What is your definition of evil?

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by akoreamerican, Aug 26, 2018.

  1. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Your legacy of a world of lies is not a sin of the world. It's an evil done by you.
    You are the cross, that decent Americans have to carry. We are obligated - by shared national identity and political association - to clean up after you and your world of lies.
    Like I said - if you ever wake up, face your own posted definition of evil and its direct application to your entire adult political life, it's going to be a hard day for you. Personally, I doubt it will ever come. As with most Republican voters, you've been jacked around so much by the Republican media manipulation you don't have the memory capacity any more. You can't remember what you believed and did in years past, any more than you can remember what actually happened.

    Take an obvious and uncontroversial evil that was done in the past - a big one, that everybody saw happen and knows about, and that is directly relevant to the moral situation we face in US politics right now: The military invasion and occupation of Iraq.

    Right now, without research or reminder or double checking, you have no idea how it happened, or who was responsible, or what it involved, or what of today's circumstances derived from it. You are oblivious to your role in the major evil of your time.
     
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  3. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Aliminum tubes are the cause of all evil......

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  5. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Maybe I've been following along too lightly, but where did Bowser, the poster, become a liar and the target?
    I thought this was an academic discussion about opinions of evil. Did Bowser start preaching while I wasn't watching?

    ( Honest question, not sarcastic. And it doesn't have to be answered by IA; pointing at a post # will do.)
     
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  7. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    On that note: If I'm not evil, how can I really know what evil is?
     
  8. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Abstract imagination.
     
  9. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Can a person be born ''evil,'' or is it a byproduct of how he/she was nurtured as a child? When I think of evil, it borders on someone who lacks a well formed conscience, like a psychopath.
     
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  10. river

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    Define further .

    Many people have abstract imagination without the thought evil .
     
  11. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Are people who write horror books all evil? Our imagination seems practically infinite.
    One does not have to be evil to imagine evil. One is evil when he/she does evil.
     
  12. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    He's always been a poster of lies, especially political- that's a field mark of his posting on this forum.
    When he posted his definition of maximum evil, in 142, he became a relevant target - I mean, c'mon. That was pretty raw.
     
  13. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I think the absence of empathy is typical of psychopaths.

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  14. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    Lack of empathy is a relative thing:
    complete lack = psychopath
    slight lack = jerk​
     
  15. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    142? 'Creating a world of lies' Seems pretty harmless. Are you sure that's the right post#?
     
  16. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    But evil is not rampant either and the term should apply only to the extreme lack of empathy.
    Everyone can recognize a jerk, they are a nuisance.
    But it is difficult to recognize a psychopath. They are often very intelligent and manipulative.


     
    Last edited: May 15, 2019
  17. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    It isn't something you can easily quantify. There are warning signs of future evil - e.g. abusing animals - which can escalate. But is everybody who kicks a dog "evil"?
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The term should apply to the behaviors engendered by such a lack - including those of minions and collaborators and the complicit.
    Such as the invasion and occupation of Iraq, by the US Republican Party, in 2003.
    That was fairly "rampant".
     
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  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Agreed, but the Dark Lord in that scenario was Dick Cheney. Witness his influence in drafting the "Halliburton Loophole", which basically exempted the oil industry from any environmental liabilities as a result of fracking.
    https://earthworks.org/issues/inadequate_regulation_of_hydraulic_fracturing/

    Being that this is directed against the US population's right to safe water and air, I consider that evil in the highest degree.
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2019
  20. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    A study came out a few weeks ago that indicated animal abuse in childhood did not predict psychopathology in adulthood,

    with one exception: stabbing.

    Stabbing a vulnerable animal with a knife in childhood strongly predicted future evil. Kicking, beating, starving, smothering, did not. Go figure.
     
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    IMO, empathy is developmental phenomenon. Empathy is the ability to place yourself into someone else's shoes. To imagine their reality as if was truly yours. It produces a chemical response, such as wincing when you see someone hurt themselves. That is a strange thing when you think of it. You are not the one being hurt, yet your system responds with producing the same chemical reaction as in the person actually experiencing the pain.

    It is a result of the mirror neural network. If that network is not cultivated properly or under adverse conditions, the result may well be a complete lack of empathy.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron

    I believe this starts as part of the early "bonding" between mother and child.
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2019
  22. akoreamerican Registered Senior Member

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    If someone lacked empathy does that automatically make that person evil?
    Do you not believe that people who lacked empathy can learn to empathize with others?
     
  23. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    "Evil" is a religious concept. I don't consider that there is "evil" in this world. There are "bad" people doing "bad" things. To me "evil" has some supernatural implication.
     

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