Musing

[pyrephox]

LJ is, beyond any doubt, the wrong place to try to figure out the nature of mankind. The only answer it returns is: Situation Normal, All Fucked Up. That, and catgirl porn. BUT!

We are brave and tenacious explorers, and thus are not stopped by such petty concepts as 'sanity'. So, we look into the darkest heart of the virtual community (no, not the one where the fans write stories about Ian McKellan having his wicked way with a drugged Orlando Bloom while shouting, "Who's the king now, Viggo?!", but nice try) and ask: What is good and evil?

All kidding aside, I'm curious. If you're interested, leave a comment giving /your/ definition of 'good' and 'evil'.

Comments

[arus2001.livejournal.com]

Good and evil are something I believe are more similar than their simple definitions depict them to be. These definitions, of course, vary from person to person, and I believe that without experiencing one, you simply can't know the other.

I've done good, and generally intend to when I can, but sometimes my definition of good could be clouded by greed, or even misunderstood by others, potentially making me seem bad, or to an extreme, evil.

So, to cut to the chase, good and evil is what the majority believes is right and wrong. The sad thing is, it doesn't mean they're right. No one can really say what's right.

[harlecerule.livejournal.com]

Myself, I'd go with approximately the In Nomine definitions - selfish is evil, selfless is good. Of course, a certain amount of self-interest is healthy; it's difficult to help others when you're totally incapable of even helping yourself.

good

[sewa.livejournal.com]

good - selfless
evil -selfish
Of course, you -do- have to help yourself out enough to survive and all, otherwise you'll end up causing pain to those around you, which still follows the simple definition (causing pain is not selfless)

Re: good

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Is causing pain never a selfless act? Can it never be a byproduct of one?

[undauntra.livejournal.com]

The motivation of evil is taking pleasure in causing the suffering of others. Evil is allowing that motivation to guide your actions.

I define evil in terms of motivation, because any attempt at defining evil purely in terms of actions runs up against both extenuating circumstances and decision-making with imperfect knowledge. Thus far, my definition seems to have held up to what conundrums I can throw at it. However, it does allow for some truly horrific actions to be considered not-evil. To me, this is an uncomfortable but necessary consequence of refusing to label as evil those who make honest mistakes. I welcome your attempts to pick holes in my definition, so that I can improve it.

Good is far more difficult. If one simply goes with selflessness = good, then you arrive at the awkward ideal of each person making decisions with the intent to aid others - others whose needs and desires he will definitionally have less knowledge of than his own. Thus, you end up with an innefficient system where each persons needs are seen to by people who don't really know what those needs are. To take an absurd but illustrative case, it doesn't do me a lot of good for you to give me a plate of your favorite peanut-butter oatmeal cookies if I'm allergic to peanuts.

I suppose that the motivation of good would be to aid others. The effective application of good motives is much trickier, though. Things that occur to me as good actions are giving people enough data to make informed decisions rationally, keeping your word, refraining from causing unnecessary pain to others, helping people towards their expressed desires. However, this response is so scattershot as to not in the slightest be a definition.

[cpip.livejournal.com]

To me, this is an uncomfortable but necessary consequence of refusing to label as evil those who make honest mistakes

"Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity"?

[wavemaker.livejournal.com]

They're.. semantic categories, as I see it. Labels for whatever set of values a person has, which are both individually and socially constructed. Values come into being as an approximation of the best fit between a situation and one's experience of the situation; between the relatively 'objective' and the relatively 'subjective'. Meaning and value arise through this fundamental interaction, and 'good' and 'evil' are simply the labels that people place upon their particular interpretations of value and disvalue.

Am I gobbledygooking? Er, yeah. Staying up all night and into the day again.. it's good for me!

Relatively speaking, of course.

[undauntra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but pyrephox is asking for your personal interpretation of good and evil. So while it's interesting to know that you think that good and evil are generally labels for value sets, it doesn't address the core question. What values do you, personally, label as "good", and which ones do you label as "evil"?

[cpip.livejournal.com]

I daresay even suggesting the mental image of "Ian McKellan having his wicked way with a drugged Orlando Bloom while shouting, 'Who's the king now, Viggo?!'" is Evil.

Jest aside: Evil is that which is done with a knowing and willful disregard for the consequences of one's actions as they affect other people. "People will get hurt, but I don't care."

Good is what is done to counter Evil, so long as it is not Evil itself. It is very easy, however, for Evil acts to be committed in the name of Good.

I don't believe that a lot of Good really happens; most actions are relatively neutral.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

It's really fascinating to see all the different responses. :) It's interesting to realize that although a certain action may be agreed upon as good or evil by many people, it may be for several different reasons.

Since I posed the question, I should probably offer my own answer.

I believe that, in general, Good is that which reduces suffering and increases joy among the world, in a manner that causes the least harm possible. I'd have to agree with Cpip that very few actions are truly 'Good', most are neutral.

Evil is...at its core, thoughtlessness. A willful ignorance of negative consequences, or knowledge of the consequences, but simply not caring. It is very easy, in my opinion, for Evil to be done for the best of reasons, simply because someone tells themselves that the fallout is justifiable.

[theaceofspades.livejournal.com]

My definitions would probably be something along these lines:

Good: Providing benefit to one or many with little or no harm done to others.
Evil: Providing benefit to few or one (a minority share of the affected group) with harm done to others in the process.

This is a bit simplistic, but that's about the best wording I can come up with at the moment. It's not perfect, I admit this.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

If anyone's definition were perfect, the world wouldn't be in such a mess, right? ;)