An armed robber goes into a store, ties up the owner opens the safe and steals all the money. To the store owner this is an evil act, he was tied up and had all his money stolen… to the robber this was a good act, he got away free and has now thousands in extra cash he didnt have before.
My question is this…Is an act deemed good or evil based soley on someones individual perspective? and if this is so does this make good and evil one and the same?
In a sense, yes.
From a philosophical point of view, the type of scenario you are talking about is more of a contemporary one. In the ancient times the people feared the gods, and acted in accordance with pleasing them. This is seen in the greeks, christianity, etc (at least in the west).
With the birth of scienceand the fall of the popularity (or power) of theology our sense of morality turned inwards to a rather drastic degree and existentialism was born. This deals with the lack of sense or order in the world, especially as a more intelligent person. When all you are left with are your decisions, with all the responsability is on you - sometimes an evil act can be good to you for the soul reason that you excersized your right to do it.
Now that is quite a simplified explanation/example of Existentialism with doesn’t do it justice as it is large, the very waters of modern philosophy is filled with 2 parts existentialism. So in that light I urge you to check out such fine writers as Kierkegaard, Dostoyevski, Camus, Sartre, and of course the answer, or rather the poetic gateway into the east - Nietzsche.
“Evil” is a religious term. The individual has no right to it.
faust
If the store owner was a scam artist, the robber might feel justified in stealing it.
Damn straight, things you do to better yourself just fall into survival of the fittest, so “evil” it may be, it’s bettering yourself.
1:
About the “good” and “evil”. Most often, at the root:
“good” is pro-life,
“evil” is anti-life.
All life on earth being wiped out = “evil”.
All life progressing and flourishing = “good”.
This then applies to a species:
All of my species dieing = “evil”.
All of my species progressing = “good”.
This then applies to an individual:
My dieing = “evil”.
Me flourishing = “good”.
When these conflict, it is because the individual was set above another individual or species. “What I want” is set above “what they want”, etc.
Our eco-system is not a communism, it is elitist.
I do actually wish it was a communism, but it isn’t.
2:
The sig of oldphil.
Donald Duck has had a gun for sometime.
He is an un-registered gun owner, who has bouts of rage and is a danger to society.
You might also want to check out Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill. Good stuff, and actually interesting to read. I agree with a lot (but not all) of what he says.
Donald duck is more worse then Howard the duck , and their both fictional!.
So, is it evil then to destroy the environment? It could very well be, since no one seems to be operating from the standpoint of “foresight” … “Everyone wants to look the other way, when something wicked this way comes.”
I think that the robber viewed his act as good, in a beneficial monetary sense. But I’m sure he’s well aware that what he did is considered wrong by the rest of society.