What is evil?

Things i dont like.

>>1989864
It's relative

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>>1989864

>>1989864
It doesn't exist fag lord

>>1989864
Read Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on banality of evil.

Evil is not a cartoonesque moustache twirling, it's simply not caring for how damaging consequences of the actions you choose to follow, evil is selfishness taken to extreme.

>>1989948
This is my answer

>>1989948
>Evil is not a cartoonesque moustache twirling
No shit, genius

>it's simply not caring for how damaging consequences of the actions you choose to follow, evil is selfishness taken to extreme.
Then I would like to commend the people who partake in necessary evil. The people who willingly wreak damage knowing that the alternatives are far worse.

As someone who has been necessary evil, you don't care after a certain point. Things just don't bother you like they used to. It's just another day on the job

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Are we mistaken to assume that evil is an eternal property, in the sense that there is a set mechanism of causality?

Further, are there any instances of evil existing independent from conscious beings?

>>1989970
"Necessary evil" is simply looking at actions from an utilitarian point of view. Many people do evil thinking it's necessary evil, that or they simply don't care about consequences because they believe them to be inconsequential in grand scheme of things.

It's how humans justify from acting without compassion and empathy, two decidedly human traits. Internalising the fact you can act without them is simply rationalisation of evil. This is again why demonising evil figures as if they were creatures of another dimension and reality is very misleading. It makes people believe they could never be that other, when there is but a single step from cynical neutrality to catastrophic evil, a step made by justifying lack of compassion and empathy.

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Turning the blind eye, refusing to take action when your country/her people are clearly headed towards or in the midst of a great crisis. You better believe pic related.

Even poor decisions made during a crisis (i.e. Herbert Hoover with the Great Depression) is preferable to refusing to do anything.

tl;dr - inaction, apathy is evil

>>1990066
But what if apathy can lead to the event being fixed? Should we still act?

>>1990037
>"Necessary evil" is simply looking at actions from an utilitarian point of view. Many people do evil thinking it's necessary evil, that or they simply don't care about consequences because they believe them to be inconsequential in grand scheme of things.
With this in mind, how would YOU handle a no-win scenario
>It's how humans justify from acting without compassion and empathy, two decidedly human traits.
For the man in the no win scenario, those can be more cumbersome than helpful. Hesitating is more than capable of costing you many things

>>1990086
It's a no-win scenario, there is no win. You acknowledge this, don't claim you have been doing good or what's "necessary". Lesser evil is not good, it's still evil.

>>1990111
>You acknowledge this, don't claim you have been doing good or what's "necessary".
You don't think somebody in that situation fails to acknowledge it? Even if it's part of your job, it's a hard call to make and is something that will sit with you for a very long time
>Lesser evil is not good, it's still evil.
no one said it was good

>>1990120
I am talking about people who internalise and rationalise what they do by calling it a necessary evil, as if that absolves them from doing evil. Plenty of people defend lesser evil and act as if its equal to or even greater than doing good.

>>1990140
>I am talking about people who internalise and rationalise what they do by calling it a necessary evil, as if that absolves them from doing evil.


Necessary evil, lesser evil, strategic evil. Call it whatever you want, it is all the same to man in the middle of the task. These sorts of decisions are even more difficult to make in real time as opposed to an endless afterthought in retrospect

>Plenty of people defend lesser evil and act as if its equal to or even greater than doing good.
Yes, because the person who is forced to commit a lesser evil or whatever you want to call it will have a much more difficult time grasping with their decision than the person who did good. Indeed, for the person who did good, the whole situation will probably very emotionally charged while it the moment but it's also a no-brainer when assessed before, during and after

>>1990204
To elaborate further, I want you to imagine civil servants; One who commits good and one who commits a lesser evil


