Right and Wrong

[Kelly-Pelly]

I don't know about you, but I seem to be the only person who really, truly does not believe good and evil exist. I'm not meaning to be cynical here because I'm not, but I really don't think they are real. Within the boundaries of society, sure, we need to have them around, because otherwise, anarchy could ensue. We need to tell people what is acceptable and what is unacceptable, and we use the basic limitations of good and bad to set that standard. However, once you leave the civilized world, where have they gone? They seem to have disappeared, don't they?
Anyway, I was just curious about whether others shared my thoughts on the matter or if I was the only one who thought morals were human creations. So if you have an answer, please don't hesitate to tell me!

[Angel]

I don't know about you, but I seem to be the only person who really, truly does not believe good and evil exist. I'm not meaning to be cynical here because I'm not, but I really don't think they are real. Within the boundaries of society, sure, we need to have them around, because otherwise, anarchy could ensue. We need to tell people what is acceptable and what is unacceptable, and we use the basic limitations of good and bad to set that standard. However, once you leave the civilized world, where have they gone? They seem to have disappeared, don't they?
Anyway, I was just curious about whether others shared my thoughts on the matter or if I was the only one who thought morals were human creations. So if you have an answer, please don't hesitate to tell me!

We can at least say empirically that good and evil exist in established societies, although those societies may use alternative terms such as statues, laws, criminal acts, etc. However, outside of society it is still assumptive to say that good and evil doesn't exist, because good and evil can be a personal standard that each individual has, as well, rather than just being something that applies to a whole group of people.

I think this is also a matter of subjective/cultural-based morals vs. objective morals. I bring up objective morals because if they exist, then they would apply to anyone and in any situation (in or out of society, whether you believe or don't believe). Objective morals would be those morals that are truly part of reality for what humans are suppose to do and that's where their "objective" value comes in. They would be like the laws of nature or part of them theoritically-speaking. Most theists would attribute the concept of objective morals to God since He is the judge of mankind and sets the rules on our conduct so the buck really stops with Him. So while a person who's stranded on some island outside of an established society may not have the "enforcement" of morals from society if or when he or she acts immorally, that doesn't mean that person will get away with it completely if a god exists - who may judge that person in this life and/or even the next.

[ChaosBorders]

I don't know about you, but I seem to be the only person who really, truly does not believe good and evil exist. I'm not meaning to be cynical here because I'm not, but I really don't think they are real. Within the boundaries of society, sure, we need to have them around, because otherwise, anarchy could ensue. We need to tell people what is acceptable and what is unacceptable, and we use the basic limitations of good and bad to set that standard. However, once you leave the civilized world, where have they gone? They seem to have disappeared, don't they?
Anyway, I was just curious about whether others shared my thoughts on the matter or if I was the only one who thought morals were human creations. So if you have an answer, please don't hesitate to tell me!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_nihilism

That sound like your beliefs?

[Sneezing_Cat]

I don't know about you, but I seem to be the only person who really, truly does not believe good and evil exist. I'm not meaning to be cynical here because I'm not, but I really don't think they are real. Within the boundaries of society!

I don't believe good and evil exist either, so you're not alone.

Most people who use terms like good and evil are religiously-based. I, personally believe good and evil were created to group and control society and we continue to do this today. Being a non-believer in free will, whatever anyone does is just some sort of reaction that takes place in our brains. Our brains are the way they are because of our ancestors and the environment we're raised in. We just do whatever we do to survive based on our ancestors and our experiences.

If I kill someone for revenge, is it because I'm evil or because perhaps my ancestors were killers of some sort or the environment I have lived in promotes this behavior?

sure, we need to have them around, because otherwise, anarchy could ensue.

How would having no concept of good and evil lead to an anarchy?

[Slopeshoulder]

I don't know about you, but I seem to be the only person who really, truly does not believe good and evil exist. I'm not meaning to be cynical here because I'm not, but I really don't think they are real. Within the boundaries of society!

I don't believe good and evil exist either, so you're not alone.

Most people who use terms like good and evil are religiously-based. I, personally believe good and evil were created to group and control society and we continue to do this today. Being a non-believer in free will, whatever anyone does is just some sort of reaction that takes place in our brains. Our brains are the way they are because of our ancestors and the environment we're raised in. We just do whatever we do to survive based on our ancestors and our experiences.

If I kill someone for revenge, is it because I'm evil or because perhaps my ancestors were killers of some sort or the environment I have lived in promotes this behavior?

sure, we need to have them around, because otherwise, anarchy could ensue.

How would having no concept of good and evil lead to an anarchy?

