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Yet another debate on which our posters have to blow up their heads to debate.
What is evil? Really? Is it just a matter of perspective, or is it a definable term?
As usual, I will let the next poster kick off the debate...
If you don't have a thoughtful response at least to this topic in general,
Don't post!!!
What is evil, really?
Hmmm...the only thing i can think of at the moment is tonight i was watching the news about a murder that happened 30 years ago in my neighborhood actually, 5 teenage boys were murdered and it was an unsolved mystery...they finally solved the case...when they showed the picture of the man who tortured them and burned them alive....it sent chills up my spine...THAT is evil
blatent missuse of power for the porpous of harming another fellow being.
ie: lashing out to hurt someones feelings, evil. killing something so you can eat it, not evil.
I believe that evil is molevolence in the heart, that rules the person...
People who cause pain and suffering are evil.
But having said that is to say its evil to stop them as often the only way to do so is to cause pain and suffering and sometimes more.
So in protecting people from evil, evil itself is made.
I don't think hurting others is always evil..I think a big part of whether or not a person would be considered evil is their conscience and morality-we all do things that might be looked upon as hurtful or evil, but alot of things come into play to determine whether or not they were. What were your intentions when commiting said action...let's say you kill someone because they were about to hurt a child...is that evil? While you have hurt someone else you had nothing but good intentions..and if you are not an evil person, your actions will probably still haunt you even so they were justified...it's a slippery slope lolQuote:
Originally Posted by TCWNME
i can see that to a point. an unguarded zeal to abbloish evil can lead to more pain then nessacarily needed to remove evil, and would therefor quaify as evil. but if you try all the peacfull means first and only resort to vilence when every other option has failed and there really is no other way, and it wont spend its self out before millions more are hurt i can see viloence being done to evil for the sake of stoping it as not evil.Quote:
Originally Posted by TCWNME
there is a massive "BUT" to go with all those qualifers though. the viloence must stop the instant evil is defeated.
I think doing "evil" things is a natural part of life and cant be stopped, even if you meant well its not your opinion that matters its the opinions of the people who judge you that will be remembered.Quote:
Originally Posted by <3Sari<3
For example if someone is about to hurt a child they may be intent on evil but they havent actually done evil so killing them would be evil itself.
All sin = evil and sin = breaking the 10 commandments. Just putting in my 2cents. If i said anything more i might get banned for religous subjects. This is my opinion anyways.
based on the nessaty for oppisits i would agree that there can never be evil with out good. but i wouldnt say that harming someone in self defence or in the defence of the helpless is evil unless you use more force then nessacary.Quote:
Originally Posted by TCWNME
ok..what if you happen upon a person who is in teh middle of hurting said child...and you stop him by harming/killing him (whatever means necessary). it would be hard to call that evil in my opinion :)Quote:
Originally Posted by TCWNME
in stoping them do you let vengance rule you momentarly and go beyone nessacary means? if so i could call that evil.Quote:
Originally Posted by <3Sari<3
hmmm lol would be hard to call..how much would you want to hurt someone if you caught them harming your child..but no in my example i meant just to stop them...when of course they can fight back etc. hard to set a limit on how far you would need to go...oy!Quote:
Originally Posted by imnothere
Exactly, these people will recognise they have done evil things and will do what it takes to keep it a secret even if they have to kill you to do it so killing them may be the only answer.Quote:
Originally Posted by <3Sari<3
right....but then is defending urself from them murdering you really evil??? I think it's a very fine line and like Imnothere said, crossing that line would make you evil...and to know when you are crossing it would probably be very hard.
I would say that evil, like probably most intangible concepts, is very subjective. It can be a definable term, but only amongst similar perspectives.
I suppose some could say that committing an act for self-betterment at the expense of others is a core definition of evil. The degree of evilness would come down to severity of the act or acts in question.
There can be some acts considered ruthless or cruel to some perceivers, but are not necessarily inherently evil if a selfless goal fuels the act or acts in question. You could say the view of these sorts of situations comes down to the eye of the beholder.
I would say its perfectly okay to kill in defence, but defining if it was evil to do so depends on what the person then thinks of what they have done and what they choose to do next.
the line that you cross is hate. untill i cross that line i have a magnanomous tollerance and ability to forgive. but once i cross that line i feel the difrence in the very air i breath. fortuantly for me i have only crossed it a few times in my life. for i hate the way i feel when i hate. and i know intamatly the truth of the statment that when you hate you damage your self more then others.
even then i restrain my self more then i would like to.
