Evil

[Petra]

I'm taking a special-lecture class simply called "Evil" in the philosophy department this semester, and we've been discussing the definition of evil and whether or not it is possible for for an evil being to exist, and if so what the standards for evil are.

It's a really interesting topic, and I'm mid-paper at the moment trying to express a working defintion of evil. My philosophy skills are very, very rusty, but I thought I would put forth the same question to y'all that I'm working on and see what your opinions are.

The spectrum of evildoers is broad, ranging from the psychopath, to the thoroughly mean person, to the person in whom vices dominate, to the selectively demeted, to the average person in an unfortunate or atypical circumstances, and to the person who does evil to avoid or prevent a greater evil. Can a definition of evil be given that accomodates all such behaviour? Is there and consensus as to what unequivocal evil is?

I'll post my paper tonight when it's finished, but I'm really curious to see what comes out of this. (And, I'll admit, an underlying desire to see one of ye olde Pweb philosophical debates spring up, if we're lucky.)

[vendor]

I think the definition should be obvious. An evildoer is one who crosses the line of law, or ethics without remorse.

wait these are both defined by society... should evil be a constant or change with society?

[Petra]

Is an evildoer necessarily an evil person? Take into account the concept of "lesser evil," doing one small evil to prevent a greater one. There is no other option but the two evils presented. Sophie's choice, for example. In the concentration camps, Sophie is given two options: both her children will be sent to the gas chambers to be killed, or she can choose one that will live.

Either way, her decision will result in one or both of her children dying. She is committing evil, but she's not an evil person.

And really, your question towards evil is the one I'm interested in. It is rather obvious that a person who commits an evil action is an evildoer, but what constitutes evil? Is Sophie evil, even though she had no option but to let at least one child die? Are psychopaths to be held morally accountable if they are not capable of exercising their moral potential?

[Hegemon]

right now i won't delve into the greater issues of what constitutes evil, but i will state what i think about some of your specific questions.

Sophie is not evil. Nor is she doing an evil act. Someone else is doing the killing and she did not want it to happen. Furthermore, by her decision, she in fact saves a life. It sucks having to choose, but I believe she is in no way morally responsible for it, because she did not ask for this to happen and her choice saves the other child.

As for psychopaths... I dunno about moral accountability, but we put defective animals to sleep and I see no problem in doing the same to defective humans who then commit an atrocity...

[anonshadow]

I don't think that the evil person exists at all. There are horrific acts that people commit, some of which there can be no justification for and cannot in any way be considered necessary or understandable. There are terrible, horrific conditions that people are forced into (like the concentration camps) that reek of horror so much that yes, they were evil places to be.

The fact that some acts can be categorized as evil doesn't mean that people can be, and my reasons for thinking so are this:

To say that someone is evil--completely and utterly evil, without a shred of good inside--is to say that they have no responsibility for the acts they commit. Take the example of Sophie: she is not an evil person because she is forced into a horrific situation. She has no control over her surroundings.

An evil person would, in some ways, be very similar. He or she would have no responsibility and no accountability that could reasonably be expected of them, and, moreover, to say that someone is evil is to say that they cannot make the choice to be otherwise.

A person responsible for evil acts is a person who chose, on some level, to act in that capacity. No matter what extenuating circumstances were there, they could have chosen not to. If it is completely outside of their control, you cannot give them credit for things that they choose not to do, either.

And there are extenuating circumstances. There absolutely are. But even amid those extenuating circumstances, all people have that fundamental right to choose not to do something.

It follows, then, that a person is purely evil has no choice--and I don't believe that any person has absolutely no choice in the acts that they choose to commit.

To relate this to Sophie: while she is not in the camps by choice, there is still some level of choice that she retains in how she conducts herself. She can choose to save a child; there is absolutely no evil in that choice (because obviously the ability to choose usually doesn't fall upon evil/good lines of objectivity), but the choice is there. She can choose to kill, or not kill, another prisoner. She can choose to eat, or not eat (starve doesn't seem an appropriate term given the circumstances).

Even in that squalor, Sophie still has some choice in her actions.

[wigginboy]

Evil and Good are coexistant. There cannot be one without the other. There is Good, so there has to be something that upsets it, something that opposes it. (this harkens back to the Laws of motion, one of them [cant remember which] stating that every action has an equal and opposite reaction) Thus, evil is just a product of good and vice versa, they bring each other on and provide an equilibrium.