>A two story apartment is on fire. The fire department arrives to put out the flame. They are not there to investigate or assess what caused the fire, that could be any number of things (Cigarette, Grease Fire, electrical fire, lightning, a garage project gone wrong) and it's the Marshal's job to figure that out anyway. The fire is being put out, but there is quite a bit of smoke in the building. One of the residents approaches a fire fighter and tells them that one of their neighbors in the upstairs apartment was not present at the headcount. They also tell them that said neighbor was in a bad car accident ~4 weeks ago, has casts around both of their legs and cannot walk. They risk either being burned alive or (more likely) asphyxiating due to smoke. The firefighter puts on their breathing apparatus, heads upstairs, enters the building and retrieves the neighbor and saves him from what was likely death

Beforehand, the firefighter is well aware that he must risk his life to do this job and has been trained extensively for situations just like these. Experiencing the moment first hand was likely very nerve-wracking but he does it anyway. Immediately after the matter was likely to be very emotionally intense realizing that he saved a life. Further after the matter, his colleagues commend him, the person he saved is eternally grateful, he will be seen as a hero to everyone he knows and sharing that story with a romantic interest might even get him laid. So once more, he wasn't torn between too many choices before, during and after the event

>>1990376
>A police officer is driving down the street at a brisk pace on a daytime patrol shift. Among the foot traffic, he notices two people interacting, one hands the other cash, the other hands the one a ziplock bag filled with something. The purchaser disappears down an alleyway as the officer is stepping out of the car and the officer proceeds to question the seller. As the officer approaches, the seller looks over his shoulder and sees the officer. The seller immediately reaches into his waistband. The officer can see the stainless steel finish of pistol as the seller attempt to draw it from under his clothes. He is well aware there is a lot of foot traffic behind him and if a shootout were to ensue, it is likely that innocent bystanders could be injured and/or killed by stray bullet-fire. The officer draws his handgun and fires. The seller immediately falls to the ground. The Seller was later found to have methamphetamine on his person and pronounced dead when paramedics arrived on scene

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>>1990378
Beforehand, the officer is well aware that he must risk his life to do this job and has been trained extensively for situations like just like these, Experiencing the moment first hand was likely ver nerve-wracking but he does it anyway. (here if where he differs from the firefighter) Immediately after the matter was likely to be a very emotionally intense realizing that he took a life. Further after the matter, he will be put on trial for murder, he risks losing his job, the whole city will know his name due to news reports, there's a good chance he will develop PTSD and have nightmares about the event for months or even years and his story is far more liable to get him ostracized as opposed to lauded like the firefighter's. Had he not acted he likely would have died and possibly the pedestrians behind and that is a thought that will burden him for quite some time after the matter. Even if the man who he killed was a criminal, it was still a human being that he killed and that is never something to take lightly.

That is why some people defend lesser evil and act as if it's equal to or even greater than doing good; Because the perpetrators of it are in far greater need of support than the ones who simply do good. Especially when perpetrators are facing scorn from sheltered people who themselves have never been forced to commit lesser evil, much less come to terms with it. Once you have come to terms with it, you grow an appreciation for people who commit lesser evil so that you don't have to

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>>1989864

>>1989864
Jewish

>>1989989

>Further, are there any instances of evil existing independent from conscious beings?

It's impossible to say that evil exists in the rest of the world as there is no qualia that greets our senses; if there were instances of evil independent from conscious beings they would be noumenal, or unattainable. We can't worry too much about something we will never be able to grasp or represent like this.

The question can never be answered because there is no phenomenal concept of evil that is analogous to the sort we usually feel (the disapproval of an action and believing it to be vile).

Locations of evil that are customizable to our purposes are the feelings of contempt towards contemptible, dissaprovable actions in the historical possession of agents, whether they are causal or free

>>1989864
a human construct in discurse

>>1992984
*discourse

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Evil = Causing suffering for the sake of suffering.

Why? Resentment, trying to take revenge on life itself.

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anything anti-Christ

>>1989866
This.
>>1989864
Anything that goes against my State and its constitutive people.
>but on what do you suspend that claim?
Belief. So do you, I'm at least completely honest about that.