81 replies to this topic

[shedon666]

niggler says:

They are part of human nature. They haven't been 'constructed' by human beings. We didn't invent good or evil.

my knowledge states this as wrong. good and evil are opinions. for example, i consider 99.9% of Christianity evil. i consider pizza evil. Anton Lavey says it best here: "good is what we like, evil is what don't like". it really is that simple. the terminology of good and evil are close to useless in the sphere of communication; if i say "pizza is evil", it says nothing. but if i say, "well i admire my own beauty (the evil of vanity swarms my sanctum) and do not want the grease entailed within pizza that will render my face slippery like exxon and zitted like a pot of boiling water, *pop pop*" now that is an expression of desired outcome with either construction or destruction toward it described in full. simple.

LazarusLong says:

So is all predation evil? ...Or just human predation?

very good way to ask such a question. the answer (from and to me) is all predation is destruction of life. it is up to the individual as to value and importance of different forms of life. some people think that humans are so damn different and therefore superior to their fellow earthlings. yet these fellow earthlings defy gravity, metamorphisis, and telekinetically detect earthquakes; things that humans wish they could do.

predation of life with desired outcome to extinct it, is not good. being the advocate of satan that i am, i will not call it evil, for evil is good hail evilness!

[th3hegem0n]

Lazarus maybe you didn't understand my post:

There are no constants or predefined meanings of "good" and "evil". You cannot call killing people "evil" or "bad" because this is based on your own judgement. There is no Law of the Universe that defines some things as good or bad. All judgements are based strictly on what the individual defines them as. These definitions are usually affected by others, and thus, the view that has been accepted by most or the view that is accepted and enforced by the most powerful becomes the correct, or "right" way of defining what is good or bad. That is where the term "might is right" applies.

[niggler]

Lazarus

Sorry. What do you mean by 'ojective'? Why shouldn't it be related to human behaviour? That's where it counts!

So is all predation evil?

If you mean in nature, of course not! Animals have to eat. It is natural in that world. Besides, they act from instinct. We humans, however, are supposed to be civilised, yet after millenia we are still cruel, killing each other, utterly monstrous. I think the term 'evil' only applies to human life.

[niggler]

shedon666

"good is what we like, evil is what don't like".

Yes, but that is an oversimplification. You may not like pizza, but that's not evil, and nor is pizza! No, evil is related to behaviour, isn't it?, otherwise it remains just a concept.

But it is not a concept at all. It can be a terrible reality. Read any awful story in a paper etc. Evil exists, unfortunately. Let's be realistic!

[Omnido]

Heh... Humans Civil?
Are animals in nature Civil?
By what definition to we adhere to "Civil" behavior?
What does it mean to be Civil?

civ·i·lize (P) Pronunciation Key (sv-lz)
To raise from barbarism to an enlightened stage of development; bring out of a primitive or savage state.
To educate in matters of culture and refinement; make more polished or sophisticated.

This has nothing to do with Good or Evil. There can exist very Civilized and Evil (as it has been so diversly defined) people.
Such people are the epitome of the perfect enemy; those so just and wise that they make few mistakes, yet so perverse and selfish that they are classified by all those opposite as being the ultimate incarnate of that which should be destroyed.

I have often noticed that the "Brilliant Criminal Masterminds", whether related to thieves, murderers, or extortionists, have often been classified as "Evil" people. Yet when studying the biographies of a few such individuals, almost all of them had one thing in common: Boredom. They were so bored and fatigued with the mundane, that they sought out other "alternate" avenues of entertainment and personal development. Many of such said persons usually posseses a high degree of intelligence and creativity, and can be some of the nicest and most "civil" people you'd ever meet, provided that you dont give them a reason to be otherwise.

My late Grandfather, whom was a criminal psychologist for the better part of 3½ decades told me once:
"I love to talk with psyhopaths. They are the most brilliant people you'll ever meet. Many of them are so polite and nice, that its hard to think they would want to slit someones throat with no remorse. But what people dont understand is why they do what they do, which for them, is perfectly justified."

I also have noticed that most "Evil" people have a tendency to desire conflict with "good" people. In comic book characters, fantasy characters, and even a few real life people, the "Bad Guy" always seeks to do three things:

1) Accomplish their said goals, no matter what
2) Eliminate any opposition that would prevent their success
3) Continually seek out (and indeed thrive upon) conflict between their opposition.

