold is the absence of heat, or darkness is the absence of light.
 
GracieRuth said:
swing:

Some of the philosophers I've read argue that evil is the absense of good, the way that cold is the absence of heat, or darkness is the absence of light.
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then it would follow that ugly is the absence of beauty. that's not necessarily true. there are a lot of shades of grey in between.
 
Maybe grey is the absence of that which is absolute in one's own mind. Everything is beautiful in its own way, so the song goes. I would not say everything is good in its own way, but that is just me. Darkness is the absence of light.
 
Endersgone said:
... I also think that there is some inherent value in a human’s life (as an objective truth) and that humans deserve some basic (universal) freedoms regardless of morality relative to location.
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I think those would be views of the Age of Enlightenment. It is interesting that so many great minds would come to such similar conclusions.
 
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