Does evil exist?

[the caracal kid]

natural good? or natural order?

good and evel, ad mentioned are constructs. "good" is merely that which is favourable, "evel" that which is not. These are labels, and nothing more. If we trace that which is benefitial or not back to its origins: survival; we see that the measure of this "evil" is merely that which reduces the survival likelihood of the individual or society.

The constructs are relative to the viewer.

 

[FiveParadox]

Re: The Existence of Evil

I think I might add my two cents to this discussion.

:arrow: Perceptions

I don't think that "good" and "evil" are anything more than perceptions, and therefore they aren't something that can exist, or not exist. By way of example, I would suggest that a majority of the populations of the educated world would consider the late Adolf Hitler to have been "evil"; however, to Mr. Hitler and his supporters, one couldn't contend with any reason that they would have considered him to be "evil", but quite rather the opposite.

This would introduce the topic of whether the perceptions of some would deserve precedence over the perceptions of others, and I would suggest that there is nobody on Earth who can make such decisions — perceptions, and their precedence relative to one's own perception, are not something that can be graded, or put into order. Someone who would think themselves to be a saint, of sorts, could well be perceived by another as being purely evil. There's no definitive end to the speculation of these perceptions — one could run around in cirles, and never hope to come to a sound conclusion.

To that end, no, I would suggest that "evil" doesn't exist.

Consequently, nor does "good".

 

[Cosmo]

Fascinating conversation you guys!!!

I still maintain evil exists. I've seen it. I'd love to believe that we all are inherently good (the old nature vs nurture argument) but I have looked into the eyes of people when there was no goodness, no humanity there. Nobody home that I wanna visit!

It's not just tribe mentality/judgement calls ... one person I met had killed a woman (beaten, raped, murdered and left in the bushes) and ended up getting away with it. You looked into his eyes and you knew he was dangerous and evil. It wasn't his actions (reprehensible as they were), but the sense that there just was no soul there. Or if there was, it was twisted and ugly. It isn't an abstract concept when you see it. When you would catch glimpses of the truth behind the facade he put out, it was like looking into the eyes of a grizzly bear (which I have done) ... no sense of right and wrong, no empathy, nothing beyond a kind of basic predatory intelligence.

I'm sure most people have met, however briefly, someone that just gave them the chills. Some people just are not good. At the centre of ourselves there are times we just know ... it's primal.

Having said that, I'm a bit of a sap and tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. That killer I spoke of ... I had thought him simply "misunderstood" when he was a true sociopath. That was when I still agreed with Plato that all evil was just ignorance. People like him have convinced me evil does, indeed exist.

There's the old story about the devil ... his greatest feat was convincing people he didn't exist. I'm not sure there's some supreme being of the underworld, but I think the concept is relevant. If we don't believe evil exists, we are unprepared for it. With the amount of evidence around us supporting the truth that evil is alive and well, it's a bit like saying "cars don't exist" and walking out onto a busy road. Doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Well congratulations Machjo, you've obviously asked a provocative and subtle question here, with deep philosophical and religious complications. It's easy to give a short answer, yes or no, and offer a relatively simplistic justification for it, but frankly I don't think anything less than a book-length treatise will really do it justice. And we're not going to get that on a message board. We've seen both yes and no answers here, varying degrees of moral relativism, invocations of Higher Authority as the arbiter of morals, and everything in between.

I tend to the view that the answer is yes, evil does exist, in the sense that there are people who do evil things, but I'd also generally agree with those who view good and evil as social constructs that are defined relative to an action's impact on the people making the definitions. For instance, I'm quite sure the Mongol hordes who over-ran much of eastern Europe in, what was it, the 13th century? didn't consider themselves to be evil, but the people who were subjected to their pillaging, murder, and burning certainly did. There are people today who consider the United States to be evil, and a former U.S. President once labelled the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire, quite seriously. He wasn't just playing at politics, he really believed that. The current U.S. President defined an Axis of Evil a few years ago, though again, I doubt that the nations he identified would agree.

It's quite clear, I think, that evil is often defined in relative terms, but part of the burden of the original question, at least implicitly, is this supplementary question: is there anything that is absolutely evil, anything that all societies, all people, at all times, under all circumstances, would define as evil? I think the answer to that one is probably no. The partial record of 20th century holocausts I posted in my first response to the question suggests, at least to me, that slaughtering large numbers of members of groups you don't happen to like, for whatever reason, is so common that we could legitimately call it normal human behaviour. Even the Jews, one of the most persecuted and reviled people over millennia of history, the one time they were in a position to inflict such harm on their perceived enemies, did it too. I find that notion, that it might be normal human behaviour, deeply distressing, but that's simply a reflection of my own values.

