ZOMBIE FORUMS

I preface anything I say with "I know I'm gonna regret poking my head back in this forum"

Anyway, as to the poll question: I don't think one can kill without feeling, let alone doing anything without feeling. A "Cold Blooded Killer" could have several reasons for killing beyond enjoyment. It might be that the lack of feeling or care about the extinguishing of a life is what alures them, or they could be paid to do it hitman style. In the first case, I think they are equally bad (I will refrain from saying evil and I'll get to that in a bit) as he sadist who kills for the "joy" of it. If they are doing it hitman like, then they could depending on why they became a hit man. A gov't assassine contracted to peg Osama but that feels nothing when he pulls his trigger isn't necc. bad at all. He (and do pardon my gender type, I use he in the neuter form) is just doing what he believes is best for the general welfare. A mafia hitman is perhaps less bad since he is still doing what is for the "general good" as he sees it.

This actually brings me nicely to the point I'd like to make, though. Good and Evil are no objective facts (sorry all you objectivists out there, but please let me make my arguement). The entire concept of a Good and an Evil is born of the sentient mind. It originated perhaps from the idea of "Good and Bad" stimuli, ie, it is a bad stimuli to be burnt, thus it is evil to burn someone.
But, who gets to decide "good and evil?" The elders of a community? The traditions of past? They are somewhat more easy to gain communal appeal on concret things, like pain, food, etc. But what about the abstract that we as advanced beings have made? Who is to say a pagan is doomed to burn in eternal hell, or, from higher ideas, that the Washington DC area sniper was unjust in the killings he felt were justified.

Abstract ideas have become the root of what we see as good and evil, and from that we can "justify" any action we make. Now, the communal idea of Good and Evil is going to be Mob Rule. Whatever the majority sees as evil will be evil. In example, late medieval and renaissance France had a large number of justified murders, only it was called dueling. A noble could claim is honor hurt and challenge, thus insulting another noble's honor. Whoever killed the other is now justified, because the blade had decided the other to be an honorless pig-dog. In Saudi Arabia today, if you enter Mecca and they find out you aren't a muslim, there is a pretty heavy penalty for entering. Simply walking into a city could kill you. Is this evil? Some would say yes, others no.

Now, I'm not trying to wrap this around to justify the "monsters" of our time. What I am trying to say is that they didn't see themselves as evil No sane person truly things what they do is wrong, or they wouldn't be doing it.

In closing: the definition of Evil is undefined because there is no absolute Evil. The communal idea of evil changes with the times as mentality goes from liberal to conservative and back. I do agree that we should attempt to impress upon people the concept of rights, but I don't feel even these are truly inherent, or else a mad man with an ice pick wouldn't be able to take them away from me. And who knows, perhaps in 100 years, everything I think of as my personal idea of good will be defined under the communal evil, and cold hearted killers will be the norm.

-Rae

Good or evil...

I truly feel that sometimes these are created terms used to describe what some don't like. Censorship on the radio to some is good, others it is evil. To a person with antisocial personaility disorder, killing someone is a non-issue. It is really neither good nor evil to that particular person. Its like squashing a spider to them, nothing more. In disagreement with Rae, I really think that good and evil, as with most all moralities, is objective. I sort of depends on the way you look at things, good and bad. Take utilitarianism for example. Basically it says act if only the action will maximize the possible happiness. Therefor, killing could be a good way to be morally in the right if it gets rid of someone who is/will cause more pain than what would be caused by his death. IE, a man finds a youthful Hitler drowning, it would be best in a utilitarianist world to let him die. In that sense, killing can be construed as morally correct, and if the person who happens to be the agent of that killing is a sadist, someone killing for pleasure could be the morally best thing he could have done. Now, thats basically like that in just a utilitarian world. A world based on Kantian deontology would lead to a totally different veiw of moral correctness...

Kry, how does that objectivy Good and Evil? If anything, you just strengthened my point that they are subjective.

-Rae

Yes, I am a dumbass. Mexicali is not a good party beer...

I don't believe in good and evil.

They both make for equally interesting over-dramatized and hyped news.

Uhm...speaking for the cold-blooded killer community, we are MUCH better than sadists, some people just HAVE to go. We are the only people you have to get rid of them for you. We have a nasty job, but human pest control, or Asshole Control, is a necessary function, at we are adding a requirement that people not piss us off to natural selection.

Well, I think that the makers of D&D have a pretty good working definition of good and evil.



Basically, it's intent. There are many, many circumstances where it's okay to kill if you're good. Most of them involve killing evil people, or rabid animals.

There is also a lawful-chaotic axis, and with that, you can describe most people in terms of (lawful/chaotic/neutral) and (good/evil/neutral). Of course, such an absolute system doesn't work nearly as well in the real world, and most people (who want to get a more in-depth system) want to make it more like an intensity system. Something like Good 5, Evil 0, Neutral 2, ect. But that's neither here nor there.

