Do Good & Evil exist outside of Human society?

Do Good & Evil exist

  • Yes

    Votes: 79 38.5%
  • No

    Votes: 122 59.5%
  • There is only Good

    Votes: 4 2.0%
  • There is only Evil

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    205

Ziljon

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I've been thinking about motives, about protagonists and antagonists, and about good and evil.

I'm confused. Are good and evil absolute or are they relative? And if they are relative, then how can they exist at all when the most common assumed definition for both of them entails being the opposite of the other?

Everything I come up with as an example of pure evil turns out not to be when attributed to nature (you try).

So what is evil? What is good? Do they exist outside of society, outside of consciousness?

Any thoughts?
 
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AMCrenshaw

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I've been thinking about motives, about protagonists and antagonists, and about good and evil.

I'm confused. Are good and evil absolute or are they relative? And if they are relative, then how can they exist at all when the most common assumed definition for both of them entails being the opposite of the other?

Everything I come up with as an example of pure evil turns out not to be when attributed to nature (you try).

So what is evil? What is good? Do they exist outside of society, outside of consciousness?

Any thoughts?

in short, no.

I was once asked what the absence of evil was. Like this. "What, then, you un-Christian ...what, then, is the absence of evil."

And, being so witty, I said: "The absence of good." Ha-HA! I still believe that to an extent.

I think that good/evil are silly, perhaps arbitrary abstractions. But I also think they can be useful in creating happy and/or peaceful living situations.

Relativism is easy. Nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. It means to some extent that anything goes (but some might say that there should be a recognition that anything goes for any-one). We create contexts/civilizations in our own heads: our own self-created contexts (none exist, really, but let's pretend) allow us never to be wrong. Whatever. Easy.

I believed in relativism for a while.

Then my queer mentor took me to Germany, to Berlin (see, he's a filmmaker) where hundreds of thousands of people were marched to their deaths, by nazis. Isn't what those people did evil? If so, were the people themselves evil? By God, they were Absolutely Evil, right? And perhaps in hell now?

But why? How?

This sort of absolutism is wishful thinking, and revealing of us. What does it say about we who wish for others eternal suffering? Hmm?


What else? There's more egocentrism: what benefits me, or pleasures me is good. What harms me, or causes me grief is evil.


What else? Simone Weil once said that goodness is in absorbing suffering, while evilness is in passing it on. I like that, but there's still this business of 'othering' that bugs me so.

What else? I think from the POV of, say, the universe, good and evil are human abstractions. If they exist, humans are made up of both. It might be that we can all find things we hate about ourselves. Things we'd call evil. And likewise, we still might defend our existence as if it is good! Is it more than self-preservation? Are we more than animals? More on that...

now: Well my take is that civilization (collective ID) deems what is to be done and what isn't. What isn't (violation of mores, norms; i.e., tabooooos) is other'd, is evil. A sociologist, historian, anthropologist, etc could tell you why this happens, or why what I've written is utterly wrong. Perhaps there are good reasons, for example, that Murder is widely known as ... ha ... taboo? Evil? Wrong?

We are, in part, animals. It could seem that our entire civilization is darwinian: we only use our reason to more effectively fulfill our desires. Will and power decide what is good and what is evil. But I don't personally believe that. My take is that there are elements of humanity (empathy, understanding, awareness, love) that make us capable of examining what brings the most happiness to the most people. But does that make these elements Good, really? No, I don't think so. Yet, "good or evil" does not dictate what I do. I personally (as an example) see suffering, feel it, and try to fill it. That is, as you might suggest, what I believe is human -- nothing good, bad, but human.




AMC
 
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Ziljon

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Thanks for your input, AMC. Not the answer I was hoping for, but a well thought out argument all the same. I think your one line below summed up my problem most eloquently.

I think from the POV of, say, the universe, good and evil are human abstractions.

In the mean time I've spoken with a friend in Hawaii, my "Sidartha," and he suprised me with an immediate answer: "Oh, evil doesn't exist at all. There is only Good. We're responsible for our own evil, we make our own hell."

That seemed so profound to me. But then I wondered (after we hung up) what he would say to the father of a daughter who'd been sexually abused or worse. Could that father be blamed for 'creating' his own hell? For creating evil?

Or would my friend have said that the act itself was not evil; that the girl was just the prey to a predator, same as a doe to a mountain lion?

I still don't know.
 

AMCrenshaw

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Could that father be blamed for 'creating' his own hell? For creating evil?

Well, not for creating it: but perhaps for re-creating it. Or prolonging it. Consider that we attach ourselves to people and to things. More so we attach to what we think-of as those things. The daughter is now the daughter+/-: something I've attached myself to is harmed, is different. Considering this, though, the hell is warranted, isn't it? The outrage that certainly ensues is a result of compassion (suffering with). The pain felt is the pain of the other. The outrage is to injustice. But, what is there to "profit", say, from dwelling on (or, more aptly, in) one's own hell? None.



AMC
 

Calla Lily

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:scared: Ziljon, only for a fellow survivor would I venture into a philosophical thread. I utterly and abysmally suck at philosophy.

