# Can a thought, desire or fantasy be evil?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [August 8, 2025, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878 "2025-08-08T21:30:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/1 "2025-08-08T21:30:31Z")
Someone on another site was explaining that since a pedophile/zoophile can’t choose what they’re attracted to, their desire isn’t morally wrong. It’s the acting on their desires and actually sexually assaulting a child or animal that’s morally wrong.
My question is do you think a desire, paraphilia, fantasy, etc. can be morally wrong in and of itself if a person never acts on it?
My answer for now is yes and I’d respond to the argument mentioned above by saying I don’t see how the moral wrongness of a desire is dependent on whether or not someone can help but be like that. In a deterministic/indeterministic universe no one can ultimately choose what kind of brain they have or the actions that stem from it but very few people would say this means moral wrongness doesn’t exist. There are sadists and psychopaths who can’t help but fantasize about torturing and killing people constantly but would you wholeheartedly say those kinds of desires and fantasies are morally fine? It’s still an intense desire that would clearly be evil if made reality. I’d also like to say that even if something isn’t immoral because no actual harm is involved that doesn’t mean it’s good, healthy or something you should want to be the kind of person that does. It clearly isn’t good for someone to have intense desires and fantasies of rape, torture, murder, etc. and most people would naturally be repulsed or depressed by someone like that. It wouldn’t be the kind of person you’d likely feel comfortable around even if you knew they wouldn’t ever harm anyone.
---
### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/2 "2025-08-08T21:41:01Z")
This is probably a _religious_ debate as much as a moral debate, to the extent that most people even both to separate the two. Many (not all) Christians I know feel that the very thought of a sin/immorality is something evil, and then potentially committing that act is a second one.
Many Jews of my experience think it’s all about _actions_. Breaking the commandments is wrong, thinking about it is your own business.
I don’t have enough experience with followers of the Qur’an to even paint with as broad a brush as I did for the two above, much less most other religions.
As a secular Jew, I’m mostly in the camp I mentioned above. Having “evil” thoughts isn’t that much of a big deal if you refuse to act on them. _Mentioning_ those evil thoughts are often a major social failing, but that’s it.
And TBH, if “thoughts” themselves are evil, then it leaves out the entire gray area of if its in some senses a _justifiable_ wish for horrible things to happen… if the target themselves is arguably a person worthy of such a fate.
Then again, as I’ve said in other threads, I do not believe in any sort of absolute morality, as it implies there is some privileged POV to determine it. So, TL:DR, my answer to the OP is “Nope, but others have the right to draw the line differently.”
---
### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/3 "2025-08-08T21:46:19Z")
In a hypothetical deterministic universe, there is no “right” and “wrong”. There is merely your notion thereof (which you have no choice about), his notion, her notion, my notion, etc.
In a hypothetical universe in which each of us is the determiner and selector of what we consider to be true, and are similarly so for our actions, I don’t think our desires, wishes, wants, etc, are immoral. Things are evil because of what they _do_ to others. Hmm, I suppose you could argue that if my desires (etc) do bad things _to me_, they are evil, but at that point we’re positing my desires (etc) as “one thing” and the _me_ who is affected by them as something separate from my desires, and to me that’s playing word games. Who I am comprises my desires and thoughts and all that, along with other stuff.
---
### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/4 "2025-08-08T21:50:05Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#):
>
> Many (not all) Christians I know feel that the very thought of a sin/immorality is something evil, and then potentially committing that act is a second one.
As Jimmy Carter (a devout Evangelical Christian) famously said during a 1976 interview with _Playboy_:
> [@](#):
>
> “I try not to commit a deliberate sin. I recognize that I’m going to do it anyhow, because I’m human and I’m tempted. And Christ set some almost impossible standards for us. Christ said, ‘I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery.’ I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do – and I have done it – and God forgives me for it."