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Now, onto the question. I think that it really depends on why they are killing, and who they are killing. If the sadist is just killing randomly for the joy of inflicting pain, then yes, he is evil.

If the sadist realizes that he enjoys inflicting pain, and doesn't want to do it to innocent people, and he then goes out and deliberatly puts himself into situations where a mugger (or rapist, or some other career criminal) will come to him, and he then kills the mugger, then I think he is sick, but not evil.

If the cold-blooded killer is doing it for good reasons, then it gets fuzzy. The main problem is ... what are good reasons?

And yet objectivists almost have a completely different outlook on GOod and Evil from what is mentioned in the post above. Granted, they define good as anything that "propigates life," but they tend to look at it as "Anything that propigates their own lives." Thus, Altruism is seen as stupid and foolish. You don't help yourself at all by selflessly helping others. If they are going to help another man, there had damn well be some sort of payout at tht end. And the warm fuzzy feeling you get from helping others tends to not register with these people.

-Rae, offerer of things contradictory for no other reason than to be contradictory.

Just to be clear: I'm *not* an objectivist. I don't think they're bad people, but Rand's writings are, from a philosophical standpoint, half-baked. Typical example: the objectivist club at our university is pro-war. Great, I'm pro-war too. But I think it's a bit hypocritical, since their beliefs preclude them from any kind of service. That would, presumably, include military service. The whole "altruism is bad, egoism is good" bit is more of a reaction than a coherent philosophy since the two are sides of a coin.



If you're willing to accept that a mind is truly sentient, that's enough to show the objective existence of good and evil. The mind is clearly good compared to a rock, and if it seeks to destroy other minds (including itself, obviously) it's evil.

After all, the sentience must be an objective fact, because the mind couldn't just wake up one day and say, "I'm sentient!" It at least had that capacity from (or at least shortly after) the moment of conception.

By definition, there is actually an ongoing debate over sentience. Sentience precludes the ability to reason and to ahve free will. Yet, a majority of modern pyschologists are saying that sentience and free will are an illusion, and that we are just fancy computers, or lack of a better term, no better than any animal except that we are "the best built." As such, we have no choice as to what our next action is because it is part of a "response class" that is inherently always changing.
When debating this with a masters student (which is also my sis in law) in pysch, the only defense I could actually muster myself against her was quantum states: independent variables that could go either way with equal probability, and thus enter a random element, but even then, at any moment when all said states are defined, your next move to the next moment is defined as well.

Long to short, can we even accept that we can "think." Personall, I believe so, but I still think that an objective good is impossible. To be better than a rock does not follow to killing a mind is bad. "Good" is a conditioned response we have within that "response class." If a person gets an endorphin rush from killing, he will see it as good. As such, today's morality is self defining and thus contrived.

-Rae the rambler

That D&D definition of good and evil is all fine and dandy, but it assumes that people are horribly simple and static.

There is not a person on Earth who fits one of those exclusively. If Evil implies that they would hurt, oppress, or kill others wouldn't that make every person in the military or on the police force evil?

If you are Good because you respect life that would make virtually everyone "good." They may not respect all life but they certainly have respect for that of their friends and family. But then again there are few people on Earth who respect everyone's life.

As for killing others without compassion. Most people would kill everyone that it was convenient to and possible to if they had no compassion.

You might argue that killing Osama is not evil because he had already killed many "innocent" (I use quotations since there is no readily accepted definition of innocent) people. But wasn't he already killing because he viewed Americans as actively killing innocents?

I believe that if you really look into things you will see that nothing has an evil source, when using that idealistic and basic definition. Or certainly that no person is bound to it.

I think evil is a grey area, and as with many thing it can only really be decided on a case by case basis.

Any descriptions of "evil" will bring in other subjective words that need qualifying, untill you circle into oblivion.

The problem comes when people are incapable of making those case by case choices of good and evil, they need some reference to compare to. Childish definitions, or religious ones, can give a good starting point as fundementally they try and teach people to be good people. As soon as they start imposing strict measures they usually go wrong. Let people decide for themselves.

For me, i think Evil is something that acts against the good of the community, whatever community that may be. Some people may try and think on a global scale, i'll just think on a personal one though.

BLM

Good and evil are both in deeds and the motivations. Eventually the deed itself outweighs any good intentions the person might have for doing that deed.

Evil is an action who's "badness/evilness" (sorry if I'm not being 1337 with my english language skillz, but I just woke up) outweighs (to yourself) the attractiveness of the motivations behind it. Obviously then, good/evil is at some point subjective (there is always the blurry line that people will argue about) but almost all humans, through virtue of societal instincts, natural instincts, whatever you want to call it, can agree on some broad rules. Since they're fairly obvious, I won't go into detail about them, but thats my take on it.