While I know that attempts at definining universal rational morality has occupied and even confounded philosophers for centuries, your characterization of ethics strikes me as cynical at best at peurile at worst. I ask this serioulsy: are you a freshman or sophmore? Hve you really thought about this? hev you studied the hisroty of ethics and read any meta-ethics?

What would you say to this?:
- if a person wakes up one day and decides to select a child at random, rape them, abuse and mock them, and set them on fire while laughing, pointing, and drinking Pepsi while they burned, would you not call this an evil? is it really a value free response to value free brain events? is recoiling, intervening, or condemning the act merely a function of societal control? or a function of a cynical but necessary siociobiology? Surely Fulcoult and Wilson and other moral constructivists wouldn't argue that. You?

[Sneezing_Cat]

While I know that attempts at definining universal rational morality has occupied and even confounded philosophers for centuries, your characterization of ethics strikes me as cynical at best at peurile at worst. I ask this serioulsy: are you a freshman or sophmore? Hve you really thought about this? hev you studied the hisroty of ethics and read any meta-ethics?

What would you say to this?:
- if a person wakes up one day and decides to select a child at random, rape them, abuse and mock them, and set them on fire while laughing, pointing, and drinking Pepsi while they burned, would you not call this an evil? is it really a value free response to value free brain events? is recoiling, intervening, or condemning the act merely a function of societal control? or a function of a cynical but necessary siociobiology? Surely Fulcoult and Wilson and other moral constructivists wouldn't argue that. You?

I don't know what my age has to do with this at all, I'm neither a freshman or a sophomore but asking me my age doesn't rufute my argument at all. Yes, I have studied ethics but not as much as I would like to, but I still stand for my beliefs on human nature.

I wouldn't call this evil. Do I believe Hitler was evil for organizing and commanding the Holocaust (That is, if you believe it or not)? No, because he was just a man. The example you use isn't decent proof of ethics. Perhaps this man has huge control issues, which is the reason why people rape in the first place. It's for that want of control. Most crimes society views as "evil" can be explained and once you learn about them, then you realize people aren't evil but are just products of our "nature and nurture".

is it really a value free response to value free brain events? is recoiling, intervening, or condemning the act merely a function of societal control? or a function of a cynical but necessary siociobiology? Surely Fulcoult and Wilson and other moral constructivists wouldn't argue that. You?

A value free response? I don't understand what you mean by this. It seems like you're just asking me questions and not actually explaining why you believe evil exists. Why do you believe evil exists?

[Slopeshoulder]

While I know that attempts at definining universal rational morality has occupied and even confounded philosophers for centuries, your characterization of ethics strikes me as cynical at best at peurile at worst. I ask this serioulsy: are you a freshman or sophmore? Hve you really thought about this? hev you studied the hisroty of ethics and read any meta-ethics?

What would you say to this?:
- if a person wakes up one day and decides to select a child at random, rape them, abuse and mock them, and set them on fire while laughing, pointing, and drinking Pepsi while they burned, would you not call this an evil? is it really a value free response to value free brain events? is recoiling, intervening, or condemning the act merely a function of societal control? or a function of a cynical but necessary siociobiology? Surely Fulcoult and Wilson and other moral constructivists wouldn't argue that. You?

I don't know what my age has to do with this at all, I'm neither a freshman or a sophomore but asking me my age doesn't rufute my argument at all. Yes, I have studied ethics but not as much as I would like to, but I still stand for my beliefs on human nature.

I wouldn't call this evil. Do I believe Hitler was evil for organizing and commanding the Holocaust (That is, if you believe it or not)? No, because he was just a man. The example you use isn't decent proof of ethics. Perhaps this man has huge control issues, which is the reason why people rape in the first place. It's for that want of control. Most crimes society views as "evil" can be explained and once you learn about them, then you realize people aren't evil but are just products of our "nature and nurture".

is it really a value free response to value free brain events? is recoiling, intervening, or condemning the act merely a function of societal control? or a function of a cynical but necessary siociobiology? Surely Fulcoult and Wilson and other moral constructivists wouldn't argue that. You?

A value free response? I don't understand what you mean by this. It seems like you're just asking me questions and not actually explaining why you believe evil exists. Why do you believe evil exists?

OK, that's a credible response.

I asked about your age because your reasoning and tone struck me as that of a teenager, and that would imply the need for a certain leeway on my part for immaturity, inexperience, and biologically, a less than fully formed brain. I would interact with a kid differently than say a 40 year old Ph.D (who is a kid to me: I'm 50. Yikes!!). Others on this forum have asked the question in similiar circumstances. But I didn't wait for an answer; I just got offended. So I retract the question.

