Define "Evil."

[I_Like_Swordchucks]

This is getting very circular and its kind of pointless because nobody here is going to change their minds or listen to reasonable arguments or what not. The thing that annoys me is that people use relativism to create an answer to everything they don't WANT to be absolute. What makes people think that good and evil is simply determined by their own heads? If I murder a person, does it really matter whether or not I think its morally okay or not? The big question is what is it in reality.

On the subject of relativism, nobody really knows if relativism even exists. In fact its taking the easy way out because then you don't have to define things, you don't have to follow rules, and you can think whatever the hell you want. In case nobody here realizes it... what goes on inside your head doesn't change the way things are in the real world. Sure, you can have your own concepts of morality and good and evil in your thoughts, but they should stay in your head. Because outside your head there are other things... including other people. Jewish people believe it is morally wrong to eat pork. I do not. I like my bacon. But just because I think its okay, it doesn't make it right for me to forcefeed a Jewish person ham or bacon.

By this example we can see both relativism and absolutism. Whether eating pork is wrong or not is relative, at least as far as we know. Since we don't know everything, it could very well have a definite answer. But I honestly doubt anybody here would say its okay for me to forcefeed the Jewish person. I'm violating their rights and beliefs, wherein lies absolute evil. And if you think doing harm to innocent people is only evil depending on your perspective, then I must encourage you to seek psychiatric help.

So what does this say? Good and evil, even in a religious sense, is all about respect. This is even self-beneficial since if you are required to respect others, others are also required to respect you. And I note at the beginning of this thread Bongo Bill said he was tired of hearing pure relativism, and 90% of the posts have been about pure relativism. That doesn't answer his question.

[RedScar]

Thank you. Most things today aren't needed. In fact we don't even need money. If a plane crashed in th middle of a island and no was coming to get you who is better off? A hobo or a million-air? the hobo has more experience on surviveing than the man wo had everything in the "real world". There is no "real world" the world is only as real as you make it. As for evil. If your the guy who crashed the plane on th island, then your evil. (Not if your the polot and your eqiuptment went bad, malfunction)

[Napoleon98]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

This is getting very circular and its kind of pointless because nobody here is going to change their minds or listen to reasonable arguments or what not.

We're not trying to change anyone's mind, jsut give our opinion on the subject. A discussion doesn't have to result in one person being wrong and another right. It just ideally leads to both(or in this case several) parties gaining some knowledge from a view point the didn't consider and they leave wiser and smarter than before the discussion...

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

On the subject of relativism, nobody really knows if relativism even exists.

I could go on a whole Philosophy tangent on we don't know that anythign exists blah blah blah, but I'll spare you, this once :p
Most of thie time we're really just talking about a form of empathy... We are trying to better understand their actions by trying to see things from their point of view. So in that respect yes, yes it does...

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

And I note at the beginning of this thread Bongo Bill said he was tired of hearing pure relativism, and 90% of the posts have been about pure relativism. That doesn't answer his question.

The reason most of the posts argue in favor of relativism (atleast to a certain degree) is because it seems to me (and to whoever else defended it) to be the most viable answer. I mean, you say there are some things that are always wrong, no matter what. Well sadly with something like 'defining evil/good' there isn't.
Two men are walking down the street, one pulls a knife and kills the other, and continues walking without missing a step and doesn't even look as if he jsut killed a man. We (society) call that murder. Flat out, and by that definition we could say hes evil...
Now what if you were that man, and when you saw the other man walking towards you, you noticed a cross around his neck. You are (enter any religion here) and in your heart of hearts you KNOW your religion is the right one. You killed him because he didn't worship the same deity(ies) as you, or in the same way as you, and was actively partaking in the destruction of your religion since he wasn't helping promote the word of your faith.
Now to him he was doing his religion a service, he was helping rid the world of disbeleivers and according to his faith he will be sent to (insert religious holy palce, i.e Heaven, here) for doing what he did. Clearly to him and his religion he is a very good man for doing what he did. Even though from our perspective he is an evil murderer...
-Note: Religion is sadly the only 'absolute' way to measure good vs evil, and even then you still have a matter of every different religion out there, and until we somehow know every secret of the universe, or maybe when you die, theres no way to tell which one is right...
-Note: Sorry about the inclusion of religion, I tried to avoid it but it seemed the best example, please no one else say anythign about the religion aspect of my post and hopefully the mods won't shut this down.

