Define "Evil"

@prothero,

I always thought it was the intention rather than the result. We do evil, we do good. Good intentions may lead to harm but there was no intention to do evil. The difficulty lies with natural occurrences, if like me you have no god they are just unfortunate incidences. If you have a god who created, then his intention is defined by his creation. If created earthquakes then he is evil.

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@re turner jr,

re_turner_jr;107153 wrote:

No, it isn't objective. What is painful for me might not be painful for you.

and to further complicate matters we can throw in a sadist. Now for the sadist pain is good, right? This brings me back to my previous question.
Who says that pain is bad. Humanity might be screwed up on this notion of pain being 'bad'. Of course if there is no objective point of reference then pain being good for the sadist and pleasure being good for the 'normal' man is fine. Then the question becomes 'when the two contradicting ideas of good come in to competition which should be given preference? Does might make right? or is there something higher to appeal to make a case?

That is true. But, still, pain and suffering whatever causes them are objective. Either someone is in pain or he is not. For the sadist giving pain is good, but that doesn't mean that he thinks pain is good. He would not give pain if he thought it was good!

To say that pain is bad is not to say that it is morally bad. That is a different issue. It is bad in the sense that no one wants to be in pain, and pain is a very unpleasant feeling. Pain feels bad. And, again, I am not talking about moral badness. I am talking about the sensation of pain.

---------- Post added 12-01-2009 at 08:15 AM ----------

xris;107249 wrote:

I always thought it was the intention rather than the result. We do evil, we do good. Good intentions may lead to harm but there was no intention to do evil. The difficulty lies with natural occurrences, if like me you have no god they are just unfortunate incidences. If you have a god who created, then his intention is defined by his creation. If created earthquakes then he is evil.

People do evil. But evils happen to us whether or not anyone does them to us. We break a leg accidentally. That is an evil. Not a moral evil, of course. But an evil nevertheless. It does not follow that because God created a world with earthquakes that God is evil, since there might be a good explanation for why He created a world with earthquakes rather than not. You could not say that a surgeon who cuts someone with a knife is evil, would you? Not even it cutting someone with a knife is an evil, which it is.

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;107256 wrote:

. But, still, pain and suffering whatever causes them are objective. Either someone is in pain or he is not.
To say that pain is bad is not to say that it is morally bad. That is a different issue. It is bad in the sense that no one wants to be in pain, and pain is a very unpleasant feeling. Pain feels bad. And, again, I am not talking about moral badness. I am talking about the sensation of pain.
We break a leg accidentally. That is an evil. Not a moral evil, of course. But an evil nevertheless. .

Well the topic is unfortunately more complicated than that and a matter of definitions.

You are taking about what is referred to as prima faciea evil as oppossed to genuine or gratuitous evil. If one defines evil as "pain and suffering" then all pain and suffering voluntary or otherwise, necessary or not, is "evil" and that is not what is talked about in the "problem of evil" or what is generally meant.

The more general definiton of genuine or gratuitous evil is an action without which the world would have been better off in the long run (i.e. Auschwitz or Naggasaki) which is a value judgement.

Declaring pain and suffering "evil" prima facia really does not contribute to solving the "problem of evil". It is simple definition but not a useful one.

1 Reply

@prothero,

prothero;107276 wrote:

If one defines evil as "pain and suffering" then all pain and suffering voluntary or otherwise, necessary or not, is "evil" and that is not what is talked about in the "problem of evil" or what is generally meant.

But that is what is meant by "evil" in the problem of evil. Pain and suffering.

In The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (second edition, p. 699) we find:

"Two kinds of evil can be distinguished. Moral evil inheres in the wicked actions of moral agents, and the bad consequences they produce. And example is torturing the innocent. ...Natural evilsare bad consequences that apparently derive entirely derive from the operations of impersonal natural forces, for example human and animal suffering produced by natural catastrophes such as earthquakes and epidemics....".

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;107277 wrote:

But that is what is meant by "evil" in the problem of evil. Pain and suffering.

