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What, exactly, is evil?

JFrankA

Illuminator
JFrankA
Joined
Mar 25, 2006
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I did a forum search on this, but I didn't see this topic addressed.

Basically I'm asking myself this question simply because of a discussion I had with my co-workers. One of them said that "if someone doesn't say 'thank you' when you open a door for them, then they are evil!" Of course, that made me laugh out loud, and I wanted to ask her what is evil?

I didn't ask because it made me actually stop and think:

What, exactly, is evil?

I mean is evil what we do to each other or is it a person or a personality?

Personally, I think that a person without remorse, like a serial killer, is evil and I think that hypocrisy is a big evil.

Now people in general do evil things, may even act what might be generally called "evil", but I do not believe that are people are generally evil. Sure, there's a lot of people who are misguided, ill mannered, uninformed, stubborn, etc, but I don't think these are "evil" traits.

I'm still working it all out for myself, and wanting to hear other opinions on this.

So to you, what, exactly, is evil?


ETA: Well, maybe known hypocrisy is evil. It just occurred to me that there are people who do things that can be considered hypocritical, but don't realize it.
 
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Acts that are intended to be selfish and/or unjust, harmful to others

I believe all humans have flaws, so a good person can do an evil deed and a evil person can do a good deed.

An evil person in my eyes is somebody who does many evil acts, a good person is somebody who tries to do none at all.
 
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As a moral relativist, "Evil" is nothing more than an ill defined standard that we each individually define by our own made up moral code. I don't believe there is such a thing as evil.
 
If an act does more harm than it does good, then that act is evil.

The problem is quantifying the harm and the good.
 
Classically, I'd say evil is any action that unabashedly places a person's self-interests above the needs of others. Although for this definition, I believe that douchebag has replaced evil.
 
Evil is a good word for a poet to have around if he winds up needing a rhyme for weevil. Personally, I think poets should try to avoid that situation whenever possible, but it's good to know they have an out if they get trapped.
 
So is "evil" simply a viewpoint?




....oh, Joobz, IMHO, Michael Jackson IS evil.....and bad..... :D
 
Marquis de Carabas said:
Evil is a good word for a poet to have around if he winds up needing a rhyme for weevil. Personally, I think poets should try to avoid that situation whenever possible, but it's good to know they have an out if they get trapped.
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Now we need a word that rhymes with "orange"......and "purple".......

...and how often does the word "weevil" show up in a poem?????? :D
 
Evil is intentionally or negligently causing a bad outcome. Intentionally vague, because this is subjective.
 
joobz said:
Classically, I'd say evil is any action that unabashedly places a person's self-interests above the needs of others. Although for this definition, I believe that douchebag has replaced evil.
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Now you tell me. I've been going around calling John Edward "the biggest evil in the universe". Now what am I supposed to do????

oh.....wait......
 
I think the Golden Rule is useful here. "Do onto others as you would want others to do onto you." Somebody who intentionally inflicts pain and suffering on others that he/she is not willing to take upon him/her self is evil and the act that does this is an evil act.

One (of many) unsettling logical consequences of this is that a suicide bomber is not evil as he is willing to accept the same consequences as his victims. However, the person how gave him the bomb and planned the attack but did not participate is evil, so the act itself is evil.

While unsettling, the more I think upon this defenition, the more it appeals to me.
 
Evil is that which you do not like.

Good evil is that which you do not like long-term (that mutual fund that went sour)
Bad evil is that which you do not like short-term (that girl you woke to with that caused you to chew your own arm off [she was laying on it] rather than wake her up before you left)
 
cwalner said:
I think the Golden Rule is useful here. "Do onto others as you would want others to do onto you." Somebody who intentionally inflicts pain and suffering on others that he/she is not willing to take upon him/her self is evil and the act that does this is an evil act.

One (of many) unsettling logical consequences of this is that a suicide bomber is not evil as he is willing to accept the same consequences as his victims. However, the person how gave him the bomb and planned the attack but did not participate is evil, so the act itself is evil.
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To upset the "suicide bomber not evil" idea, consider a suicide bomber with a terminal illness, who has only a few hours to live. He decides to kill a large number of innocent people out of spite and cruelty. I think that he is undoubtedly acting evilly.

I think one of the first suicide bombers actually blew up a school in the American midwest, killing the children of an entire community.


Bernard Shaw said:
Don't do unto others what you want others to do unto you - their tastes may be different.
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Acting evilly is to treat the wishes and lives of other people as less important than ones own wishes and life. That someone treats his own life as disposable does not mean that he gets the right to treat someone else's life as equally without value. He should treat the lives of others at their own, not his, valuation.

As to whether it is always evil to kill the innocent - consider the people who killed to overthrow Nazi Germany, say. Many innocents lost their lives. Was every death a crime?
 
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I define evil as willfully or negligently causing harm to the innocent.
 
Piggy said:
I define evil as willfully or negligently causing harm to the innocent.
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I would have to add "unnecessarily". For example, bombing the trains to Auchwitz would have killed innocents, but might have saved more. I suppose this could be defined as a "necessary evil" or "the lesser of two evils", but the person who performs such an act is not an evil person if there is no better alternative.
 
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