In my opinion, "Evil" requires "Good" to thrive, or at least some opposing form of "Other Evil" as a source of competition. Otherwise, their conquests are empty, their victories and spoils of war fade quickly, and they become the bored masters of all they survey, as they were the prior days before.

The duality of "Good & Evil" is a necessity for growth, unless an entire "civilization" seeks some other avenue in which the propagation of the dualistic exchange is no longer required.
The search for ultimate knowledge is one said goal, along with immortality as a means of its acquisition.

Personally, I have avoided this thread for reasons which have more or less been demonstrated as argumentative that seems personally biased, and/or lacking objective evaluation.
The Objective answer will remain forever ambiguous unitl we discover some method for qualifying Objectivity, which inandofitself seems highly improbable.

Edited by Omnido, 02 May 2004 - 07:04 PM.

[Infernity]

In my opinion- everything has good and evil, good and evil are subjected to changes among every each person. Everyone has a different point of view, and so the notion of specific events which are good or evil depends on the person decision.
I believe:
~Life- is the best (good)
~Death- is the worst (evil)
~Every other thing- is being between these two options- means, have some goodness and some badness. The decision of it as more close to be good or evil, dependes on the people who looks at it...

Yours
~Infernity

[Karomesis]

Omnido, I concur. It is quite reasonable to assume that objective views on this issue are indeed, elusive, if they are to ever be found at all. As for your grandfathers obsevations, they hold quite true as well, and the experience of my detrators will soon confirm it. [:o]

Marquis de sade is the go to man for the elements contained in this thread, He said in not so simple terms that all universal moral principles are idle fancies, And I couldn't agree more, Although the very persistent, and oftentimes dominant presence of individuals like psycopaths would lead one to conclude that it confers and eveloutionary advantage,as is currently presented into evidence the fact that my progeny are alive and well. [thumb]

[th3hegem0n]

So you want to know whether something is good or evil?
I see two ways of doing this... either you can talk to God, or.. you can create God.

By my understanding, good and evil are judgements. Thus anything that is actually good or evil is due to the judgement of the individual. Something that is good is defined as something that, on the whole, the benefits outweigh the detriments (that is, the detriments are worth the benefits) in the ecology of the motivational network that each individual has. And something evil or bad is vice versa. Thus in a situation, to know the good or moral thing to do for whatever within a group of people would require to weigh the benefits and detriments of each person in the situation based on their individual motivational structures and to find whether on the whole the benefits outweigh the detriments. However, whether the benefits outweigh the detriments is actually a judgment in itself, because at any moment some person may judge something of their own motivational structure as worth it or not based on the their changing circumstances.

So... to actually know whether something is good or evil, you would need to know the motivational structure involved with this something of all the people involved with this something. And, you would need to be able to know the future to an extremely improbable degree. Also, in order to make it work you would have to explain to everyone the future in such a way that their motivational structures come to agree simultaneously with reality and their actual motivations. (plus all the changes in the future that the explanation may entail, which could be eliminated given some sort of simulation by a quantum computer)

On TOP of judging whether things are good or evil, you get to a much more confusing question.. which is whether their motivations are good or evil (a necessity to judging whether anything else is good or evil).
And... to judge somethings motivations would be to measure them against everyone else's motivations involved by knowing the future to the degree that you know the effects of these motivations to an extremely improbable degree (nothing short of massive nanotech interference and quantum computing).

[th3hegem0n]

The entire theory stands, however

Also I might mention here that there is not just good and evil. There are also not good and not evil.

Perhaps this concept would be more sensible if these were also measured. If on the whole 'something' is not sufficiently detrimental and has no actual benefit this would qualify as not evil. I'm willing to bet alrtuism is one of the human races motivations because, i am willing to suffer a small amount of annoyance when there is no actual benefit to me involved, for the benefit of someone else.

[Infernity]

Good and Evil are our terms to indirectly what's helping us survive, and vice versa.

Hence-

Life = Good

Death = Evil

And everything on the way is being majored by that.

