I was recently in a debate with someone over the question of, “Does the human race need ‘evil’ in order to exist?”. My position was that no matter what we do, evil will always exist and therefore is necessary to our existance. Because ‘evil’ is subjective, people will always deem something to be evil. We will never collectively agree that all evil has been banished and that we live in a utopia.
Thoughts?
^what is evil if you don’t say it is…I can say murder is right, but because you’ve been brought up to know that it is wrong you say that it’s evil. Now I don’t consider anything evil, I just don’t pleasure in hurting people. Evil is not an opposite to good, it’s just the mere absence of it. And when you accept evil you’re ultimatley good. When you accept that you are wrong you come to a right…so we have always been good, but because of teachings and knowledge we see things as evil or not don you think?? Evil will always be around as long as man differentiates himself with himself!
Yes evil is a subjective concept, but I dont deem anything to be evil. Im plugging my own philiosophy on life all over these threads, but I love this idea 
and im hoping others will critique it or affirm it. Anyways, I have to ask what YOU mean by evil. Like I said, ive personally found pure tolerance from my philosophy. I dont think any one does anything evil. Thus I dont believe evil is necissary. I believe whatever makes us feel bad has come to commonly be considered evil. So if thats the case, and the question is, do we need to feel bad in order to know what it is to feel good, ide have to say no. They are two diffirent feelings. But maybe we would appreciate feeling good much more if we feel bad. I would have no problem agreeing with that…
Human beings needs evil, what else are they going to blame meaningless suffering on?
night_watch_man18 wrote:
If I grant you that evil will always exist it by no means shall make it necessary for our existence (flawed logic).
730 wrote:
Saying that murder is right does not make it right. And it is a false assumption to claim that one believes murder is wrong because they were raised to believe so. For example, I could have been raised to believe that it’s ok to murder, let’s say my father was a killer and raised me so; one day I could have had someone in my family murdered, felt the pain and concluded that it is wrong to inflict such pain on someone else.
I do not agree with moral relatvism. Under what possible conditions can we justify murder? (do not bring up war, or killing to protect one’s life… that is a reaction to someone threatening your or your loved one’s life - essencially an act to protect one’s own or loved one’s life).
Reason cannot justify murder (and I challenge someone to argue for it). Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment was probably the best attempt and look at what happened to him.
Ah, I apologize, I did not expand on my thoughts.
For the possibility of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ to be in existance, we cannot have one without the other. If everything was ‘good’, than it would not be classified as good anymore, because it would be a norm.
Through the teachings and studies of Emile Durkeim, he found that humans have difficulty in living in a state of normality. When there is no clear definition of what is good or evil, people begin to unravel. This is not to say it is true with all human beings, but from his book “Suicide”, he has seen how people commit Anomic suicide when there is no moral guidance; and so a person experiences a feeling of ‘normlessness’. Mind you, this is pure theory and can not be generalized to humanity as a whole, simply because we have never experienced a world without the presence of either good nor evil (unless you believe in the Garden of Eden).
What I concluded from this study, was that in order for humans to live and function, we need the distinctions of both good and evil in our perception. If we do not have these concepts, we then feel lost and inevitably take our own lives. We reject a world without the notion of deviance.
If one argues there’s no such thing as evil, you’d also have to conclude there’s no such thing as good, either.
I dont see any argument that evil is necessary for man to be what he is.
That there is evil or that we have the knowledge of evil today does not mean that we cannot be without these.
If we take the account of the Creation in bible then the time before Adam fell, man had no knowledge of evil.
As I have written elsewhere good and evil can be a continuum from less good to most good, according to some measure of goodness, perhaps total social benefit.
What is evil is either we corrupting this measure of goodness, such as substituting total social benefit for maximal personal benefit, or by deliberately selecting a lesser good when we are aware of the most good. So that is the nature of evil, something inherent in us and not in the external good itself.
So then the question is can man be what we are without this internal corruption? I do not see why not.
It’s been covered that good and evil are entirely subjective.
From a merely Utilitarian perspective, evil can be views as that which is unproductive to the human cause.
So, for humanity to succeed, there has to be the possibility of failure, thus yes, subjectively, evil must exist. Even in a utopian society where everyone loves one another and children run laughing down streets with flowers braided into their hair, there must be a knowledge of what is undesirable.
So less would ‘evil’ have to exist, that the knowledge and ability to differentiate between positive and negative.
so the description below your monicker IS accurate.
I have read what you wrote in your post elsewhere. I have to say that your comparison between good/evil and white/black is not exactly concrete. Colour is a physical manifestation. Beliefs in what is good and what is evil are not tangible or scientifically proven.
If you say that good and evil are on a continuum, then you have to ask who is defining what good and evil are. Different faiths and different religions view the good/bad spectrum differently (obviously), so for the human race as a whole to live in harmony, there would have to be no diversity or difference. In essence, we would have to be emotional robots. We would all have to follow the same faith, follow the same rules, and believe in the same things. If we did not, then there would be diversity, and with diversity comes a difference of opinion.
Depends upon how literal minded you are. 
^^o.k…because you come to know it is wrong through whatever medium you consider it evil…the rest of my statement still stands…
Underground man.
