Evil?

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Originally Posted by Arethusa

That's quantifying evil. What if he parked his car in the wrong place and because of that, the building he parked in front of burned to the ground and many people were killed and/or injured in the fire because the 'wrong place' happened to be in front of the only fire hydrant?

Now say that the man who parked there, did so because it was the only place to park near a hospital emergency room and he did so without thinking because his child was bleeding to death and every second counted.

Then let's say, the reason that the child was bleeding to death was because the man was drunk and accidently caused the child's injury.

No situation defining good or evil is black and white. Millions of extenuating circumstances affect the outcome of every good and bad action. Do we judge this man evil based on the first paragraph or do we take into account his extenuating circumstance? If so, how far back do we go? What if he was drunk for a reason one would consider valid, (there may be many valid reasons, depending on your own perception)? What does that make him? Good or evil?

There is no absolute good or evil, imho. With the exception, and only for some people, of God and Satan.

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I strongly agree with you.Yes,no one can says that the evil is black and the good is white.And aslo no one can say that the black is bad but the white is good.All these prejudices are formed in the people's hearts.People always use their hobbies to judge the nature of the things.This is unfair,I think.
Actually,the black sometimes can bring people the peace and calmness.Similarly,the white aslo can provide the terror and uncomfortableness for you.Everything has two sides.So it is really difficult for us to define a situation is good or bad.It is our hearts at work,I feel.Just like the the person who parks the car in the wrong place.If he is sitimulated by his own profit,for example,in order to decrease his pace and lazy himself,but this time he just goes to rescue a child.The value of a life is over the wrong of parking the wrong place.

More and more people admit that the a good quality is not only the competence of study but aslo the sociality ability,the capacity of doing a good statement in the public,the good professional technique and so on.So under the heavy burden of the employment,the employor asks more and more requirements for the employee.To seek a decent job,the employee are forced to accept all kinds of skill training and attain all kinds of diplomas or certificates.They think they are qualitified by these .They have owned the comprehensive qualities.
With the hope of getting a good job,they are thumed again.When they enter the company,they are kicked because of having picked a nail or a broom in the floor.It is demonstrated that nowadays the escape of the quality is the morality.All the people become self-centralled and pay little attention to the other things around them.
So how make the people do it naturally and instincly.That is to make them civilized and educated.But I aslo become confused.Because I saw so many uncivilized actions done by civilized persons.Does it mean that a educated person indeed exist the quality and certainly can emerge the quality?

Education and career choice has little to do with good and evil.

Good and evil,

Right and wrong,

Are standards imposed on us by society which we should all follow. When someone fails to understand the difference between right and wrong the person is defined as insane .

To answer your question yes there is evil and there is wrong. And Its not at how you look at it.

And to your Hitler analogy, I say that Hitler simply used the jews as a vehicle to rise to power and as a means to get Germans on his side. It wasnt that he thought it was the right thing to do but the right action to assert his power.

I don't like the ideas like good or evil. Sure, it's difficult to avoid them completely, and sometimes you might be convinced that someone or something is evil, but these ideas are so abstract and so easily manipulated that it makes me sick. Take for example Hitler. I always feel that simply but putting the label on him that he was "evil", he's alienated from the the rest of the humanity. "Look at the evil deeds he has done. Look at the hatred those people felt. That's not normal. That's sick. That's evil." I think that the risk of similar thing happening again increases if we insist on seeing them as acts of some abstract evil that we our selves are immune against.

Another aspect is the subjectivity of the judgment. The scientist actively working with eugenics in the beginning of the XX century really believed they were doing something good for the human race. Not many people would agree today. Examples are many.

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Originally Posted by Gallantry

Education and career choice has little to do with good and evil.

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But what if you choose to be an executioner?

If Hitler killed the Jews purely because he thought that the mass murders of their race was for the betterment of the world, then yes we cannot say that he was in fact evil. But I do not believe that is the case. I feel that he used the Jews as a way to gain power.

I think the only way you can define evil is the will to exert harm on someone or something else knowing that it is wrong.

I'll go as far as to say that it doesn't matter if someone does something and you believe they have the right or wrong intent for doing it. The real question is do you do what you feel is right?
How can one judge the gravity of the doer of an objective wrong when no one knows the intent of the the "evil doer," his state of mind (is he mentally ill, does he have a low iq), does he percieve that what he's doing is really the right thing?
Which leads me to my next topic. Who is innocent? Who has not done something with "evil" intentions. Just because a subjective sin is more objectively blatant than another sin, what decides which sin is worse? If one thinks evil things: with a passionate heart; with sincere pondering of murder in his head-- what makes him so different than the blatant murderer? Fear?
Is that what decides values? Those who fear doing a certain action are more upright than the sociopath who actually carries it out?
Nay, intent decides what is wrong and what is not; what is a sin and what is not. It is our duty to be the judges of ourselves. And do the right thing. The "right thing" is a subjective thing, a loving thing, a mutual thing... Would I have another do this thing that I am about to do...to me? Leave it at that, people. Don't make it any more confusing for yourselves.

"There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just things people do. Some things I wish they wouldn't do and some things I wish they'd do a little more, but that's all any man's got a right to say."

As usual, John Steinbeck says it much better than I ever could. Perhaps that's why he has a Nobel Prize for literature and I don't.

Cuppajoe - I strongly disagree with that statement. Although virtue may not be seen with pure objectivity does not mean it does not necessarily exist.
One of the best virtues we as individual people can exercise in this imperfect world is forgiveness

I believe Steinbeck would qualify forgiveness as one of those things that he wishes people would do more often, rather than virtue. In context, 'sin' and 'virtue' refer to things that are objectively sinful and virtuous, specifically those dictated by God.

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Originally Posted by Union Jack

I did a longer post on this board about this topic, check the "Why do I have to Die post."

But I will summarise here...

There is no ultimate, overriding "good and evil" which governs our existance.
There is an accepted cultural norm which defines actions as good or evil.
Good and evil are interpretations of an action, they do not define the action.
Example, Hitler and the Jews...
Hitler fully belives that what he is doing is "good" and for the betterment of society and humanity.
Thus, the act is innocent.
I look at his act, and based upon my internal value system, come to the conclusion that what he did seems evil to me.
I THINK his act is evil.

My thinking so does not define his act as evil, it is merely my impression that it was, this does not make it so.

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Which means there really is no such thing as "good" or "evil" just our (open to endless revision) interpretations. How can that be? Subjective "good" and "evil" paints us into an uncomfortable corner where we lose all prerogative to make judgments about the nature of a particular action or behavior. That is a powerless position because it gives you no moral grounds for any discrimination between "good" and "evil" and "right" and "wrong." We thus become incapable of solving conflicts between people and cultures. Yikes.
You actually are going to define Hitler's actions based on his (supposed) mindset? Huh? Intention decides interpretation? What about the emotional stability or rational mindset of he who is deciding what his actions mean?

And, as per your comment about "value system" well what is that? Where did that come from? In the Nazi "value system" the extermination of Jews was a postive thing - who (aside from anti-semitics) is going to go along with that?