Originally Posted by DruidoftheDead

So if I'm not performing a good deed or doing something to increase the wellfare of my fellow man I'm doing evil by default?

Well...
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." So if you base it off of that then yea you are you evil sob :p But then again I must be evil incarnate if that's the case, so let's just go with "NO" on that one, whaddya say :p

[I_Like_Swordchucks]

Originally Posted by Napoleon98

I could go on a whole Philosophy tangent on we don't know that anythign exists blah blah blah, but I'll spare you, this once

Try me. I have a Bachelor's degree in Biology minoring in Philosophy.

Originally Posted by Napoleon98

Two men are walking down the street, one pulls a knife and kills the other, and continues walking without missing a step and doesn't even look as if he jsut killed a man. We (society) call that murder. Flat out, and by that definition we could say hes evil...
Now what if you were that man, and when you saw the other man walking towards you, you noticed a cross around his neck. You are (enter any religion here) and in your heart of hearts you KNOW your religion is the right one. You killed him because he didn't worship the same deity(ies) as you, or in the same way as you, and was actively partaking in the destruction of your religion since he wasn't helping promote the word of your faith.
Now to him he was doing his religion a service, he was helping rid the world of disbeleivers and according to his faith he will be sent to (insert religious holy palce, i.e Heaven, here) for doing what he did. Clearly to him and his religion he is a very good man for doing what he did. Even though from our perspective he is an evil murderer...

Who said the man is evil? The action was evil, religion aside. My whole point was that what you or society or whatnot thinks DOES NOT MATTER. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" becomes the basis for most moral judgements. As I said before, morality (or good and evil) is all about respect. Does it matter that the man who got stabbed was of a different religion? If the murderer had a right to kill him, then the anybody else would also have the right to kill the murderer. Your example was no different than my example of the Jewish person except more extreme. It doesn't matter what the murderer or the murdered believed. It is the action of taking the life of someone who believes murder that is evil.

So why do you keep bringing personal belief, religious or otherwise, into it? Bongo Bill wanted a workable universal definition of evil, one that exists outside of personal bias, and I attempted to give him one. Now if you wish to go off into different philosophical tangents, I'll be happy to oblige you in a different thread.

Anyway, there is only one good basis of support for relativism, and thats because we don't always know the absolutes. That does not mean they do not exist, the challenge is figuring out what that absolute is. It is a invalid argument to say "Evil is relative because we decide it is" or "Evil has no meaning". Evil is a word with a concept, the concept exists, therefore evil must exist. To say that morality is different from person to person because it is relative and it is relative because it differs from person to person is circular, therefore also invalid. To say "evil is relative, evil also does not really exist, and it is also the in the mind of the individual" is also invalid. This is merely restating the same conclusion three times with no supporting premises. Most of the "evil is relative" posts in this thread have actually been just that, conclusions with no supporting premises, which means that they are outright dismissable as non-arguments, merely unsupported opinions (and I said most, not all).

And finally I end of by saying do not pick apart my argument, because I'm leaving a lot open for interpretation. Bongo Bill was not asking whether or not evil was relative, he was asking what our personal definitions of evil. Not many people have actually done that. I'm not saying my definition is correct, since the fact that I'm human allows me to make mistakes, but that also does not mean that there ISN'T an absolute answer.

But on a philosophical tangent, most things in the universe is absolute. Is the universe expanding? The answer is either yes or no. It can not be both.
Does God exist? Once again, Universal Affirmatives and Universal Negatives can not logically co-exist. There must be one true answer and one false, either yes or no.
Is murder morally acceptable? Morality presents an additional complication called "particulars". This means universal affirmatives and universal negatives aren't contradictory, both contrary. They cannot both be TRUE, but they can both be FALSE. Since we tend to agree that murder is not always morally acceptable, then the Universal Affirmative (yes) is ABSOLUTELY false. That means, the particular negative is ABSOLUTELY true. Then sometimes, at least SOMETIMES, murder is ABSOLUTELY morally unacceptable. Whether or not it is ALWAYS morally unacceptable becomes impossible to discern from knowns (hence the development of relativism... when we don't know the definite answer). But the fact remains there are absolutes, whether or not we know the answer.