> **[Jimmy Carter on Adultery - The Catholic Thing](https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2025/01/11/jimmy-carter-on-adultery/)**
>
> The year 1976 was a good one to be a six-year-old boy from Pittsburgh. I wasn’t too young to realize that Watergate had shaken our confidence in Washington and that
---
### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/5 "2025-08-08T21:52:46Z")
Yeah, there are certainly people who regard the thinking of certain thoughts or the feeling of certain feelings to be sinful. Hence the church lady complaining about the sailor whistling dirty songs.
I dissent from their viewpoint.
---
### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/6 "2025-08-08T21:57:00Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#):
>
> It clearly isn’t good for someone to have intense desires and fantasies of rape,
You sure about that?
> **[The nature of women's rape fantasies: an analysis of prevalence, frequency,...](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19085605/)**
>
> This study evaluated the rape fantasies of female undergraduates (N = 355) using a fantasy checklist that reflected the legal definition of rape and a sexual fantasy log that included systematic prompts and self-ratings. Results indicated that 62% of...
According to this cite, 14% of women have rape fantasies at least once a week - and a total of 62% reported having had at least one.
It’s not super cut and dried. I’ve seen research indicating that men who have rape fantasizes are more likely to believe rape culture myths. But for any given man, I don’t care what they fantasize about.
This may seem incomprehensible to some, but fantasies aren’t real. And they may be entirely divorced from a desire to do the thing in real life. They don’t even necessarily mean the thing they are fantasizing about. It’s like dreaming. Should people be held accountable for what they dream?
I think it’s wrong to judge people for their thoughts. Some people are plagued by intrusive thoughts of doing horrible things, but they are not dangerous, they just have OCD. And some of us are writers, who “fantasize" quite often about human trafficking and genocide and sex work and torture and all kinds of stuff, not because we delight in those things but because creating stories is joy.
So no, I don’t think fantasy is immoral. The only thing that will persuade me otherwise is evidence that fantasizing about something makes you more likely to do it. And that data would have to carefully distinguish between correlation and causation.
---
### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/7 "2025-08-08T22:04:46Z")
Thoughts can be unhealthy, but only actions can be evil.
---
### Author:  [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/8 "2025-08-08T22:06:21Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#):
>
> Many Jews of my experience think it’s all about _actions_. Breaking the commandments is wrong, thinking about it is your own business.
There’s an old anecdote about a boy who announces he’s having second thoughts about being bar mitzvahed because he’s no longer sure he believes in God. “My boy,” his father replies, “you think God cares if you believe?”
---
### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/9 "2025-08-08T22:16:38Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#):
>
> As a secular Jew, I’m mostly in the camp I mentioned above. Having “evil” thoughts isn’t that much of a big deal if you refuse to act on them. _Mentioning_ those evil thoughts are often a major social failing, but that’s it.
Basically this.
Writing them up for other people to salivate over would IMO be morally wrong. Going on about them during dinner and ruining everybody’s appetite, or for that matter inflicting them on other people in general, would definitely be a major social failing and possibly worse than that if someone in the audience is happy to hear them instead and might therefor inflict them on others. Running over and over them in your head if you feel this is encouraging you to act on them would certainly be wrong. But just having the thoughts, quietly in your own head, knowing that there’s absolutely no way you’d ever act on them? I wouldn’t worry about it.
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#):
>
> This may seem incomprehensible to some, but fantasies aren’t real. And they may be entirely divorced from a desire to do the thing in real life.
Quoted for truth. There are plenty of people who fantasize about things that would horrify them in real life.
I think a common comparison is that plenty of people like to read, or even write, murder mysteries who most certainly don’t want to be around a lot of actual murders. (ETA: and the people who write them don’t generally write them for others to salivate over; but for others to read about justice being done, or to grieve over its not being.)
---
### Author:  [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/10 "2025-08-08T22:26:10Z")
To me it’s a matter of whether or not you’d do it if you had the opportunity.
---
### Author:  [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/11 "2025-08-08T22:30:07Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> But just having the thoughts, quietly in your own head, knowing that there’s absolutely no way you’d ever act on them? I wouldn’t worry about it.
I liked your response and agree with it. But there’s something about the word “ **quietly** ” that’s doing all the work for me to make it not morally wrong.
