Good and Evil is a tough topic.
I look at it more from the point of view of education. I started off very clueless and then all these events and people helped by noticing my mistakes.

Love hurts.

It is. But we liv in it. I think we liv in a world of good and evil and that is the battle everyone faces. Most of the actions we take are a problem of good and evil. And most of us are not good.

I realized i was evil trough introspection and fantasy. I think it’s important that everyone realizes this about themselves.

But who wants too go down that road. That’s why most people never do it.

Most people see themselves as good. This is just not the case. — Caleb Mercado

I think that one's position on the good or evil of humanity depends on temperament and personality mostly. People who like others think they're ok. People who don't, don't. I like people a lot, individually and in the aggregate. I generally try not to judge people one way or another. I think humans are social and that we tend to like each other, all other things being equal. Of course, all other things are never equal.

Most people don't go down that road because it doesn't take anyone anywhere good.

If you’re going to take this topic seriously (that is, philosophically), then you need to start with defining good and evil. My guess is that during the process of attempting to do so you will find them to be rather useless terms; they’re too vague and subjective to be of any use in any universal way. But perhaps you’ll surprise me.

Having said that, I agree that humans are capable of just about any act when placed in the right environment/circumstances. We all have natural abilities and limitations, of course, but I don’t think those are particularly relevant to the discussion. However, I don’t feel the need to label our general inclinations/actions as good or evil in the absolute sense of the terms.

This is just not the case. I think we are born with both potentials but tilt towards evil. Anything too add? — Caleb Mercado

Good and evil seem to me to be almost indefinable theological categories. I don't know many people who think they are good. I think more accurately people imagine they are 'not evil'. That said, many people think they are bad (often indefinably so), hence the proliferation of self-help paraphernalia and substance use to distract or attempt to divert from what one imagines one's nature to be.

One way of saying something is evil is that you know what can hurt you. Because of this you know how to hurt others. And if you do that with the intention too hurt and derive pleasure from it, that's evil.

Most people i know think they are good. But let that be another thing.

It does take you somewhere good. It's only by being able too be evil that you can be good

And if you do that with the intention too hurt and derive pleasure from it, that's evil. — Caleb Mercado

Evil? Maybe not. Confused, lost, broken, fractured.... These may explain the above rather than evil per say.

Is the action evil or the person who does it? Are the consequences evil, or the intention behind it? Or both, or none? Can you do an evil thing to accomplish a greater good?

No no. It's evil at it's core because you want it for it's on reason. Too hurt another and you enjoy it. It's the person who is evil.

You have to kinda be able to be a evil person too do good. Or else, you can't do anyone anything

Human "evil" is commonly mistaken for one or more of the following:

- Being an animal without conscious ie. not knowing any better (ignorance)
- Wickedness, selfishness, greed, any of the "sins" (knowing better but choosing to act otherwise for material or emotional gain ie. superfluous or immoral profit or one's "jollies" often regardless of future consequence, closely related to ignorance)
- Mental illness (ignorance)

None of these are in and of themself, evil, per se. You'll know evil when you see it. Or, perhaps not. That is what they call "insidious" in the business.

True evil is rare in this indebted, overpopulated world. Everyone believes themselves to be justified, that benefit will always outweigh risk, that success outweighs sacrifice, in other words "only God can judge me". But when that happens however, hypocrites and the lukewarm are revealed and tunes are changed rather quickly. At such a point however, such changes are typically futile.

I don't believe true evil is rare. It's just that we don't confess too it. Most people in nazi germany did terrible things. What makes us so different from them? They are also human. And i do believe what they did in nazi germany was evil.

Following Christian theology (interpreting--or misinterpreting--Old Testament) we were created innocent but we listened to the snake in the Garden, disobeyed orders, and have thus been cursed with Original Sin ever since. That's one way we are not good.

A later text from Isaiah says "All we, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way."

