Seasons
This is a forum or general chit-chat, small talk, a "hey, how ya doing?" and such. Or hell, get crazy deep on something. Whatever you like.
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Bev:
How can evil be subjective? Does that mean that if I didn't think that torturing babies just for fun wasn't evil, it wouldn't be?
Bev: I define evil subjectively, thought my own standards, values and experiences.
Yes! I'm reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, and he argues that we all somehow know right from wrong. His example involves an orange, and goes something like this:
Say Bev says to Irina, "Give me a bit of your orange; I gave you a bit of my orange the other day." (Virtual oranges, yet.)
If Irina refuses to share her orange with Bev, she'll explain it away. She won't just say, "I don't want to," or "I don't have to" (unless she's selfish). She'll say something along the lines of that being an entirely different situation. She knows that she should share her orange with Bev. (Well, you should, Irina. So there.) Now sharing oranges doesn't compare to the Holocaust. But on a sliding scale between pure goodness and pure evil, Irina has just nudged over to the evil side and she knows it. Nobody's completely evil. But the point is that people generally know right from wrong.
I think what's pure good is selflessness. Pure evil would be never considering how your actions affect other people.
We all know smacking babies against the wall is evil. And, Irina, we all know you owe Bev a bit of your orange.
Am I out of the sandbox now for revealing myself as a crazy genius? Really, I'm just weird. Why else would I have stuck around this place so long? I fit in!
Posts 5,627 - 5,638 of 6,170
PS Why should your opinion have to be humble 
No one's point of view should be marginalized just cos we are all biased and subjective--it's a human thing.
No one's point of view should be marginalized just cos we are all biased and subjective--it's a human thing. 
Yeah. I forgot to make my remarks humble or opinionated. Just the facts.
Seriously, genius is cognitive (whether artistic or mathematical). It's a gift. Mental illness (wherein evil may reside) is not -- it's a deficit. Obviously both can and do coexist. Some mental illnesses make people do evil things. Add in genius and you have an evil genius. But I guess then the question for me is always whether these evil-doers are more sinned-against than sinning. I'm just grateful not to be a pedophile or something that people hate themselves for and can't be stopped except by life-long incarceration. In that case, I'd say the humane thing to do would be to give me the lethal injection. It's not as if they chose to be pedophiles or can control their impulses. So I hear. And of course I feel for the victims. But that doesn't mean I can't feel for the villains as well.
So is it the behavior that's evil or the people?
And I know this sounds dangerously close to churches who love gay people while hating homosexuality. The difference is that being gay isn't evil, according to the APA, whose opinions are anything but humble.
Did we ever define evil in this thread? I forget.
Seriously, genius is cognitive (whether artistic or mathematical). It's a gift. Mental illness (wherein evil may reside) is not -- it's a deficit. Obviously both can and do coexist. Some mental illnesses make people do evil things. Add in genius and you have an evil genius. But I guess then the question for me is always whether these evil-doers are more sinned-against than sinning. I'm just grateful not to be a pedophile or something that people hate themselves for and can't be stopped except by life-long incarceration. In that case, I'd say the humane thing to do would be to give me the lethal injection. It's not as if they chose to be pedophiles or can control their impulses. So I hear. And of course I feel for the victims. But that doesn't mean I can't feel for the villains as well.
So is it the behavior that's evil or the people?
And I know this sounds dangerously close to churches who love gay people while hating homosexuality. The difference is that being gay isn't evil, according to the APA, whose opinions are anything but humble.
Did we ever define evil in this thread? I forget.
Bev:
How can evil be subjective? Does that mean that if I didn't think that torturing babies just for fun wasn't evil, it wouldn't be?
Irina, if you didn't think torturing babies was wrong, it means it wouldn't be evil to you. It would still be evil to me and I would act accordingly. If you lived in a society where most thought it was evil and would punish you, you would either (a) learn to think of it as evil (b) learn to hide it or (c) get caught and suffer the consequences.
