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good evil sane insane

is their good and evil


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I think it all boils down to excessive selfishness and/or anger. Even if someone is insane they need to be selfish and/or angry to want to cause harm. Selfishness and anger appear evil but the "evil' person thinks that their acts are justified by their needs or the things that happened to them. Most violent people were abused as children or victims of violence later in life.

Harmful is a more accurate word than evil. Evil suggests that there is some external force that motivates people. I don't believe that, we act in evil ways when we don't control our selfishness and/or anger.
 
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Maybe that lord gave us an innate ability to distinguish good from evil and to choose which path to follow.
Modern science understands innate ability as some combination of instinct, brain development, evolutionary adaptation, etc.

That good/evil are not part of some dark/good forces beyond our understanding doesn't make them any less good or evil...if anything IMO it means we should take even more responsibility for acting good/bad.

After all, if you believe dark forces made someone do bad things, why do we blame the person and not just exorcise those dastardly demons?
 
Some acts are obviously good or obviously evil. There are levels of both though. Murdering someone for a thrill is obviously major evil while selling a car to someone without disclosing a problem that car has is a minor evil but when you do it you know it was wrong and feel guilt. If you are basically good that is.

Murdering someone for a thrill is nuts or mentally ill. Selling a car without a disclosure is dishonest or shady. Those are different levels of human error, not some insidious, malevolent force. Most people want basically good for themselves and others, the problems occur on how they arrive to those outcomes.
 
Modern science understands innate ability as some combination of instinct, brain development, evolutionary adaptation, etc.

That good/evil are not part of some dark/good forces beyond our understanding doesn't make them any less good or evil...if anything IMO it means we should take even more responsibility for acting good/bad.

After all, if you believe dark forces made someone do bad things, why do we blame the person and not just exorcise those dastardly demons?

I believe people invite dark forces into their souls so they do indeed have responsibility. If you are drawn to evil, evil is drawn to you.
 
Good and evil are concepts for little kids. Hobbes said it best: "Whatsoever is the object of any man's Appetite or Desire; that is it which he for his part calleth Good: and the object of his Hate and Aversion, evil."
 
IMO it does not pass the buck because you have to invite evil into your heart. We have a God given freedom of choice.

When you use that choice to ignore the suffering of others, or ignore the consequences to others of things that benefit you, you're doing evil. Put the blame squarely where it belongs, on the chooser, rather than invoking some other beings to serve as middlemen.

When you start invoking mythology to discuss concepts like morality, you just muddy the waters. The most powerful form of evil isn't serial killers or anything like that. It is the apathy of people who consider themselves good that leads them to ignore the pain and suffering of others. That is what allows evil to flourish.
 
Actions can be defined as good or evil, but I don't believe in good and evil other than as concepts. They aren't forces that exert control over the world.
 
One comment.

We, the USA, dropped two Atomic bombs on Japan. Now, I liked Harry S Truman, but one bomb would have been more than enough, don't you think. I think the thought process that dropped the first bomb might have been good, but the second bomb was undoubtedly evil. Same guy OK'd both.

If the second bomb was dropped because Truman relished the thought of incinerating people it would be evil but I think in his mind he was trying to save lives. Motive matters.
 
Evil is not a thing unto itself. It's not a force, or an entity. It's people rationalizing selfish actions that hurt others. Blaming evil on anything but one's own complacency and selfishness is just passing the buck.

Pretty much this. Its people deciding that they enjoy the suffering of others, the desire to be better than others, and the feeling of power over others above other things and without consideration. Evil is love of onesself to the point where there is no concern for the well being of others. Evil is nothing other than complete selfishness and self centeredness. Evil is basically sociopathy, its not a hard concept to understand and there is certainly nothing other wordly about it.
 
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Actions can be defined as good or evil, but I don't believe in good and evil other than as concepts. They aren't forces that exert control over the world.

The concepts are usually used to dehumanize people and stop all attempts to see things from their perspective. Then we can do anything we want to the 'evil ones' because they are not "us." Its harder to do that we acknowldge that they are just greedy and angry like us.
 
