• Ilya B Shambat
    194
    One thing that has been on my mind for a long time is distinction between naughty and evil. I used to define evil as “knowingly doing the wrong thing,” but it occurs to me that there are times when wrong thing done doesn't harm anyone and does not qualify as evil.

    In the film Hackers we see the distinction between the two. The protagonists are a bunch of high school kids who enjoy hacking, basically, for sport. The antagonist is a security professional who tries to blow up a bunch of tankers. In first case we see naughty; in second case we see evil. Both know that they are doing the wrong thing. However, while the high school kids are harming no one with their hacking, the security professional attempts to cause huge harm.

    In Judeo-Christian tradition, evil is disobedience to God. In Greek tradition, evil is ignorance. Both have a point. Wrong actions can have two sources: Deliberate wrongdoing and error. Wrong can be done deliberately and wrong can be done non-deliberately. Both can be a source of wrong things done. In one case wrong is done knowingly, in the other case it is done unknowingly.

    Ignorance is not the only possible source of evil; sometimes the wrongdoer very much knows what he is doing. Some people believe that education will solve the world's problems, but we have seen highly educated people do very wrong things. Where education does stand to be a positive force is in making apparent for people the wrong that such people are doing, so that they are less likely to fall for their gag.

    So what is the difference between evil and naughty? Evil harms people; naughty does not. Every care must be taken to prevent evil from happening. With naughty, it's usually just kids having fun, and they will grow out of it.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    I think of "evil" as simply being the strongest form of disapproval someone can give. It's the biggest BOO!

    "Naughty" I think of as having a more playful connotation and either being directed towards kids or non-human animals or alternately having a sexual connotation.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    A question that I too wanted to ask. Thanks for asking.

    How does one distnguish naughty and evil?

    In my view the naughty are those unable to understand the effects of their actions. Evil people know what they're doing and do them because of that.

    However, consider what Socrates said: ''No one is knowingly evil'' i.e. even the most evil people actually don't know what they're doing. If you agree then everyone, even Satan, is just being naughty.
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    I think naughtiness refers to the breaking of rules, mostly rules which are not stopping you from doing something terrible. You can be naughty by breaking the rules of your diet, by saying something mean that you shouldn't have, things of this nature. The rules can be your own, social convention or someone else's like a parent or the law.

    For instance, someone might be "naughty" for being overtly sexual and I think that's because there's an implication that they shouldn't be doing that. The playfulness in that expression is that you are behaving in a manner with regards to sexuality that is not publicly acceptable and so you are being "naughty".

    Evil has nothing to do with rules, breaking the law doesn't make you evil, breaking rules doesn't make you evil. I think that this is the difference.
  • Ilya B Shambat
    194
    Evil is knowingly doing harm. Naughty is breaking the rules when it doesn't harm others. That is what my example about the hackers is for.
  • Joshs
    5.6k
    Evil is only knowingly doing harm if the presumption is that the harm isn't justified. But the most important point is that evil is not a real attribute of the one presumably doing wrong, it is our presumption that they are not justified, that they are deliberately and willfully doing unjustified harm. But since everyone believes their actions are justified, evil is our failure to see from the other's own perspective why they believe their actions are justified. Evil is an accusation that arises out of our own ignorance.
  • Brett
    3k
    Evil is knowingly acting immorally.
  • Ilya B Shambat
    194
    "Evil is knowingly acting immorally."

    Not necessarily. In my example, the hackers were knowingly acting immorally, but they were not evil. That as opposed to the security professional, who very much was doing evil.
  • Brett
    3k
    That’s right, they are not evil because they weren’t acting immorally. They were just breaking the law.
  • Brett
    3k
    But the most important point is that evil is not a real attribute of the one presumably doing wrong, it is our presumption that they are not justified, that they are deliberately and willfully doing unjustified harm.Joshs

    Do you mean they’re only doing evil because we think so?
  • Joshs
    5.6k
    The notion of evil is a useful one for philosophies that assume the so-called perpetrator assesses the meaning of a situation for which they are blamed in a way that matches that of their accuser. We say the evildoer knew what they were doing was wrong, implying that heir interpretation of the moral issues involved matched ours and they simply decided to choose the immoral outcome.
    The notion of evil is no longer useful for a host of philosophers, including Heidegger, Nietzsche, Derrida, who argue that the origin of evil isnt bad intent but intent that is based on an interpretion of a situation that the accuser doesnt share and cannot understand. The accusation of evil for them is always a call for conformity., blaming the other for our own failure to understand how their perspective(not intent) differs fro ours.
  • Joshs
    5.6k
    Evil is a dangerous thing, in that those who believe in the concept use it a weapon to unknowingly avoid figuring out why someone's else's perspective differs radically from their own. Nietzsche encouraged us to think beyond good and evil, but most arent ready for that yet.
    Blame is easier.
  • Brett
    3k


    We say the evildoer knew what they were doing was wrong, implying that heir interpretation of the moral issues involved matched ours and they simply decided to choose the immoral outcome.Joshs

    Your quote is what I think. But it’s not so much that they chose the immoral outcome as that they failed to chose the moral outcome. That might seem like I’m playing with words, but individuals can let evil happen by simply not acting, by convincing themselves that they were just doing their job. In this case I’m referring to Adolf Eichmann.
  • Brett
    3k
    The notion of evil is no longer useful for a host of philosophers, including Heidegger, Nietzsche, Derrida, who argue that the origin of evil isnt bad intent but intent that is based on an interpretion of a situation that the accuser doesnt share and cannot understand.Joshs

    This is moral relativism, right? Morals are not common property.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Evil is knowingly doing harm. Naughty is breaking the rules when it doesn't harm others. That is what my example about the hackers is for.Ilya B Shambat

    I guess evil is an exclusively human trait. Animals can be naughty but not evil. So, look at humans and analyze what makes them the only creatures evil can be predicated to. It probably has to do with our so-called ''higher'' faculties. I'm groping in the dark here. Can you see anything of substance?
  • Valentinus
    1.6k
    I think you are looking for the line between crappy things you wish you had not done to other people and the perception of a boundary or frontier that places acts beyond one's own system of justification.

    That gets pretty tricky as a matter of conception. The desire to be the one who judges is strong. I have that desire. I am pretty sure everyone else does. But other elements are in play.

    I put the shoe on the other foot. What are the other ways to look at my actions that I did not produce as an argument in my defense?
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