Even if we were not cursed with original sin, we are a moral error-prone lot, and like stupid sheep, we wander off into the weeds and sin, especially if the weeds are high enough so others can't see what we are up to.

Following the non-theological approaches of Darwin and Freud, we descended from apes and have the emotional features of our nearest non-human relative, Pan troglodytes, aka, the chimpanzee. We have the emotional drives of the chimp hitched to greatly enhanced intellectual power with which we carry out our red-hot urges with a vengeance. That gets us into all sorts of trouble again and again and again and again...

We try to be good, and sometimes we are. If we are phlegmatic and lethargic (like, dull and lazy) we probably will behave acceptably well most of the time. Ambitious energetic go-getters run larger risks of behaving badly, because they inevitably find that somebody is in their fucking way.

Yes, I agree. i have learned that the snake represents knowledge of the self (not saying knowledge is bad) But they then realized they where naked. Got ashamed and hid. When they later realized they could get hurt, they gained the knowledge of evil bacause they could then hurt others.

The evolution idea is interesting because young chimps petrol the boarder and if they see another chimp tribe and outnumber them, they kill them. It's like war, like we do.

Yes, but that does not make the lazy people good. If they had the upper hand, what then?

No no. It's evil at it's core because you want it for it's on reason. Too hurt another and you enjoy it. It's the person who is evil.

You have to kinda be able to be a evil person too do good. Or else, you can't do anyone anything — Caleb Mercado

So you have defined what evil is. You're not really asking anyone else.

The evolution idea is interesting because young chimps petrol the boarder and if they see another chimp tribe and outnumber them, they kill them. It's like war, like we do. — Caleb Mercado

I'm hearing a lot of echos of Jordan Peterson around these parts.

someone asked me too define it, so i defined it.

Yes i have gained alot of knowledge from him. I'm not taking credit for these ideas. I mean you do get your knowledge somewhere, and i surely didn't think them up

No no. It's evil at it's core because you want it for it's on reason. Too hurt another and you enjoy it. It's the person who is evil. — Caleb Mercado

It's a definition, sure. But more like a journalist's (narrow) definition than a philosophical one. Are you saying evil can't happen if the protagonist is not enjoying it?

I think that great harm can be done in telling people that they are evil. I think that your quote on the shadow may be taken from Jung, you do not say.I am not sure that it is simply that evil needs to be defined, but more considered on a critical level. Part of the problem may be that some people may have sought to define evil, and in doing so have projected it onto others. It can be too easy to see the evil in Sadaam Hussein and the politicians etc.

When I say that harm can be done through telling people that they are evil, I am thinking of the way people have been labelled as sinners, and how many, especially Catholics and others brought up in certain religious backgrounds, have grown up with guilt complexes.The consideration of what is evil is extremely complex. However, if you are speaking about Jung's idea of the shadow, I think that this needs to be seen more about potential for destruction, towards self or others.

Yes it’s definitely about jungs idea.

No. It’s still evil but not at the same level.
I don’t think people will say that the holocaust wasn’t evil. And most people participated in it. And we are most likely as most people. Sometimes you can’t reduce things.

Your answer seems to be in response to mine, and I will say that I would certainly say that the holocaust was evil. Here, I am thinking that we are using the word evil, in its sense of the devastation caused, rather than in just the conventional moral sense, although they are interconnected.

If you are framing your thinking, in the context of Jung's view of the shadow, which is a very complex topic, he is suggesting that we need to work on ourselves in such a way that aspects of ourselves, which are conventionally viewed as evil, are integrated so that they are less toxic. An obvious example would be that we need to cope with feelings of anger in ways which are not harmful.

My top sentence was a response too you. The second one to someone else.

Yes agree with that. But i think we should also see how we too could be nazi guards (not necessarily racist)

Most people see themselves as good. This is just not the case. I think we are born with both potentials but tilt towards evil. Anything too add? — Caleb Mercado

Evil, in my opinion, requires an intention to hurt. The degree to which one produces suffering unintentionally, I call that ignorance.

