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Good Vs. Evil

Rebe

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Nov 15, 2009
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I am fundamentally good but I have done specific deeds of evil-ness while being fully conscious of the fact. I agree that there is no absolute or objective good, just different levels of specific good and specific evil.
 

Craft

Probably Most Brilliant
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sx/so
The purpose of being good is so that society won't attack and imprison you. It basically is for coexistence. I will be evil if I have my chance but I won't risk getting caught so I'll be "good" for now. In other words, Utilitarianism.
 

Night

Boring old fossil
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What is your attitude to Good and Evil? Do you want to serve one or the other in your life? Why?

As I'm sure most are aware, "Good" and "Evil" are culturally defined social norms.

Good is typically anything that fosters community development - things that create opportunities for the progression of mores and the protection of the individual, as an entity within the group. Sharing, for example, is a universally recognized Good as it establishes trust between individuals. Honesty is another example. Honesty provides a sense of intellectual clarity for others, that they may behave without indirect coercion or manipulation; honesty implies respect for the freedom of another being to live without unnecessary social restraint.

Conversely, Evil is often any activity that comes at the expense of the community in favor of the individual. Things like stealing (resource management), cruelty to others (destructive to the propagation of social trust/cooperation) and so forth. The hard and fast rule is that Evil is an expression of malignant self-interest, such that the rest of the group suffers.

Values differ between culture and generation, but I submit that our shared evolutionary psychology demands distinctions centered around the advancement of a group, vs. the conscious self-promotion of an individual above the interests of a group.


To that end, it's probably best to follow a lifestyle of Goodness. There's greater opportunity for prosperity and mainstream success when shared values are at the crux of one's decisions. To choose Evil is to ultimately choose failure; to select behaviors with a higher propensity for personal risk.

People like Good. Evil is bad.

It's pretty simple.
 

Mr. Sherlock Holmes

Consulting Detective
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adopting orphans: good

Oh, really?

bad-beginning.jpg
 

Mr. Sherlock Holmes

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I agree with Night on this. 'Bad' is generally doing something where you perform an action beyond what is necessary to help yourself at the cost of others. There are varying levels of this at which people will consider them changing from good to bad (or somewhere in between). For example, killing someone is generally considered bad, because it is the destruction of someone elses life completely, which is a lot of harm, especially if it does not have a greater than equal opposite effect such as saving someone elses life. How much greater it has to be also varies from person to person in their own value standards. Some people are more focused on 'immediate good' where a bad action is just bad, like killing someone, and others more on the 'greater good' where a bad action can be done for a good reason. If someone does a bad action for a good reason, this may still cause some people to dislike them for that either because they are more focused on the immediate good or out of fear that that bad action could lead to bad actions for bad reasons.
 

guesswho

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Good vs Evil.

Only humans are capable of being good or evil, because they are conscious (at least in theory) of what they do.
But it's not like we share a consciousness and have universal rights and wrongs, those are personal, add them up to what society teaches you and you get your beliefs.

Can we define what's good and what's wrong so that every individual would accept such a doctrine?
No.

These things are relative.

For instance:
A guy, living in a neighborhood where people deal drugs and shoot themselves. He will assimilate the things around him, most likely, and has a very big chance of becoming a drug dealer/killer.
That is Evil.
But if evil is what one knows, evil is what one does.
Put in a different environment, he would develop very differently. He can be good. He can be anything.

So who is evil in this case? Because that person fits the evil pattern perfectly, but, is he evil? When the odds of not becoming evil are so low?

Is evil born or we are just born neutral? I guess it's somewhere in between.

I guess good and evil are on the 2 sides of an equation. Can't have one without the other. We're not robots.
 

xisnotx

Permabanned
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Sep 24, 2010
Messages
2,144
What is your attitude to Good and Evil?
I don't think objective good or evil exists. If they do I have yet to know. I don't try to be good (or evil) since I don't know what it is in the first place. I just do what I do.
 