In The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (second edition, p. 699) we find:

"Two kinds of evil can be distinguished. Moral evil inheres in the wicked actions of moral agents, and the bad consequences they produce. And example is torturing the innocent. ...Natural evilsare bad consequences that apparently derive entirely derive from the operations of impersonal natural forces, for example human and animal suffering produced by natural catastrophes such as earthquakes and epidemics....".

"bad consequneces they produce" "torturing the innocent". Natural evils are generally perceived as being both involuntary and unnecessary.

Under the simple "pain and suffering"definition. You experience "evil" during your trip to the dentist and this is not what is generally meant by the term "evil".

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@prothero,

prothero;107280 wrote:

"bad consequneces they produce" "torturing the innocent". Natural evils are generally perceived as being both involuntary and unnecessary.

Under the simple "pain and suffering"definition. You experience "evil" during your trip to the dentist and this is not what is generally meant by the term "evil".

Of course it is. It is an evil thing to have to have a root canal procedure. We don't now normally use the term, "evil" for such a thing. We say it is a bad thing. But when the classic problem of evil was formulated, bad happenings were called "evils". When the Psalmist said, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil", he did not just mean moral or intentional evils. He meant bad things that might happen to him.

If a person says, "I don't want to do either, but since I have to do one of them, I'll choose the lesser of the two evils: geology rather than physics", what do you think he is saying?

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@IntoTheLight,

IntoTheLight;106305 wrote:

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

How do you define "evil"?

Ok, I'll bite... [INDENT]It's a word english-speaking humans use to describe intents, events, individuals and situations they personally find the most deplorable - a result of that individual's proportional evaluation of what's being described, balanced against their personal notions of what is right, correct or just.
[/INDENT]What do I win? or... Did I win? or... Should I go sit in the corner now?

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@Khethil,

Khethil;107287 wrote:

Ok, I'll bite...[INDENT]It's a word english-speaking humans use to describe intents, events, individuals and situations they personally find the most deplorable - a result of that individual's proportional evaluation of what's being described, balanced against their personal notions of what is right, correct or just.
[/INDENT]What do I win? or... Did I win? or... Should I go sit in the corner now?

"Evil" is used to describe something very bad, usually some kind of suffering or pain, or what causes suffering or pain. Of course, when I call something "evil", I personally find what I call "evil' evil. Just as when I call some animal a "dog", I personally find that the animal is a dog. Else, I would not call it a "dog".

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;107290 wrote:

"Evil" is used to describe something very bad, usually some kind of suffering or pain, or what causes suffering or pain. Of course, when I call something "evil", I personally find what I call "evil' evil. Just as when I call some animal a "dog", I personally find that the animal is a dog. Else, I would not call it a "dog".

Yes, exactly. It's what you find such to be the case - a result of your own evaluation. There is no objective, globally-applicable definition of the word; and I've no reason to believe evil exists in any absolute form. It's just someone expressing their relative evaluation.

Nothing more... at least methinks

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@Khethil,

Khethil;107298 wrote:

Yes, exactly. It's what you find such to be the case - a result of your own evaluation. There is no objective, globally-applicable definition of the word; and I've no reason to believe evil exists in any absolute form. It's just someone expressing their relative evaluation.

Nothing more... at least methinks

Well, if evil exists as objectively as a dog exists, then that will be fine with me. A lot of people do not believe it does.

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@IntoTheLight,

To define evil, i use life as a standard. Now, evil is that which acts against, negates, arrests, or destroys that which is beneficial to a rational life. I believe evil is ubiquitous, it varies in degrees but the essence is consistence.

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@Camerama,

Camerama;107302 wrote:

To define evil, i use life as a standard. Now, evil is that which acts against, negates, arrests, or destroys that which is beneficial to a rational life. I believe evil is ubiquitous, it varies in degrees but the essence is consistence.

I am glad to hear it is consistent. But what does that mean?

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@kennethamy,

[QUOTE=kennethamy;107285] Of course it is. It is an evil thing to have to have a root canal procedure. We don't now normally use the term, "evil" for such a thing. We say it is a bad thing. [/QUOTE] Even in ordinary conversation to say I experienced "evil" at the dentist would get you a lot of weird stares. To define evil as simple "pain and suffering" is to trivialize the concept beyond recognition in ordinary conversation much less philosophical discussion.

