So in Iceye's post "Who do you think you are?" the question of evil was discussed in the comments. I just read the latest comment, stated by ShadoWolf that "No one considers themselves to be evil when they do something most would call evil."
I disagree. I can't speak for other people, but I see a lot of wickedness in myself.
Now, I cannot claim to believe in a "universal evil", of course, because that implies some sort of omniscent judge, and while I have what I consider solid evidence of the existence of the Blind Idiot God, I don't believe it judges.
I do, however, believe in a subjective sort of evil - as a sort of "necessary fantasy" in order to properly function. Why have I never killed anyone? The long and short of it is "Because I have been convinced that murder is evil". If I didn't regard murder as an evil thing, I would have no real reason not to do it (disregarding the "I might be caught" angle, but honestly, how likely are you to be caught if you murder a random stranger for the lulz? Not very.)
Evil may be a fantasy, something that does not objectively exist - "as real as Santa" - but unlike Santa, it is a necessary fantasy. It's a made-up belief that we, at least on a personal level, need in order to function as a modern society. It's like how the medieval church needed God to function; the church was objectively useful, it created order and provided employment for countless people - but its authority was (probably, at least) entirely fictive, there was no "real" reason to listen to the Pope. Yet, if nobody had listened to the Pope, we wouldn't have literacy in the Western world.
It's the same with "evil". If we didn't believe in it, society would collapse, because people would undertake any selfish act that they thought they could get away with.
Occasionally, people do selfish things - but often, they regret them afterwards, because they think that the act is wrong; they consider themselves, in some small fashion, "evil" for having done it.
That's how I understand the word, at least.
2 kommentarer:
Hm. I think you're probably right but I also think "evil" as a concept is misguiding. It's like what they teach in basic science; it's wrong but you need it to progress. The progress in this case being the realization that you can't control conseqences. There's two reasons I don't kill random strangers: 1) the same reason as I'm not eating a bun right now, and not owning a dog; I don't feel like it. 2) sure, the chances are small to get caught, but taking a risk like that for something I don't need, well.
Mostly though, It's because, maybe it seems that to get my next promotion the easiest thing would be to kill my superior, but there's so many unknowns in that equation. How would I kill him, would I get caught, would I get the promotion even then, when I've gotten it how do I know nobody murders me right away to get it for themselves... isn't it when people think they can control all of these things that they do commit murder? Either that or when they forget about the consequences from love or stress or whatever.
And aside from murder... sure I could pick on people incessantly, but then who would help me carry heavy stuff home and I'd miss out on the chance of cheap things that a friend might offer. I don't need "evil" to keep me straight, I just need to be selfish. It benefits me more to be safe from jail and have friends.
To some extent this is true (although I'm not exactly certain why it is so), but it's like the allegory of the banana peel: If I throw a banana peel on the ground, it won't matter if I'm the only person in the world who litters (because then it will hardly make a difference), and it doesn't matter if everyone does it (because then, again, it will hardly make a difference).
"Evil" is a necessary illusion because without that illusion, people would do horrible things if they thought they could get away with it - and the closer you get to either extreme (nobody commits crimes vs. an absurd amount of people commit crimes) the easier and easier it gets to get away with.
Of course, this is still to some extent also a question of consequences; if everyone wantonly murdered everyone, society would collapse and we would all be a lot worse off.
My point is, without hard-and-fast ethical rules, every single action becomes a sort of prisoners' dilemma - "If I do this, and he doesn't do that, and he doesn't do that, I should be fine." We can't afford to have people think through the potential consequences of their actions from a purely selfish point of view, because the sad truth is that you can get away with a _lot of shit_. If I reasoned purely selfishly, I would for instance steal a _lot_ more, because I know I can get away with it.
The reason I don't is that guilt - reaction to what I think "evil" - causes me to blow the potential consequences out of proportion. It causes me to reason illogically. And I think that's a good thing.
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