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

[💗Freddie Freaker💗]

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).

We use concepts like property and discourage theft because without rules, society would fall into chaos. It's also worth noting that some groups do away with the concept of property altogether and share everything with each other. Likewise, promises are just social contracts. There's nothing wrong with breaking them, it's just frowned upon in societies where the concept of promises exists.

There are no scenarios where the result isn't a middleroad combination. Killing a child for shits and giggles might seem horrible at first glance, but there's no way to know how doing so will affect the future. One could argue that while the dead kid will devastate the parents and horrify the media, the hundreds of maggots that will feast on its body will be thrilled to have a good meal. After all, why should human feelings be considered more important than those of other animals? We haven't been around for long compared to other species.

 

[Lemmingwise]

After all, why should human feelings be considered more important than those of other animals

Because we are humans. We might make agreements with humans. We can communicate with humans.

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

Great recommendation, I've been wanting to read some aquinas, just didn't get to it yet.

 

[💗Freddie Freaker💗]

Because we are humans. We might make agreements with humans. We can communicate with humans.

Why does any of that matter?

Even if it does, some humans have less sapience than many animals. See: the Hartley Hooligans.

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/gwen-hartley-the-hartley-hooligans.28844/

Spoiler

You can't communicate or make deals with humans who are deeply (and I mean deeply-- obviously you can communicate with people like chris-chan) mentally disabled. You can, however, communicate with Coco the gorilla. If communication is what determines worth, are some dogs more important than some humans?

 

[Lemmingwise]

Why does any of that matter?

Even if it does, some humans have less sapience than many animals. See: the Hartley Hooligans.

Why does being able to communicate and agree on things matter? Because without communication, there are no non-violent ways of resolving disputes and as such morals don't apply the same way. You can't hold a dog or a tard accountable the same way as we could hold you or I accountable.

It might hurt peoples feefees, but on a moral scale we treat tards as lesser, because they don't know what they're doing. Animals instead we put down if their behaviour becomes a problem for us, which is a nice way of saying we kill them. When tards become dangerous, I think we lock them up and let proffesionals tard wrangle them.

I say that that is the sensible way of dealing with these cases. Would you dispute that? Why?

 

[💗Freddie Freaker💗]

Why does being able to communicate and agree on things matter? Because without communication, there are no non-violent ways of resolving disputes and as such morals don't apply the same way. You can't hold a dog or a tard accountable the same way as we could hold you or I accountable.

It might hurt peoples feefees, but on a moral scale we treat tards as lesser, because they don't know what they're doing. Animals instead we put down if their behaviour becomes a problem for us, which is a nice way of saying we kill them. When tards become dangerous, I think we lock them up and let proffesionals tard wrangle them.

I say that that is the sensible way of dealing with these cases. Would you dispute that? Why?

I think it's the sensible way of dealing with these cases too. I just find it interesting to see you put animals and tards on the same level.
How do you feel about killing cow to make burgers? Would making tards into burgers be different to you?

 

[Lemmingwise]

I think it's the sensible way of dealing with these cases too. I just find it interesting to see you put animals and tards on the same level.

How do you feel about killing cow to make burgers? Would making tards into burgers be different to you?

I think that it's fine to kill cows to make burgers. Many of these cows would never have known life at all. I'm not very fond of the typical ways that cows are raised and slaughtered and get my meat from local farmers instead of supermarkets.

On a philosophical level, I find that vegeterians have a point.

Though I explicitly did not put tards and animals on exactly the same level; I demonstrated a case where we deal with them differently and agreed with that practice. I also object to cannibalism, and I think I would prefer to die even in a survival situation rather than eat human flesh, though never having been in that situation, this is mere speculation. The objections to cannibalism are mostly visceral, emotional and subjective. Though of course with some of the kuru-like diseases that it can spread, perhaps not just subjective. Like with homosexuality and the rampant STD's, sometimes you don't know why a thing was rejected until you try repealing that rejection and put it into practice.

Imagine someone tasting human and really liking the taste. You want to put every safeguard in front of that happening, because now someone has a passion for something that almost certainly requires things like kidnapping and murder (much like how even non-practising pedophiles are shunned, and for good reason).

 

[💗Freddie Freaker💗]

I think that it's fine to kill cows to make burgers. Many of these cows would never have known life at all. I'm not very fond of the typical ways that cows are raised and slaughtered and get my meat from local farmers instead of supermarkets.

On a philosophical level, I find that vegeterians have a point.

Though I explicitly did not put tards and animals on exactly the same level; I demonstrated a case where we deal with them differently and agreed with that practice. I also object to cannibalism, and I think I would prefer to die even in a survival situation rather than eat human flesh, though never having been in that situation, this is mere speculation. The objections to cannibalism are mostly visceral, emotional and subjective. Though of course with some of the kuru-like diseases that it can spread, perhaps not just subjective. Like with homosexuality and the rampant STD's, sometimes you don't know why a thing was rejected until you try repealing that rejection and put it into practice.

Imagine someone tasting human and really liking the taste. You want to put every safeguard in front of that happening, because now someone has a passion for something that almost certainly requires things like kidnapping and murder (much like how even non-practising pedophiles are shunned, and for good reason).

What puts tards and animals on different levels? From an emotional (and therefore subjective) standpoint, I feel more empathy for tards than for cows. From a rational standpoint, I realize cows have more ability to think and feel than some tards.

The cannibal wouldn't need to kidnap anyone. Some people consent to being killed and eaten (see the Amin Meiwes case) and people die of natural causes every day, it wouldn't be hard for some morgue worker or grave robber to grab some meat for later.

Anyways, the question I really should be asking is: what are your definitions of good and evil? In an earlier post it sounded like you were implying that goodness is anything that helps society run smoothly like following the rules, but in that case killing tards would probably count as good since they are often a burden. Oftentimes the only ones who care for them are their parents and nobody would mourn the ones who are orphaned or abandoned. Infecting people with a disease without their consent to study its effects would also count as good since it's sacrificing the lives of a few citizens to potentially save the lives of millions, depending on which disease we're talking about.

 

[Neurotic Loser]

I feel that good and evil are based on two factors, motive and outcome.

What I mean by motive is when an action is taken, he reasons behind the action will tell us whether the action itself was selfish or selfless. As an example, let's say a big named celrbrity donates to a charity. Many people would say this is a good action. However, this action is seen as less good if the person does it to appear moral as it would mean that if people weren't watching them they would not donate.
What motive fails to show is the outside rammifications of the action. For example, killing another human is seen as wrong for many people. This includes euthanasia, as even if the doctor acts in the most selfless manner, the act in of itself creates a precedent allowing others to do the same. This most likely would hamper the production of cures and treatment for the disease.

All this to say that the outcome first then the motive behind the action determines if an act is moral.
This is probably why the motive behind an action will not prevent a guilty charge but will lessen the punishment.

TLDR: results show if an action is moral; motive shows at what scale.

 

[The 3rd Hooligan]

Evil can be a goal if your get off to hurting or causing harm