[hive_king]

What about Charles Manson? If he isn't evil, what do you consider him?

[Hegemon]

What about Charles Manson? If he isn't evil, what do you consider him?

A poor misguided soul who simply needs a hug.

[hive_king]

Why, of course. Hugs all the antidote to all "evil" people. Our forces in Afghanistan are really there to find bin Laden and give him a big fat democratic hug.

[anonshadow]

What about Charles Manson? If he isn't evil, what do you consider him?

A person who chose to do terrible things to innocent people.

[hive_king]

But he doesn't qualify as evil?

[anonshadow]

Did you read my original reply?

No, because I do not think that there is any such thing as an evil person.

[Petra]

I don't follow. If someone chose to commit an evil act, how does that make them less of an evil person that one who doesn't have any responsibility? And why your hypothetical "truly evil" people absolved of responsibility?

[suminonA]

Evil and Good are coexistant. There cannot be one without the other. There is Good, so there has to be something that upsets it, something that opposes it. (this harkens back to the Laws of motion, one of them [cant remember which] stating that every action has an equal and opposite reaction) Thus, evil is just a product of good and vice versa, they bring each other on and provide an equilibrium.

I agree that “good” and “evil” are inseparable. But that is just because of the way they are defined (each is the negative of the other). There is no “absolute evil” the same way there is no “absolute good”.
Each is defined by everybody, at an individual level and at a community level. (Related question: Does the “good for one (or few)” prevail over the “good for many”?)

The “equilibrium” that wigginboy talks about I can’t accept though. It’s one thing to say that defining (i.e. calling it that way by choice) an act as “evil” inevitably leads to the definition of “good” for the contrary acts. That I accept (it’s my thesis).
But that does not mean that for each evil act committed, there is a good one committed too. If we define killing a person as “evil”, then committing a murder doesn’t produce any “balancing good”.

Therefore I accept the parallel with the 3rd law of motion only when talking about defining the two concepts.

As for the example of Sophie, who is to say that it isn’t “better” to kill both of the prisoners? Maybe the “evil” in the pain of the one to remain alone is bigger than the “evil” in the immediate end of pain by death. The same goes for the medical cases where euthanasia is an option.

There are no absolutes in moral issues. Only people decide in each situation. Is it “evil” to consider women as inferior beings (as compared to men)? Give a time reference and you’ll have the answer.

A.

[anonshadow]

I don't follow. If someone chose to commit an evil act, how does that make them less of an evil person that one who doesn't have any responsibility? And why your hypothetical "truly evil" people absolved of responsibility?

I think the definition of an evil person is a person who is unable to do anything but an evil act; a person who cannot choose to do anything but horrific acts at every turn. An anti-angel of sorts.

And if the person has no choice in the matter, I don't think that you can classify them as evil at all. I think that to do good is a conscious choice, and that to do evil is as well. A person completely unable to choose between the two who can only identify as evil is like a rabid dog, or a small child, tenfold. The person simply cannot understand the consequences of his or her own actions, and I have a lot of trouble categorizing that person as responsible for his or her own actions.

Responsibility comes from choice. If you have no ability to choose, you are not responsible for your actions in any way, shape, or form.

Say my brother breaks curfew because he is physically restrained by friends (for whatever reason) and walks in two hours after he was supposed to.

Is he responsible for breaking curfew?

It isn't about being "less of an evil person." In a lot of ways, I think that a person who chooses to commit despicable acts when they can choose to do differently is worse than the hypothetical person who has absolutely no choice in the matter.

But to say that someone is a ____ person, you are saying that it is immutable. They cannot change that. To say that I am a brunette is to say that, no matter what color I dye my hair, I am a brunette and it is entirely out of my control. It is something that is me, period--I cannot choose to have a natural hair color that is not brown.

Evil doesn't work that way.

I think that to call someone an evil person is to eliminate the possibility of redemption or change.

[Petra]

Okay. Got it. When you said an evil person would have no choice but to commit evil, I thought you meant that was the only option available to them. What you mean is that they would have to be personally unable to choose other than evil.

I'm still essay-writing, but I'll post in a bit. It'll be up by 10:40, 'cause that's when it's due!

