I don't mean to say the world is black and white, and that there is a clear cut definition of EVERYTHING that is good or bad in the world, but I do believe that to destroy someone, even in the path of survival, is wrong. At least for adults, there are ALWAYS other options, even if they're not always obvious or easy to accomplish. The British and Spanish, to guarantee the survival and prominence of their own country, destroyed entire cultures and civilizations, as did the Romans and US Americans. Even before Hitler planned his genocide, his intent was to bring his country back to its feet in the wake of its debt from the previous Great War, and he succeeded! Many of his own people thrived because of his decisions, but what he had to destroy in the process was unforgivable. His actions are clearly evil, even though original his intentions were to save his people from insurmountable destitution. On another note, humans partake in the mass murder of animals to survive on a daily basis, yet we don't compare it to the Holocaust, just because we see ourselves as superior to animals and they don't share the same level of "intelligence" as we do. But as a whole, that is not considered evil. Animals are exposed to just as much torture and suffering before going to slaughter, but people continue to consume without blinking an eye, myself included. I have no illusions of myself either, but I know what my standards are. Tell me this, if you have children and in order to keep them alive, you had to take someone else's life, would you? If they also had children of their own to support, would you? I couldn't, and I don't think good intent changes the evil in the act. I would find another way to support my children, even if I had to scrape along by tooth and nail to support them, so long as I didn't do so at the expense of another. If I'm not able to support them, I would find someone who could provide the love and care they need. Like I said, I'm mostly talking about the resulting generosity by people and other countries. Why can't acts of kindness, like helping provide for thousands of dislocated families, have as much, if not more, impact than a terrorist attack? I don't like using the same example multiple times, but when people talk about the Holocaust, the focus is never on the people that were SAVED from those horrifying concentration camps, but rather the many that were killed IN them. Even in the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. emphasizes the genocide, rather than the efforts of allied forces in saving those that remained.
I don't disagree with any of this. If the question you're asking is 'If someone had a gun to your kids head, would you kill them?' The answer is unhesitatingly, unequivocally - Yes. If I could, I would. If I couldn't, I'd try like hell to get them to kill me instead. That's the only way I can interpret this question because that's the only way I can see me having to take someone else's life. If the question is interpreted as I interpreted it above - yes. This is where my initial confusion with your questioning lies. If the question is 'Would you kill someone to provide for your kids?' then the answer is no. However, if we're talking about some post-apocalyptic world and the only food in the foreseeable world is being protected by this one person and if I try to get any he's going to kill me? Then yes. But in the world as it is now, with no guns to mine or my kids heads, would I kill someone? No. I would not. I would go hunting for food (which I have had to do before, by the way), but I am lucky enough to be skilled at that. I suppose I'm confused as to how you think it doesn't? They didn't deserve what happened to them and it's important that the world remembers. Those that helped to stop it are the reason those monuments, museums, and national days are able to be created.
The impact of an action is independent from any alignment. Good and evil are merely the perceptions of an observer observing the action based on the experiences that the observer has encountered. Actions and their impact are nothing more than a disturbance and its ripples, regardless of how large the ripples are. These ripples are then labeled as good, evil, or whatever else depending on how they affect the observer. A favorable outcome is naturally seen as good, while an unfavorable outcome may be seen as evil or bad. That is why a single occurrence can be seen as both good and evil depending on which side the observer belongs. As for why one alignment seem more prevalent than the other depends on a number of things, but it is still mainly perception. It would seem like the world is a terrible place if you have experienced nothing but misfortune growing up, or if the only things being shown to you are the bad things that are happening around you, then you may start to develop a cynical view on the world, turning even good things into bad ones out of suspicion. For example, when I turn on the news or scroll through online media, most of what I see being reported on are all negative things. Shootout here, bomb there, racism this, social injustice that, and so on. I actually have to go out of my way to look for the good stuff, like scientific discoveries and breakthroughs that could benefit people's lives. This tend to mislead people into thinking only bad things are happening in the world. However, that does not mean that the good things are not happening just as often everywhere. You just have less exposure to those things. It also does not help that many people just take small acts of kindness for granted, and freak out when things do not go their way. Which leads me to why some may believe evil to be more impactful. I think the impact of an action affects everyone in the same way, but like an earthquake, your proximity to the impact and your composition as a person (and I do not mean the physical parts) will determine how you respond to the impact. For example, a detached person may not respond as dramatically to the death of a close family member as a compassionate friend that visits every other weekend. However, bad things usually trigger a fundamental instinct in people. When bad things happen, people are usually more aware and alert to it because they do not want to lose, and they do not want to be hurt. The fear leaves an inerasable impression on the person, even if they try to suppress it or ignore it. For example, kids will never listen to you about not touching the stove while it is hot until they do it and burn themselves, and then they will learn to be wary of it forever, even as adults. It is also because of fear that people will quickly turn on you after just one act of wickedness despite thousands of acts of kindness. They now know that you are capable of hurting them, and they do not want to lose anything, including the things you have given them. People's tendency to gravitate toward selfishness only exacerbates the fear, but ultimately, bad things only seem to weigh more because fear is truly hard to overcome.