Very eloquently put!Quote:
Originally Posted by Alusair
A good example is someone like Adolf Hitler. Most people today would probably categorize him as an evil person...but in his own mind...he could have truly believed what he was doing was for the betterment of his people...it is extremely subjective and depends greatly on the point of view of each person.
your not really saying Hitler wasnt evil because he didnt believe he was are you? my mind cant even fathom that.Quote:
Originally Posted by <3Sari<3
for that to be so all a person would have to do is to not believe them selves evil to get away with the most awful atrocities imaginable. i can not agree at all with that statment.
Whether he believed what he was doing was evil or not doesn't matter, the world saw him as an evil man doing evil things and that's the way he will always be remembered.
o no no no...it was stated that it was a very subjective/eye of the beholder deal, and i agreed..most people would def agree that hitler=evil. No questions. My point was more that, since it IS intangible and can be considered in the eye of the beholder, I am sure at the time he and his followers did NOT consider their actions evil. To them he was a hero. I am not saying i AGREE with their point of view...certainly not...but I am just pointing out that different people may have very different views on this topic...maybe it was an extreme example :)Quote:
Originally Posted by imnothere
Quote:
Originally Posted by <3Sari<3
And yes of course that is how he will be remembered I was simply pointing out that at the time he was alive and the holocaust was happening there was obviously a large group of people who did not believe that to be true. The question posed to us was whether evil was subjective and definable, it was stated that it is subjective and i was agreeing with that statement and just citing an example.Quote:
Originally Posted by TCWNME
Sorry! i thought i hit edit! didn't mean to double post :)
he went way beyond what was nessacary to achieve his goals.
and one of his goals was vengance.
vengance is evil to me. there is not point to it but to hurt someone. to cause another pain; phisical, emotional, phicalogical as an end in its self is evil. what can you gain that is good from the pain of another? nothing. there is no redieeming justifacation for pain for its own sake.
Sari, with your posit that hitler= evil
How would you define his subordinates who carried the horrific acts? Is it evil to not fight back against orders you know are evil?
If you face certain death by not preforming an evil (by all culture and socialogical norms at the time) act, are you then evil?
And if not, then where is the cutoff? What if your child will be killed if you don't commit these acts? What if you while be tortured? What if you will simply be denyed a promotion or raise?
I believe that an act of true evil can only be done in malevolence to another...
giving your life to prevent the death of others will always be seen as honorable, too ofent power over the lifes of others drives those holding that power to test it to unspeakable limets. this is evil. to inflict pain on another without just provacation is wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by webby189
let me take an example from my own life. i found my self in a situation where i needed to escape. haveing one route cut off i turned to another and another untill fleeing was imposible, yet i did assalt my attackers untill there was no other option, even then they sufferd no lasting hurt, a simple flurry of my arms and some screeming was all i had time for before the other assilent had me by the back of my cloths and tossed me accross the room.
yes i made my escape but i never used force more then nessacary to the situation. and in the end i walked out with more brusing then anyone, i was the only one with brusing actualy. the point being that one will do what one must if there are no other options, but untill then try every other avenue to avoid harm to another
Well actually that was my whole point..it's very subjective and there is a very thin line...and different people will have different opinions on it because there is no set accepted general definition of what is evil..mine could very well be different from yours and yours different from the next person's. Hitler was just an exaggerated example...You pose good questions....is it evil to save your child's life by commiting a heinous act? Again, different people will have different answers. Can succumbing to your instinctual, parental instinct to protect your children no matter what the cost be considered evil? When and were are excuses acceptable and not acceptable. In my post about Hitler i said while most TODAY would say he WAS evil..at that time He and his followers actually thought they were doing something noble..again just an example to show how abstract and subjective an idea evil is.Quote:
Originally Posted by webby189
imnotthere.
You say inflicting pain on another without justification is wrong. So does that mean wrong = evil? In my book they are far apart.
Also justification of violence against another varies widely from culture to culture, locale to locale, time to time. So I guess your point is evil can't be defined with more information about who, when, where and why.
I think it can be defined better.
To Sari (missed your post before i posted, didn't wanna double)
In simplest term, i wodul say Evil to the consience choice the inflict pain/suffering on another when you have nothing to gain from doing so.
What you could gain is very broad, but this is my opinion and I'd like to hear your thoguhts.