[mr_thebrain]

write about me. i'm evil

[Hegemon]

write about me. i'm evil

She said it is about evil, not being funny looking.

[mr_thebrain]

what can i say... the man is right

[Petra]

You two are both evil, darlings.



And now, my poorly-written paper! Please excuse the citations, sorry if you don't understand them.

When trying to define evil, differentiations have to be made between evil acts and evil characters. An evil act, as generally defined by the Miriam-Webster dictionary, is a morally wrong act that causes harm. A more Utilitarian definition that will serve as a premise for any further argument is that an evil act is a moral wrong that causes harm to society without any perceived benefit. While evil acts cause harm, they can be committed by someone who is not an evil character.

To instigate an evil act, one has to be a moral agent, i.e. has to be of a group that has standards for moral or immoral actions, and members of that group are capable of being held to those standards. While a human being can be held to a moral standard in regards to killing, hurricanes or bears can not. This means that the agent has to have the potential for moral reasoning, even if they are completely unable to access that potential. Animals, inanimate objects and even young children do no have the capacity for moral comprehension, and therefore are not under moral jurisdiction in regards to accountability. Greenspan reflects on a similar concept of emotional sanctions, introduced by Wallace, as “unfair in cases where an agent lacks the motivational resources that would give him the opportunity to avoid the sanction” (Greenspan). Objects or creatures that are incapable of avoiding moral sanction can not be held morally accountable for harms that result from their actions. However, it must also be stated that human beings who are powerless to exercise their moral potential are likewise exempt from emotional sanction.

In order to hold a person morally accountable, it is necessary that the person have some level of moral comprehension. Those who completely lack internal moral regulation of their actions can not be held morally accountable for said actions, because the standards that society holds them to do not have any sway in their personal motivations. This does not apply specifically to evil acts, but to moral accountability in general. Oshana addresses this in her case of the Moral Idiot, whose actions may on occasion be evil, but who “could not recognize a moral argument if it hit him in the face” (Oshana). Moral Idiots fall into the same accountability-exempt category as young children and animals, and can include psychopaths who exercise impaired rationality due to abuse or mental handicap. While these people can still be held responsible for their actions, in that an action was committed which resulted in harm, they can not be held morally accountable for an action in which morals were absolutely no motivation.

When evil as a character trait comes into question is when a person has some grasp of moral structure and violates it anyway to cause harm. A basic foundation for an evil person is choice; the person in question has to have been offered at least one option that is not evil and then, through motivations of her own, chosen the evil. This does not, however, establish the person as inherently evil. In order to be assigned the character trait of “evil,” the choice to act evilly would have to be made on a number of different occasions.

An example of such is Millgram’s shock experiments in 1963, where the experiment subject was assigned the job of administering shocks of between 15 and 450 volts to a person in an attempt to help them learn certain material. 65 percent of the participants in this experiment were willing to administer the maximum possible shock, labeled “XXX.” These people, however, were not definitively evil. While they committed an evil act in a specific situation, there is no evidence that in the future they would have come to the same decision. As Harman writes concerning social psychology, “There is no evidence that people differ in character traits. They differ in their situations and in their perceptions of their situations.” Therefore, evil as a character trait can only be determined by knowing every choice that was, or could possibly have been, offered in a person’s lifetime, and every potential corresponding action.

Even if it is possible to establish consistently evil behaviour through all possible situations, it still does not necessarily prove evil as a character trait. There are times where, while a decision between committing and not committing an evil action is available, inaction will still indirectly result in evil being committed in the world. Hill defines this as the potential to commit lesser evil. Rather than allow another person to commit a great evil, the choice is available to commit a lesser evil and lighten the burden of harms on society. One commonly-used example of the choice of lesser evil is the white man who chooses to whip his friend, a black slave, knowing that his whipping will be less cruel than the alternative.

In this case, the evil act is actually the choice that offers the least harm to humanity. If it were to follow that one who regularly commits evil acts is an evil person, then that would also condemn anyone who regularly commits the lesser evil to protect from worse harms. As Hill explains, “If the amount of harm done varies with the seriousness of the offense, then doing the lesser evil will also reduce the amount of harm done” (Hill). Therefore, the lesser evil constitutes evil action without an evil character, because the goal of lesser evil is to minimize harm.