---
### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/12 "2025-08-08T22:33:30Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> Running over and over them in your head if you feel this is encouraging you to act on them would certainly be wrong.
That, to me, would be unhealthy and even dangerous, but still morally neutral. It only becomes evil when you cross the line and actually do something.
---
### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/13 "2025-08-08T22:33:41Z")
> [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#):
>
> There’s an old anecdote about a boy who announces he’s having second thoughts about being bar mitzvahed because he’s no longer sure he believes in God. “My boy,” his father replies, “you think God cares if you believe?”
My answer would be “If he doesn’t care, why does he want people to worship him?” He clearly cares a whole lot.
> [@P-man](#):
>
> To me it’s a matter of whether or not you’d do it if you had the opportunity.
This. Merely having the thought isn’t wrong, the issue is _why_ you aren’t acting on it. It’s the difference between thinking about how much you’d _like_ to murder your annoying neighbor but won’t because it would be wrong, and _fully intending_ to murder your neighbor if you ever see the opportunity to get away with it.
---
### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/14 "2025-08-08T22:38:51Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> It’s the difference between thinking about how much you’d _like_ to murder your annoying neighbor but won’t because it would be wrong, and _fully intending_ to murder your neighbor if you ever see the opportunity to get away with it.
What if you truly intend to kill your neighbor, but when the perfect moment arrives you just can’t go through with it? Does that make you a bad person or a good one?
I think that you can plan all you want, but the only thing that matters is what you end up doing.
---
### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/15 "2025-08-08T22:47:18Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> Thoughts can be unhealthy, but only actions can be evil.
Exactly this.
---
### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/16 "2025-08-08T22:57:13Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> I think that you can plan all you want, but the only thing that matters is what you end up doing.
This is the only answer that makes sense to me, otherwise we go down this whole slippery slope of thought control and where does it stop?
If you’re fantasizing about torturing someone let’s say, three or more times a day, maybe time to see a therapist. But I don’t see how judgment is useful in this situation.
Indeed, it normally backfires. People can be utterly tormented by intrusive thoughts, and it’s been long established that attempts to suppress thoughts make them more likely to come up. When people develop OCD is when they feel like they have to do something, usually some kind of ritual, to make the thoughts go away.
They are just thoughts! You don’t have to do anything about them! Isn’t that great?
---
### Author:  [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/17 "2025-08-08T23:04:06Z")
Every single one of us weird flawed humans, I don’t care how wonderful or upstanding you may appear, or think you appear, to the outside world, has thought, desired or fantasized horrible, awful things at times. If that’s evil, then we’re all evil.
---
### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/18 "2025-08-08T23:11:49Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> Writing them up for other people to salivate over would IMO be morally wrong.
You just condemned about half of all fan-fiction.
---
### Author:  [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2025, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/19 "2025-08-08T23:30:10Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#):
>
> If you’re fantasizing about torturing someone let’s say, three or more times a day, maybe time to see a therapist. But I don’t see how judgment is useful in this situation.
There is where I’m at a dilemma. I don’t really have a conclusive opinion, yet, just kind of raw thoughts about it.
If it’s not morally wrong, or anything like that, then why do anything about it. Why would anyone think to go see a therapist. If it is deemed morally wrong, then maybe that sets a line that maybe the person should go talk to someone, or just know it’s not normal in this society. I don’t think it should be a bad judgment or anything, but even a comment to see a therapist is judgment. More just…”our society thinks all your thoughts about that kid aren’t the norm. Just so you know.”
With that said, we very well may be saying something very similar but just not agreeing on what morally wrong means.
---
### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2025, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878/20 "2025-08-09T00:14:30Z")
> [@CoolHandCox](#):
>
> If it’s not morally wrong, or anything like that, then why do anything about it.
I think it becomes a problem when it causes suffering for the person OR affects their ability to function. Excessive thoughts about anything is generally not healthy.
Also I think if you’re truly getting off on detailed visions of torturing people, you bear some responsibility to make sure it doesn’t become reality, which at least means getting checked out. I’ve gotten myself checked out for far less.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-thought-desire-or-fantasy-be-evil/1021878.md?page=2)