Evil
The term evil is used regularly by the media and if asked, most people would consider that evil is a valid concept. But try defining evil. Its a tough one. We see a news story about a murderer or a multiple rapist and we consider them evil. But what do we mean? Let's be clear though, evil is a categorization and discussion of this term and its categorization does not diminish the acts we commonly term evil.
It would be commonly considered that Hitler was evil. I have no evidential basis for this comment but given his activities I would expect the majority to think that if there were a category of evil, then there are few that would deserve this categorization more.
The key is the definition of evil, not the word and requires us to take a look at objective and subjective (and relative) views. Lets start by looking at what could be termed evil. We could split the world into beliefs (thoughts) and actions. Let's start with actions because we can argue back to beliefs and thoughts later. Somebody performs action X and we consider that action X to be evil if..? We would not consider an act evil unless we could be sure that we knew the consequences. An act can only be evil surely if there is a detrimental outcome. But this consequentialist view is not straight forward. What if Hitler were to have ordered the death of the Jews but it had not gone though (the war had ended for example). Would that act be evil? Most would consider the answer yes. A position I would support. The intention was there even if the outcome was not intended.
So it would be fair to say that a immoral act requires motivation to carry out the deed even if the consequences do not follow through. So the question then is that in order to do any moral act one must have the right motivation (or intention). This has some unusual implications. If evil has to have immoral intentions then we must face the fact that the person has a standard normal moral set of principles. I.e. to do evil requires intention to do an immoral act whilst at the same time have a moral framework in which this act is recognized as a moral act. In other words, to do evil requires the person to have a moral framework to make a conscious decision to act outside of.
But if this is true then can we be sure that evil is the right categorization for Hitler? This would require Hitler to have a normal (typical) moral set of principles in which he recognized his acts as immoral and committed them anyway. Or is it more plausible that his moral principles are significantly different to ours and he sees his acts as not immoral (evil) within his framework. This is the objective/subjective framework.
If we take the first position (he acts outside of his moral principles knowingly) then we may find this to me more common than we think. My previous discussions about animals and Eichmann highlight this. Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of killing and eating animals we would mostly agree that we would want no animals to suffer as part of the process. So we all have a moral principle which says do not harm animals. But we are happy to eat meat which is from animals which have suffered in upbringing and in many cases in the slaughter. In other words we allow to happen something which we, at the same time, hold to be immoral. Does that make us evil?
Hitler arguably had a moral framework in which he did not recognize his acts as immoral. We, on the other hand, eat animals which have been mistreated knowing that this is immoral against our own moral principles.
It would be commonly considered that Hitler was evil. I have no evidential basis for this comment but given his activities I would expect the majority to think that if there were a category of evil, then there are few that would deserve this categorization more.
The key is the definition of evil, not the word and requires us to take a look at objective and subjective (and relative) views. Lets start by looking at what could be termed evil. We could split the world into beliefs (thoughts) and actions. Let's start with actions because we can argue back to beliefs and thoughts later. Somebody performs action X and we consider that action X to be evil if..? We would not consider an act evil unless we could be sure that we knew the consequences. An act can only be evil surely if there is a detrimental outcome. But this consequentialist view is not straight forward. What if Hitler were to have ordered the death of the Jews but it had not gone though (the war had ended for example). Would that act be evil? Most would consider the answer yes. A position I would support. The intention was there even if the outcome was not intended.
So it would be fair to say that a immoral act requires motivation to carry out the deed even if the consequences do not follow through. So the question then is that in order to do any moral act one must have the right motivation (or intention). This has some unusual implications. If evil has to have immoral intentions then we must face the fact that the person has a standard normal moral set of principles. I.e. to do evil requires intention to do an immoral act whilst at the same time have a moral framework in which this act is recognized as a moral act. In other words, to do evil requires the person to have a moral framework to make a conscious decision to act outside of.
But if this is true then can we be sure that evil is the right categorization for Hitler? This would require Hitler to have a normal (typical) moral set of principles in which he recognized his acts as immoral and committed them anyway. Or is it more plausible that his moral principles are significantly different to ours and he sees his acts as not immoral (evil) within his framework. This is the objective/subjective framework.
If we take the first position (he acts outside of his moral principles knowingly) then we may find this to me more common than we think. My previous discussions about animals and Eichmann highlight this. Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of killing and eating animals we would mostly agree that we would want no animals to suffer as part of the process. So we all have a moral principle which says do not harm animals. But we are happy to eat meat which is from animals which have suffered in upbringing and in many cases in the slaughter. In other words we allow to happen something which we, at the same time, hold to be immoral. Does that make us evil?
Hitler arguably had a moral framework in which he did not recognize his acts as immoral. We, on the other hand, eat animals which have been mistreated knowing that this is immoral against our own moral principles.
posted by So long and thanks for all the fish at
5:31 pm
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