Good, then, is an action who's cons do not outweigh the motivation behind it. This rather simple definition leads to some kinda weird examples, such as "breathing is good" but which, I feel, make sense after a bit of thought.

Defining someone as "good" or "evil" is then merely weighing in what they've done in life, and guessing at their motivations. Some people (Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, various 3rd world despots) can easily be defined as evil when your personal line of when no possible motivation justifies what they've done. Other people, however, are not as easy to define and people tend to stay away from putting those labels on anything but definite cases.

Thats my take on it.

-MiB

Good and evil are both in deeds and the motivations. Eventually the deed itself outweighs any good intentions the person might have for doing that deed.

Evil is an action who's "badness/evilness" (sorry if I'm not being 1337 with my english language skillz, but I just woke up) outweighs (to yourself) the attractiveness of the motivations behind it. Obviously then, good/evil is at some point subjective (there is always the blurry line that people will argue about) but almost all humans, through virtue of societal instincts, natural instincts, whatever you want to call it, can agree on some broad rules. Since they're fairly obvious, I won't go into detail about them, but thats my take on it.

Good, then, is an action who's cons do not outweigh the motivation behind it. This rather simple definition leads to some kinda weird examples, such as "breathing is good" but which, I feel, make sense after a bit of thought.

Defining someone as "good" or "evil" is then merely weighing in what they've done in life, and guessing at their motivations. Some people (Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, various 3rd world despots) can easily be defined as evil when your personal line of when no possible motivation justifies what they've done. Other people, however, are not as easy to define and people tend to stay away from putting those labels on anything but definite cases.

Thats my take on it.

-MiB

Well each of those people you mentioned did have a motivation behind it, it just wasn't justified in your thinking. In their thinking their actions were fine. Though granted one, possibly two, of the people you mentioned are mentally ill.
I think Henry Kissinger is a good example of one of those grey area people. He is probably responsible for a great many deaths, but he is also reponsible for a great deal of good. So what would that make him?

The only way there can ever be a good and evil is if everyone agrees on some basic values, which is virtually impossible.

Tell me 1 person who's honestly been evil for the sake of evil.

No. Evil can be defined as self-interests at the expense of other people, in many ways. Which those dictators will freely admit to doing.

And again, I mentioned that people tend to not want to classify people as "good" or "evil" if they're in one of those grey areas.

-MiB

I always saw the determinist there-is-no-free-will crowd as a bunch of cowards trying to deny responsibility. Because, if they are right, then there can be no right and wrong. The whole idea is intellectual masturbation. It's totally useless. People make choices, whether some locked pattern in the framework of the universe causes them to do so (I really fucking doubt it) or not DOES NOT MATTER.

It is a bad theory anyway, because it has no test for refuting it, like psychological egoism, If you believe that human beings always act selfishly, you can argue until your jaw famlls off, because there is no circumstance that you can't argue that it was really egoistic. There is no way to say, "If X happens there is free will" or "If X happens there is NO free will", so it IS NOT scientific OR philosophical. It is a faith-based idea, resulting neither from empirical testing OR reasoning. I am all for faith based Ideas, I hold a few myself, but don't piss down my neck and tell me it's raining, or that these ideas have any basis in empirical or rational thought.

I'm playing devils advocate Clay, so don't attempt to take anything out one me. What I'm basically trying to get at, though, is something you alluded to, purposely or not, being that an objective right and wrong (one that exists whether or not the human race is around to think about it) does not exist, and as such, the concept of "what is evil" is purely within each person's mind. If something is based on faith, it is based on what an individual believes without "scientiftic and rational" support, and thus us abstract and contrived. Sorry for the neg connotation on that word(contrived), but I can't think of anything better, not to say this is the "bad" contrived, since that is using the "contrived" measurements of good/evil on itself. ARg!

*head blows up from circular logic*

-Rae

I mostly agree with Rae. Good and evil are nothing more than social constructions... really, morality is just as subjective as taste in food, with one important exception: my liking chocolate ice cream does not prevent your liking rocky road. However, morality is different, because it involves an individual's actions, and one individual's actions often interfere with another's. So, basically, we have to at least pretend that objective morality exists, even though it doesn't, because the alternative is total chaos. Luckily for human beings, the majority of us (due to our common instincts)have moral codes similar enough that we can get along.

As for free will, well, I feel the same way about that as I do about morality. It doesn't exist, but actually acting on this assumption would destroy civilization. Quantum physics doesn't really help in the free will issue... Sure, it leaves open the possibility of random chance, but random chance doesn't equal free will... A slot machine is no more a free agent than a clock.

I think one of the biggest human fallacies is the idea that the truth and human wellbeing are compatible. The fact is, human beings have to lie to themselves to survive. Responsibility, free will, and the concepts of good and evil are all lies, but they're damn useful ones, and without them we wouldn't be here.