Blown Ghost

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Aug 16, 2010
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279
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ESFP
This is what I know, what is true is good, what is untrue is bad. It is bad to lie, no? Nobody will disagree with that ("except in extreme cases" which only seem to indicate that you're looking for an excuse!) and that means to go into this question saying this is good and this is bad, is overall bad because the fact we disagree shows that we truly do not know. Children do not be taught to lie. Everyone is bad. Especially me, I lie all the time. I just lied a few times yesterday even and barely batted an eyelid. Even the ugliest truth is better than the perverted beauty of the whitest lie.
 

Siúil a Rúin

when the colors fade
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sp/sx
I see good vs evil as constructive vs destructive. I try to be aware of all the levels I am connected to including the personal, family, social, ecosystem, etc. To approach each of these in a constructive manner is what I would call "good" and this is what I try to do. Self-interest alone is short-sighted and tends to be destructive for the individual and everyone they come into contact with.

I do not believe in punishing people for being "bad" because I think that is a core element of "evil", or more simply put it is destructive in a larger context. Problem solving without judging the intrinsic value of a person is important and should be done when it has a constructive outcome for all involved.

I find destructive behaviors to be unfortunate, the result of influences, but ultimately idiotic because it requires willful blindness to all but the little shell we call self.
 

Manis

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Jun 24, 2010
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47
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INFP
It's all in the head I'm afraid. That said, when I see a surfeit of one I always try to do more of the other (according to my own subjective conceptions of both, of course). Yin and Yang make a bit more sense, I think.
 

Falcon

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I have thought about this topic alot and read also much about it by philosophers.

Without going too much into details, my own worldview today is that, if you consider that the aim of any life form is to maximize biological fitness, then in the long term "good" is simply intelligent behavior that sustains life and "evil" is unintelligent behavior that defeats the purpose of existence.

Indeed, no matter how you look at it, even if your goal is to be as powerful as possible (an apparently "evil" goal at first), you cannot diminish the health of people below you, or else your power diminishes also. It is in your interest to maximize the health of all people depending on you, so that you are also able to do more things thanks to their superior fitness. What good would it be to have an army at your command if your soldiers are not at their optimal level of health. You wouldn't want to hurt them and you wouldn't want to waste them! A commander that would not care about his soldiers, and would just hurt them for fun or waste them, would simply be stupid.

Seen this way, true "evil" would simply be stupid and impulsive behavior that would bring you to destroy your own health and that of others - which is illogical. "Evil" would just be another term for "lack of health" or "idiocy". "Evil" would simply be sloppy behavior and an excuse for a lack of conscientiousness in using power.

Now, if you look at it not in "long term", but in "short term", then there is a twist. Apparently "evil" behavior, such as being tough, pragmatic, uncompromising, disagreeable, can actually be "good" for the system in the long term. Apparently "good" behavior, such as giving, helping others, self-sacrifice, can be detrimental to the system and "evil" (Hell is paved with good intentions).

In sum, if you look at things tactically, you see that evil/good do not matter really, and you must be able to do both. If you look at things strategically, there really is only good, as steering away from a direction of strategic "good" is like steering away from life.
 

Yeonhee

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Oct 2, 2009
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Good vs Evil or Good vs Bad? As you can imagine, they are not mutually exclusive.

I can categorically come to an acceptable definition, but it takes a certain kind of zeal to say what is evil. In the same way, what is good in contrast to evil is contextually different from Good vs Bad.

It's not about "serving" an ideal. You cannot serve something that which derives internally. You can only live it. Philosophically, the most primal thing to man is the notion of what is Good and Bad to himself. A thief can convince himself that what he is doing is good (unto himself), but collectively and metaphysically, it may not be rationally favorable. Are we speaking of what is moral or are we speaking of what is primal? If we separate ourselves from trying to find an untouchable definition, we arrive to just simply an idea. And that in itself speaks about what is to be human: to be conscious of what he believes for himself. The real struggle is to find a rational conclusion as to why we ought to believe this certain type of Good and Bad is best for a collective society. Relativism is a reality, not necessarily based on truth but on human proclivities which do not necessarily have to based on critical thought.
 
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