So, you're saying that if we changed how we react to things, putting more emphasis on the good than the evil, then we can actually make good things have more of an impact on us?
I won't claim that "evil" is some sort of incorporeal force that drives people to commit atrocities, nor will I say "good" is the opposite. As has been said, there are often grey areas, and I can't sit here and say that there aren't different motivations and perspectives on the matter, however, there are select actions that are undeniably good, and undeniably evil. A mother using her body to shield her child against a collapsing building is something that is undeniably good. A gunman opening fire in an elementary school and killing children is undeniably evil. Performing a benevolent act for another person(s) at the expense of yourself is inherently good. Performing a heinous act for yourself at the expense of another person(s) is inherently evil. The underlying circumstances can blur the lines, but the lines are still there, and the severity of the act is still the same. Good and evil are adjectives, but they bear weight. I have had plenty of good memories in my life, and while I still feel the majority of it has been bad, I know that my life hasn't been nothing but misfortune. Even then, I'm cynical, but my cynicism isn't without good reason. As terrible as it is to think about, just the fact that the mass media KNOWS that reporting terrorism, hardship, and misfortune is a bigger moneymaker is proof enough that those things have a greater impact. I don't LIKE it that way, but I can't deny what I see with my own two eyes. I believe, to some degree, that the evil having more impact would make sense: Survival depends on knowing what bad things might happen around us. Humans are weak creatures who cling onto their illusions of strength. Not only is fear necessary to survive, it is also a very introspective state of mind. We don't generally question ourselves when we are happy or angry. When we are afraid, however, we feel weak, and because we don't want to appear weak, we hide our fears until they are drug into the open. I believe that is why evil has prevalence, because it instills fear, and drags it into the open. Evil makes us question not only the people around us, but ourselves as well. Evil drives us to be better or worse, by forcing us to either face ourselves or wallow in misery. Scary stuff.
In a way, yes. How you choose to see the world will be how it reflects upon your eyes. However, you can only change yourself, and the way that you to react to things will be reflected by that change. You cannot just decide how you want to react to things on a whim, focusing only on the good while ignoring the bad. At some point, you would only end up deluding yourself and getting hurt unnecessarily. You would not walk down a dangerous alley with all your valuables out thinking what a quiet and peaceful alley it is while barely considering the fact that you would mostly likely get mugged. The idea is to be adaptive and accept things as they are without getting so caught up in what is good and what is bad. Good things are not always good, and bad things are not always bad. A storm finally provides relief from a long drought, but the heavy rain causes a mudslide that destroys hundreds of homes and dozens of lives. A natural forest fires devastate the forest, but it is actually paving way for new life to sprout. It is also not about trying to emphasize one while deemphasizing the other because it is hard not to be happy when things go well for you and feel fear when things are not. It is more important to not let the fear paralyze you when bad things do happen and prevent you from seeing what you can gain from the experiences. Of course, it is easier said then done since changing yourself is already hard enough, let alone overcome something as deep rooted as fear. I feel like I am forgetting something important, though.... This is what happens when you try to talk philosophy without enough sleep.