And my answer is yes. Good and evil exist outside of human society. The spiritual realm also contains good and evil. I realize that I'm applying my human definitions to non-human acts, and that spirits and other entities probably have different measurements by which they define good and evil. However, I believe that certain acts and desires are inherently evil (vivisection, torture, child rape) and the humanity or non-humanity of the perp is irrelevant.

Now I'm going to scuttle back to the horror boards, where everything is less scary than philosophy.:e2seesaw:
 

Ageless Stranger

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In short, no. We create these terms to describe acts that cause our emotions to stir. If someone kills a child they're "evil" is usually the first cry, whereas if someone save a child from a burning building, this is considered a good act and the person will often be described as good. If we didn't exist, if we were not conscious, there would be no good or evil. But then again, I'm not sure anything exists outside of human society.
 

Ziljon

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THanks for takin gthe plunge, Lily.

...I believe that certain acts and desires are inherently evil (vivisection, torture, child rape) and the humanity or non-humanity of the perp is irrelevant.

But vivisection, torture and child rape all happen in nature, don't they? A sea otter tearing the head off a shrimp and slicing open the abdomen. Aligators eating their young. (I don't know about the rape.) But you see what I mean.

Maybe Good & Evil shouldn't be grouped together. Perhaps that causes all the confusion.

I can see doing something simply for the sake of doing good. Doing good is sometimes its own reward. But I can't say that for doing evil. When someone does something 'evil' it's always for some other purpose; to acquire something, to horde something.

It seems to me that there can't be any 'evil' doctrine because that would suggest the followers obey the rules of said doctrine, which would make them, in essence, 'good' evil doers if they obey, and not evil, if they disobeyed.

Isn't the concept of evil kind of like saying: "Everything I say is a lie." No matter which way you look at it there's a contradiction.

I'm still leaning toward my friend's answer. Everything is good. Evil doesn't exist except in our own minds, our own perspective.
 

HeronW

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Pure good like pure evil is poetry, it's a mental construction. No one is pure anything, since flaws and foibles exist. Volcanoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes are inanimate though the actions produced cause death and suffering. Animals stalk, hunt, cripple prey to teach offspring to hunt, lay eggs in prey to raise new generations of wasps or flies, but it isn't done with malice. Intent, emotions, and actions are judged to be good/evil by whatever societal mores exist at the time.
 

ColoradoGuy

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The problem of evil is, of course, an ancient theological question. I think evil-doing requires consciousness of self-awareness, something which, as far as we know, animals lack. So they're off the hook.

Ziljon, it seems to me your friend's idea of evil is close to those of Saint Augustine and George Fox. (I don't know the Eastern religious traditions well enough to comment on those.)
 

otterman

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If your definition of evil is the intentional harming of another for pleasure or to exercise power over them to satisfy an emotional need then, yes, it does exist outside of human society but on a very limited basis. Other primates (chimpanzees, for example) exhibit these characteristics. They are also capable of showing affection and caring--what can only be called goodness. I think for one to be evil or good, there must be the faculty for understanding what another feels--an ability to empathize--and that requires intelligence. That's probably why we see so few examples in nature; most animals don't appear to have the ability to emotionally put themselves in the place of others, even individuals of their own species. Sure, there's a lot of killing in the natural world and, although it seems cruel, it is only a manifestation of instinct, a natural act upon which survival depends.
 

AMCrenshaw

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Everything is good.

I can't agree. Have you read Candide? There's a satired quote that goes something like..."this is the best of all possible worlds." The problem with a statement like that is a temporal one. Only one present exists-- the past is perhaps now imaginary, the future the same; could be's, what if's, etc., are just imagined or real unfulfilled possibilities. That one present- and indeed one world- exists means that this world has no other to actually compare to. We can't call it Good or Evil- best or worst- it just is.

Some old aphorist (Lichtenburg, methinks) wrote that: God makes the animals; man makes himself. What does it mean?


If you believe in God, the whole business can get complicated. If God is good, is also His Creation? How could anything negate His will? So a shallow reading of that quote points to "man" being a god unto himself - and that's precisely what got the humans banished in the first place - but that it was God's own will that they become banished. They left and ignorant/blissful Paradise, will suffer for (however long) to presumably return to God after...realizing the Son, the Holy Spirit, the innate Goodness in the world, and the Father the innate- but superior?- Goodness of Heaven? Those who don't follow God's will are cast into the outer dark?

I don't know.

One of the interesting things about the question of evil is how often it relates to our sense of injustice, when something is taken away from one and given to another to whom it doesn't belong. Be it anything. These instances are usually all in the human realm.

But if you believe in God, you believe in his perfectly benevolent will -- "God will not cheat anyone", wrote Auden, "not even the world of its triumphs". Nearly all of nature (that which, you could say, carries out God's law?) is, then Good.

I think evil-doing requires consciousness of self-awareness

I agree. Genesis, at least (sorry to turn this toward theism; I hope that's OK), almost implies that self-awareness is sin itself.


AMC
 

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Define Good.

Define Evil.