Ah, it's late, I'm rambling, I need to go to bed. But just to bring this full circle by referring back to my first paragraph, there are some good book-length explorations of this question, and in particular I recommend Michael Shermer's The Science of Good and Evil, ISBN 0-8050-7520-8

 

[Finder]

Dexter Sinister, thanks for the book recommendation, I shall seek it out.

If you are interested in early Stalinist morality, or even soviet morality I'd recommend David Remnick's "Lenin's Tomb : The Last Days of the Soviet Empire". Even though it centre's around the end of the Soviet union it has an awful lot of documention on Stalinist era as well. Remnick at one point interviewed at one point a man who had been a low ranking soldier during ww2, and who's main job was to write down the names, place of birth and a few other tid bites of information of thousands of polish officers inside a small make shift house, in one room where he knew in the next there would be two other soldiers with german hand guns in the next room which would exicute the officers by placing the gun on the back of their head.

The man said he had processed countless officers and knew what was happening to each one, and was told to make the process part as fast as possable so that more could be killed during the night. He had told Remnick that he had done it for the revolution and Stalin and believed he was doing it for the betterment of socialism. Remnick even wrote that even today the retired man didn't appear to be too moved by what he had done. But said he could tell that he was repressing some emotions and also explained that he was told that the men were goven large amount of vodka each night to drink after "work".

It is amazing something which is so cold and heartless can be done by anyone, so systematic, yet how society works if it becomes the accepted norm, all of the sudden it's not so wrong. BTW the Soviets tried to hide the fact they had murdered these polish officers by training to make it look as if it was the Germans who had murdered them. At some point, before, during or after the fact they knew they were doing something wrong.

Without using sources for my next statment, which I could if I cared to pull them up, I'd say the Germans knew they were doing wrong or evil at some point since they also tried to hide the fact or lessen the fact of the millions they killed. This would indicate that they knew they were doing evil and they knew they were in the wrong.. would it not?

 

[Dexter Sinister]

I'd say the Germans knew they were doing wrong or evil at some point since they also tried to hide the fact or lessen the fact of the millions they killed. This would indicate that they knew they were doing evil and they knew they were in the wrong.. would it not?

It may, but unfortunately other interpretations are possible. Maybe they knew others would perceive it as wrong and criticize them sharply for it, but they themselves thought they were doing the world a favour. Certainly some individual Nazis thought that way. A Dutch friend of mine has described to me several encounters with an aging former SS officer in Hamburg in the 1960s who expressed exactly that view, and a deep bitterness that they were prevented from completing the program by soft-headed and decadent liberalism. Pretty ugly.

 

[the caracal kid]

cosmo,

your example demonstrates how "good" and "evil" are labels for that which benefits or does not benefit one (or a group.

That fellow, running free, would be perceived as a threat to your well-being, and thus you apply the label "evil".

The issue is people over generalize concepts to absolutes. Rather than the fellow being a potential threat or being given another more specific term, he is generalized into a classification that is presumed to be of absolute value.

 

[nelk]

Think of a potter making clay vessels; if numbers are produced, he likely will use a mold to make things go quicker.

If this original mold has a certain feature not wanted or needed it is called a flaw. Any subsequent vessels made using that mold will
feature the imprint of that flaw and it is impossible to expect the perfect flawless vessel from it; that we can understand.

According to biblical teaching in context with this thread, this flaw is called lack of perfection, or state of sin.
Even peoples like mother Theresa or Dr. Albert Schweitzer were Sinners.
To be a sinner is something nobody can escape.
Since it was not your fault; you were born with it , I/we personally
dont have to fall into depression about that.

But it should ( since we eventually die because of it) act as a reminder of our shortcomings and precipitate certain behavior and make us aware of the potential damage we humans can be doing to each other.
Herein lays the inherent value of the christian religion.
I know ,didn't work many times!


In the history of men a few things are remarkable:

*the desire to worship
*the inborn instinct about what amounts to gross wrongdoing
*to demonstrate interest and godwill towards the next of kin, group
or tribe; kind of an agape' love
particular the last was important to survival day to day

So developing rules and behavior codex were the first hallmarks of
organised societies.

To step outside these rules was considered as breaking the law or being outright evil.
Of course degree matters and penalties were also invented to keep us in line.

So if a tree happens to fall on your head because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, thats called unforseen (because in your imperfection you could not anticpate this )event.
But if you bad neighbor down the road secretly cuts this tree and mangage its fall just as you happen to pass by and impresses on your dear head..... thats called evil.

Has nothing to do with God; he delegated day to day mangement of mother earth; may notice but thats all for the moment. 8O