Reading back, my question was way too ambiguous. My apologies.... =( I meant to ask something along the lines of this: "You have children, and, in order to keep them alive, your last (apparent) available option is to steal. If someone was between you and your goal, would you kill them to get to it, for the sake of your children?" Now that I've revised my question, I'll ask this again: If they also had children of their own to support, would you? I don't disagree with this, but I do feel that there is more emphasis on the suffering and torture they endured than in the act of the rescuing and rehabilitation of the survivors.
Maybe it is undeniable to you and people who share the same beliefs, but what about the opposite side? That gunman. Society may view him as evil, but what if he also views society as evil for driving him to that point? So which side is actually evil, and which is just? Perhaps both applies to both sides. Just because the gunman is alone in his belief does not immediately make him wrong. The truth is not determined by the bigger side; else the universe would have spontaneously slowed down in the 90s where everyone still believed gravity was slowing down the universe's expansion. Performing a benevolent act for another person(s) at the expense of yourself is inherently good, while performing a heinous act for yourself at the expense of another person(s) is inherently evil. If performing an act at the expense of another person is inherently evil, then that means that when you are performing an act for another at the expense of yourself, you are actually doing evil to yourself because you are the one being expensed. Unless for some reason you do not consider yourself a person or this only applies selectively. How can one be inherently good and one inherently evil when on one side, you do good to others while doing evil to yourself, and on the other, you do good to yourself while dong evil to others? In both examples, one good action and one evil action are being carried out simultaneously. These two examples perfectly demonstrate the dualistic nature of the world where every action has two contradicting sides, and the only difference is which side you choose to condemn for the sake of your own beliefs and sense of justice. I do not deny that people are more heavily impacted by bad things, but that is not because one side intrinsically carries more weight than the other. It is how we view loss and change that results in fear, which in turn causes us to buckle more easily to one side than the other. (Weak in the knees? lol) If we can change our way of thinking and learn that we can pick things up and let it go, that nothing lasts forever, and that change is inevitable, then the fear will naturally disappear. Easier said than done, though, so good luck with that. I should really stop talking philosophy and get some sleep.
There is no such thing as ‘good’ and ‘evil’. Actions can be described as ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’. The determination is made according to the intent of the person who carried out the action. People interpret other people’s intentions differently, which is why there is no objective basis to morality. As to the question originally asked, it is impossible to answer because all actions do not have equal impact on all people. Stealing a chocolate bar might be considered immoral, but the same person could then give his shoes to a homeless person. Does the moral act outweigh the immoral? Maybe. Conversely, somebody could buy the chocolate bar and give it to the homeless person, but then go and kill a dog. Does the immoral act outweigh the moral? Again, maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. Asking whether good outweighs evil is a gross oversimplification of the complexities of intention, action, outcome, perception and subjective moral values.
Man, this has apparently derailed from the impact of good and evil, to whether or not good or evil even exist, so I'm just going to lay down my last two cents and scoop up my cards. It seems this subject is too heavy to stay a simple discussion. How annoying. So, what you seem to be telling me is, as long as someone believes they're not evil, they're not evil, because perspective changes everything. I could go buy puppy from a store, throw it into the middle of a busy street, and as long as I believed that that puppy was evil and wronged me in some way, the act is not evil by any means. That's just absurd, I'm sorry. There are certain things that cannot be written off just because the person at fault doesn't believe they're wrong. The life of another being is not something to be held lightly. Someone who tries to pass off their evil intent