By the way, that argument presented above is philosophically and logically sound. I've run it by two Ph.Ds in philosophy, and neither of them could disprove it.

[Samwize]

Leaving aside your assumption that the universe cannot contain logical inconsistancies, I must say you are dead wrong about at least one thing. You say:

"Is the universe expanding? The answer is either yes or no. It can not be both."

This is WRONG. String theory shows that the physical world arising from a universe that is 15,000,000 lightyears across and expanding is utterly and completely indistinguishable from one that is under 10^-43 cm across and shrinking. Any problems you find with this assertion, any "logical inconsistantcy" or mismatch between concepts you find, are a product our your own human brainmeats and bear no relationship with reality. The two states mean exactly the same thing, there is no way (that we can think of at any rate) to tell the difference, and to assert that both holds true is completely consistant with experiment and logic.

So things aren't always as simple as they appear.

[ShadowFox]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

Well... I'm doing a philosophy minor in university, and I agree with Bongo Bill on one major point. I'm also sick of people being relativists simply because its in nowadays to be relativists. Standing from a philosophical point of view, relativity only exists simply because we do not know everything. Most people actually believe that there is definites to every question, the only problem is how can we as finite beings understand true knowledge which is comparatively infinite.

The concept of having "true Knowledge" is debatably in itself. The only way you can support your concept that relativity exists due to our limited existence would require you to bring evidence that it can happen any other way. There are not definates to every question, and there are not answers to every question.

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

First of all, I'll say that good and evil does not depend on your own personal beliefs. It is also not just a word. A word that can have many different meanings is not a word at all and therefore defeats its own purpose for existing.

Good and Evil are clearly defined as far as I am concerned, but what these terms are attributed to is what is in question. I don't know where you somehow come up with the assertion that a word can not have more than one meaning, and if it does it cancels out its purpose of existing. Evil is clearly the concept of something bad that happens to an invidual that is based entirely on their perspective. This is a very clear understanding on evil, IMO. Just because two people can't always come to a definite conclusion on which world leader is "evil" really doesn't mean anything. Your assertion is easily torn down when we look at other words like "hot" and "cold" which vary greatly based on a persons own personal observations.

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

Thats only in certain cases. Does a society which believes cannibalism is "good" have the right to infringe its concept of morality on a society which believes it is "evil"? Early philosophers including Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, Rene Descartes, and John Locke believed in something called a natural law. Much like a law of physics except with one difference... a natural law is the way something is SUPPOSED to be, but with free will we can choose to act otherwise. Murder, slavery, incest, etc, were all examples of something they considered taboo by the universe. They believed "true good" was respecting the rights and freedoms granted by God/universe/natural law to other people, and true evil was to violate those rights. So whether you believe murder is morally acceptable or not, it is evil to perform the act on someone who believes murder is morally not. Locke in particular believed that a society would flourish if it acted in a moral fashion, and that a society with a perverted concept of good and evil would eventually crumble or face constant disaster since evil was disruptive.

Not surprisingly most concepts of morals such as Not murdering, and not stealing run directly parallel to concepts of Chaos and Order. Its not about morality but instead has to do with doing what keeps society in order. A society that promotes cannibalism would still flourish if the authorities were able to keep people from eating any random person. Because if you were allowed to kill and eat anyone that would be "murder" and would contribute to societal chaos. On the other hand if this Cannibalism was something insignificant, such as, family members eating their dead relatives/enemies in some form of religious ceremony where they believe they will gain the strength of the person they consumed. Such a ritual would be far from evil in my opinion, not to mention there are instances where cannibalism is "good".

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

On the end of that, I believe true good and evil can only be certain in one way. Good and evil is what you would think was good and evil if you knew absolutely everything. There is a definite answer, but since we as people know very little of everything there is to know, who are we to determine what morality is. That's why people usually turn to belief in a god. I'm a christian, and I do believe in God and I do believe in absolute morality. This makes sense... since we as mortal, imperfect beings do not have the power within ourselves to determine morality, or create it for that matter, someone or something else must have. Of course, thats a big stretch to getting God as the answer but this isn't about God's existance... this is about morality.

