Does evil exist as a goal in itself or is evil the absence of good?

[Lemmingwise]

I've been mulling this idea over in my head for a couple of days.

I read the claim that good is something that can be actualised into the world, through actions, through work. It can actively be created by people nurturing virtues in themselves and others.

And that in absence of the creation of good, the remainder is evil.

I'm not sure if this is a useful way to use these words. It would turn the guy living on his own in a cabin and surviving without contact, into someone evil, wouldn't it?

It seems then that the idea of conceptualising evil as an absence if good is a poor conceptualisation, as it would put the mentioned loner on the same moral level as a cannibalist babyraper.

I think by typing this out I rubberducked my way out of the question, but I'm nonetheless curious to hear if you think I've made a misstep or have anything else to add.

 

[Otis Boi]

Evil exists in the mind of others. Evil and good is heavily tied to morality. Only when those actions are judged by someone else do they become evil or good. This isn't really a "darkness is the absence of light" situation because those ideas are strictly a human perception. If your Cabin Man killed people and ate them when they walked into his cabin would he be evil? What if the action had no malice in it at all and only saw the people as a food source like we do cows?What if he was defending his own home?ect.

 

[Arctic Fox]

The definition of evil is 'Profoundly immoral, and wicked'. I do believe evil people exists, but the 'absence of good' is not a proper indicator.

A person I would deem evil would derive pleasure and satisfaction from the pain and suffering of others. Causing said pain and suffering would be an obvious qualifier, but those who also enjoy watching it, whatever horrible act 'it' is, I'd also consider evil.

There's also people some would consider evil that would not consider themselves to be such. Stalin didn't see himself as evil, neither did Hitler or Mao. They saw themselves as heroes bringing forth their preferred utopia, the consequences be damned. Some thought the reward was well worth the cost.

I truly believe that evil, true evil, is only possible when people are no longer considered people, merely numbers.

 

[Niggernerd]

Sometimes you have to commit evil to destroy the greater evil and then work on making a better place. Maybe good can come into fruition without an evil in the equation however in the world we are in now. That's nigh impossible.
In the end we can't have one without the other.

 

[snailslime]

depends on how your moral compass functions, and if you even have one

 

[Dutch Courage]

It depends on how you define "good", which is a complicated thing in and of itself. It stands almost alone in words we use at least dozens of times a day that cannot be simply defined. But we can save that discussion for another thread.

You use the example of a guy living on his own in a cabin and surviving without contact. But is that really the absence of good? Maybe it is good that he removed himself from society. Maybe it is good that he lives in the wilderness. Maybe he is good to the animals. Maybe he is good to himself. Maybe he prays good prayers. Maybe his toilet provides good compost for a garden. There's no way to call such a man "absent of good"; there is no neutral man. Only robots can be neutral.

"good" and "evil" leave no neutral ground. People say there is a "grey area" between them, but gray areas are not neutral zones; they are mixtures of "good" and "bad" that are considered more or less good or bad overall. There really can't be a person who is never good, and there can't be a person who is never bad. Everything is an overlapping bundle of good and bad. How can anything have an absence of "good"? And if "good" is wholly absent, does that mean that there really is no such thing as good? Or we have misunderstood what "good" means?

Down this road are the treacherous slopes of moral relativism, which can turn cannibalism from something evil into something good. However, religious and cultural concepts of good and evil are by nature very arbitrary and dependent on culture (although a majority of cultures tend to reach fairly similar ideas of good and evil, which makes them seem like they are real things), so we kind of have a dilemma.

If we take a moral view, we are at risk of being arbitrary and random. If we take a relativist view, then anything goes, baby, and nothing is good or evil.

We tend to be more relativist when justifying our own transgressions and more moral when judging others.

Good/evil is one of the most faulty paradigms humans have, but since we are glorified monkeys, we haven't really come up with any better way to describe our interpretation of actions and events.

 

[Lemmingwise]

Evil exists in the mind of others. Evil and good is heavily tied to morality. Only when those actions are judged by someone else do they become evil or good. This isn't really a "darkness is the absence of light" situation because those ideas are strictly a human perception. If your Cabin Man killed people and ate them when they walked into his cabin would he be evil? What if the action had no malice in it at all and only saw the people as a food source like we do cows?What if he was defending his own home?ect.

If there is a difference in the cabin man's morality between whether he's defending his home or a random passerby because he's hungry, as that last question seems to (or should) suggest, then evil isn't just some subjective thing.

 

[Radical 38]

You make it sound as though you’re ruminating in a dungeon crawler. As I see it, good & evil are prescriptive concepts whose actualizations are entirely dependent on a person’s mind and perception of reality. On that ground alone I would dispute the merit of that above mentioned claim. That is a morally relativistic stance.