and actions as the fault of the society around them is irresponsible. Instead of taking control and finding a solution to their problems, they chose to destroy someone's life. It's an excuse, and a very, very poor one at that. Belief isn't a free pass for irresponsibility, or else the world would fall to anarchy. It seems you might have misread what I wrote there. Expense =/= Evil Heinous Act + Expense of others = Evil Expense =/= Good Benevolent Act + Expense of Self = Good If you view self-sacrifice in the assistance of another as evil, good on you, but I heartily disagree. What I stated wasn't contradictory in the slightest. If overcoming fear was easy, than the result would have little to no value. Fear is a part of us, it is one of the many aspects that define us as living creatures. Fear may protect the lioness from a buffalo's horns, but that same fear will prevent her from feeding her pride. Fear may keep a buffalo from drowning in the watering hole, but it will also turn the buffalo into the lioness' next meal if he doesn't take a chance and enter it. By gaining the strength to move past our fears, we risk losing the natural defense our fear provides. That's why a true fear is never easy to overcome. I strongly believe that fear is our most important feeling, it guides our actions, helps us find our place in the world, and gives us opportunities to grow into our potential. Actions can be described as anything we want, but that doesn't change what they fundamentally are. I chose the words "good" and "evil" to symbolize two very real extremes, which I described above. Intention does not equate to action, nor are they mutually exclusive. If I'm on a diet, I can have every intention not to eat a hamburger, but may still choose to eat it. If, after I eat it, I suddenly claim "Oh, well, I didnt' MEAN to eat the hamburger.", that doesn't change the fact that I ate it, nor does it make the act of eating the hamburger, when I'm supposed to be on a diet, have any less of an impact. It is the same with good and evil. Using an example from above, if for some reason I didn't intend to kill the puppy by throwing it in the middle of the road, but still choose to do so, the intent doesn't change the severity of the act. That puppy still died. I still did something heartless and cruel, something "evil", despite my best "intentions". Of course all actions do not have equal impact on everyone. I could get a high score in an arcade game, the stranger next to me who had the original high score could get angry, a new player could be amazed with me, or a professional gamer might just roll his eyes. I'm not talking about HOW good and evil affect people. I'm asking to WHAT EXTENT they affect people, regardless of the type of response. How severe was the impact, how many people did it affect, and will it leave a lasting impression? In terms of the homeless man and the dog, my question's not about whether the dog dying is more important than the man getting his candy, it's about how severe an impact each action would have on the people who observe them. I don't see how I oversimplified anything. My usage of good and evil clearly referred to very real extremes, and I've defined those terms thoroughly, as I see them, multiple times now. Oversimplifying, or generalizing would look something like, "All negative actions are evil, all positive actions are good." Besides, I had even given the poll 4 answers; Good, Evil, Neither, or Undecided. There's some wiggle room for you if you don't feel thay one has more impact over the other. In any case, I can see this has already turned into a debate, and I don't feel the need to defend every point I make. It wasn't my intention to change anyone's mind, nor have mine changed. I just came here to see what people thought on the matter, and present my own views, and come to an understanding. Getting insight into other's opinions on important topics is a hobby to me, not debating those opinions.
Goodness for me has always been about self sacrifice. A good man goes to a shitty job day after day to provide for his family. A woman risks her health to bring her baby into the world. A person risks their reputation to stand by a friend in need. Etc. You're being loyal, steadfast, longsuffering, courageous and these people don't get promotion. Evil is about putting yourself first -- always, and usually at the expense of other people. I think this is why people are reluctant to call things evil because we can easily engage in this activity ourselves. Does it have more impact? -- no -- it's just more widespread. Also goodness can be taken for granted or easily sneered. People are reluctant to call something good out of guilt and downplay the bad.
