Define "Evil"

Greetings to all..

In the thread, "Why Does God Permit Evil?" there have been definitions bandied about in a very general way about what constitutes "evil".

Therefore, I'm putting the question to the public soapbox.

How do you define "evil"?

-ITL-

Yeah and if you put a d infront you get devil. Evil is caused by greed, weakness and abuse in early childhood can turn a person into a pretty bad character leading to heinous crimes and act, and people who are hungry for the wrong kind of power, (as opposed to the right kind).

Good question. Evil is suffering and pain that happens to people, but also to innocent animals. Events and things that cause suffering and pain, are also evil, but the causes of suffering and pain are often called, "evils". Evils are, for example, disease, floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters which cause suffering and pain to people and animals. Evil can be divided into: moral evil, and non-moral evil. Moral evil is the evil intentionally caused by people. Rape, murder, wars, and so on. Non-moral evil is the evil caused by natural disasters like disease, pestilence, famine, flood, and so on, and such natural disasters are evils too, since they are the cause of evils.

Evil is caused by greed? I would say that greed is also evil; which re-worded would be "evil is caused by evil" and while that may be true it gets us no closed to the answer to the OP, but that's not what I wanted to ask... see below



How does one come to the conclusion that pain and suffering are evil. Is there an objective point of reference? If not, then couldn't we just as easily say that happiness and bliss (or whatever cause happiness and bliss) are evil?

If you don't like the word, "evil", how about the word, "bad". Aren't pain and suffering bad?

Evil is often caused by evil. If a thing like disease, causes pain and suffering, which it does, then what causes the pain and suffering, is itself, an evil. Disease is an evil as a cause of evil, and what it causes is also, evil, since it causes pain and suffering.

You seem to think that all evils are moral evils, and since you don't think there are moral evils, you don't think there are evils. But, not all evils are moral evils. There are non-moral evils, like disease, or like earthquakes. So the first premise of the above argument is false. Namely, that all evils are moral evils.

I think you misunderstood my post and my position. Let me try again..
I agree that evil/bad/sin can beget evil. My question is 'on what basis do we distinguish between what is good and what is evil?' --or-- 'Why is pain and suffering (murder, rape, hurricanes, drought) evil?'

I may be wrong, but my understanding of the OP was not to list examples of evils but to answer what defines something as evil (what makes evil evil.)

As I said, if you don't like "evil" drop it. Aren't pain and suffering, especially bad pain and suffering bad? Isn't what hurts, bad, and pain and suffering hurt? As for the question, why is what hurts bad, I really don't know how to answer that.

OK, then we'll go in this direction.

1) All pain is evil
2) Things that cause pain are also evil
3) Childbirth is painful and causes pain
Therefore
4) Childbirth is evil

Is this what you mean?
lol, it would defiantly put a different view on the prolife/prochoice debate

The pain childbirth causes is, of course, evil. (Just as the pain a root canal procedure causes is evil). But childbirth also causes good things (presumably) like children, the preservation of the race, and so on. So, childbirth is a mixed bag. Just as a root canal is. It is valued for some of its effects, but also disvalued for some of its effects (just as a root canal procedure is). But, overall, we seem to think that both childbirth and root canal procedures are more valuable than disvaluable, or we would not choose either. Long ago, Aristotle distinguished between intrinsic value and extrinsic value. Pain and suffering are both intrinsically bad (bad in themselves) but what causes them may cause sufficient extrinsic value, to compensate for the pain and suffering. You take the bitter with the sweet, because, over all, the sweet in this case is sweeter than the bitter is bitter. So the mother chooses the evil associated with child birth in order to get the good she associates with child birth. It is a package deal.

So would we have to delete proposition (2) altogether. In fact, would we now have to say that things are amoral (neither good nor evil). Rather only the results of things may be classified as good or evil?

so Childbirth (thing) is not good or bad but the results may be classified. Pain (result) attributed to childbirth = bad. Production of life (result) = good

... So what causes evil is also evil (intrinsically) but may be good (extrinsically). ... It is either good (overall) or bad (overall). ...

These two statements seem to contradict one another, as the first is dialectic (a thing can be both good and evil) and the second appeals tothe law of non-contradiction (it is either good or bad... implying that it is not both)

So are you saying a thing or event / action can only be evaluated by the end result? In short, that any means can be justifiable so long as the end is more good than bad?

I am afraid evil is really a value judgment: an aesthetic notion and not an objective reality.

In the absence of some notion of the divine and some notion of transcendent values it is virtually impossible to establish agreed upon criteria for evil and even then it is difficult.

In general I would say evil is any occurrence or action without which the world would have been better off in the long run.

I am afraid evil is really a value judgment: an aesthetic notion and not an objective reality.

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Evils are pain and suffering, namely bad things. Aren't they? That is pretty objective. I think that everyone will agree about that.

Evils are pain and suffering, namely bad things. Aren't they? That is pretty objective. I think that everyone will agree about that.