Secret Chief
Vetted Member
Evil woman, don't you play your games with me.
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What exactly is evil?
- Thread starter Eddi
- Start date
Fine. I'll take my Monopoly board elsewhere.
Secret Chief
Vetted Member
In that case, stop playing with my jenga.
I'm a little mixed on this. There's a popular saying going around the ethics world that 'intention doesn't negate impact.' And as someone who generally aligns well enough with consequentialism, I agree. Consequentialism is usually a matter of harm vs help but I think those can be pretty interchangeable with evil vs good.
Or as some would say 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions.' Truly calamitous, widespread destruction can be done with good intention, and I'd still call it evil.
But I say I'm mixed because intentionality can certainly *add* to that evil. There is a degree I feel differently about someone who caused harm unintentionally vs intentionally. Which I guess is why we have different degrees of murder and manslaughter charges, in law.
I vvould never.
It seems pretty tough to make a determination like that to me.
Probably a different answer from everyone that is asked.
It seems we all do. But then who decides how to rank those collective decisions and determine which is the most and least important? Or the most and least good?
For an individual, maybe. As a collective, they seem to be, if not evil, not good.
I was raised to see drug use as a sin and evil. But not all people are the same, not all drugs are the same and not all use of them leads to what are widely considered evil acts. Certainly, statistics indicate that alcohol abuse has a significant and measurable mortality associated with it, but most people don't think having a beer with your mates is evil, while all of you doing heroin and deciding to kill the people at the next table, because they are reading your minds is evil.
I don't know. I haven't maxed out yet. Like many things, it isn't the item or the act itself that is evil but the manner in which it is used or practiced. Neither a gun or a hammer is evil in themselves. A gun can be used to feed a family or kill wantonly. A hammer can be used to build a home or end a life. Intent must then, be considered in a condemnation of something declared evil I would think.
I have some thoughts on that for myself, but fortunately, I'm not that evil.
Hmmm. If we can get some funding and come up with a good experimental design, I think I can take one for the team to find out.
I agree that it is not that easy if you are trying to decide for the entire population. Even for the individual, it is not that easy. What might be evil in one respect might be a necessary good in another.
The nature of good and evil has always been something that I ponder, but I have come to no universal wisdoms on the matter of clear cut differentiation of one or the other. One could seem good for evil purposes and one could be seen as evil for action that was committed to better the group. Sometimes I wonder if we are all just running in place.
How do you decide from all of that. What if the chosen choice is based on popular misconception and that carries the day rather than some more rational "whatever"?
So a decision that benefits the collective, but may leave individuals wanting and lost is good even if it isn't so good for those individuals? So good can be evil to some so long as the body politic is generally OK? That doesn't sound like good so much as a political position.
I'm not sure if decide is the correct term here. You get to voice your opinion, but if your opinion isn't the popular one then you are **** out of luck.
I don't think having an opinion or needs that are not fully represented by the majority constitutes betrayal of the group or corruption of the minority to parasite status.
The collective in this country is for capitalism. Your turn.
It sounds like the collective decides and individual wants, needs and desires are by definition evil if they are contrary to that decision.
Somehow, I find that evil.
I would never have thought of you as having an aptitude for politics.I'm comfortable being evil.
I wouldn't say that. They do rock!
McBell
Unbound
That makes it sound as though it is merely a synonym for bad...
Personally, i would add the word great or extensive or extreme or massive or overwhelming or drastic or radical or serious between the words "causes" and "harm".
What about indifference? Or fear?
Is it evil to be indifferent.
Is it evil to be afraid?
Does it depend on the circumstances?
Is it evil to be indifferent.
Is it evil to be afraid?
Does it depend on the circumstances?
Monopolies are evil or so I'm told. But then variety can be overwhelming and have negative consequences too.
Only vvhen the election is betvveen aubergine and kale.
People just say that because they can't sit through the game...
Aubergine is the lesser of two plant evils. The no-win horror scenario is truly arugula and artichoke for me.
I'll take all four!
Please do! Take them all!
(I actually grow kale, but only because their seeds make a really good brown mustard.)
From the perspective of religion, as a Christian, my understanding is that evil is something that does not glorify God, rejects God or is against the teachings of God. However, even among the faithful there is controversy over what fails to meet or has no impact on those criteria and there is an element of subjectivity in some cases. In any event, that basis of defining evil extends only as far as the believers and ends where other beliefs or disbelief begins. As well as those things being abused by those in religion acting in their own self interest or the interest of a group out of ignorance or in ways counter to the precepts of those groups. I believe that such positions can be and have been acts that many would consider evil depending on the actions, context and intent.
It doesn't sound like there is a clear way to define, determine and administrate against evil. Maybe the best way is to do what you think is right and adjust that thinking with continual discussion, observation and information. But then some people deny science too, which I consider to be a form of evil.
It doesn't sound like there is a clear way to define, determine and administrate against evil. Maybe the best way is to do what you think is right and adjust that thinking with continual discussion, observation and information. But then some people deny science too, which I consider to be a form of evil.