Do you believe in good and evil or do you just think people that do horrible things have a screw loose? I myself believe in evil and forces of darkness that take control of a soul and use it to do their bidding.

EDIT: I should have made this multiple choice, my mistake.

I do think there is an absolute right and wrong, which can intellectually be discovered through the exploration of natural rights. Is one who works against this, works for evil, insane? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
 
The concepts are usually used to dehumanize people and stop all attempts to see things from their perspective. Then we can do anything we want to the 'evil ones' because they are not "us." Its harder to do that we acknowldge that they are just greedy and angry like us.

What about people who dehumanize others by getting joy out of torturing them to death? See any evil there?
 
Do you believe in good and evil or do you just think people that do horrible things have a screw loose? I myself believe in evil and forces of darkness that take control of a soul and use it to do their bidding.

EDIT: I should have made this multiple choice, my mistake.

Sure, there's good and evil. It's just that those labels are flexible and abstract, and change with the times. As for questions of external entities taking control of souls and whatnot, that's as likely to garner productive answers as "do you believe in God?" or "do you believe in ghosts?"
 
I believe that good and evil are relative terms that exist on a sliding scale.
 
What about people who dehumanize others by getting joy out of torturing them to death? See any evil there?

The people who do that are abused children who are angry at the world. We can limit their numbers by enforcing laws against child abuse and intervening as early as possible and providing mental health services. That works better than burning children at the stake or doing an exorcism as the old traditions would require.
 
Pretty much this. Its people deciding that they enjoy the suffering of others, the desire to be better than others, and the feeling of power over others above other things and without consideration. Evil is love of onesself to the point where there is no concern for the well being of others. Evil is nothing other than complete selfishness and self centeredness. Evil is basically sociopathy, its not a hard concept to understand and there is certainly nothing other wordly about it.

I don't think we need to go all the way to sociopathy. That implies an extremism, I think, to the people we're talking about. Which is everyone. We are all faced with opportunities to be selfish or to care about others. And we all choose both ways. But we need to strive constantly to choose the latter as often as we can. And those that could truly be considered evil... they're those who choose the former. But that's not a different class of people. That's just people.
 
I don't think we need to go all the way to sociopathy. That implies an extremism, I think, to the people we're talking about. Which is everyone. We are all faced with opportunities to be selfish or to care about others. And we all choose both ways. But we need to strive constantly to choose the latter as often as we can. And those that could truly be considered evil... they're those who choose the former. But that's not a different class of people. That's just people.

I think in probably 90% of decisions, people choose to do good. They either want to promote some good in society for themselves and others. They want to preserve something they find as valuable, such as family. They want to make healthy choices for themselves.

In 10% of decisions, people lash out in anger, violence, selfishness, self centeredness, etc. It can be as simple as knowing putting yourself first will disadvantage others, but doing it anyway, or it could be something more direct, like the stuff we would all agree to be evil (except tigger).

Actual sociopaths are pretty rare and are pretty much crazy, but we all fail to consider the well being of others, whether family, friends, or strangers, from time to time and end up causing harm. Its a light version of evil, but in my book, it is a form of evil.

Good isn't a simple case either. Lets take abortion or gay rights or some other hot button issue. People on all sides of a LOT of societal debates all think they are doing good, they just disagree on what the good is, but I find their motivations correct, out of care for another, even if I may disagree with their logic. I cannot fault these people for doing what they think is right.
 
It's not that simple.

First of all, not everyone who does misdeeds, whether you consider these misdeeds to be "evil" or not is insane.

A thief, for example, is typically not insane, he is greedy and has no regard for your property rights and is taking a calculated risk that he can take your things and fence them without getting caught but that does not make him insane.

If all misdeeds were caused by insanity, then you could never justify having a prison.
 
Japan didn't unconditionally surrender after the first bombing

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All the above.


Some people have a screw loose.

Some are just evil.


Some both.
 
there is good and evil in all of us. There is no person alive (or IMHO who has been alive) who was pure good or pure evil. Everybody has elements of both in them. Criminals have much more of the bad/evil in them as good guys but nobody is pure evil all of the time. Even the most evil people alive (like Stalin and Hitler for example) also had good in them, even it it was just a little bit.
 
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