If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that all that passes for ethics or value is better explained by biology and psychology, or politics, and there is no moral agency or culpability, or even any logically coherent morality ever to be found or credibly referenced, and that any attempt is meaningless (not that we can't agree to it, but that it is meaning less. In other words, moral nihilism).

You use the contruct, "evil exists." I don't think that evil exists as an existent, like a platonic form or a devil. I take a neo-pragmatic or phenomenological approach: there are things we call evil, using a simple dictionary definition, and we seem to do so across time and culture with observable agreement about the basics (e.g. harming the innocent, disproportionate responses, gratuitous violence, etc). Two points:
- Most philosophies of psychology and law that i am familiar with do not remove agency and responsibility except in the case of clear insanity, and I agree with this.
- As I stated, a universal definition of evil (or good) has been elusive, although I think that ethicists, lawyers, psychologists, anthropologists, and theologians have created a consensus that it has to do with the capacity for compassion (that either god or evolution created in us). But elusiveness is not a grounds for dismissal.

In my opinion, to reduce acts that 99% of sane humans call evil to a situational response determined by being "a man" is a peurile and sophmoric reduction. It is at the very least socio-linguistically blinkered.
Evil "exists" because sane humanity agrees to agree that it does. Why we do (divine conscience, evolution) is an open question. and just what qualifies is a reasonable topic for further discussion.

Yes, we can debate philosophy, definitions, and causes of it in good faith forever, and many have; it's a good thing to do. But you are not doing that, you are dismissing it. Indeed, even if you wanted to moderate for example Hitler's alleged evilness by an appeal to his circumstance (biology, psychology, politics), you leave open the question of what to call it and what to do about it. Does he get a nice cozy room in a hospital? A "well done but I lost in a value-free power struggle" button? if we lock him up, are we guilty of some sort of Focoultian tyranny of the majority? or can we have legitimate agreement that what he did can be called evil, meaning a clearly unwarranted harmful act committed with independant moral agency and responsibility? To the latter, i say yes. if you disagree, would you be willing to publish under your real name making this case?

Nihilism is a fun party trick, a nice sophmoric phase, but in real life it's problematic. Nihilism is either epistemological laziness (when advocated) or sociopathy (when acted upon).

I make no claim to an objective natural law that i can defend absolutely (ecept possibly one that starts with compassion), but I do claim that evil as a concept is meaningful. Specific laws and mores may be socially constructed, but evil as a concept is not.

That will have to do for an afternoon on an internet forum. But i must comment that you presented nothing more than a few throwaway lines in your first post. Are you willing to elaborate your position as I have?

[Slopeshoulder]

While I know that attempts at definining universal rational morality has occupied and even confounded philosophers for centuries, your characterization of ethics strikes me as cynical at best at peurile at worst. I ask this serioulsy: are you a freshman or sophmore? Hve you really thought about this? hev you studied the hisroty of ethics and read any meta-ethics?

What would you say to this?:
- if a person wakes up one day and decides to select a child at random, rape them, abuse and mock them, and set them on fire while laughing, pointing, and drinking Pepsi while they burned, would you not call this an evil? is it really a value free response to value free brain events? is recoiling, intervening, or condemning the act merely a function of societal control? or a function of a cynical but necessary siociobiology? Surely Fulcoult and Wilson and other moral constructivists wouldn't argue that. You?

I don't know what my age has to do with this at all, I'm neither a freshman or a sophomore but asking me my age doesn't rufute my argument at all. Yes, I have studied ethics but not as much as I would like to, but I still stand for my beliefs on human nature.

I wouldn't call this evil. Do I believe Hitler was evil for organizing and commanding the Holocaust (That is, if you believe it or not)? No, because he was just a man. The example you use isn't decent proof of ethics. Perhaps this man has huge control issues, which is the reason why people rape in the first place. It's for that want of control. Most crimes society views as "evil" can be explained and once you learn about them, then you realize people aren't evil but are just products of our "nature and nurture".

is it really a value free response to value free brain events? is recoiling, intervening, or condemning the act merely a function of societal control? or a function of a cynical but necessary siociobiology? Surely Fulcoult and Wilson and other moral constructivists wouldn't argue that. You?

A value free response? I don't understand what you mean by this. It seems like you're just asking me questions and not actually explaining why you believe evil exists. Why do you believe evil exists?

OK, that's a credible response.

I asked about your age because your reasoning and tone struck me as that of a teenager, and that would imply the need for a certain leeway on my part for immaturity, inexperience, and biologically, a less than fully formed brain. I would interact with a kid differently than say a 40 year old Ph.D (who is a kid to me: I'm 50. Yikes!!). Others on this forum have asked the question in similiar circumstances. But I didn't wait for an answer; I just got offended. So I retract the question.