To combine these arguments, it is obvious that evil actions do exist in the world, but evil characters are only hypothetically possible at best. In the case of an evil person existing, it would be necessary to prove that the person was in control of her moral facilities, that she had the option of evil and non-evil action and chose evil, and that she would consistently choose evil on a regular basis in an attempt to harm society without external benefit. Otherwise, people who occasionally commit evil due to vice or meanness, or for their personal benefit, are not evil characters but simply evildoers.

[Jayelle]

I've seen that video with Millgram’s shock experiments - it's downright scary.


Paul took a class on evil a few years ago with a very funny prof. His famous quote was that ultimate evil was a blob called puffy.
Let me explain... you see someone like Hitler is often the posterchild for evil, but if you break it down you see that he had ambition, leadership skills, etc. which in and of themselves aren't evil.
Ultimate evil has nothing unless an action is taken upon it. It is a blob. Just sitting there.
Puffy, the ultimate evil!

[anonshadow]

When trying to define evil, differentiations have to be made between evil acts and evil characters. An evil act, as generally defined by the Miriam-Webster dictionary, is a morally wrong act that causes harm. A more Utilitarian definition that will serve as a premise for any further argument is that an evil act is a moral wrong that causes harm to society without any perceived benefit. While evil acts cause harm, they can be committed by someone who is not an evil character.

I absolutely agree, but I think that this opens up a new vein of the discussion.

When we cannot consciously percieve of any good an act does, and it does do harm, how much does our perception at the time matter if, in the long run, the act does more good than harm?

It's the old ends vs. means argument. Can the ends be justified, even if the means are not immediately apparent? And does intent factor into whether an act is evil at all?

Does an evil act require ill-intent or malice?

I would like to say that it does, but when I try to, I am forced to think of terrible things done by people who had no real reason to do so--people who kill not to be cruel, but because it simply made their lives easier. And I think that there is no reason why those acts cannot be as cruel as acts done out of malice or sadism.

[hive_king]

Petra, I disagree with your definition of an evil act being " moral wrong that causes harm to society without any perceived benefit."

Imagine if I were to go on a rampage and kill every homeless person in town. This would definately have many benifits to the town. There would be less beggery, less thievery, crime would go down, the streets would be safer and cleaner, society wouldn't have to worry about housing and caring for the homeless. Society would have many benefits from my hobo homicide. However, we can all agree that would be a greatly evil act.

Another example is Johnathan Swift's essay "A Modest Proposal" where he satirically suggests that the best way to deal with the problem of the Irish Poor's children is to eat them. This, he explains, has many benefits to society. It cuts down on the population, it produces money for the parents, the children can be hunted for sport or used to make leather, the meat can be a delicacy, and it would even improve how men treat their wives. Yet, we can all probably agree that Swift's proposal would be amazingly evil. In other words, I believe your definition needs revising.

[Hegemon]

I think that when you look at her definition, the harm to society can be a harm to the fabric of morality.

Killing off the homeless might seem okay from a numerical perspective, but it also leads to society lessening the perceived value of human life. If it is shown that the lives of a whole group are not valuable, then it opens the door to other groups being targeted in a similar manner. That is what causes the harm.

[hive_king]

I'm not saying that the act wouldn't hurt society. But she said evil is a, "wrong that causes harm to society without any perceived benefit." I am saying that while the act would be evil and would undoubtably cause harm to society, the act has many perceived benefits.

[Eaquae Legit]

Soylent Green is made of people!

[Hegemon]

In that case, I am inclined to think that the definition would be fine if you got rid of the word "perceived"

[hive_king]

I fail to understand how "percieved" changed the meaning of it. It seems to me, that as long as there is any benefit, the act is not evil under her and your definition.

[Hegemon]

When I think about benefit, I tend to think about the net benefit from an act. So if the harm caused is greater than the benefit obtained, then there is no benefit.

I figure that technically any act has a benefit, as long as the actor enjoys doing it. So it makes more sense to look at it from a netted perspective.

[hive_king]

That radically changes the definition.

May I ask how one is to measure the benifit to society? And to whose society. Your definition radically opens up the definition of society, especially since many evils were commited on other societies? Was Hiroshima an evil act? Was Dresden?