~Infernity

[da vinci]

I think oppotunists do evil things and pretend to be good, distroy others' lives to build thier own and then say: there you go, I survived on nothing and came out top!

[Infernity]

Ok let me put it this way- there is no good without evil and vice versa.

If there was no evil, why would you call all the others "good" if there is no element to compare it to?

If all of what is known to us as "evil" shall vanish (which technically is not possible due the simple fact everyone identifies evil differently), however, supposing everyone will be "good", so all the minor things will turn bad, since things shall never be even shall they?

I was wrong about death being evil, because death is nothing.... only the way to it....

We can't wish for no evil as it shall always be, and the minor things shall look the evilest ever in the really bad things Will be gone, same reason there is no way to compare.

-Infernity

Edited by infernity, 02 January 2006 - 01:46 PM.

[boundlesslife]

Good and Evil are our terms to indirectly what's helping us survive, and vice versa.

That's actually pretty good, infernity. Ayn Rand (somewhere in Atlas Shrugged, I think it was out of John Galt's major "radio speech") wrote something like "choice is restricted to one class of entities, living creatures, where the alternative is life and death" (certainly not an exact quote; when time permits, maybe I'll look it up, or someone else might).

She went on (via the Objectivist lecture series) to characterize evil as the "refusal to think" or "choice not to think" or something of that kind. Unfortunately, in the process, she came up against the problem of "free will" and stalled at that point, resorting to talking about "causal primaries" as "events in man's consciousness that arise without there being any antecedant causal events", and then took this back into "evil" as a "failure to choose to think". But, the characterization of "good or bad" as applying only to living organisms was stated brilliantly, in that (not yet located) passage in Atlas Shrugged. What you said, above, is in that spirit also.

(For me, a long, long time ago, Ayn Rand's novels were like the difference between being stuck in a dark cave with no light, vs. seeing the possibility of really understanding things consistently. There's been a lot of "water under the bridge" since then. The above comments are not intended, in any way, to diminish Ayn Rand's work, only to point out that there's always further realizations, ahead. Thank you, infernity, for having the energy, curiosity and concern with life vs. death issues that seem to carry you forward, posting after posting.)

boundlesslife

[Infernity]

Well about the free will thingie, I believe there is no. But that's just another part of us being humans. In matter of fact organisms. *sigh*, actually, just gatherings of energy pieces that creates the way they are set- these mechanisms. All is so simple in my mind, even too simple... but way too difficult and challenging in words.

Oh well, I've been told "there is time for everything". The time to understand seem to not be today. So is the time for mr to give up trying.

Nevertheless, "between being stuck in a dark cave with no light, vs. seeing the possibility of really understanding things consistently" ... is it not the motivation to survive vs. the lack of it?... after all.

-Infernity

[Infernity]

Oh and... I figured survival after all.... um, an attempt to keep you energy mechanism to be just it and develop in it's unique way of itself for the sake of keeping it in the cycle of self, hence the amelioration is just an individual amelioration which is coming to accomplish preservation of first self... ahhhhh i lost myself. Ok, to freaking keep the energy gathered so it you'll be "thinking" the same and... ok, you'll never get it. [lol]

-Infernity

[boundlesslife]

Good and Evil are our terms to indirectly what's helping us survive, and vice versa.

Here's that quote from Atlas Shrugged. It's a little different than I remembered, but it's on the same theme:

There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence-and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms.  The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action.  Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist.  It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death.  Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action.  If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence.  It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible.  It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.

The discussion (in the Galt "radio speech") goes on to discuss morality, what "good" and "evil" mean to the living organism, and one can quibble about the meaning of each word, but just from the above, you can see how infernity tied the terms "Good and Evil" directly to "helping us survive" in the same way that Ayn Rand's treatment indicates.

The "Free Will" enigma ties a lot of people in knots. In Ayn Rand's case, she used the term "causal primaries" to explicitely indicate (and these were the words in the lecture) "events in man's consciousness which have no causal antecedants". I guess it was the only way she had, to say that it simply didn't make sense to her that the universe could be "nothing but a machine", and yet, she was as free of mysticism as one can imagine, stuck directly on the point of view, "If everything is going to happen the way it's going to happen, then everyone will do what they're going to do, and there's nothing anybody can do about anything."

