'Moral evil' - what is this? What does it/might it mean

If there is anyone who is currently closely considering this aspect of characterization in stories, I'm keen to hear people's insights on it, or just where we're all at with this key ingredient of a 'villain' character.

I see a contrast between the "morally evil," the villain who gets pleasure from destroying some aspect of other people, and the "amorally evil," the character who has no regard for others, neither good nor bad, but just seeks her/his/its own pleasure. I have written both types, but haven't published any.

Tio_Narratore said:

I see a contrast between the "morally evil," the villain who gets pleasure from destroying some aspect of other people, and the "amorally evil," the character who has no regard for others, neither good nor bad, but just seeks her/his/its own pleasure. I have written both types, but haven't published any.

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An interesting contrast, Tio. It has never struck me quite that way.

What should one call a person who ignores all the tenets of modern life, particularly where the 'normal civilities' (to say nothing of the Law) are concerned.
I'm sure that there are murderers who may provoke suck a question.

Handley_Page said:

An interesting contrast, Tio. It has never struck me quite that way.

What should one call a person who ignores all the tenets of modern life, particularly where the 'normal civilities' (to say nothing of the Law) are concerned.
I'm sure that there are murderers who may provoke suck a question.

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Amoral

Handley_Page said:

An interesting contrast, Tio. It has never struck me quite that way.

What should one call a person who ignores all the tenets of modern life, particularly where the 'normal civilities' (to say nothing of the Law) are concerned.
I'm sure that there are murderers who may provoke suck a question.

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In psychological terms, you'd probably call that person a psychopath.

Or, if the person isn't quite as extreme but manifests a lack of conscience and a desire to use other people for that person's ends, that person might be a sociopath.

Perhaps OP means those committing evil deeds for moral ends, like religious bombers, or the faithful supporting criminal shits. Their morality is twisted, not absent. Doctrines preaching infanticide, genocide, slavery, and abuse (yes, the monotheisms) provide moral cover for genuine evil. "I'm no villain -- I'm doing holy work!" That's the excuse.

Yes, Hypoxia, a view of moral evil that needs be more widely considered.

I think I have one morally evil character in my low-rated story:

https://www.literotica.com/s/donna-1

And perhaps in this one:

https://www.literotica.com/s/hitchhiker-6

Good Evening, Ogg.

Tio_Narratore said:

Amoral

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Nothing quite like a buxom wench laying it all out for the viewer, is there !

A sociopath isn't evil, really. They just don't have any regard for anyone but themselves and then maybe not even then.

An evil person or morally evil person directs his/her evil at a particular person, group or race.

All of us have a little evil inside us, but most of us don't do anything evil with it.

How many times have you thought about running that idiot that cut you off, off the road?

Of slamming the door in the face if the jerk who woke you up at 6:30am trying to sell you something? Wait, I've done that one.

Tio_Narratore said:

Amoral

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That was a hoot.

Most of the villainous folks that people think of as morally evil are just people who have goals in opposition to their own. The villains are even more villainous when they're successful at their own goals.

A lot of moral righteousness boils down to "I'm good, so you must be bad."

I like writing villains, but I try to avoid "moral evil" as any part of their characterization.

Many years ago, I had a book of commentary by a Jewish writer, wish I could remember his name. One of his bits was on Adolph Eichmann, the SS officer who planned and orchestrated ‘The Final Solution’. It went something like this:

Height? Average.
Weight? Average.
Complexion? Average.
Hair? Average.
Intelligence? Average.

What were you expecting? Fangs?​

He was right. What has struck me as I have become older and learned more was the utter banality of the truly evil.

Y'all could search for evil on TV Tropes and see what writers have come up with over the centuries. We've had Freudian excuses awhile. Poor mass murderers with mommy issues, alas.

So grateful to all who responded - I gain so many nuances and insights from listening to what other people know and are prepared to say.

The very first responder - Tio_Narratore is using phrases that are the ones in my own mind when I think about this subject:

EG., '...gets pleasure from destroying some aspect of other people.'

'Destroying,' yes... To 'other people,' yes...

I suppose if someone intentionally visits destruction on themselves we could just call them 'stupid.' Depending on all the circumstances, of course. Maybe they are in terminal pain, that kind of thing - those create significant boundaries across 'pure' or let's call it 'clear-cut' moral good/bad.

'Pleasure' is also a little relative - if someone were deprived of something, and then hit out destructively, the 'kind' of 'pleasure' they are presumably getting is subtly different to positive unconditional pleasure.

The religious question definitely plays a significant role in considering all the elements entailed. But mostly in those circumstances it's easy to see the flawed intellectual 'agency' of some human in a dynamic living situation becoming really, MORE involved, MORE important to the outcome, than some objective principal (of absolute moral good) which seems ambiguous at best to many people - especially the 'modern scientific atheistic' mind - and which may or may not in fact exist. Actually, I think it does exist if I can be a little 'un-modern' and unscientific about it for a moment.

Apart from the particular commercial project I am part of right now which is engaging this particular thematic element of a 'write for screen,' I came across a Middle Eastern guy who was relating something about some place where 'EVIL' giants or beings lived and were held fast, beneath the deserts of Saudi Arabia - and then he brought in (of all people) the name of Lovecraft into it by saying that HPL said in his stories that his main primordial monster was literally FROM a portal there. I'm pretty sure he didn't seem to know or comprehend that Lovecraft had access to some very rare and nowadays lost from view texts on Arabic folklore as well as some Arabic texts themselves that had been translated. He just had a throw-away line about an English language writer of note, and that seemed to be about it.

But yeah, I think Lovecraft goes into ideas on moral evil, and these are intrinsic to what makes his stories function.

This has all helped me immensely in thinking about how a fictional villain might be drawn today, after all we have already seen, read, and understood (or think we have understood) at out moment in history.

Hmm. I’d throw in an alternate view to the moral evil or amoral evil argument—neither matters in fiction. What matters in prose is relatability. If you want to create a truly horrifying villain, in my opinion, you need to make the reader empathize with them. When a reader can become invested in a story, when they can view (even ridiculously fictitious) characters as being “real,” that’s where the quality is. Blur the lines of right and wrong to make people question their own beliefs.

Though, I will admit there’s nothing quite like an 80’s movie villain.

AfterDusk said:

Though, I will admit there’s nothing quite like an 80’s movie villain.

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Note the pet the dog trope. The villain shows kindness, thus they're not so evil after all. Even Holocaust bakers loved their kids' pets, yada yada. Beware Blofeld's cat.