If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that all that passes for ethics or value is better explained by biology and psychology, or politics, and there is no moral agency or culpability, or even any logically coherent morality ever to be found or credibly referenced, and that any attempt is meaningless (not that we can't agree to it, but that it is meaning less. In other words, moral nihilism).

You use the contruct, "evil exists." I don't think that evil exists as an existent, like a platonic form or a devil. I take a neo-pragmatic or phenomenological approach: there are things we call evil, using a simple dictionary definition, and we seem to do so across time and culture with observable agreement about the basics (e.g. harming the innocent, disproportionate responses, gratuitous violence, etc). Two points:
- Most philosophies of psychology and law that i am familiar with do not remove agency and responsibility except in the case of clear insanity, and I agree with this.
- As I stated, a universal definition of evil (or good) has been elusive, although I think that ethicists, lawyers, psychologists, anthropologists, and theologians have created a consensus that it has to do with the capacity for compassion (that either god or evolution created in us). But elusiveness is not a grounds for dismissal.

In my opinion, to reduce acts that 99% of sane humans call evil to a situational response determined by being "a man" is a peurile and sophmoric reduction. It is at the very least socio-linguistically blinkered.
Evil "exists" because sane humanity agrees to agree that it does. Why we do (divine conscience, evolution) is an open question. and just what qualifies is a reasonable topic for further discussion.

Yes, we can debate philosophy, definitions, and causes of it in good faith forever, and many have; it's a good thing to do. But you are not doing that, you are dismissing it. Indeed, even if you wanted to moderate for example Hitler's alleged evilness by an appeal to his circumstance (biology, psychology, politics), you leave open the question of what to call it and what to do about it. Does he get a nice cozy room in a hospital? A "well done but I lost in a value-free power struggle" button? if we lock him up, are we guilty of some sort of Focoultian tyranny of the majority? or can we have legitimate agreement that what he did can be called evil, meaning a clearly unwarranted harmful act committed with independant moral agency and responsibility? To the latter, i say yes. if you disagree, would you be willing to publish under your real name making this case?

Nihilism is a fun party trick, a nice sophmoric phase, but in real life it's problematic. Nihilism is either epistemological laziness (when advocated) or sociopathy (when acted upon). Nature and nurture do have a lot to do with who we are and the actions we take, and can play a role isn 1. understanding evil (it's still evil) and possibily 2. mercy toward the perpetrator in some cases (this is allowed in law; what are you adding?). And if Hitler has "huge control issues" is our fascination with it, even calling it by those words :huge...control...issues...not a recognition that something horrible has occured?

I think Catholic moral theology can help here: they say that 1. no one wills the bad, 2. all evil is a distored love, 3. vincible ignorance vs. invincincible ignorance matters where reason or information is impaired, 4. responsibility exists, and 5. evil exists, whether one held accountable or not.

I make no claim to an objective natural law that i can defend absolutely (ecept possibly one that starts with compassion), but I do claim that evil as a concept is meaningful. Specific laws and mores may be socially constructed, but evil as a concept is not.

That will have to do for an afternoon on an internet forum. But i must comment that you presented nothing more than a few throwaway lines in your first post. Are you willing to elaborate your position as I have tried to?

[freeman]

Good can be summed up as actions taken out of love for others. Evil, then, would be the actions of those who care very little for others. Good and evil, therefore, are verbs and not nouns. With, of course, the understanding that verbs describe actions and nouns describe tangible items.
Right, in this context, would be synonym for good. An action taken for someone other than yourself in a positive frame of mind.
I think the point you are really trying to make is that you don't really believe in morality. You don't believe in taking responsibility for selfish acts of hatred committed against others and wish to justify your actions by saying they don't exist.
This is precisely why the Bible teaches that it is in man's nature to sin and that all men are liars. It began with the sons of Adam. But even in a society without religion, life without morality would quickly descend into chaos. Such a society could not survive. At the other end of the spectrum is a society built on morality and the inhabitants at peace with one another.
If you wanted to point at something tangible and say whether it is right or wrong, then you can point to a society itself based on what actions that society takes towards others. So right and wrong do exist as the emerging morality of any given society.
That said, Christianity is the belief in a society based on the morality as set forth by Christ, who gave his very life to help others. This society is called the Kingdom of Heaven. It is taught that in the end, it will be the only society that will survive. I believe that to be true. Because an evil society can not survive, even if they are not destroyed.