Good or Evil?

[Lord Emsworth]

What do you think?

Is the human mind "by default" Good or Evil?

I don`t intend this to be a discussion about what is good and what evil. Just decide and vote according to your moral standards.


* Non-Theist: Atheists and Agnostics
** Theist: Theists and Deists

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Edited to add:

I suppose it is not really understood what I was up to in this poll. But I will define a bit:

Do we have to be educated to be good humans?

What would happen if we were not given, or taught, good moral standards? Would we be then, let`s say, thieving and manslaughtering monsters?

Does the human mind need some kind of leadership for not succumbing to the evil?

[Graham]

I think an option for "Neither" would improve the poll.

IMO, the human mind is neither good nor evil in and of itself any more than a gun or a banana is good or evil. It's just a thing. It's what you do with it that counts.

Obviously this is complicated by the question of whether "you" "exist" "seperately" from "your" "mind" and so on but for the purposes of this question, I think that's irrelevant.

Graham

[Frostbite]

I think that for society to work you need a ratio of good, evil and passive people. If you were to exterminate all evil people (people that are selfish, thieves, murderers or otherwise bring nothing to society except destruction, or however "evil" might be defined at that time) eventually, of all the good and passive people left, you'd have evil people popping up to fill the void.

Evil exists, therefore it has a reason to exist. It's sad, but it is somewhat useful.

[Upchurch]

I'm a non-theist, for clarification.

I don't consider humanity inherently "good" nor "evil". The concepts of good and evil are man-made concepts (and rather contexual ones, at that) and, as such, are only applied after something is.

If we were to say that humanity is inherently good or evil, what makes them so? Conscious (good)? Greed (evil)? If you were going to assume that humanity is inherently one way or the other, I'd have to argue that we are a mixture of both elements.

[Lord Emsworth]

Originally posted by Graham
I think an option for "Neither" would improve the poll.

I have deliberately left out such in between options…

[Lord Emsworth]

(made a few additions to the original poll text)

[SteveW]

Isn't this sort of a moot point anymore? Nietzsche pretty much defined the arguement in Beyond Good And Evil.

[Skeptical Greg]

I believe it is good by default..

Evil requires a victim, and the idea that ones evil action will help one attain a goal..

If one could meet all their desires/goals with good behaviour, evil would never be considered as an option.

[Dancing David]

I believe that most people are good. Fortunately .Probably a product of social conditioning.

[SquishyDave]

I have surprised myself by realising we are by default good.

Think of the most "evil" person that you can (who is real). Were they like a bad guy out of a disney movie? Going "MWAHAHA, I'm so evil and I love it"

OR

were they doing what they thought was best for them, their countrymen and the world?

Hitler for example, was convinced he could bring order to the entire globe, and was planning on tearing down Berlin and rebuilding it as the new world capital. Along the way he would cleanse mankind of the taint of its impurities. Was he evil? Nay I say, hideously misguided, and perhaps near the end totally insane, but evil? No.

[evildave]

Evil's in the eye of the beholder.

Although terms like 'misguided' and 'crazy' do apply robustly to many historical tyrants and the people who propped them up, so too does 'evil' fit.

It's not wrong to label something as 'evil' when the label fits. We don't have a situation where someone says "Oops, how on earth did millions of people die? I never saw that comming!" We have situations in the Nazi and Communist governments where deliberate mass murders of their fellow citizens were carefully planned and carried out by willing participants.

Naturally, although the spot under the magnifying glass is hot, we should not forget for a moment the genocides practiced by others. As late as 1970's, Native American women were being routinely sterilized without their consent by the U.S. government. Generally, when they came in to the hospital to have a baby, they left sterile. That's part of a long history of institutional genocide our own nation has practiced based on policy, carried out by willing participants. That's evil, too.

http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/studproj/is3099/nahealth/paper.html

[SquishyDave]

Yes evildave good point, but my point is inside their own minds they are not evil.

And I would say "Evil people" as such do not exist in our world, people do Evil things, the action itself has no good side, but the people themselves would have at least one redeeming feature, and not be pure evil.

[UnrepentantSinner]

I firm believer ;) in the existance of evil. No, not some agent or force that whispers in our ear telling us to do harmful things, but I will label unethical behavior evil due to horrificness or magnitude.

[evildave]

True, but all you can really say for them is they don't believe themselves to be evil.

If we're going to define "evil" as simply "having poor metrics for what will result in greater or lesser suffering", then the whole world is "evil".

Especially since the whole "good" definition is as poorly specified as "evil" is.

1. Willfully bringing about misery and death is probably evil, no matter the ultimate cause.

2. Death and misery are unavoidable components of life.

3. Life is evil? Or perhaps only wilfully having children is evil?

That much vaunted "greater good" thing keeps comming up, but according to how you measure "greater good", killing every bit of life in the universe would prevent incalculable "suffering" (however that is measured) over the remaining life of the universe, therefore, wouldn't that be "good" under a certain light?

[UnrepentantSinner]

Originally posted by evildave
That much vaunted "greater good" thing keeps comming up, but according to how you measure "greater good", killing every bit of life in the universe would prevent incalculable "suffering" (however that is measured) over the remaining life of the universe, therefore, wouldn't that be "good" under a certain light?

I'm sorry, I was busy going back in time and killing my grandfather, could you repeat that?

As I see it, the word evil is a label, and one that's a judgement call in many ways. But much like physical beauty, there are certain instances we can pretty much all agree on labeling something evil or someone beautiful.

And then there's what happened on 9/11...

[Lord Emsworth]

In my opinion most things are done in the name of Good.

Even 9/11 was in the opinion of the suicide bombers a good cause. I don't think that many people on this board share their opinion. So Evildave's statement Evil's in the eye of the beholder holds very much truth.

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SqishyDave :I have surprised myself by realising we are by default good.

I found it surprising, too, when I realized that we are mostly good.


In my younger years, when I still was a very avid Protestant, I always implied that the human default was somewhat rather evil. Which then had to be "corrected" by God, religion and suchlike. (This is one of my reason's for divinding up the poll into theits and non-theists). So I somewhat don't get rid of the suspicion that I was somehow held in fear to become Evil when ridding myself of religios beliefs.

But surprise, surprise I think I'm now, as a Godless person, even more incapable of doing some bad things. The only thing that has changed is that my moral beliefs are now my own, and not somebody else's.

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P.S. If someone can't decide whether to vote Bad or Evil, I will accept rathers. So vote!

[BillyTK]

I had to select the imaginary Planet X option because imo the human mind is a process rather than a producer or product; so it's kind of like asking if oxygenation is good or evil, which of course depends on whether you're an animal or a lump of iron ;)