Too facile, even equivocal. Nature causes nature itself (e.g. creatures, exploding stars, slipping tectonic plates, wildfires from lightening strikes, mass extinctions, etc) to suffer? :roll:First, evil is simply a cause of suffering. Hence, natural evil and moral evil. — TheMadFool
By gratuitous I mean 'easily preventable harm, yet allowed to happen to the victim due to callous disregard or enjoyment' — 180 Proof
"Relative to the perpetrator's value system"? You mean like "just following orders"? — 180 Proof
Think. Doing evil – producing corpses or dehumanized automatons/beasts – is not as subjective as that; the more unthinking, the easier it is to excuse and to do it. — 180 Proof
Nature causes nature itself (e.g. creatures, exploding stars, slipping tectonic plates, lightening strikes, mass extinctions, etc) to suffer? :roll: — 180 Proof
Too fascile, even equivocal. Nature causes nature itself (e.g. creatures, exploding stars, slipping tectonic plates, lightening strikes, mass extinctions, etc) to suffer? :roll: — 180 Proof
Yes.Is this gratuitous state necessary in order for something to be evil? — Jaymythos
The burden, then, is on him to show he had inescapable grounds for what he did and that it was not gratuitous.To the other, his act is evil, but to him he is doing the world good.
All I'm saying is subjective beliefs are insufficient to 'justify' causing gratuitous harm. Objectively 'producing corpses and/or unthinking automatons / beasts' requires extraordinary objective reasons to 'justify' – mitigate – the action as not evil (i.e. gratuitously harming or immiserating).I'm not quite sure what you're saying, would you elaborate on this?
I am replying to you because you enquired about the meaning of my battery running out in Wimbledon and also know that my mother is ill. Apart from being out in Wimbledon, as the womble of this site, and having to wait until I get home until I can charge up my phone, I think that my psychological batteries had probably run out too. — Jack Cummins
Human ideas of these concepts are restricted to understanding, but we can ask whether they have any basis in any aspects of principles beyond the realm of our own thinking. — Jack Cummins
If my thread discussion did appear a bit obscure it probably comes in the context of my mother being ill and awaiting tests, for which both I and her are fearful. I am struggling with how to help her cope with any bad news and that is what got me thinking about how we frame 'evil'. — Jack Cummins
I do believe that how we understand the forces of good and evil is not dependent on a religious perspective. — Jack Cummins
I think that independently of whether we believe in any underlying divine force, we are still left with the quandary of whether there are any inherent principles of good and evil in the universe, even though these ideas are inevitably related to how we perceive good and evil in our own lives. — Jack Cummins
The early realisation that negative events in my life - life in general - was not all about me, gave me a whole new perspective. 'Bad' things, as we know, happen to 'good' people and v.v.
But not all is what it seems.
There's a story out there - I think in taoism - which demonstrates this very well. — Amity
I definitely believe that we need to face up to evil within ourselves, — Jack Cummins
The early realisation that negative events in my life - life in general - was not all about me, gave me a whole new perspective. 'Bad' things, as we know, happen to 'good' people and v.v.
But not all is what it seems.
There's a story out there - I think in taoism - which demonstrates this very well.
Perhaps someone knows it and can share, I've forgotten — Amity
The story of the Taoist farmer I think you’re referring to is from the Huainanzi. — Possibility
The story of the Taoist farmer I think you’re referring to is from the Huainanzi. — Possibility
What 'evil' is within ourselves ? — Amity
I think that we have destructive tendencies, to self and others — Jack Cummins
Of course, some people may have bigger shadows than others, or more particular obstacles in their life journeys than others. — Jack Cummins
The phrase "axis of evil" was first used by U.S. President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, less than five months after the 9/11 attacks, and often repeated throughout his presidency, to describe foreign governments that, during his administration, allegedly sponsored terrorism and sought weapons of mass destruction. The notion of such an axis was used to pinpoint these common enemies of the United States and to rally the American populace in support of the War on Terror. The countries covered by the term were Iran, Former Ba'athist Iraq, and North Korea. In response, Iran formed a political alliance that it called the "Axis of Resistance" comprising Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. — Wiki - Axis of Evil
I believe that the thinking of blame and evil always represent our failure to understand the other’s motives from their pint of view, and never represent an accurate depiction of the other’s thinking. Blame and evil aren’t explanations , they are nothing but question marks nWby on earth did the other want to do something so terrible? Why didn’t they feel strong enough guilt at the prospect of performing those actions so as to prevent them from going through with it? I know that I have been tempted by such things but I was able to resist. This question mark of blame flies by many different labels and accusations. For instance, when we call the other lazy, inconsiderate , selfish, recalcitrant , immoral, criminal.
In sum, we blame the other for our failure to understand them. Perhaps this failure on our part is the true basis of ‘evil’ and all of the violence that emanates from it — Joshs
Probably, my own way of thinking about evil is based on atrocities, such as the way people were killed by Nazis in concentration camps or, the potential destruction of humanity through warfare or ecological devastation. For me, they seem to be the most extreme forms of evil possible. But, obviously, events in our own lives do matter and I think that these include loss of others through death, homelessness, severe injuries or blindness, but of course, we may see so many aspects of experience as devastating. — Jack Cummins
But, I definitely believe that we need to face up to evil within ourselves, rather than blaming others, as Joshs points out. But, I am not thinking as that involving beating oneself up over things because that most certainly doesn't help at all. I believe that the best ideal is to be able to process the 'evil' aspects of life, in order to become the most positive we can be for our wellbeing and others. — Jack Cummins
No wonder it didn't ring a bell. It's not one of the texts I'm familiar with. — Ying
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