Funny...when I think of evil I see more of pictures in my mind that are hard to put into words for me...Like the man who kidnapped a girl when she was 14 and had her living in a shack behind his house, raped her regularly, she bore him 2 illegitimate children there in that shack, etc...In my gut i just feel that's evil...BUT like I said I can't really put it into words...If you can define it better, please help me out :)Quote:
Originally Posted by webby189
And it isn't only that evil can't be defined it was also a point of my idea of evil might not be yours..
no wrong is not as far as evil, but is a step in that direction.
i'm sorry that i'm not being clear. i should be asleep. i will go there now and come back to this when i have a clear mind and can form my thoughts into sentances :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by <3Sari<3
Well i won't ever argue with this, everybody has their own morals/views.
EDIT one of the better OTs i have seen, but its bed time, gn all.
Evil, IMO, is a rather hard to define thing, because it's based on some parts of an individuals morals and beliefs. Something that one person would define as "evil", such as murdering a person for their belongings (example only), could also be seen by another person as part of survival, and downgraded to "wrong".
Evil is what you view it. Hitler killed 6+ million people and we viewed him as an evil that had to be destoryed. We did that by joining with Stalin who had killed 20+ million people.
i think that evil like love has many levels within its self
the love of pizza is not (and rightly so) the same as love of your sweet heart.
so to the evil of a malicious word is not the same level of evil as say genocide.
i still maintain that any malicious act is evil. even chairty if done to humiliate the recipeint can be evil.
Evil is just really an 'illusion' of somesorts.
What may be evil to one is not to another.
People would consider a hunter who kills wild animals not evil, Yet animal cruelty is evil...?
Nicely put Brooke, and I agree with your point. Good and Evil are ideals which are relitive and subjective to the viewers line of sight, not tangable traits or facts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brooke ♥♥
Beauty (/evil) is in the eye of the beholder.
Let us start by defining “evil” as “doing harm for the sake of doing harm.” While we all recognize that people very often do harm without realizing it or intending it, we are usually not inclined to regard such people as evil. We recognize that people can make mistakes, or can feel forced into corners sometimes with moral dilemmas, but if we have the sense that they are doing the best they can, and especially if they recognize the harm they’ve done and apologize, we will not regard them as evil. And so “doing harm” is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for “doing evil.” For an action to count as truly evil, it must both cause harm and it must have been intended to cause harm. But even “intent to cause harm” is a necessary but still not sufficient condition for “evil.” Anyone who believes that punishment is sometimes justified would refuse to call the person who metes out punishment as evil. While that person is inflicting harm with intent to inflict harm, the deeper intent is to bring about greater good. Punishment is supposed to aid in the restoration of justice. That is why I framed the original definition of evil as “doing harm for the sake of doing harm” – to contrast it with “doing harm in order to ultimately bring about a greater good” as in the intended case of punishment.
So, those who accidentally do harm are not evil; those who intentionally do harm, but in hopes of bringing about greater good are not evil; the only people who possibly could be considered evil would be those who intentionally do harm just for the sake of doing harm.
But to be considered evil in themselves, they would also have to be wholly evil. If they sometimes do good, they could not be regarded as evil, because the good that they do is real and benefits the world in a substantial way. So, if there could be a truly evil person, he or she would at least have to be someone who does harm all the time, for the sake of doing harm.
But it is important to note that such a person would have to be capable of moral choice. Such a person would still have to have a basic understanding of the difference between goodness and harm: otherwise, he or she could not understand “harm” enough to recognize it, choose it, and intend it. Also, the person would have to have the ability to freely choose. If the person were simply programmed to do harm all the time (and could not do otherwise) then the person could not be said to be intending harm for the sake of intending harm, because intention requires choice.
Since the person is capable of moral choice, and understands the difference between good and evil, then the person does have some understanding of goodness. On this basis, we can conclude that the person therefore is not wholly evil. Having the capacity to understand goodness, and having the capacity for choice means that there is always the possibility that sometime in the future this person might decide to choose good. So there is in the person still the potential for some goodness. Therefore, it is self-contradictory to assume that there could be evil people.
i agree with you in every respect save one.Quote:
Originally Posted by SunTzu123
that one must only do 'evil' as you have defined it (a defanition i compleetly agree with) all the time.
for to do evil is not to be evil. even the Good ppl may have moments in their lifes when they DO evil. it does not make them so, and they more often then not regret the action and its intention that mad it evil.
but that does not erease that evil was done.