So , humans..basically good or bascially evil?

Well, first you have to define what you mean by "good" and "evil". 8->

Are humans, as a species, aggressive? You bet. Like our cousins, chimps and baboons. But is that "evil"? Let's say that one of these early migrant bands wanders into a valley and find another group already camped on the only water in the area. There's just enough water for one band, not two, and the band with the water refuses to share. Is it evil for the newcomers to attack? Because they will die if they don't have water.

Humans kill each other for many, many reasons. In early times it was for basics - food, water, shelter. Now it's for money, politics, and religion.

But keep in mind that the vast majority of all humans, maybe 99%, have never killed another human. The humans who actually kill are rare. It's quite possible that you don't personally know a single person who ever killed another human. (Being the in the military doesn't count, since very few soldier actually fight. Did they for certain kill someone.) Yeah, we're potentially aggressive and, unlike most animals, we will kill members of our own species. But it's only a few people who do the killing. The rest of us just pay their salaries with our taxes or drug habits or whatever.

Okay. Since there is no such thing as good or evil, those American soldiers you mentioned were not evil. Neither were the Nazis, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot. Since there is no evil, there is also no evil to fight against. A doctor who saves lives and a serial killer who takes them are just the same. So just take it easy and be happy.

Bob

From what you say here, it sounds as if you believe that invention to be arbitrary. Is that so? If so, then those American soldiers were simply using their own definition. If there is no objective evil, then their definition is as good as yours.

Yes, objective good and evil exist in human actions and behavior. That's the whole point.



How can you say that Hitler was deluded? If evil is a human invention, well then Hitler simply made his own invention, right?

But according to you, these soldiers were just following the definition of evil from their society, and their society said that these people were "the enemy." Had Hitler won, it would have been British and American officials who would have been put on trial for war crimes. According to you, the victorious Nazis would have been right.

Bob

Baloney. 

Once you say that the definition of good an evil is arbitrary, you have no logical basis to declare anything good or evil. All you can say is that something is good or evil according to the society I belong to. But why does society have that power? Why not have everyone decide on their own what is good or evil? There is no reason why that cannot be the case. Of course if you do that, you have chaos. However, if it's all arbitrary, neither chaos nor order is good or bad.



And all of this is alright according to you?It has to be because you have already said that the definition of good and evil is arbitrary.



And the change was completely arbitrary, right? According to what you say, there is no rhyme or reason to changing attitudes.



Then you have no basis for condemning his actions.



Then your only complaint is that they are hypocrites. But it would just be arbitrary to say that hypocrisy is evil, so once again you have no way to condemn them. As far as their breaking the law, that's only arbitrary too, so once again you have no case. The underground railroad that helped runaway slaves was illegal too. Would you condemn them as well? After all, they broke the law.



True.



No I don't. Good and evil apply to actions, not thoughts. If it were illegal to wish someone dead, most people would be guilty of murder.



Doing a good action does not erase an evil action. If you murder someone in cold blood, it doesn't matter that you were a law abiding citizen for the last 20 years. There was a serial killer recently who, after they caught him, expressed concern for his girlfriend and child. He was still a serial killer.



But according to you, the whole thing is arbitrary to begin with, so there is no way to say that consistency is good. Hitler considered himself above the law. He did invade other countries. And there would have been nothing to stop him from putting British and American officials on trial for war crimes.

What do you mean "500 years ago?" When in all of history did predatory invasions ever stop? The 19th century when Europe colonized the world? Certainly not during WWI and WWII. Nor in Vietnam or Iraq. Besides that, if you claim that the definition of good and evil is arbitrary, you have no basis for condemning any war or plunder, or murder. Or anything.

But the question you should be asking is "Why do people need to tell the difference between good and bad anyway"?

Bob

Then on what basis can you praise an action as "good" or condemn it as "evil?" You can't. A doctor who saves lives isn't good and the Nazi murderers weren't bad.

Bob

Okay, tell me when you think that poking someone's eye out with a stick is a good thing. Don't make me wait too long. I have things to do. 

And you think that is a good thing? The fact that you HAD TO poke someone's eye out for self-defense, when in fact you would normally think that is a bad thing? Wouldn't you defend your action? 

And how do you think they would view someone doing what they do to others, doing the same thing to them? 

Right Ray. Ethics is contextual. Generalized rules don't often apply to specific cases. For example, Thou shalt not lie. What if you were hiding someone who was being chased by killers and the killers knocked on your door to ask you if you had seen the guy. Would you say "Sure, he's hiding right here" because you didn't want to lie? To make this example more realistic, what if you were hiding a Jew from the Nazis during WWII? A lot of people did, and they had to lie to pull it off.

What is happening here is a clash of rules. When you agreed to hide that fellow, you made a promise. So the question now becomes do you lie or do you break a promise.

Bob

Thanks for the correction Ray. Still, lying is frowned upon so my example still holds.

Bob

Yes, exactly so.


This is why we have laws that (theoretically) apply to everyone equally. A person who decides to disregard these laws and follow his or her own personal code of conduct is what society calls an outlaw. If I run a red light because I can see perfectly well that there are no cars coming from the other direction, I am elevating my own judgment above that of society's collective judgment (ie, the law of the land). Note that nobody ever asked me whether I agreed that cars should have to stop at red lights, and I never agreed to obey this rule. So in order for laws to work, there has to be an element of fascism.