Defining your terms needs to be your starting point before advancing to the question of the OP.

And since you'll probably never finish with this initial task of defining, you'll never get around to the target question.

[/devil's advocate]

[/yes, that mock close-tag was a smart-ass pun]



.
 

benbradley

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Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?


















The Shadow Knows!!!
< cue really, REALLY scary music >


Ahem...

And I suppose that (an introduction to an old radio drama) sums up how I feel about good and evil, and defines it for me. Both are in the "minds and hearts" of people, and do not exist (either as manifest, by "evil people" or as interpreted by other people judging them) outside of humanity.

So my answer to the question in the title is no.

About whether they are absolute or relative, I don't know. I'm not sure how to even apply these two words to good and evil.
 

Ruv Draba

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"Good" comes from a proto Indo-European base *ghedh- meaning "to unite, be associated, suitable".

We can all recognise many kinds of good because we have the same sorts of needs: food, shelter, health, clean water, safety, belonging, love, and opportunities to improve our condition...

As long as we understand customs, beliefs and methods, we are pretty adept at recognising when people are trying to do good for us -- we can learn to recognise what that looks like.

We also know what immediate bad looks like -- it looks like not having what we need. And we are very good at recognising when people are taking away what we need, or impeding our ability to get what we need. On this basis, if we understand how people think, we can recognise when they mean us harm.

The word 'evil' came from a proto Indo-European word *upelo-, meaning "uppity, overreaching bounds. It gradually took on a meaning of strong dislike or disparagement, and could mean bad, cruel, unskillful, defective, harm, crime, misfortune, disease. As you can see, it's a word laden with social and mythological meaning -- not just meaning associated with common human needs.

Because of its social and mythological dimensions this is not a word that will always translate well to different cultures -- and if it doesn't then I don't believe we can claim that its meaning 'exists' independently of human culture in the same way that the meaning of 'good' does.

I personally don't use the word in any serious fashion. I feel that the word carries overtones of ignorance, bigotry and malice. People can do good or bad -- can mean to do good or bad; but I don't believe that we can ever prove that they are or do 'evil', without buying into mythology.

(All etymologies are from www.etymonline.com)
 
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JJ Cooper

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Good and Evil can only be defined as per individual beliefs. A good deed in my eyes and terms may appear as an evil act for others because of our differing beliefs. Likewise, an evil deed as determined by you ((abortion as an example (I am not trying to guess your stance on this topic)), will be seen as an act of good for another individual.

Bottom line; good and evil exist. Relative definition depends on your own beliefs.

JJ
 

Don Allen

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There is only natural selection. No good or evil outside humanity. However I would contend there is fate, luck, and aberration, (if I spelled that right) (if it's spelled wrong, then I don't believe in it) anyway, fate=poor choices good choices. Luck= right place right time, wrong place wrong time. The thing I can't spell= Mental disease. ex. A lion that kills without purpose, eating.

FYI Spell check broke, dictionary lost.....
 

donroc

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Of course, we may call it evil when the cat deliberately poops on the bed because it is pissed that you went away for a few days and left it alone even with adequate water and food. :e2cat:
 

roncouch

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Good and evil are such broad terms, I'm unable to come up with an intelligent response to the question as it applies to humanity - much less outside our society. We should not judge non-humans according to our standards of right/wrong, good,evil, etc. When a female black widow spider kills her mate after sex, it's not evil...she just does it.
 

Ruv Draba

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Or theology, which are the same thing to many, although not to me.
Not the same thing, I'd say. Mythology is the stories that every culture and religion holds. It includes both secular and sectarian myths. Theology is our understanding of the world on the presumption or belief that some of those myths are truth. Theology is grounded in mythology, but is not the same thing.

There are people who believe in evil who don't believe in deities for instance -- I'd say that they're holding to myth without holding to theology; on the other hand I don't know any theologians who don't also appeal to myth -- they'd have nothing to talk about. :)

I realise that the word 'myth' can mean 'false story', but that's not its only meaning. I mean it in the sense of 'legend or lore' -- a story received by tradition and custom.

What gives 'evil' overtones of bigotry in my eyes is not that it's grounded against a particular myth, but that it asserts the supremacy of one culture's myth over another and thereby creates social divisions. `Evil' is meaningful within a shared mythology, but not outside it. It's really easy for people to agree on 'good' and 'bad' in an inclusive fashion. It's really hard (I'd say impossible) for them to agree on 'evil' in the same way. `Evil' is very simply `bad' that is also `taboo' due to certain myths.
 
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Noah Body

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I voted yes, though I do recognize that "evil" acts vary from one society to another. Good? The variance seems to be a bit less.
 

ColoradoGuy

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A bit of a side step, but here is a link to one of my favorite blogs written by some very smart people, most of whom are historians but one or two of whom are philosophers:

"I want to focus on the relationship between two questions: first, do moral properties– properties like rightness or goodness– fit into our best picture of the world, in particular with the picture drawn by the natural and social sciences? Second, how do moral judgments and concepts function? That is, what’s going on when we make judgments about, for example, an act’s being right or wrong?"