Hard to say. Putin’s only getting started. I’m afraid to think what he’ll do if he gets frustrated by lack of progress.
There are people who have a hole where there conscience should be. There are people who do things so extreme that it is hard to fathom. There are also times when people have been morally judged for no reason or imagined or insignificant factors. I think it less common than supposed - much evil is mislabelled and actually negligence, inconsideration, greed or politics.
Not sure I agree. They were still secretive about the Holocaust, and there was no attempt to “convince the world” that the Jews really were that bad. Deep down I’m sure they knew what they were doing was wrong and they just wanted to do it anyway, i.e. evil.
But inconsideration, greed or politics ARE evil, if they cause significant harm.
I agree with the other posters who say Poutine is evil and I’d say he’s the modern day Hitler variety of evil. (move over Adolf)
Many men can do evil. But does that mean they are evil?
It is an interesting question. A Ted Bundy or Ed Gein might have been psychopaths, but that was a large part of what drove their vile behavior, and it would appear to be beyond their control: they were constitutionally unable to not be monsters, ultimately unable to choose to be decent, except as a means to further their depravity.
If “evil” is your intractable defining characteristic, it may be reasonable to describe you as “evil”. But if unevil is thus not an option, your evilness is no more immoral than your natural hair color or how tall you are.
On the other hand, if you have the natural capacity to be decent and are most of the time but take occasional enjoyment from pointless (or meaningful but excessve) cruelty, one might adjudge that you are more evil than the irredeemable psychopath simply because your evil is deliberate and avoidable.
Psychopaths apparently do understand what they are doing. It may not be a “mental illness” in the usual way. Many are non-violent, most do not want treatment, probably most cannot easily be treated under current understanding. But still it is an interesting question.
As Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart noted in relation to hard-core pornography, we know evil when we see it.
Senator Bob Dole recognized it, as exemplified in his famous remark when seeing former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon at a White House reception. “There they are - See No Evil, Hear No Evil…and Evil.”
That deserves a nomination for Straight Dope Non-Sequitur-of-the-Year award.
I wouldn’t characterize it as “misguided good”. I mean sure, wiping out every Jew and Slav between Moscow and Paris would have been good for the Nazis plan to create an Aryan Europe. But the Holocaust wasn’t an unintended consequence in the way that Ultron going crazy and trying to destroy the world was an unintended consequence of Stark trying to protect it.
As I take evil in a most general overview terms, it is a system where people are held in an oppressed state so the oppressor can benefit, and generally forms a pyramid where the few on top greatly benefit at the expense of those on the lowest level who are held down by those slightly above them who enjoy slightly more benefits, and so on up the pyramid. It is the basic ruling structure of the world, and has resulted in many wasted lives toiling away at the bottom. It is also why a free and involved democracy tends to lower oppression as those on the bottom are empowered to make a difference at the top.
As for the police force (as opposed to an individual police officer - though there are some sadistic officers, and some officers that go too far but that’s another issue), is a controlled use of evil to help control evil. It is the case of trying to have 2 wrongs make a right and demonstrates that evil is systematic and not personal. The bible states the ‘man now knows the knowledge of good and evil’, and our societal structure is based on that. It is a choice we make, how to react.