I don't know if you read how i tied forgiveness into realizing bad vs. evil, but that is how i distinguish the two. If someone stole from you, given the facts, you can likely forgive them. If they stole your wedding ring, it will be harder to forgive but you can still forgive them. If they stole an idea from you and used it to succeed leaving you to become homeless... you may never forgive them or it's really hard to... at that point i would say it's closing in on being evil. Although this was a bad example bc i think theft is mostly something bad and not evil do to the fact in the vast majority of cases you can forgive.Forgiveness is one aspect of all that must be assumed in compensation for evil.
In that sense i go with the majority. Someone that finds showing skin to be more evil than rape is less than someone that thinks rape is more evil. The three i listed i would say the majority find more evil than other things. Of course i'm not basing this off any studies... i don't know if one exists, but i would bet the evils i listed have more of a fan base in defining them as evil.But without a standard someone could argue that showing skin is "more evil". That is my real point. That is why saying rape is evil isn't enough we need to know what about it makes it evil.
If good and evil are truly "only" subjective than yes. But, there is a hint of objectivity to it. I don't think beating your kid to a bloody mess has ever been viewed as something good to a majority. Hitting for punishment however can be viewed as good... why are humans like that, i don't know at this point. Is there something objective going on? Or does the rule of not wanting it happen to you what gives it this sense of objectivity? Empathy too?By that argument if enough people believed that abusing children was desirable then it would be "good"?
Well i told you how i define evil. So i strictly go off my own definition. I am well aware people, even maybe most, don't look at good/evil like i do. If i were to make a future bet with you, i would say people will realize what they are doing to non-violent drug offenders isn't good. I don't know that... it only fits in my definition that they aren't evil people. I'm only consistent as far as my own definition of good and evil go. I've just found that most people would agree those i listed are evil... however, they most certainly don't apply it like i do. I never said people interpret it as i do in the vast majority, just that a vast majority would agree those things are evil.So you agree with the majority about slavery but disagree with the majority about drug addiction and yet you feel that you are taking the moral position in both cases?
I define evil as malicious imprisonment, rape and murder and all the degrees thereof. For instance, torture would be imprisonment and possibly murder. Mentally harming another would be imprisonment. Beating someone up would be imprisonment. Sexual assault would fall under rape. Etc.Lying to someone would fall under imprisonment but without malice it would just be bad not evil. Lying to someone resulting in death, rape, etc.. would fall under evil. That's how i distinguish the differences.
If you do not know what you mean by good and evil (or cannot articulate it) then how shall we have an intellectual conversation on the subject?
Isn't "a commonly accepted standard" just a group of subjective whatevers?
A thing is made good by what degree it fulfills a function. For example, for banging nails, a hammer is more good than a pencil, and for writing, a pencil is more good than a hammer
When one is discussing morality one is usually
I got sorta deep with Secular so i don't want to repeat myself. If you can't find it let me know and i'll repost it. But briefly, i find pure evil to be those evils i listed with no goodness behind it. Pure malicious. For instance, if i kill someone so they don't hurt/kill my sister... i committed evil for a good reason. There is good in it. Pure evil has no good silver lining.What is evil pure?
Why are there evil-doers?
Can you explain to me what subjective and objective means here?
Concerning morality, can't objective judgments be made?
Murdering a murder is committing evil to punish evil. In that it would be evil/good. It's still evil, but also good that something that is only evil got erased. Killing would still be evil. War is evil. But apply the above, one could be good and evil where one is usually only evil. For instance, if the war is to topple a ruler that is only evil... kills, imprisons, rapes, etc. Then something good is committing evil to stop that pure evil. The soldiers that fight for that pure evil would need to be evaluated individually. Why are they personally fighting for that evil? If it is so they don't get killed by said ruler then they are also committing evil for a good... to save their own lives. But they are still committing evil when they are killing another. There is also degrees of this and i think the degrees can be best described by forgiveness or thoughts of forgiveness. If one learns the solider's family would have been killed if he didn't fight... then even if he/she cannot be forgiven... a sense of understanding or a thought of forgiveness could follow. Pure evil however cannot be forgiven or it would be extremely very hard to forgive.Is any of this objective? I don't know if i could truly say that with certainty. We are the ones defining all this which would always point towards subjectivity. However, i think we would mostly always define the above mentioned evils as evil. Even someone that is evil would think it's evil if someone murdered them (well they wouldn't know), or did some form of imprisonment or rape. There could be degrees of it... maybe someone wants to be raped, in which case that would turn it good for them, but stay as evil for the one committing it. (*Edit: I just noticed this last example is tricky. The one committing it technically wouldn't be committing evil if the person wanted to be raped. It's an example of the evil/good in that case.)
There are objective facts. The temperature is a measurable objective fact. Objective facts are meaningless.And then there are subjective values. It is cold is a subjective observation based on our opinion of what constitutes hot or cold. Subjective values give things meaning but they are not real they are made up. They are artificial constructs we use to relate to a meaningless universe.
That depends on what you mean by objective judgements. We can agree on the subjective standard we will base our arguments about morality on and then make objective statements about morality based on that standard. For example if we agreed for the purposes of this discussion that we will both agree that freedom is good and repression is evil and based on our agreed upon criteria killing someone would be evil because a dead person has no freedom.
Did you have such a standard you wish to adopt for the purposes of this discussion?