I define evil subjectively, thought my own standards, values and experiences. It's evil to me if it uses others a objects, or a means to your own ends, and especially if it hurts them for your own gain. It's good to me if it cultivates compassion and awareness of our connection to each other and the greater whole. That's just a quick and dirty summary of my own values and worldview. YMMV. Societies tend to have a collective version of that, though if my standards are different from that of another culture, I keep mine and don't care what people say about my ignorance for judging what I could not possibly understand from the outside. I will try to understand the other culture and all that, but that doesn't mean I will give up my subjective view that beating up people who are weaker than you (like women or monks) is wrong. It's my perspective and I am keeping it (and acting on it when I can).
I define evil subjectively, thought my own standards, values and experiences. It's evil to me if it uses others a objects, or a means to your own ends, and especially if it hurts them for your own gain. It's good to me if it cultivates compassion and awareness of our connection to each other and the greater whole. That's just a quick and dirty summary of my own values and worldview. YMMV. Societies tend to have a collective version of that, though if my standards are different from that of another culture, I keep mine and don't care what people say about my ignorance for judging what I could not possibly understand from the outside. I will try to understand the other culture and all that, but that doesn't mean I will give up my subjective view that beating up people who are weaker than you (like women or monks) is wrong. It's my perspective and I am keeping it (and acting on it when I can).
The Clerk:
IMHO, a person is not morally responsible for any matter in which he has no choice. Suppose you are tied to a chair with a button near your right foot; someone taps you under your right knee with a little hammer and by reflex, your foot kicks out and depresses the button, which (as you knew all along) sets off a bomb killing 100 children. You are not morally responsible for their deaths, since a reflex action is not voluntary.
If a pedophile truly cannot help himself, then he is not evil, only unfortunate.
IMHO, a person is not morally responsible for any matter in which he has no choice. Suppose you are tied to a chair with a button near your right foot; someone taps you under your right knee with a little hammer and by reflex, your foot kicks out and depresses the button, which (as you knew all along) sets off a bomb killing 100 children. You are not morally responsible for their deaths, since a reflex action is not voluntary.
If a pedophile truly cannot help himself, then he is not evil, only unfortunate.
Clerk, though I tend to in general think of the behavior as "evil" and not the people (I was raised Lutheran and all that) and I also think biochemical factors play a huge role along with social factors in shaping our behaviors, I don't think I will completely give up on the concept of internal choice also being a factor. Arguably, one of the reasons creatures with some level of self-awareness and ability to make choices based on all the information they receive evolved and flourished is that the ability to make choices that made it more likely they would survive, attract mates, and pass on the choice-making ability in their genes. While I grant you our choices are limited by our ability to fully use our brain, our internal chemistry and filters, our education and our environment, humans are still, by and large, able to make many choices about their own behaviors, including, for the most part, which impulses are safe to act on and which are not.
Though in some cases people people may be truly unable to control behavior, in many more I believe they may uses the impulses as an excuse to act in what they see as their interest or desire when they think they can get away with it. Therefore, if a pedophile randomly jumps on children in public with parents and police present regardless of the consequences, I believe he or she has no ability to control it. If the pedophile plans and waits, manipulates and minimizes his or her chances of being caught, then he or she had control. Even if they cry and say they knew what they did was wrong and they felt guilty, I think they are really just feeling sorry for themselves. It's sort of like men who "snap" and beat up their wives and the cry about how awful it was for them and they just couldn't help it. Funny, they never seem to snap in a biker bar and randomly hit Mountain Mike or "The Brute" Johnson. If the break was totally out of control, they would hit their boss, random strangers and the local cop. All the crocodile tears in the world only mean they pity themselves, not much different than a cheater who cries because he got caught. Biology may give them the impulse, and society may give them mixed messages but they still made a choice.
Though in some cases people people may be truly unable to control behavior, in many more I believe they may uses the impulses as an excuse to act in what they see as their interest or desire when they think they can get away with it. Therefore, if a pedophile randomly jumps on children in public with parents and police present regardless of the consequences, I believe he or she has no ability to control it. If the pedophile plans and waits, manipulates and minimizes his or her chances of being caught, then he or she had control. Even if they cry and say they knew what they did was wrong and they felt guilty, I think they are really just feeling sorry for themselves. It's sort of like men who "snap" and beat up their wives and the cry about how awful it was for them and they just couldn't help it. Funny, they never seem to snap in a biker bar and randomly hit Mountain Mike or "The Brute" Johnson. If the break was totally out of control, they would hit their boss, random strangers and the local cop. All the crocodile tears in the world only mean they pity themselves, not much different than a cheater who cries because he got caught. Biology may give them the impulse, and society may give them mixed messages but they still made a choice.