I don't think it's unreasonable to discuss the concepts being talked about. We're not talking about the impact of something concrete. 'Good' and 'evil' are abstract concepts. So it's reasonable to expect discussion about what you mean when you pose a question about them. So what are they, fundamentally? Killing a puppy is immoral to some, but not to others. In some countries, dogs are farmed and killed for food. In those countries, killing dogs is not considered to be immoral. This demonstrates that there is no objective morality. An action can be considered moral or immoral. You cannot state that an action is definitively moral or immoral. It's about how it was intended, and how it is perceived. Claiming you didn't mean to eat it is not the same is not intending to at the time. If you knowingly put the food in your mouth and ate it, then your intention at the time was clearly to eat it. Some people have a condition where they sleepwalk and eat in their sleep. They are not intentionally eating. They could therefore justifiably say that any negative impact on their health is not within their control. Intention and claim to intention are not the same thing. Doesn't it? What if you threw the puppy to try to get it out of the path of an oncoming truck, but didn't have time to realise that there was a car coming the other direction. Your intention was to save it, but you ended up carrying out an action which resulted in its death. Does this mean you behaved immorally? Or that you are evil? No, of course not. Your intention was moral, even if the result was not a positive one. That's oversimplifying it though. The same action might have the same effect but of a different magnitude on different people, but might have a completely different effect on a different person. Somebody might see footage of a dog farm and be utterly revulsed by it. Someone else might think it's sad, but understand why it's happening. And another, perhaps from a country where dog meat is eaten routinely, might feel nothing at all. Same action, different reaction. And different moral judgements. Again, it depends on the intentions of the person carrying out the action and the perceptions thereof by observers. Sorry, but this is a discussion forum. If something is posted that I'm interest in, I'm going to respond in a discursive fashion. I'm not just going to tick the box on a poll and offer no comment. I don't know how else we can "come to an understanding" without discussing it - unless you mean that you want people to agree with you. Which, respectfully, I don't.
Absurd you say? How many people cry over every ant they have stepped on or every fly they have swatted? What about all the bugs that have been killed by pesticides and other chemicals? What about the life of livestock that have been slaughtered? Who is crying about the life plants being destroyed and consumed? How about the life of bacteria and fungus? You believe killing a puppy is evil, but what about ending the lives of countless organism in the world every second of every day? Are they not life? Why are people able to slaughter these lives without batting an eye, but as soon as one puppy or classroom of children gets killed, it is suddenly considered evil? The answer is quite simple if you think about it. These lifeforms are tiny and insignificant compared to your own, so why should you bother to care how many you destroy? If belief is not a free pass at responsibility, then everyone is a murder and deserve to be tried as such. What makes killing a puppy evil but not an insect is merely the perception that puppies have a greater importance. Your children, loved ones, or even pets are more important than the insects you crush beneath your feet every day only because you believe it to be so. Is not that the case? Because on the grand scale of the cosmos, everyone's lives is the same as an insect. Insects fighting over whose lives matter more--now that is absurd. We might be slightly off the rail from the impact of good and evil, but we are not far off. It is all related because to understand why one or the other may impact us more, we have to examine our view of good and evil. Well now you have another fundamental problem because you have already labeled an act as good or evil even before any expensing occurs. This means that cost has no bearing on the outcome, especially since you have already said that the act of expensing itself has no alignment. In the end, your statements simplifies to, "evil acts are evil," and "good acts are good," which is not saying anything at all. Heinous means evil and benevolent means good, after all. This still does not change anything, though. In both statements, one side still has to experience evil in order for the other to experience good. As said you above, belief is not a pass. That means that even if you do not believe that hurting yourself is a bad thing, it is still a bad thing because you also have a responsibility to yourself.
There is no such thing as good or evil, merely perspectives and ideologies, some less fact based than others of course. However, if I was to say which had a greater impact than the other, I would say "evil". Growing a plant takes many years, plenty of water and sunlight. Destroying it takes two seconds and axe.
Started to really dig into this reason, and realized I kept skipping over why we have good and evil topics, and tried to figure out what defined them. I think we use good and evil as writers to influence society on how we think the world should be. If you don't like a certain aspect, make it evil. If you do like it, make it good. It's a sort of manipulation where we're using story to try and push a personal opinion. Or maybe it's an opinion we reluctantly include in our story to conform to society's expectation, so they'll like it.
I'm seeing a lot of what essentially boils down to "one man's evil is another man's good." Imagine mankind evolved into a benevolent race that could sustain itself without killing plants, animals, or any other life, directly or indirectly and could protect all life and its environments from any sort of disaster, like drought, disease, or even a comet. Wouldn't that be objectively good, so long as we define good as anything that benefits survival? In that case, actions that take us closer to that are objectively good actions.
