Peregrinator
Hooded On A Hill
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That's it? What about a sad serial killer? Remorseful, keeps doing it?
Define "Evil." Give Parameters.
- Thread starter Peregrinator
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That's it? What about a sad serial killer? Remorseful, keeps doing it?
Peregrinator
Hooded On A Hill
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Good ol' Ayn. Leaving her hypocrisy out of it, you and I are stuck in the desert with a liter of water. We could share it and both die, or one drink it and live.
What would be the evil move?
And, hello. I don't recall seeing you before.
LupusDei
curious alien
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We can do worse: we can start discussion about necessary evil versus relative evil.
I may reluctantly agree the assessment of relative evil is societal, or rather, the perceived upper border may as well be.
In perfectly evil society, thoroughly interwoven by constantly competing complex hierarchical power structures maintained by malice, perfect secrecy and uncountable levels of constant lies, someone who tries to be honest and open is merely a fool.
In ideally egalitarian utopia, were everyone accounts any possible unwanted consequences of their actions at the best of their ability and tell only total truth, thus rendering any privacy meaningless at best, someone who tries to employ malice and deceit might be perceived as just crazy.
Even the notion that the polarity of the relative scale itself is disputable is possible, at least in religious terms: there no telling who is the true good guys in the eternal battle between demons and angels over the human souls. More, there easily could be, and most probably should be, more than one dimension in any good-evil assessment.
However, we do need the dualism itself, without it any moral evaluation is impossible. I do doubt it is possible to operate outside of any morality, and there do exist rather strong consensus about preferred polarity of at least some of the dimensions routinely measured.
Asking for a definitive description of total evil may as well be akin asking for the definition of the essence of blackness. We do know now that even black holes do shine, and at least in theory can evaporate in blinding flash of light, even if those emissions are inherently indirect in nature.
Then, it so damn easy to declare oneself to be Guardian Of Light and do justify whatever horrors as necessarily in the struggle for the greater good nobody else is enlightened enough to ever comprehend.
In the realm of physics analogies, I would rather tie good-evil assessment with entropy. Most deeds perceived as good attempt the impossible task of reducing entropy -- what is only ever possible in open system, or in other words, locally. One who would define their goal as fast and efficient increase of entropy around them would likely to be perceived as evil.
Then, the minimum entropy we can define is perfect vacuum or 0K. Not something very desirable, and that would likely trigger vacuum decay to the next level of less potential energy, effectively ending the universe as we know it (as the rules if physics will change, and current structure of matter reform).
Thus, the evil is good, as we need it to exist. Yo, that's an Orvelism, doublethink at it's best.
I may reluctantly agree the assessment of relative evil is societal, or rather, the perceived upper border may as well be.
In perfectly evil society, thoroughly interwoven by constantly competing complex hierarchical power structures maintained by malice, perfect secrecy and uncountable levels of constant lies, someone who tries to be honest and open is merely a fool.
In ideally egalitarian utopia, were everyone accounts any possible unwanted consequences of their actions at the best of their ability and tell only total truth, thus rendering any privacy meaningless at best, someone who tries to employ malice and deceit might be perceived as just crazy.
Even the notion that the polarity of the relative scale itself is disputable is possible, at least in religious terms: there no telling who is the true good guys in the eternal battle between demons and angels over the human souls. More, there easily could be, and most probably should be, more than one dimension in any good-evil assessment.
However, we do need the dualism itself, without it any moral evaluation is impossible. I do doubt it is possible to operate outside of any morality, and there do exist rather strong consensus about preferred polarity of at least some of the dimensions routinely measured.
Asking for a definitive description of total evil may as well be akin asking for the definition of the essence of blackness. We do know now that even black holes do shine, and at least in theory can evaporate in blinding flash of light, even if those emissions are inherently indirect in nature.
Then, it so damn easy to declare oneself to be Guardian Of Light and do justify whatever horrors as necessarily in the struggle for the greater good nobody else is enlightened enough to ever comprehend.
In the realm of physics analogies, I would rather tie good-evil assessment with entropy. Most deeds perceived as good attempt the impossible task of reducing entropy -- what is only ever possible in open system, or in other words, locally. One who would define their goal as fast and efficient increase of entropy around them would likely to be perceived as evil.
Then, the minimum entropy we can define is perfect vacuum or 0K. Not something very desirable, and that would likely trigger vacuum decay to the next level of less potential energy, effectively ending the universe as we know it (as the rules if physics will change, and current structure of matter reform).
Thus, the evil is good, as we need it to exist. Yo, that's an Orvelism, doublethink at it's best.
LupusDei
curious alien
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Pour the water out in the sand.
Lorilei
asexual prude
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No, that's not it, but it's the one form of evil I personally find the most offensive. I dunno, your scenario sounds more like mental illness, but it's an interesting question. I always enjoy your threads.
Oblimo
Literotica Guru
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Aristotle, Kant, and many others said that first, and an hell of a lot more convincingly than Ayn "Daddy Issues" Rand.