Bev writes:
Irina, if you didn't think torturing babies was wrong, it means it wouldn't be evil to you.
I'm sure that's right, taking "evil... for you" to mean, "evil ... in your opinion". But I claim that it would be evil (just plain evil, not just 'evil for me'), whether or not I believed it to be. Indeed, if I died tomorrow, it would still be true that torturing babies just for fun would be morally wrong.
If someone were unfortunate enough to believe that 2+2=5, we could say that "2+2=5" was true 'for him'. Arithmetic truth would then also be subjective. I guess this would make everything 'subjective', since there is nothing that people couldn't disagree on or change their minds about. But then 'subjective' wouldn't be a very interesting concept, since it would apply to everything.
But if someone who believes that 2+2=5, and various consequences of that (such as 20+20=50 and 4+4=10) were to design a sophisticated airplane from scratch, and built one from that design, I don't think it would fly, even 'for him'!
No doubt it is true 'for you' that ethics is subjective, but it is true 'for me' that it is objective. If that is all there is to it, we don't even disagree: we both agree that ethics is subjective 'for you' and objective 'for me'. Why even discuss it? We are both trapped in our own subjectivity. You discuss it because, I venture to suppose, deep in your heart you believe that ethics really is subjective, not just subjective 'for you', and that I am wrong when I say otherwise.
I'm sure that's right, taking "evil... for you" to mean, "evil ... in your opinion". But I claim that it would be evil (just plain evil, not just 'evil for me'), whether or not I believed it to be. Indeed, if I died tomorrow, it would still be true that torturing babies just for fun would be morally wrong.
If someone were unfortunate enough to believe that 2+2=5, we could say that "2+2=5" was true 'for him'. Arithmetic truth would then also be subjective. I guess this would make everything 'subjective', since there is nothing that people couldn't disagree on or change their minds about. But then 'subjective' wouldn't be a very interesting concept, since it would apply to everything.
But if someone who believes that 2+2=5, and various consequences of that (such as 20+20=50 and 4+4=10) were to design a sophisticated airplane from scratch, and built one from that design, I don't think it would fly, even 'for him'!
No doubt it is true 'for you' that ethics is subjective, but it is true 'for me' that it is objective. If that is all there is to it, we don't even disagree: we both agree that ethics is subjective 'for you' and objective 'for me'. Why even discuss it? We are both trapped in our own subjectivity. You discuss it because, I venture to suppose, deep in your heart you believe that ethics really is subjective, not just subjective 'for you', and that I am wrong when I say otherwise.
Yes! I'm reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, and he argues that we all somehow know right from wrong. His example involves an orange, and goes something like this:
Say Bev says to Irina, "Give me a bit of your orange; I gave you a bit of my orange the other day." (Virtual oranges, yet.)
If Irina refuses to share her orange with Bev, she'll explain it away. She won't just say, "I don't want to," or "I don't have to" (unless she's selfish). She'll say something along the lines of that being an entirely different situation. She knows that she should share her orange with Bev. (Well, you should, Irina. So there.) Now sharing oranges doesn't compare to the Holocaust. But on a sliding scale between pure goodness and pure evil, Irina has just nudged over to the evil side and she knows it. Nobody's completely evil. But the point is that people generally know right from wrong.
I think what's pure good is selflessness. Pure evil would be never considering how your actions affect other people.
We all know smacking babies against the wall is evil. And, Irina, we all know you owe Bev a bit of your orange.
Am I out of the sandbox now for revealing myself as a crazy genius? Really, I'm just weird. Why else would I have stuck around this place so long? I fit in!
Irina, Clearly you believe there is an objective "evil" independent of individual perspective (what I called evil per se). What is it's source? Who defines it?
how would we study it as a natural phenomenon (like electricity or magnetic fields)?
how would we study it as a natural phenomenon (like electricity or magnetic fields)?
[snarls:] Oh, all right, then! TAKE it, if it means so very much to you! [Throws the rotten half of the orange at BEV] [stalks away, muttering:] Greedy, officious little...
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