No one believes they are evil. Or at least very few people do. Most people that WE consider evil are going to proclaim themselves the protectors of good or some such.
However, whatever someone believes does not necessarily change the fact that, to someone else, they are evil.
Ex. Hitler was evil. He would have told you otherwise, and indeed the neo-nazi’s that exist today WILL tell you otherwise. They may even point out his huge public works projects, and other funding and projects he had for the good of his people. He was still evil.
Next up. There seem to be different LEVELS of evil. for instance, a person who steals out of greed is evil in a way, but not as evil as a person who randomly murders everyone in his path.
Next. An action is not in and of itself evil (or is it?), at least i don’t think so. I believe intent is very important here.
And finally, as a side thought a bit off topic, does anyone else find it odd that the penalty’s for murder and attempted murder are different? I mean, in one he screwed up, but the intent and what we are punishing is the same… isn’t it? why do we punish based solely on results of actions, rather than intent. Oh well… i should probably save THAT discussion for another day.
I think Hitler felt that what he was doing was right. In his perspective he was doing ok. That would be my guess. He did wrong, but not evil.
Evil I think is doing something wrong while knowing its wrong and not caring. Killing a Kitten slowly, not caring about its cries of pain, knowing its wrong, but doing it because you feel powerful, and laughing about it chanting “I am evil, feel my evilness” or something like that would be evil.
I think there is a difference between wrong and evil.
Just like there is a difference between misinformed and stupid.
I can help you with this question (at least from a legal perspective rather than from a moral perspective).
The offence of murder has two elements:
mens rea - intention
and
actus reus - the successful commission of the act itself
Both elements need to be present for it to be murder. If only one element is present then it’s not murder, it’s something else ie:
if only mens rea is present then it’s attempted murder (because you intended to kill but something stopped you from doing it)
if only actus reus is present then it’s manslaughter (because you didn’t intend to kill but you ended up killing anyway)
I’m in the UK so you, in the US, will probably have different terms to describe this stuff (murder 1, murder 2 etc) but the basic law will be much the same.
Suppose you intend to murder someone, there are 5 things (in law) that may stop you from committing this act:
change of heart - you change your mind at the last minute and don’t pull the trigger
intervention by a third party - by the police or a bystander
incompetence - you fail to successfully complete the crime because of your own bad planning or inadequacy
impossibility - eg you try to shoot someone without realising that they’ve already (previously) removed the bullets from your gun so your attempt could never have worked, although you didn’t realise this
not a crime - killing someone isn’t always a crime. You are allowed to kill people in certain situations eg self-defence, killing enemy soldiers in battle, killing by misadventure. Maybe you thought you were committing a crime but, in fact (legally), you weren’t
Please note, the above is just my “Quick Guide To The Difference Between Murder And Attempted Murder”. It all gets way more complicated when you start going into the details.
But, basically, the statement you made viz:
is incorrect. They are two completely different crimes. The next statement you made is also incorrect:
We don’t punish solely on results of actions:
we have one punishment for when there is only intention (and no action)
we have a different punishment for when there is only action (and no intention)
and we have another punishment for when there is both intention AND action.
The classical definition is that evil is that which is not good. Dark is the absence of light, cold is the absence of hot, ergo, evil is the absence of good.
Good, BTW, is that which is in accord with that for which the thing was made (assuming there’s a maker…but anyway…). Rocks are heavy and sink in water. It’s good when rocks do that. Rocks are bad when they’re used to bash someone’s skull in, because…um…rocks aren’t supposed to do that.
I don’t really think that there is a meaningful way to define evil. You can reduce things down to more an more basic concepts, and eventually you just come down to fundamental ‘truths’ with no basis except that you want them to be true - Everything needs an arbitrary starting point. So if two people disagree as to what’s evil all that differentiates between them is who has more people agreeing with him - there reasons are both, eventually, arbitrary. So good and evil become nothing more than a popularity contest. Frankly, I don’t have enough respect for human opinion en masse to think that’s a very good definition…
ResIpsaLoquitor: So it’s good to shoot people with guns?
I have to disagree with what Epimetheus posted above. Knowledge of right and wrong doesn’t count in the definition of evil. It’s a basis for judging sane vs. insane, but there is a world of difference between evil and wrong actions, although evil actions are, inherently, wrong.
There are certainly varying degrees of evil. However, to my mind, evil is initiating force, coercion or harm against a person, group or their property. It doesn’t matter what the justification is or whether or not the perpetrator knows the action to wrong. Knowing one’s actions are wrong makes one more evil, but doesn’t absolve evil in the face of ignorance.
The question can also be phrased as “what is justice”. Plato’s Republic deals extensively with this as does a whole cornucopia of literature written since the dawn of humanity. Ethics is a complex discipline. I’d have to agree with you on that defining “evil” is a difficult task. In my opinion? Well…
I guess I’m what they call a neo-Darwinist, so I don’t believe in defining morality outside of the context of the biological struggle for survival. When I say that, people quickly assume I’m saying exactly what Thrasymachus insisted in his conversations with Socrates, namely that justice is the interest of the stronger individual. My answer is that justice isn’t the interest of the stronger individual, but the interest of the stronger system.
