Define evil

[Mallus]

* Who has a "right" to define evil?

Wait... let me take a crack at this one.
Every individual has not only the right, but the obligation to define evil.

 

[Cor Azer]

So allowing the 10,000 citizens to die would be a good act?

Now, why exactly would not doing an evil act be a good act? Not doing something is not the opposite of doing it (if that makes sense). I doubt evil/good have that exact relationship.

Edit: Added possibly confusing answer to rhetoric question.

 

[Galethorn]

So allowing the 10,000 citizens to die would be a good act?

No, it would be a neutral act, like brushing your teeth, or paying your taxes (unless of course you had something to gain from it, and allowed it to happen on purpose). Finding a way to save the 10,000 citizens, while not killing the street urchins would be a good act.

 

[Myrddin ap Taliesen]

Everyone seems to be attempting to define evil by deeds and the like, but there's another take to it:

Evil is the absence of good.

In and of itself, evil is not a quantifiable force, just as cold and darkness are not. Evil is a lack of kindness, of caring, of selflessness, of regard for others. To quote Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

In game terms, it could be a whole different story (ala Dragonlance, with Takhisis needing to exist to keep Paladine in check). But in the real world, that's the gist of it.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Overriding self-interest, to the point of malice.

Or, put more succinctly, selfishness. Selfishness is more than merely self-interest, which, while not good, is not evil insofar as it does not harm others.

Granny Weatherwax says evil starts as treating people as things.

Lack of empathy is, after all, tied into selfishness. High covariance there. Along with arrogance. Selfishness and arrogance are what allow us to construct in-groups and out-groups. These people are the same as me on some measure (skin-tone, religion, geography, etc.) and are therefore better than those people over there. As such, we're the (better/Chosen/stronger/smarter) people and are within our rights to do whatever we need/want to them.

Being unable or unwilling to empathize with a person or group is, as far as I can tell, the ultimate source of all evil perpetrated by mankind.

Evil is defined by our times and who we are as a people, it is ever changing, it is a concept created by man and defined by man in his life time. It is the ACT that is evil.

And yet young children (i.e. very early verbal until about 3 or 4, depending on the parents, IME) almost always have a very good barometer of what's right and wrong. You can see it in their reactions to stories and people. It's only after we start justifying evil and selfishness to them that most kids accept it. I'm not a strong proponent of Natural Law, but there's a reason the idea is out there. Very young children are never racists. They don't divide people into groups until their parents/peers/ etc. teach them the idea, and they are very rarely cruel to an animal once they understand the physical limits of said animal. They tend to treat all things that are obviously alive in fairly pleasant ways. Certainly, I've seen dogs with pulled tails and poked eyes, but if said animal produces a sound of pain, many kids stop. And if they don't get the hint, i've found that explaining that the noise means they hurt the animal, most kids will apologize or explain that they "didn't mean to."

That's why children are pure, unadulterated evil. Ever seen a child rip the wings off a butterfly just because it can?

Occasionally, but not in a child old enough to know that a butterfly is more like a dog than a flower. And not in older children who are well-parented.

 

[ngenius]

I tend to think of evil coming in four types;

(in order; from Least Harmful on Average to Most Harmful on Average)
Category 1: Selfishness (self explanitory),

Category 2: Good-Intentioned, AKA 'Loss of moral compass' (killing 100 street urchins to save a city of 10,000)

Category 3: Hatred (and/or vengeance; self explanitory),

and, <drumroll>

Category 4: [Evil], AKA Pure Unadulterated Evil (destruction for its own sake, as well as killing/maiming weaker creatures because they can; could be seen as a highly concentrated version of #3, with 'everything' as the focus of the hate)
...

Excellent summaries of the most popular evil categores. I most especially like Category 2 of Good-Intentioned, because that is how many good people fall into evil ways. Like the saying goes: "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions".

And this category makes an excellent way for Paladins to unknowingly fall into evil ways. I just wish the d20 system had a more structured way of attonement, with only a loss of some Paladin abilities and not a total loss for a period of days while the Paladin attempts to find ways to right her wrongful actions.

 

[Hand of Evil]

What is the saying...

I don't know what evil is but when I see it I will tell you.

 

[Mallus]

Now, why exactly would not doing an evil act be a good act?

Perhaps I should have phrased it this way...
"How is being responsible for the death of 100 evil, while being responsible for, via inaction, the death of 10,000 not evil?"

 

[Mallus]

Finding a way to save the 10,000 citizens, while not killing the street urchins would be a good act.

What if there isn't another solution? Let's say we're not in a Star Trek episode and we don't have Kirk, God, and staff writers on our side?

Here's where the moral calculus breaks down for me [and in a good way]. Rational discussions of evil inevitably turn into discussions of sentimentality; don't sacrifice 10 children to save a 1000. But that kind of irrational sentimentality strikes to the core of what most people consider human. Our fiction routinely dodge the issue; the leader who refuses to kill a few innocents for the good of many almost always finds a way out, or some make a 'noble self-sacrife'. Audiences pratically demand reinforcement of the idea that there's always a way around such hard choices. The real world doesn't operate under that restriction. There isn't enough food, or medicine, or room on the last lifeboat. Decide.

 

[Kael]

This was my first thought, but the argument can be made that a person in a war has to harm another (or kill) for personal benefit (preserving your own life) and may not feel remorse because the act had to be done to survive.

I've recently returned from Iraq. I can tell you that the guys who stopped feeling remorse for what they had to do, even in self-defense, were very scary. :\