August 15, 2006
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Does Evil Exist? - Socrates Cafe's latest discussion
Evil is defined as : Immoral, wicked, harmful, disastrous, bad, ill-reputed, etc., etc. Or the cause of the above.
You will notice that these pejorative terms are all pretty much culture-linked, that is what is considered evil seems to depend on the culture so that while each society has its list of evils, they don’t necessarily agree - and in fact may be at odds with each other.
Iraq today is a good example. We consider the terrorist insurgents and religious terrorists as evil but they do not so regard themselves - As they see it, they are freedom fighters doing Allah’s will.
One aspect of evil is the idea that a person or persons willfully and deliberately violate their culture’s moral tenants - that is commit acts that they know are considered evil just to “be evil”; but even this kind of act is often for a purpose which the person feels is desirable or good : To gain admission to a group or to please God, or because the person is psychotic. (Can psychotics be evil?)
This raises the question of the existence of Absolute Evil - Is there any act or idea so evil that it is so universally condemned that no one would do it?
Comments (10)
I have a new post up that I would like your thoughts about.
I have a new post up that I would like your thoughts about.
Many cultures, I believe, agree that killing, at least within the community, and adultery are wrong; although, somehow, they may justify the preselection of male fetuses, while aborting female, or the burning of widows on the funeral pire, ie. sexism in killing. (Sociology and especially that regarding gender is one of my favorite subjects).
As for good and evil, I've left some similar comments about the relativism of evil on the others' posts that may interest you and add to your line of reasoning. Somehow, I've become quite the relativist in the past year. If my good is someone else's evil, can it be both good and evil?
Isn't it a jump in logic to move from the fact that cultures disagree on the morality of certain acts to say that morality is culturally derived or linked? Correspondence doesn't mean causality, and couldn't the development of those culturally distinct moral values be examined in context to notice trends, similarities, and broader causes?
Morality varies from place to place for at least two reasons. Morality is not a static set of laws but rather virtues and vices it will take on different forms in different contexts, and secondly because groups may be ignorant (either willfully or out of ignorance) of genuine virtues and confuse them with vices. We cannot detatch our virtues from our moral tradition or our immediate personal context (time, place, language, and so on) nor can we deny that morality is a broad function and a concept that is widely held across distinct and often opposing societies. In the market place of ideas and traditions these societies often wage war, who can intervene?
I'm confused about Eddie's comment -"Isn't it a jump in logic to move from the fact that cultures disagree on the morality of certain acts to say that morality is culturally derived or linked?" - I seems to me that - as we are talking about "good and bad" acts, that it rather proves my point - Our culture determines what's good or bad - If there's a universal Good or Bad, anthropologists haven't found it yet - and not for want of looking.
Lanterrell's comment seems to predicate some kind of "genuine" virtue, do you have an example?
Morality is a term referring to the rules of behavior acceptable or unacceptable to your culture (these rules are called mores) and every culture has them, the problem is that they differ so widely.
There is little doubt that the concept of Evil exists - we're talking about it right now - It's the application of the term which varies so widely and causes so much trouble in the world - Maybe that variety is the closest we can come to true evil - but we treasure our individual variety so much!
Tyche,
First, just because our understanding of virtue is conditioned by our surrounding doesn't mean there is no truly concrete set of principles to be lived out universally irrespective of our biases or geographic location. There is no way you can prove that conclusion necessarily.
Further, its apparent that when you say evil exists you are referring to concepts, or thoughts that exist in peoples' brains and not evil per se, detatched from minds. I would argue both that conceptions are not more real than the existential referrent and that morality has not been understood in this way historically. You are reducing morality to "I(or We) approve of such" assuming that variety itself requires one take this stance on morality.
Lanterrell seems to believe that "Good and Evil (the absence of Good)" and "Morality" exist as entities separate from human conception. that is a time-honored concept (!) which is of course, unprovable and subject to human interpretation.
Regular old me coming by. I would love to test the theory with wine and champagne but I don't drink alchol anymore I have to much medication I would probaly be able to test some theory on staying upright if I tyred that!
Thanks again for your answers, I wonder how many marriages survive the threesome issue?