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[novapsyche]

Do you believe in evil?

Comments

[helenangel.livejournal.com]

I believe that there are actions that are generated from malicious intent, yes. To I believe in Satan or demons? Not in the traditional sense. Since my view is that God is positive creation energy, there would be an opposite of this- negative energy. Do I think there might be negative sentient energy? Perhaps but I'd like to just think that negative energy is similar to heat death. Unfortunately I think this behaves similarily to a black hole and hence likes to draw positive energy to it, though it cannot assimilate it until the positive energy becomes negative- this fits in well with conditions of the human psyche as well (e.g. misery loves company)

However, I think it plays an important role in the balance of the universe. Without evil, we would not appreciate good- indeed we wouldn't even HAVE good because there would be no change. Some people consider natural disasters to be evil, however they play an essential part in the earth's ecosystem. Some people, like Hitler, were evil. However, the lessons learned from his evil actions are invaluable to our society today. Things that are good can have evil consequences as well: our welfare system is there to help our less fortunate citizens, however there are some who abuse the system and there are now some families that have multiple generations of welfare recipients.

Forgive me, I'm probably not making any sense but that was my best stab at it. =)

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Do I believe in evil as some sort of abstract power, entity, or idea? Not really. I think that actions can be "evil" in that they're hurtful, unkind, violent, etc.

From a utilitarian ethical viewpoint (which is pretty close to what I believe), good is what brings the most pleasure/least pain to the most people, and evil is actions that cause more pain and hurt than pleasure.

[kali-ma.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure.
I want to say no but some things strike me as so awful I can't call them anything else. Yet when pressed to define what it is, I can't come up with any value that isn't relative.
So maybe there exists evil, but only as a subjective and not an objective reality. That which is subjective is not, as some people seem to think, imaginary or unreal, but it is impossible to pin down into a nice neat definition.
Most people I know would argue the Holocaust is a good example of pure evil - but the people who planned it and participated in perpetrating it believed they were doing good by saving the German people.

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

You'll know evil soon if you don't starting getting regular sleep.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Sleep encourages forgetfulness. I remember more the later I remain awake.

(This is cryptic; you're probably not going to understand and/or agree with this at all.)

[xterminal.livejournal.com]

unreservedly.

However, I believe evil is in the eye of the beholder, which could well undercut any empirical arguments I could make for its existence.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Why unreservedly?

[xterminal.livejournal.com]

I surround myself with it; I feel most comfortable in its presence.

[jennkitty.livejournal.com]

yes.

and good, as well.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

For the longest time, I didn't believe in the dichotomy of good/evil, although I did believe in good/bad. As I was telling vaxjedi last night, I believe in an absolute good, but not absolute evil. There can be only one absolute; everything else is relative.

[jennkitty.livejournal.com]

that makes sense, only one absolute. and i'd like to think you are right, that good is an absolute.

but even if evil is not absolute, can't there be infinite degrees of it?

bad and evil are both counterproductive to good, but to me i think it is a matter of intent. if one does something that is not at all good, but not on purpose, it's bad. if they do it knowing it is not good and doing it anyway, it's evil. hmmm.... my brain automatically goes to sociopaths, and wonders if they should be considered bad or evil. showing disregard for social mores is different from being unaware or uncomprehensive. i think i just hit a totally different tangent.

[m0n90053.livejournal.com]

My already-noted-somewhere response to part of this is that i'm a lot more frightened of people who believe that they are good than I am of people who believe that they are evil-

Evildoers (usually) have a definite goal in mind, and it is usually finite- break this vault, scam these old ladies, kill this group of people- however large it is, it is still finite, and once they have accomplished it, there is an end to their action. -They reach some state of satiation (this isn't true in the long run for serial murderers, for example...), whether it is in the entire scope of their activity or in encompassing a particular neighborhood, or whatever the limiting factor is. And at least some of them are able to recognize and acknowledge when there is no chance of success and to halt their plans.

Those who plot good operate under no such restrictions, and are blind blind blind to when their actions cause harm- even when they see it, they say, well, at least I had good intentions, and then go on to wreak even more havoc doing more of the exact same thing- you can't blame me- I was only trying to help-

I piss myself off just thinking of how many times I've heard that or similar, particularly when I've not been able to do anything about it, not even anything to mitigate damage that I know is going to occur from that person' actions... grrrrr

[blue-lightning.livejournal.com]

No. I have difficulty arguing this, because you can't live without abstract truths of some sort, but I really don't believe in a presiding, universal code of conduct by which it's possible to ascribe "evilness" upon a person. Even when we talk about people like Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, and so on, I view them as holding sick views, having no mercy, having millions of lives on their hands, and having delusions of grandeur, but I can't pin "evil" onto them. Perhaps my humanism is to blame there; behind every such individual I can't help but see a turning point in their lives when they could have been guided away from such mentalities. The existence of this turning point (their reliance on the world around them at some age to form who they are) makes it difficult to pin precise blame on any one person. If they are "evil", then, it is an evil their whole society shares, and must bear.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

I agree: I can't say that any one person is "evil." In fact, that's what disgusted me so much with GWB, the ease with which he threw that word around his first year in office. To label someone as "evil" is to throw the spotlight off of yourself. We all have our shadows with which to contend ("shadow" in the Jungian sense).

[m0n90053.livejournal.com]

I do, but I'm still working on an exact definition.

As a counterpoint to trying to describe what I think evil is, my feeling is that most people's views on the subject are pretty much those of a child- What I need/what I want is good; what harms me or is perceived as hurting me (often, as far as perception vs. actual, because it obstructs or appears to obstruct our obtaining what we want) is evil.

...This leads into discussion of actual harm, perception of harm, etc., and once again most people's viewpoints concerning these matters strike me as being rather infantile.

What is good for an individual, even when it actually is good for that individual, is not necessarily good for the society in which that individual lives; otoh, what is 'good' for a society often is not good for all of the individuals of which it is comprised, and societies often abrogate the 'rights' of individuals to obtain what is good for those individuals, real or perceived, in the name of perpetuating that society...

I don't agree with the 'relative' morality prevalent today, but I often disagree with the places where our forebears drew the lines...

Imposing one's will over another is generally speaking evil, but there again one gets into questions of whether that other has imposed their will on another, which often (at least apparently) justifies one's own act of imposition, and to what degree then we are allowed to impose...

Joan Didion has an interesting essay titled On Morality in her collection Slouching towards Bethlehem (first appeared in The American Scholar with the title The Insidious Ethic of Conscience); I just finished reading Slouching... today, and of what I found to disagree with in it, I don't recall anything from On Morality.

[kittenkissies.livejournal.com]

I dunno....at this time I think evil=ignorance, but is that always true?