A Great Evil is a deliberate moral failure
Morality is a base of which measurements are made of the self, or a group, with the living standards in a particular locale(for example, Earth or society). Good is the correct measurement, and evil is the incorrect measurement. A greater good is a surplus and a greater evil is a deliberate moral failure.
Great Evil can be considered misguided action on purpose. Such as by taking a break mid sentence with no good reason, to add an insult, for all readers and who you're talking to, to decipher. Its a bailing (like from a skateboard) with all your intention being channeled into a maleficent activity. This example is an example of life-less-ness and is an anti-life-force; and in society there's a lot of this going on.
Great Evil can be considered misguided action on purpose. Such as by taking a break mid sentence with no good reason, to add an insult, for all readers and who you're talking to, to decipher. Its a bailing (like from a skateboard) with all your intention being channeled into a maleficent activity. This example is an example of life-less-ness and is an anti-life-force; and in society there's a lot of this going on.
Comments (16)
I think the trick is to say what is meant by "a maleficent activity," which goes hand in hand with your idea of doing something for "no good reason." So the counterargument is as follows:
1. Evil is doing something for no good reason
2. No one does things for no good reason
3. Therefore, Evil does not exist
Or else:
4. Evil is deliberate failure
5. No one engages in deliberate failure
6. Therefore, Evil does not exist
(See also my thread, Beyond the Pale.)
Evil is something against the living standards of a particular locale, and it's specifically evil (maleficent) to that locale.
If there is a greater locale encompassing a lesser locale, and what's good and evil conflicts because they are not the same and their rules interject--- it's evil when it's against the greater locale's living standards.
Such as by cutting down all trees on the living planet, that would be an act of evil to the planet(though it may be good for society, they'd have a lot of wood).
The reason it is immoral in that case is because it would destroy both society and Earth, and consciousness couldn't progress.
There's not some mystical reason for that resolution.
Basically, evil is anti-life or in some cases anti-progress--- but there is a situational hierarchy. This means the most high morality over-rules the lower moralities(such as Earth being higher, in the situational hierarchy, than society; if something is immoral to Earth living standards in society living standards, then good and evil in society living standards is negated until the conflict is resolved).
But this could be an impossible or impractical project. You can reason to yourself about what you ought to do, but what makes you do what you ought to do is often just local moral pressure, the fear of being excluded, shamed or punished by your peers for wrong conduct.
If we're willing to do it we can produce a societal system that's far more harmonious than the current system.
However, because of how impractical it is for society, we likely won't ever complete this necessary task(and thus cause our own extinction). You're right to be hopeless, but at the end of the day it's a stupidity of mankind that is making life thousands of times harder than it should be.
As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The moral aspiration behind communism produced a lot of failed states, both domestic and international conflicts/tragedies . Breaking apart the status quo by any meaningful degree with an ideal picture of how things ought to be risks instability and possibly greater harms. No one could come to agreement about the details of the system which we should strive for. There would always be a war between the majority rule and the minority dissent.
Quoting Barkon
In other words, we shouldn't exist as we are at all.
And as a side note, if life were multi-planetary, then it's ok to sacrifice a planet for another, or completely fail at one planet if it couldn't be helped.
My point is that that example highlights the difficulty with your whole conception. If some people do things for no reason then your approach works. But no one does things for no reason. No one fails deliberately.
If you want to think about it differently, every time two people disagree over what to do, they are disagreeing over what should be valued. They both think that the other person is acting in a sub-optimal or "evil" manner. Neither one is acting for no reason or failing deliberately.
Of course, one can make a case for the existence of malice, but it requires philosophical work.
...And what's interesting here is that the foil that many desire would be highly problematic. If people really did things for no reason, then it would not be possible to convince them or anyone else that things should not be done for no reason. This is because in order to persuade someone to act differently, you supply them with reasons to change, and someone who acts for no reason is immune to such persuasion.
This is the paradox that so few seem to understand, and it applies to all forms of evil/error/sin. It is part of the mysterium iniquitatis.
Not quite. A society that values 'individualism' will have its share of unintended consequences. Think of people who do not make an effort to contribute to their own welfare. There's no law that would incarcerate people for being unemployed.
Think of homelessness.
Morality isn't about good and evil, it's about good and bad. Evil is not with good in morality, good is with bad. Evil is purposely failing, and comes about against good in morality but is not part of what morality is. We aren't given the choice to be good or evil, were given the choice to be good or bad. Sure, you can be evil but that's a complete abstraction of morality. Morality is about balance of good. If you lose balance, you perform bad. Confusion arises if we put good and evil together, but it makes complete sense if it's good and bad.
But the principle of individualism is one that fosters or rather tolerate the individual decisions in matters of private life -- going to school or not, getting a job or not, contribute to society or not. Do you see the problem with these individual decisions? When you have thousands and millions of individuals who want to do nothing (!), what is a liberal society going to do about it without violating the individual decisions?
Okay good, so it looks like you are wrestling with the argument I gave in that first post.
So what is "bad," and how is it to be mitigated?
Perhaps one holy man had a dream that prefaced the event and either could have shared but did not. Or perhaps he did and nobody listened. We'll never know. Tangentially, maybe the remnants of whatever people lived in the region before it was conquered by the people destroyed spoke of it being dangerous and that they should not live there, but was hung for being a terrorist or raging fanatical maniac. Again, we'll never know.