I don't agree that most people are tilted towards evil, though maybe there is something to be said for most people doing harm as a result of their ignorance.

though maybe there is something to be said for most people doing harm as a result of their ignorance. — Tzeentch

On the same theme, there may also be something to be said for people doing bad things when they are damaged.

I'm morally continent. I'm not morally virtuous. I don't do right because it is good. I know the difference between right and wrong, and will generally choose to do right, and generally regret doing wrong, but circumstances dictate a great deal.

I'm not sure evil is a useful concept, but insofar as evil might be defined relative to the above, I think it requires malicious aforethought - that is, not merely knowingly doing wrong, but choosing to do wrong for the purpose of causing harm to others.

I agree with...



...above!

I also read and agree to a large extent, but would point to the fact that there is religion, politics, philosophy, law and economics, to morally regulate human behaviours. Sure, we may:

have the emotional drives of the chimp hitched to greatly enhanced intellectual power with which we carry out our red-hot urges with a vengeance. — Bitter Crank

..but would rather do so in a world where human behaviour is morally regulated. Hence the speculation that, people support law and order, not because they themselves need telling what to do, but as a control upon the behaviours of their fellow man.

Evil is antisocial, although not all antisocial behaviours are evil. Most evil people try to conceal evil deeds behind a facade of virtue. Which shows that they know what evil is. Evil deeds cause harm, not just knowingly or incidentally, but intentionally. People can be greedy, which is evil if it harms others, but unselfconsciously so; if they don't try to conceal their greed, they may not know it is evil (ignorance). Some people revel in evil and do not try to conceal it. They usually get locked up or put down.

I agree with Tzeentch that most people aren't "tilted" towards evil, but the right situations or circumstances can allow us to see sides of ourselves that we wouldn't normally see. People don't fully know themselves.

For instance, sure, there's you right now behind your computer screen, but there's also a version of you that's tired, hungry, and under a ton of stress.... and if you take those conditions over weeks or months it can reveal a side of you that you never knew you had. Institutions shape people.

Most people see themselves as good. This is just not the case. I think we are born with both potentials but tilt towards evil. Anything too add? — Caleb Mercado

I've always subscribed to the notion that there is an equal amount of good and bad in everything...including people.

Good makes bad, bad makes good. How can it be any other way?

I don't believe true evil is rare. It's just that we don't confess too it. Most people in nazi germany did terrible things. What makes us so different from them? They are also human. And i do believe what they did in nazi germany was evil. — Caleb Mercado

I think experience, awareness and circumstance are pretty much all that distinguishes us from people in Nazi Germany who did terrible things. I think we need to recognise our own capacity to head down that road alongside our capacity to ensure something like that never happens again.

But I don’t believe that labelling what they did ‘evil’ helps us in this. It only encourages us to disassociate ourselves from it. That is evil; I’m not evil; therefore I could never do that. Problem solved. This prevents us from recognising ourselves in people like Hitler, who would have genuinely felt that he was solving his country’s problems.

As for tilting towards evil, I do think our kind of ‘default’ - whenever we anticipate a lack of energy, time, resources, etc - is towards ignorance, isolation and exclusion. I think what we often refer to as ‘evil’ in human behaviour stems from this default.

Evil is a high bar. Some people surely reach that. Intention is important as others have mentioned. Perhaps something like "causally cruel" would be a more fair description. Then again, modern neoliberal society has induced people to believe that "this is just the way the world is", nothing can be done to change things.

But one could say with more confidence that our current market society is, at best, quite pathological what with endless consumption, pointless competition and survival of the fittest.

It's a hard problem.

You have to kinda be able to be a evil person too do good. Or else, you can't do anyone anything — Caleb Mercado

You seem to be starting from the position that a person has a "true self", a "core" and that this "core" is permanent, unchangeable, and knowable.

While such a position is convenient when it comes to judging and condemning people, it's also impossible to prove it.