Well, you first have to show its possible to know everything. Not to mention you as philosophy student should have heard of "the problem of evil" and the fact that you are using your belief in god as away of supporting your ideals of absolute morality is rather funny. Given the world around us I find it laughable that any Christian would state that their god is Absolutely Good. Not to mention many philsophers feel that the concept of free will is an illusion in the first place.

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

My personal definition of morality was this in first year philosophy... the prof liked it:
-Good is doing as little harm to as few people as possible and then attempting to help them ONLY if it does not cause harm to anybody else.

Sorry, I think this definition is poor because I personally believe in the concept known as "the greater good". If one has to kill 1,000 to save 10,000 then I believe it is a fine trade off.

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

-Evil is willingly and knowingly violating the rights and privileges of another person through doing harm, or violating the laws of a society intended to protect the concept of "good".

Lets look at a hypothetical situation. We have a father who's son is dieing and needs a transplant. He is told there is no possible way for him to get a transplant for his son. And lets say he has exhausted every possible option(lets say the organ is question would result in the death of the donor). Lets say this father loves his son so much he offers his own organs but the doctors tell him they are not compatible. In his desperation he finds an "back alley surgeon" and kills another person to get the organ/organs needed to save his son.

Was this man's action selfish? yes. the right thing to do? No. Was it evil? ......up for debate. I would say no, and I feel anyone who would seek to demonize such a man as being a prime example of what is wrong with people in the world. I am not saying the man shouldn't go to prisoner for the rest of his life(or maybe even executed), but labeling someone evil out of their devotion to someone they care about is Bullshit, IMO.

Originally Posted by Samwize

Any problems you find with this assertion, any "logical inconsistantcy" or mismatch between concepts you find, are a product our your own human brainmeats and bear no relationship with reality.

I like you. People seem to have this common line of thought that reality is supposed to bend to their own personal ideas of what it should be like. It kills them to know that there are just concepts out there that their tiny bunch of Neurons can not process.

[Archbio]

Sorry, I think this definition is poor because I personally believe in the concept known as "the greater good". If one has to kill 1,000 to save 10,000 then I believe it is a fine trade off.

Actually, I think that this example makes a mockery of the concept of "greater good". It's a predatorial exchange, nothing more, and without a context, as phrased really falls in my idea of "Evil", whatever that happens to be at any moment.

Leaving aside your assumption that the universe cannot contain logical inconsistancies

Logical inconsistencies are all in language, terms and arguments; and not the observed universe. Or else it wouldn't be logic, would it?

[Samwize]

"Logical inconsistencies are all in language, terms and arguments; and not the observed universe. Or else it wouldn't be logic, would it?"

Actually, there are many observations that make alot more sense if you accept that sometimes the universe doesn't make sense, divides by a zero, and goes into a state with multiple truth values.

But this is getting pretty far afield, and I posted what I think to be a pretty good definition of good and evil below.

Ultimately the answer to the question "What is Evil/Good/Truth/Whatever?" is simple: What is Evil? A word.

[I_Like_Swordchucks]

Originally Posted by Samwize

This is WRONG. String theory shows that the physical world arising from a universe that is 15,000,000 lightyears across and expanding is utterly and completely indistinguishable from one that is under 10^-43 cm across and shrinking. Any problems you find with this assertion, any "logical inconsistantcy" or mismatch between concepts you find, are a product our your own human brainmeats and bear no relationship with reality. The two states mean exactly the same thing, there is no way (that we can think of at any rate) to tell the difference, and to assert that both holds true is completely consistant with experiment and logic.

Um... so? Whether it is distinguishable or not doesn't make a bit of difference. I didn't say it was possible to get an answer to the question, or whether you could distinguish it from something else. Everything you said there did not change the statement. The universe either IS or it IS NOT. Lets see. "The universe is expanding." "The universe is not expanding." Both statements can not be true. It doesn't matter which one is, they simply both can't be. End of story. Besides, what did that one little sentence have to do with anything other than me trying to give an example? And yes, two contradictory statements can not both be true. Thats why they're called contradictory.

Originally Posted by Shadowfox

Good and Evil are clearly defined as far as I am concerned, but what these terms are attributed to is what is in question. I don't know where you somehow come up with the assertion that a word can not have more than one meaning, and if it does it cancels out its purpose of existing.