But I think whole lot of different things are being confused and conflated here. Bob talks about god/bad and good/evil as if they were the same things, which of course they are not.

For me, the only valid approach to the original question is to view it from an evolutionary standpoint. From microbes up through insects, fish, birds and mammals, evolution is a ruthless force. And the force that is evolution is driven by the force of life itself. Why does a plant grow? Because it is genetically hard-wired to grow. But why is it genetically hard-wired to grow? If you go back to the most basic life-forms - for example, a single-cell amoeba - you will find that there is an inherent urge to survive, to grow and to develop. And the crucial thing here is that this is essentially a selfish urge.

Of course, societies (of microbes, insects, animals) developed in which this selfish urge was subjugated to the collective well-being of the group. But this is still just a way of maximizing the survival odds of each individual within the group. The motivation is still a selfish one.

So, at the most rudimentary level, organisms eat other organisms to survive. Does that make them "evil"? When a spider eats a fly, is the spider exhibiting "evil" behavior? If you look at it in the context of evolution as a whole, then of course the answer is no. The spider is just doing what comes naturally to it. Following its spiderly instinct. But if you focus on the fly, and develop a sense of empathy with it, then the spider's behavior can begin to seem unusually cruel and "evil".

If we move up the evolutionary ladder to humans, we see exactly the same forces at work. The difference is that humans are far more complex creatures than spiders or ants, and so their motivations for doing things are naturally more complicated and convoluted. Where the behavior of a spider is clearly determined by a set of instincts that follow a set pattern, human instincts have become subsumed in a complex array of psychological drives and impulses.

But no matter how obscure, warped and convoluted human motivation may be, it is still driven by the same impulse that drives the amoeba. People - including murderers, rapists, Nazis - do what they do for reasons (however much the rest of society might object to those reasons).

Now, the "crossover moment" in the evolution of any species is the development of a sense of empathy (ie, a conscience); the ability to see things from the perspective of the other person. As soon as that happens, the situation changes, because with knowledge comes responsibility. The ability to "feel the other person's pain" is a game changer in evolutionary terms. It means you can no longer beat them to death with a club in order to steal their possessions. Not without feeling guilt. And this is where the whole concept of morality comes in.

But of course conscience/empathy is always in competition with other motivations. Your anger towards another person may overcome any empathy you have for them. And of course it is possible to find all kinds of justifications for behaving in a certain way. When a US soldier kills an Iraqi civilian, they can justify this to themselves on the grounds that they were just following orders. Essentially they pass responsibility for their actions to their superiors, who, they believe, have a better grasp of the situation than they do.

Conscience competes with greed, anger, humiliation, resentment, desire, hatred, frustration and so on, as well as with various religious and ideological beliefs, on an ongoing basis. As a society we can say that the person did a "bad thing" - or committed a crime - when they allowed this to happen. They knew it was "wrong" because they are assumed to possess the ability to empathize with their victim, and therefore they have to be punished.

But "evil"? That's a different kettle of phish altogether. It's really a way of avoiding analysis and responsibility, I think. It's easier to say that a person was "evil" when they committed some heinous crime than it is to look into the reasons for their behavior. If you investigate the background of most "evil" killers, you will find that they came from dysfunctional homes in which they were physically and/or sexually abused from an early age. So, sure, you can say that they are warped, demented, sick in the head, psycho or whatever. But when you say that they are "evil" you attribute supernatural powers to them which, of course, they do not possess. Their behavior is comprehensible in terms of human psychology.

So you can use the word "evil" to describe certain types of behavior, as long as you are using it as a purely descriptive term. If you are using it to mean that the person was literally motivated by some non-human existential malevolent force, then you'd be making an extraordinary claim for which I think you would be very hard-pressed to find any evidence to support.

"Evil" is a human invention. We decide what is good and what is bad. And our definition changes according to our circumstances.

Which means that no society's rules are better than any other, doesn't it?



But those laws are based on social ideas of good and evil. Since those are arbitrary, the laws they are based on are arbitrary as well.



Not really. Traffic lights are a minor convention. No one ever felt offended enough by it to protest.



That's true. They are not.



True and well put.



Humans have a much wider range of choices than other animals. In fact, animals have no choice at all. Their behavior is "pre-programmed."



That's exactly the word to use. Reasons. Humans are the rational animals. They are not limited to merely reacting to stimulii, like other animals.



Exactly! But that sense of empathy is an objective thing. Not only does it give morality an objective base. It also means that different moralities can be compared to how well they fit this sense of empathy. In other words, different moralities can be compared to see if they are better or worse. All moralities are not equal.



I think the Nuremberg trials took care of this. Some orders should not be obeyed. 



Yes. Once again this has an objective base. It is not arbitrary.



Yes, it is comprehensible. But it is still evil. Evil is simply something that is extremely bad, that's all. It is not supernatural.



That was never my claim. "Evil" to me is simply something that is extremely bad.



Based on our objective needs.

Bob





































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I'm not comparing moralities. Just saying that morality is relative to culture. Some morality is good for its society, some is self-destructive, but the people involved think that they are "good", whatever they do. If they choose to do "bad" things, it will always be for a good reason. Most people simply accept whatever code of ethics surrounds them as they grow up. The only time they think about that code is when they're looking for an excuse to do something that violates it. 8->