Essentially, we need to comprehend the survival of individuals in the context of symbiosis. To ensure their continued survival, two individuals may act in cooperation. They form a society, or a state. Only value systems that strengthen the group as a whole, thereby guaranteeing stability for a substantial portions of its population, will survive the test of time. For example, republicanism is an extremely efficient form of government and continues to thrive. Societies based on the codex of Judaism have proven to be very stable and therefore have come to dominate much of the world.
Imagine a society open to ruthless killings. Cooperation in such an society becomes tenuous due to inherent mistrust in others, weakening their social structures over time. I think the issue of what is “evil” and what isn’t is continuously being revised, creating more and more efficient societies. Hitler failed because the morality of the cult he created lead to wide spread death and destruction. Pinoche eventually fell from power because a dose of mutual trust is the basis of any healthy community.
one thing to remeber is that evil is a human creation. whos to say that evil actually exists in our world.
it is also based on perspective of any specific event. for example lets say i rob a person to buy a car and i feel no remorse. many would say this evil, lets say i have succesfully convinced myself that what others precieve to be greed, was actually a necessity. now am i evil?
i would also like to pose a spin-off question: is Bin Laden more evil (srry for the english) than a man whose rapped more than one women and feels no remorse?
Arjun, of course evil is a human creation. We are the only creatures capable of rational thought influencing our course of action.
To your second third paragraph, I disagree. There is no perspective involved. If you rob someone to buy a car, regardless of your attempted justifications for it. The act is evil because it initiates force against someone else’s person or property. The fact that, I assume, no one is physically harmed, makes it less evil than it could be, but it’s still evil.
I put the rapist you mentioned and Bin Laden in the same degree of evil. Bin Laden is more efficient, but one can assume that the rapist will continue until caught or killed, and therefore his number of victims is really a matter of inefficiency and timing.
Are you saying that there are no acts which are truly, intrinsically evil? None whatsoever?
If so, then I’d like to ask you the same questions which I asked Nightime: How did you come to this conclusion, and what evidence do you have to support such a universal claim?
I agree.
‘the willingness to harm someone else out of convenience or for pleasure.’ is not intrinsically ‘Evil’.
It is something that is condemned by our modern, western, culture but it is a natural phenomenon that takes a lot of suppressing by upbringing and fear for punishment.
Can’t speak for him, but as that is exactly what I believe I figured I’d put my 2 cents in. Whenever two people disagree about what is evil, eventually the argument’s have to come down to one of the following:
I’m right because I say I’m right.
I’m right because more people agree with me.
For example, murder is wrong. Why? Because human life is valuable. But to a murderer human life isn’t valuable. Why are you right and they’re wrong? Because more people agree with you than agree with them.
I am of course assuming a morality without religious base, simply because there’s similarily no way to determine the correct religion (granted divine intervention would go a fair way towards doing that, but that has yet to happen so far).
This isn’t to say that I don’t have my own sense of morality. I do. I simply don’t see why anyone else should be forced to follow it.
Ya’ can’t have it both way. Either evil is a inter-subjective property like size, color, duration and flexibility or it’s a purely subjective human construct like beauty, disgust and comedy. Which is it?
How you can say that evil is a “wrongness” property of things or events (because that’s what inherently means) is a bit baffling. Because a spider female devours her mate, she is evil? When I shot and kill someone because they’re trying to rip out my gut, my actions are evil? Ever heard of mitigating circumstances? Or justified homicide?
Again, a bit baffling. Not quite a contradiction but getting out on thin ice. So evil has degrees but, nonetheless, there’s some form of lowest threshold. An act is inherently wrong (or evil) but sometimes may be less or more inherently wrong. Shaky, shaky. Let me propose a thought experiment to you, FallenAngel.
Imagine I’m in a room with levers behind thick locked glass cabinet and an electrically operated door that is also locked. I have no idea how I got there. What happened was that I, being a somnambulant, ended up there because of my own unfortunate meanderings. Apparently the sleeping medication I’ve been taking recently isn’t working. Having walked into the room in my sleep, the door automatically shuts behind me because of a poor construction. Suddenly, I wake up and realize I’m trapped in the room. And alas, there a no ventilation! Slowly, I begin to suffocate. Seeing the levers, I figure they might help me unlock the door. Fortunately for me, I have my good old shoe. So I smash the glass and pull at the levers. What I don’t know is that I’ve just turned on a high-voltage electric circuit that the owner of the place is working on. Bam! The owner dies instantaneously. And me? The electricity goes back on and I escape from the suffocating confinements of the room.
The question to you, FallenAngel, is: have I committed an evil act?
If your answer is “no”, you are admitting that intent matters and that ignorance is mitigating if there’s no way I could have known. If your answer is “yes”, then explain to me what I did wrong that is so inherently evil. I’ve been taking my medication to help me sleep. So how can you fault me for that? I found myself in a death trap, so certainly you can’t fault me for trying to escape by breaking the owners property. And how could I ever have known that I was about to kill him???