Point taken. I should have rephrased that... the word evil can't have "no meaning" as many people were trying to say. Also a word shouldn't mean whatever you want it to mean because that defeats the purpose of it being a word. The idea still stands.

Originally Posted by Shadowfox

Well, you first have to show its possible to know everything. Not to mention you as philosophy student should have heard of "the problem of evil" and the fact that you are using your belief in god as away of supporting your ideals of absolute morality is rather funny. Given the world around us I find it laughable that any Christian would state that their god is Absolutely Good. Not to mention many philsophers feel that the concept of free will is an illusion in the first place.

First off... yeah, we can't know everything. It's impossible. That was supposed to be a point you were capable of picking up on. I was saying while there may be, and very likely are, some absolutes, the difficulty is that we can't know that they exist, much less what they are. Second, I wasn't using God to prove anything. I was just stating I believed in God because I felt comfortable doing so. It has nothing to do with my argument for absolutes.

Originally Posted by Shadowfox

Sorry, I think this definition is poor because I personally believe in the concept known as "the greater good". If one has to kill 1,000 to save 10,000 then I believe it is a fine trade off.

Thats your choice. I would say it isn't my responsibility to save the 10,000. How do I decide which 1000 to kill? What makes any innocent people more fit to kill than others? Who am I to decide who lives and dies? No person should have the power to make that decision, and I think its overstepping a one's bounds as a human to assume they have the right to make that choice.

Originally Posted by Shadowfox

Was this man's action selfish? yes. the right thing to do? No. Was it evil? ......up for debate. I would say no, and I feel anyone who would seek to demonize such a man as being a prime example of what is wrong with people in the world. I am not saying the man shouldn't go to prisoner for the rest of his life(or maybe even executed), but labeling someone evil out of their devotion to someone they care about is Bullshit, IMO.

I agree. I don't think the man would be evil either. Amusing that I just watched John Q. last night though.... very similar plot... good movie. But that doesn't change the fact that the action of murdering the other guy was evil. I don't think one evil act makes you a universal bad person, but I still think the murdering of the other guy was a wrong thing to do. So yes, its still pretty cut and dry. I'd probably kill someone to save my kid too, but it doesn't make it right. It is still wrong for me to take someone else's life.

And again I say, we can't come to any solid conclusions here simply because we can't possibly know. I think there are absolutes, but I do not "know" what they are. And Bongo Bill asked us to define evil, so I gave my personal definition and I explained why. Nice to see people respect opinions around here.

[Samwize]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

Um... so? Whether it is distinguishable or not doesn't make a bit of difference. I didn't say it was possible to get an answer to the question, or whether you could distinguish it from something else. Everything you said there did not change the statement. The universe either IS or it IS NOT. Lets see. "The universe is expanding." "The universe is not expanding." Both statements can not be true. It doesn't matter which one is, they simply both can't be. End of story. Besides, what did that one little sentence have to do with anything other than me trying to give an example? And yes, two contradictory statements can not both be true. Thats why they're called contradictory.

Once again, you're basing assertions about the entire fabric of the cosmos based upon the unsupported belief that it is self-consistant. Just because Aristotle said it's the case doesn't make it so.

"Dammit, that electron's either here or there! It's a wave or a particle! It can't be both!" Turns out it is.

Or to put it another way, if you insist that the universe contains no contradictory physical laws, then the human brain simply isn't capable of asserting whether two states definitively are or are not contradictory.

In the below example, it turns out that being unable to distinguish the states means that, yes indeed, it's perfectly reasonable to assert that both are true. For some calculations, it makes more sense to phrase the universe as expanding. For other, that it is shrinking. There's a duality (in the precise mathematical sense) between the two states: They are exactly the same. I can say "This card is a 2 of spades" or "This card is not [every card except the 2 of spades]". They describe the same state. It's the case here. The contradiction you percieve is a contradiction in your brain and not a part of the world around you.

You can assert that "Well ONE of them just HAS to be "true"!" until you're blue in the face, but everything we've derived about the universe tells us that 1) you have no evidence for that, 2) you'll NEVER have evidence of that and 3)it doesn't matter either way.