Humans are animals. We have to consume other living things in order to survive. I don't consider this a moral issue. If we didn't do it, we would die. One could argue that the killing of other animals is immoral, as it is unnecessary for human survival. It's true the humans are able to survive as herbivores. However, my opinion is that there is a reason humans (and our ancestors) evolved the instinct to kill and eat. Carnivorous and omnivorous animals are best nourished by protein from other animals. If they weren't, they would be herbivores. We certainly don't begrudge lions or wolves the animals they kill for food, so why should humans be any different? If anything, we are in a position to make the killing of animals less unpleasant than in the case of wild animals, which are often chased down and savaged, or even eaten alive. I don't want to turn this into a debate about eating meat. My point is that different people will have different views on whether eating meat (or even plants, such as in the case of some fruitarians) is moral, so it cannot be stated that it is objectively immoral (or moral). It is a matter of opinion. Now, as to your hypothetical scenario. The only way I can see that humans would be able to survive without killing and consuming anything would be that we either evolved the ability to photosynthesise, or that we entered into a symbiotic relationship with a microorganism which delivered human-compatible nutrients in exchange for occupation of our gut*. The case of the former is still problematic if you are positing that humans will have no negative impact whatsoever on other life forms, as even photosynthesis would require us to absorb minerals from the environment, which would deprive other life forms of those minerals. A symbiotic relationship might be less damaging, as we could essentially live on the waste product of another life form. In such a scenario, I would agree that having the ability to live without damaging any living thing, and yet choosing to do so, could potentially be considered immoral depending on the situation which caused the harm. At the end of the day, every life form exists at the expense of another life form. From the top level predators which kill and consume other animals, to herbivores which destroy plant life, to microorganisms which colonise and degrade living tissue, everything lives because something else dies. This is just the reality of life on Earth. * Another possibility is that we get to the point where we no longer have biological bodies, but that's another discussion entirely.
I really don't think we can state that all morality is relative. Across human culture there are definitely certain things that have repeatedly seen as bad and as good. For the most part, murdering anyone in your clan was a bad thing, as was theft, dishonesty and disrespecting your parents and elders whereas altruistic acts are considered good. I'm not saying there isn't any room for for morals to roam some, but there are definitely patterns that arise cross culturally.
Probably been said already, but there is no such thing as 'good' or 'evil'. Society labels people or certain acts as one of these things, but essentially we all have the capacity of doing such acts that fall under one of those categories. There is an excellent ted talk on this by Philip Zimbardo, who looks into what makes some people 'evil' and what makes some others a 'hero'. As for which of the two has a more significant effect on us internally, I would say from my experience and what I've learned from others, it would be the predominance of 'evil' or pain/struggle. It of course vary's from person to person, but more often than not, I hear of a tragic event in somebody's life changing their thought process or belief system, as opposed to the 20 something year old who's adamant that they've 'found themselves' after spending a year in Thailand cleaning off the faeces of an elephants backside. Again, this is mere speculation and I've not looked into a single research journal on this topic.
I don't know whether I agree or disagree with this. I'm still thinking it through. How about a thought experiment? Imagine if nobody had any understanding of what was considered 'right' or 'wrong', and furthermore had no ability to evaluate the impact of their actions on others (i.e. nobody had empathy). Now, if somebody carried out an unnecessary action which had a negative outcome for another person, could that person truly be considered to have behaved immorally? If that person had no understanding that the 'victim' would suffer as a result? If this act can be considered to be immoral, then this would imply that actions have an external, objective morality regardless of the actor's awareness of their actions. If, however, this action cannot be considered immoral, then this suggests that morality is purely a human construct which we use to categorise behaviour. I agree. What I'm not sure about is whether this means that those things are objectively moral or immoral. As a social species which forms groups, we agree to shared morals by necessity. If there was no shared moral perspective, the social structure would break down. Morality is, after all, a trait which evolved to regulate the actions of members of the group. But the fact that some actions are given different moral values between cultures implies that these actions in fact do not have objective morality; they just seem to because the people around us tend to agree with our view on what is moral and what is immoral. Consider issues such as age of consent, cannibalism, eating particular animals, arranged marriage, and many more. These are things which are considered moral in some social groups, and immoral in others. Who gets to decide whether they are 'really' moral or immoral? I would argue that nobody does, because it's up to individual groups to agree between them. And even within those groups, those views will change over time.