Put this way, you can see why someone would either go crazy or resort to whatever explanation is req

[Infernity]

So you agree with it?

Do you support the "egoism theory", the one that claims humans to do everything for their own survival?

-Infernity

[boundlesslife]

So you agree with it?

Do you support the "egoism theory", the one that claims humans to do everything for their own survival?

-Infernity

This is a really good question! In fact, it's so good, I'm slowly working on an answer, to be either added here later (if this can still be edited) or further down the thread.

Hmmmm....

boundlesslife

Edited by boundlesslife, 18 January 2006 - 09:30 AM.

[kevin]

Humans do not do everything for their *own* survival. Giving up your life for another human being is not in your best interests but you hear of people doing that very thing all the time. Sometimes the people whose lives they save are genetically related, but often they are not.

Bottom line, although ego underlies many of our motivations, it can't explain them all.

[JonesGuy]

I wonder if we can agree on two objective definitions. Most actions are in the grey between.

A) Causing suffering, for no reason, is evil.
B) Sacrificing oneself, for another's benefit, is good.

To have 'good' and 'evil' you need at least two players. An asteroid hitting Earth is not 'evil', it's just death.

Most actions, however, require a balance or a value system. Personally, I put the rights of real people higher than potential people - but some people don't. However, sacrificing the desires of your current self, for the benefit of your future self is seen to be a 'good' action - so we need two parties to have my definition of 'good' and 'evil' to really stand. As well, since a lot of suffering is for a 'greater good', it seems that causing suffering for greater good has elements of evil, but elements of good as well. If people willingly suffer for the 'greater good', then they are good. If you force them to suffer against their will, then the action is partially 'evil'.

Please note that some actions can benefit both parties. As long as they cause no suffering, they are not 'evil'. But, if they involve no self-sacrifice, they are not 'good' either.

[Infernity]

B.L.... Well do think of this.

Humans do not do everything for their *own* survival. Giving up your life for another human being is not in your best interests but you hear of people doing that very thing all the time. Sometimes the people whose lives they save are genetically related, but often they are not.

Bottom line, although ego underlies many of our motivations, it can't explain them all.

I disagree Kev. It is for yourself. I believe the answer can be found here .


QJ. ,
Let me relate it to what we've been sliding by mistake to.

A) Causing suffering, for no reason, is evil.

Makes people feel stronger. A mental thing. Feeling strong is obviously another reason to the body to get stiffer, mentality affects us physiology. Also, as much as cruels it is, people hate them. Some fear them. Give them strength. Strength- > associate- survival... Point.

B) Sacrificing oneself, for another's benefit, is good.

For yourself, after all. can be found in the link i added above to Kev.

Good and Evil are subjective. If someone has absolutely no perspective of what's good and what's evil- is dead. As such thing is just vacuum for a non-living thing.

-Infernity

[boundlesslife]

I wonder if we can agree on two objective definitions.  Most actions are in the grey between.

A) Causing suffering, for no reason, is evil.
B) Sacrificing oneself, for another's benefit, is good.

This posting has been edited, to remove a set of extensive criticisms of these definitions. I have found, in the past, that this form of criticism virtually never leads to a productive end.

However, I do suggest that these definitions have some serious limitations, as a basis for discussion.

The word "evil", to me, carries the connotation that some authority figure (a priest, usually claiming to represent a 'God') has declared the practice concerned to be "bad and forbidden", and (also) has prescribed a punishment for this practice, if it occurs. This, to a large extent, "taints" the word, and makes it a less than useful vehicle for communication.

"Good", similarly, carries connotations in too many contexts of having been "prescribed as proper" by some equivalent authority figure, including such practices as "Worshiping the Almighty", as if the prescription of such a practice would de facto be taken as evidence that such an entity exists.

For these two words to have a meaning that relates to immortalism, I'm afraid they need to be defined in such a way as to remove these connotations, in other words, to be "reinvented to make they useful in an intelligent way". Even if this were done, in discussions on forums such as this, that would not necessarily make them any more useful for general discussions with others. The "taint" might remain, and would be an obstacle still.

boundlesslife

Edited by boundlesslife, 20 January 2006 - 09:50 AM.