Quote:I am glad you have finally, sort of, defined evil for our consideration...
When dealing with a term such as this one, the first step is trying to make manifest all the things about we we might assume without even being aware we are making such assumptions.
Quote:Where does it reside? In the hearts of man
There's an example, though a much less important one. It ain't sitting below the left ventricle, as you know.
Quote:The governments of Iran, Iraq and North Korea are all guilty of many evil acts. Killing innocents, keeping half their population as a subserviant second-class, starving their citizens, supporting terrorism, arming terrorists, etc... These are acts of evil and therefore "evil is as evil does".
But the US too has committed acts of "evil". Read Twain on the Phillipines. Or the folks who were unlucky enough to live near to Noriega's house. Lots of etceteras.
So its not sufficient to simply note acts committed (or ommitted). Probably, we have to figure out some sort of measure which weighs cumulative consequences of an individual's acts, or a group's acts.
I think you've got it square on to focus on 'acts'. Obviously, 'intentions' too must be part of what we consider (above, Brandon makes no mention of cruelty, the intentional causing of pain/suffering). I consider that the present administration's attempts to excuse or legalize or legitimize torture are a moral wrong. You might argue that, but certainly no one would argue that such acts done for pleasure constitute a clear moral wrong.
One of the fundamental dangers of using this sort of language of 'evil' is that we are remarkably blind to consequences of our own acts and to assumptions about ourselves. It is easy to imagine a fundamentalist Muslim of the "America is Satan" sort considering that merely as a function of his adherence to the Koran (his understanding of it, of course) gives him a goodness or godliness right from the git go. He can't be wrong, or can't be very wrong, because he swims in an ocean of The Good. Unfortunately, such is also the case with nutty christians and nutty americans or nutty Brits, etc.
The more one looks at this slogan 'axis of evil', the more ludicrous it becomes as any sort of helpful way to think about things and, certainly, for a political figure to use in talking about the world.
For me, military or diplomatic or aid intervention seems morally justified (even morally necessary) where some population of civilians are suffering through accident or through cruelty/oppression, etc. And that is the moral argument which we all responded to as regards Iraq and which we respond to when we think or say that North Korea is really an ugly situation for far too many people.
But...but...but... if we face reality, then we are forced to acknowledge that there is simply no chance at all that if Iraq was located somewhere in the arctic and had no oil reserves, we wouldn't have gone there. That if Israel had established itself in northern Canada and the esquimos wanted it gone, the US and the Israeli government would be far, far more disconnected than at present. Israel is important not merely out of sympathy, or out of significant jewish populations here, or out of intensive lobbying, or out of cultural/historical sympathies, but mainly because of where it is and its importance to the oil resource.