[QUOTE=kennethamy;107285] But when the classic problem of evil was formulated, bad happenings were called "evils". When the Psalmist said, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil", he did not just mean moral or intentional evils. He meant bad things that might happen to him. [/QUOTE] I think the Psalmist had something more serious in mind than stubbing his toe on a rock. But what other people were thinking when they wrote something in ancient times is always subject to debate.

[QUOTE=kennethamy;107285] If a person says, "I don't want to do either, but since I have to do one of them, I'll choose the lesser of the two evils: geology rather than physics", what do you think he is saying? [/QUOTE] and that is just a provincial expression not meant literally at all like "I just thought I would die". Language is full of such expressions.

In the end "evil" is a judgment about values. It would have been better had this not happened.

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@prothero,

prothero;107316 wrote:

Even in ordinary conversation to say I experienced "evil" at the dentist would get you a lot of weird stares. To define evil as simple "pain and suffering" is to trivialize the concept beyond recognition in ordinary conversation much less philosophical discussion.

I think the Psalmist had something more serious in mind than stubbing his toe on a rock. But what other people were thinking when they wrote something in ancient times is always subject to debate.

and that is just a provincial expression not meant literally at all like "I just thought I would die". Language is full of such expressions.

In the end "evil" is a judgment about values. It would have been better had this not happened.

Yes it would. But not, "I suffered a lot at the dentist's office". As I said, the term, "evil" is out of fashion now, and is mostly used in comic books. But not when the classic problem of evil is discussed. But, if you are unhappy with the term, "evil", I suggest you just substitute the term "bad things". As a modern writer has put the problem, "Why do bad things happen to good people?"

I don't think the Psalmist had in mind stubbing his toe on a rock either. What would make you think I did, I wonder. There are minor evils, and middling evils, and terrible evils. The same goes for bad things. The Psalmist was probably thinking of getting killed. That's an evil. A major one. I do think that when I judge something evil, I am judging it to be something bad. But, my judgment may be true. It may, indeed, be something bad. Like being killed, or having a bad accident. Judgments can be true or false. If I judge that Mt. Everest is a tall mountain, that is true.

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@IntoTheLight,

I would have to creatively define it for every context I used it in. It's one of those slippery vague but important and useful words. Like "truth" "God" "good" etc.

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;107305 wrote:

I am glad to hear it is consistent. But what does that mean?

As in the principle is the same. Regardless the degree, the principle remains. The only distinction between evils is quantitative. Morally, the transgression is identical.

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@Camerama,

Camerama;107395 wrote:

As in the principle is the same. Regardless the degree, the principle remains. The only distinction between evils is quantitative. Morally, the transgression is identical.

But some evils are not moral evils. catching a bad disease is certainly an evil. But it is not a moral evil. It was impersonal, and not intentional. But it is still bad.

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@IntoTheLight,

A disease is an affliction. It certainly is bad, but bad is not interchangable with evil.
I don't find evil in misfortune.

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@Camerama,

Camerama;107507 wrote:

A disease is an affliction. It certainly is bad, but bad is not interchangable with evil.
I don't find evil in misfortune.

Disease is not, itself, evil. It has no intentions. But disease is an evil. It causes suffering and pain which are, themselves, evils. But if you want to reserve the term "evil" only for intentional (moral) evils, go ahead. I'll use the term, "bad things" to cover suffering and pain, or what causes suffering and pain. It is just a verbal change. We all know what is meant.

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@kennethamy,

Once it is all boiled down and the pretty decorations taken off, I have only ever really seen two ways that people distinguish between good and evil (moral, natural, or other).

1) Realism / Relativism - Most times this is actually explained as relativistic view. I think evil is this, you think evil is that; either way we have to define what evil is for ourselves (individual relativism). But what happens when what I think and what you think comes into conflict? We either fight to find who is right or we appeal to a higher authority, normally this higher authority is the majority of society (cultural relativism). Again, this can change from one culture to the next. So what happen when cultures disagree? WWI, WWII, French Revolution, etc... Might makes right (realism)

2) Evil is defined by an objective moral law because there is an objective law giver. The law giver, of course, would be some definition of the divine (YHWH, Allah, pantheism, etc...)

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