But say I acknowledge that claim as being true. It would still into the issue you’ve mentioned above (i.e. the morally neutral hermit being deemed as evil by virtue of not spreading good, which by itself is a dogmatic claim that pertains to know what goodness is, and that a person is either with it or against it.) Furthermore, I would argue that the idea of spreading ‘goodness’ could by itself pertain unforeseen evils. For example: Dogmatic policemen or religious inquisitors who overstep their boundaries to enforce their brand of goodness could infringe upon the well being of other people, howbeit unintentionally.

On the issue of identifying goodness, I would argue that ethical naturalism to be one of the best types of moral realism, as it pertains that observable entities, such as wellness (as opposed to fully abstract ideals) to the hallmark of moral claims. It would allow you to retain your sense of goodness without falling into the quagmires of the nasty “us vs. them” mentality.

 

[Otis Boi]

If there is a difference in the cabin man's morality between whether he's defending his home or a random passerby because he's hungry, as that last question seems to (or should) suggest, then evil isn't just some subjective thing.

Not the way I would see it. I wouldn't call his action immoral if he ate a random passer-by because to me he is acting like a Crazy Hermit. Are his action acceptable? I would say no and we should punish him not because he is acting immoral but dangerously.

Another example is I find people who abuse animals ,especially pets, to be scum of this earth and deserved to be flogged to death. I know a few people who view animals as nothing more then objects so they dont see anything wrong with say beating a dog or having cock fights ect.

 

[Lemmingwise]

Not the way I would see it. I wouldn't call his action immoral if he ate a random passer-by because to me he is acting like a Crazy Hermit. Are his action acceptable? I would say no and we should punish him not because he is acting immoral but dangerously.

Another example is I find people who abuse animals ,especially pets, to be scum of this earth and deserved to be flogged to death. I know a few people who view animals as nothing more then objects so they dont see anything wrong with say beating a dog or having cock fights ect.

I genuinely don't understand. Why wouldn't you view an action as immoral, simply because it is done by a hermit.

 

[Marco Fucko]

I'd argue that evil from a functional standpoint is the corruption of 'good', which is a base function. Why is a thief evil? Because they've taken a possession from someone else, making it theirs. Why is a bought politician evil? Because they're representing a corporate interest and not the interest of their nominal constituents. Why is murder evil? Because you have 'unnaturally' ended someone else's life.

Evil is an outside force getting in the way of baseline functions that we as a society deems 'good'.

 

[HumanHive]

Evil is privation, yes; but most people use the word to describe "things I don't like or affect me negatively".

 

[💗Freddie Freaker💗]

If there is a difference in the cabin man's morality between whether he's defending his home or a random passerby because he's hungry, as that last question seems to (or should) suggest, then evil isn't just some subjective thing.

Good and evil are inherently subjective. The only difference in morality would be in the eye of the beholder.

He brought up the cabin man's possible motives to show that something that seems evil at first sight might feel more forgivable to you when viewed under a different light.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Like most people here said, it highly depends on how you define good (following social/religeous norms, doing kind things for other people), usually going against those concepts is defined as evil.
Normally people would act evil because it is the simpler way to get their goals, there is no sense for it otherwise.

 

[Ivan Shatov]

What is evil? There are things I think are evil that other people think are great. The opposite is true as well.

When I think of evil, I think of it as the opposite of love. Good always seems to be relative, evil seems to be the absence of due care for something worthy of love: a person, an environment, an economy, a nation.

Love is a tricky word, we use it to describe relationships with lovers, comrades, objects of affection. It's been bastardized to become a catch-all for anything that interests us. So evil as the opposite of love holds a lot of sway, it means doing harm to something that should be cared for.

From that standpoint, I don't see it as the absence of anything, more an inversion of the right and proper response. It's funny how people can do that, concentrations of power seem to have something to do with causing this to occur. There has to be some incentive for people to stop caring about things worth caring about, and actively work to create harm for them.

It's a cause and effect relationship more than a lack of care.

 

[Lemmingwise]

What is evil? There are things I think are evil that other people think are great. The opposite is true as well.

Why presume that because people can think it, that there is merit to the idea?

I don't think this is quite true. The best example is a promise. The concept of a promise has no meaning unless it's good to keep it and bad (as a small margin of evil) to break it. Same thing with property and stealing. There may be some people that think stealing is good, but as a concept it loses all meaning. After all if stealing is good, then taking someone's property becomes a moral good. Then the word property ceases to mean anything as you can just take it.

When you have to eliminate complete other concepts to try an argue that stealing is good or breaking promises is good it becomes obvious that there are at the very least area's of morality that are not relative, not subjective, but objectively definable and more useful to do so for every purpose.

And thus people that claim "rules are meant to be broken" are simply engaging in creating excuses for what they know is bad behaviour. There may be instances where due to other factors it may become overall a moral good and in that sense things always get complicated and are never the easy cookie-cutter questions. But the fact that in practice things are complicated does not mean that the theoretical concept is useless or inherently flawed. After all, nobody can draw a perfect circle, but when two people draw a circle, one will be better than the other. If the difference in quality is huge, then it can be objectively decided that one is a better circle. There may be artistic or chaotic types who say they like the other circle better, but that doesn't mean it's more like a circle, just as people proclaiming a prefference for rulebreaking and claiming that it's better, can be demonstrated to be objectively wrong, even if they hold that opinion.