How can you argue that murder is wrong. Heres an example of murder being right… I kill some one, and the feeling of power i get makes me feel good… There… I feel good, thus in my understanding of good/evil, killing is good in that particular moment. Then again I might go to jail for it later, and seeing as how I would greatly dislike jail, murder happend to be bad for me… You are assuming an absolute. There can be no reason for anything to be right/wrong in the ethical sense, because it requires an absolute, a law from God for example. An absolute is without reason, thus it wouldnt be reasonable to assume the absolute. All one can argue against murder is that it is statisticly likely to result in pain for the murderer. But if some one got away with it, and felt good about it, good for them. Bad for me and you, but he doesn’t much care about you and me, otherwise he wouldnt have killed in the first place.
You’re looking at it from a group sense though…If you’re an individual that thinks white is a beautiful color, and I’m an individual that thinks white is a beautiful color…we can be in harmony with our thoughts because we think the same thing…yet still holding on to our own individual nature…Everybody has different points of what truth is, but after all the researching and asking questions the answer will always be what you searched for…you can’t have one and not the other I agree because one is the other…Evil is good and good is Evil seperating them will only bring confusion…Evil does not exist, so like good does not exist; but when both don’t exist the way you act is considered good, because that’s all you know…(trying to explain in more detail what I said before)
I have to say this quote is true.
The word evil and good are inventions of language to convey the though, possitive acts towards a certian people=good. negative acts towards a cetian people=bad
Example: a democrat becomes the next president
Democrats: that is good
Republicans: that is bad
Good and evil must exist because if there was no such thing, there would be no such thing as arguements or conflicts. Humanity needs it or else there would have been no need of progress or even life.
First Orgainsm to Second Organism in good/evil world: Get out of my teritory, i need room to expand.
In a no evil world that arguement would never have started because there would be no arguement to start it. If you think that because there is no good/evil because of this statement meaning that all things will get together in harmony, you are wrong. The first organism would need his territory to expand, if a second one moved in on his turf, it would be bad to him. This explanation shows that there must be good/bad world because if not, it allows for no progress at all. The second organism would not have moved in, in the first place and once all the space was taken up, nobody would invade the other’s territory if they needed more land.
There must be a good and evil. Good and evil are just views from 2 viewpoints. For each good action for one point, the exact opposite will concider it bad. Progress is based on one gaining. Obviously by my explanation, there would be no gaining if there was no evil
Russiantank,
I wrote in another thread: Lincoln had said something to this nature: “When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that is to how far my morality extends.”
Now, if we take Lincoln’s model we must suppose all to have an inner-conscience; a superego that does not let our selves rest, constantly yelling and belittling our poor (maybe wretched) id.
Now, in answer your question, honestly, I think there are two types of feelings one gets from committing any act. The present feeling associated with committing the act, and then the following long term psychological consequences. For example, We may be put into a state of ecstasy while committing murder—our adrenaline is sure to be pumping, we certainly feel a rush, and probably an insatiable euphoric feeling of liberation or freedom. So in essence, during the act we don’t just feel good, we feel great—terrific. It is only after the deed is done that we begin to suffer like a Raskolnikov. Our superego does not let us rest and ultimately the consequences of such action is wretchedness. So the question begs to be asked: did the act make us feel good or bad? The truth is, and I think we can agree on this, ultimately immoral action will not make us feel good, will not be beneficial to our psychological well-being, will decrease our freedom and liberty as our thoughts, consciously or unconsciously, will be tormented by the act. Is that freedom? Is that liberation? You decide.
I think, this is a good argument against murder, unless one can show me where I’m wrong.
You see Russiantank your morality depends on you feeling good and I think my above argument awnsers that question.
You wrote:
This is based upon what feels good is right and when one feels bad it is wrong.
By feeling good about doing something wrong does not make it right!
You also wrote:
This has actualy been refuted by Socrates in one of Plato’s dialogues (I forget which at the moment). Morality, ethics, do not depend on God. If god were to decree tomorrow that murder is good, it would not make murder good. It is only because god commands in accordance with what actualy is good that we may recognize god to be good. There have been plenty of immoral and amoral gods in history (I question the Judeo/Christian one as well, but that’s a different topic).
It’s most a matter of perspective- a Christian fundamentalist looks at the world an see it dripping with evil (eg gay tv characters, sex out of wedlock, etc) while someone without similar superstitions/faith just sees normal behavior. A gay man looks at Jerry Fallwell and he sees evil, just as surely as a Jew must have seen Hitler as an evil man.
Most would say that if there’s no God, then there can be no overarching concept of good or evil, as all morality flows from Him. Whether Evil is the opposite of Good or the simple lack of it, if we remove God from the equation, then neither concept is relevant beyond a humanistic or Utilitarian viewpoint (I clarify this because Penis was seeming not to grasp my meaning).
Of course, that’s perhaps an oversimpification- there could be no God, yet Good or Evil could still be forces like Gravity or the Strong Nuclear Force. Yeah, I don’t see that as likely, but I have to pitch it out there.
So do we ‘need’ evil? We seem to need the concept. Maybe we’d get bored without it. But I don’t think we need it, per se.
And we’d still have plenty to argue about without good and evil. When someone says they think Monet is the best painter, and another says its Raphael, neither is implying the other artist was evil, simply that their favorite was the better painter.
Phaedrus,
Are you to imply that one must be a Jew to see Hitler as an evil man? If you are I think there’s something very wrong with your view my friend. To some Hitler is a hero certainly, but that doesn’t make them right. Opinions do not translate into truth.
Thanks for the link Imp.