----

Though on a more personal and less theoritical note, I tend to reserve the word evil for either very deliberate bad behaviour (say, infecting people who didn't sign up for it, with a disease to study its effects), for the most heinous whether evil was intended to be inflicted but could not possibly not be the result (child raping/murder), but also a middleroad combination of the two, which might be done with the best of intentions (tranny indoctrination of kids).

 

[Ivan Shatov]

Why presume that because people can think it, that there is merit to the idea?

I don't think this is quite true. The best example is a promise. The concept of a promise has no meaning unless it's good to keep it and bad (as a small margin of evil) to break it. Same thing with property and stealing. There may be some people that think stealing is good, but as a concept it loses all meaning. After all if stealing is good, then taking someone's property becomes a moral good. Then the word property ceases to mean anything as you can just take it.

When you have to eliminate complete other concepts to try an argue that stealing is good or breaking promises is good it becomes obvious that there are at the very least area's of morality that are not relative, not subjective, but objectively definable and more useful to do so for every purpose.

And thus people that claim "rules are meant to be broken" are simply engaging in creating excuses for what they know is bad behaviour. There may be instances where due to other factors it may become overall a moral good and in that sense things always get complicated and are never the easy cookie-cutter questions. But the fact that in practice things are complicated does not mean that the theoretical concept is useless or inherently flawed. After all, nobody can draw a perfect circle, but when two people draw a circle, one will be better than the other. If the difference in quality is huge, then it can be objectively decided that one is a better circle. There may be artistic or chaotic types who say they like the other circle better, but that doesn't mean it's more like a circle, just as people proclaiming a prefference for rulebreaking and claiming that it's better, can be demonstrated to be objectively wrong, even if they hold that opinion.

----

Though on a more personal and less theoritical note, I tend to reserve the word evil for either very deliberate bad behaviour (say, infecting people who didn't sign up for it, with a disease to study its effects), for the most heinous whether evil was intended to be inflicted but could not possibly not be the result (child raping/murder), but also a middleroad combination of the two, which might be done with the best of intentions (tranny indoctrination of kids).

Yeah, notice how evil is described there: property rights.

A lot of people get tied up Kantian notions of evil, the idea that something is wrong because it must be wrong, like that it's some natural law.

Let's say you have a sandwich and I take it. To some people, that's evil. But if you are dead, taking your sandwich doesn't matter because you ceased to be. Where did the moral imperative go? Is someone going to argue with me about the sandwich belonging to your estate, or tell me the taking the sandwich is insignificant because it's a trivial thing, or that taking the sandwich represents an affront to everything that is right and therefore I must be punished?

A lot of that depends on your position on personal property, which seems to be directly related to the scarcity of capital. If sandwiches are cheap, most people don't give a shit. If you live in a society where the production of bread, meat and condiments are hard to come by, you may want to knife me for taking it.

The only thing that doesn't seem to change is in the relationship we have with others. I prefer to consider evil as a noun with a capital E. It's big E Evil it murder you for your sandwich, plunder it from your estate, spread misinformation about how your murder was actually self-defense, and why smiting you was the right and just action. It's hard to conceive of the society where this is seen as good, or where virtues could be cultivated in the pursuit of these kinds of actions.

 

[Unyielding Stupidity]

Evil is subjective, much like good. Because people have varying moral compasses due to the values that each individual holds. Something that one person might consider to be completely amoral and evil, another person might consider to be completely fine, or even a good thing. For example, most Westerners consider the eating of dogs to be amoral, but Chinese/Vietnamese people tend to be completely fine with it - who's the good one or evil one in that case? What about how the West's view of women heavily contrasts with the Islamic world's view of women - who's the good guys in that case?

An individual can consider things good or evil, but those things can never be unobjectively good or evil. We can come as close to a consensus as possible (There are lots of things that ALMOST everyone considers evil or good), but we will never reach a 100% clear-cut result.

 

[The Fool]

I don't believe in "good" or "evil", some of my favorite stories like Shiki and The Count of Monte Cristo (Gankutsuou as well as the four-part live-action French-Italian miniseries which I recommend strongly) very much blur the line of good and evil.

If I was talking about the cartoonish concepts of good and evil, as in "good" is merely considering the livelihood of your fellow man regardless of what they think or do, then I consider "evil" as merely a selfish grab for attention. Would anyone honestly consider themselves "evil" unless it was a vie for attention? I can't think of anything more general than saying "look at me! I have no morality and only strive for my own ends!" as pure "evil", and it is the antithesis of caring for anyone but yourself.

But in reality, "good" and "evil" are labels applied only by one person, to the entire human race, like one would apply "saved" and "damned" if they were religious. It's a label like any other.

 

[qu_rahn]

OP you ought to read Aquinas' Summa Theologica. His chapter on the Problem of Evil is particularly compelling and addresses the exact question you have

Summa Theologica - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org