Does "evil" exist?

Or is "evil" merely a judgment?

I don't think concepts exist without context. Certainly, somebody could see something as "evil". But, that's a label and a judgment. So, you've definitely got the right idea there.

Actions are just actions. They have consequences. And, those exist independent of judgment. An action only has an identity based on what the person thinks about it.

All actions are neutral.

Evil is as Connor said, a label.

We'd probably consider people who buried their servants with their dead family members as evil, yet the early dynasties of Egyptian Pharoahs did just that.

We can only view the world from our own perspective, and our experiences and culture colour those views.

evil is a label, based off of a perspective

Yes, I believe "evil" exists. I feel like the Darkside and "shadow" resides in us as a conscious being. I feel that we create it. It comes from our actions, intentions and "shadows". When we operate out of our subconscious or unconscious hurts, wounds, pains, insecurities, and suffering, that act usually has some for of those qualities in it - there for it perpetuates the cycle of "pain".

I feel that people when people "act" from their pain or "shadow" side - the Darkside - that action could be classified as "evil". If I am actively doing things to hurt, shame, or diminish an other person in order to gain something or to make myself "feel" better in the moment, that is "evil". If a person's intention is to create harmful pain for an other for my own personal satisfaction, that could be described as "evil".

I do not believe that there is any "evil" in the Force, Source or "God". Humans create the darkside all by ourselves.

IMO Yep, as an action... not as a 'Force'. I've not encountered supernatural evil anywhere which was not manifest though the creature itself (yet).

So my comments are limited to that... being awareness of somethings suffering and intention or action to increase that suffering.... importantly must represents an interaction with something that can 'suffer' - which is where the boundaries start to shape up for use of the word/concept.

So perhaps limited to things with apparent sentience, but perhaps also even just self awareness. Which ends up usually resting with animals only as sentient (most often), but many like to include plants or any system with enough complexity to warrant 'possible' sentience or at least obvious self awareness.

But do we really know... it's even tricky to compare suffering between humans - does one persons pain level match someone else!? We most often tend to do so in human terms which would be a safe bet for close species but 'could' become less accurate as it gets further from our own human individual understanding. So it's tricky to understand the subjective reality of other phylum, and 'really' questionable to do to other kingdom's and probably becomes completely unlikely in different domains of life...

... still, as a Jedi my observance to the concept of the Force means I associate (and extend) awareness to iterations of what I perceive as potential suffering, across all things - not as a duty to it, but as an expression of self. It transforms through concepts like stability, efficiency, productivity, resonance, health etc and has to be seen both with an internal and external scope.

Gosh, I even practise it to inanimate things but as an exercise not a rule.

Hurting the dog #evil
Hurting the insect #likelyevil
Hurt the tree #maybeperhapsnot
Hurt the table #crikeygivemewhatyouron

But its a good exercise for me to exert care, precision and awareness beyond normal levels - but its less about actual suffering and more about understanding the nature of matter. So it really boils down to an awareness and measure of complexity, and trying to be nice
:laugh:

Moved per request...

As some folks couldn't post responses...

Tellahane wrote: evil is a label, based off of a perspective

I'm gonna re-iterate:

Evil is a label, assigned to an action that is deemed immoral by choice of an individual and/or group all the way up to the size of a society, all of which is still based on perspective of all those involved.

Some thoughts...

What do you mean exist?

Is evil a tangible entity? Can you hold evil in your hand? Then in that case it doesn't exist.

But evil as an idea in our minds "exists". Evil is a judgement we can make about something.

If someone holds up a pen and asks "what is this?" The reply they'll receive is "a pen". But what this person is holding isn't "pen", "pen" is a sound we attribute to the thing being held. Much like evil.

Does language exist? Sure we can make sounds, but language is a concept, a modelling of sounds into a particular order. Does the United Kingdom exist? Can you go out and touch it? I can touch the ground "owned" by the United Kingdom, but if I get out my microscope and look really hard all I find is dirt, where is this United Kingdom people speak of?

Here's an interesting question: Why do humans run the world? *spoiler alert* Because we cooperate flexibly in vast numbers, but what is it about us that allows us to cooperate in large numbers (some insects do, but not flexibly) and not, say, chimpanzees?

"We can cooperate with numerous strangers because we can invent fictional stories, spread them around, and convince millions of strangers to believe in them."

Humans live in a world of rivers and trees, but we also live in a world of make-believe comprised of fictional entities like the United Kingdom, Morality and Money (a useless piece of paper or even just a number on a computer screen...).

As Alex pointed out to me the Tao Te Ching begins with a pun:

http://www.friesian.com/taote.htm

The Tao Te Ching begins with a pun: "Way" and "spoken of" ("said") are the same character (Dào). So the first line says: "The Tao that can be tao-ed is not the constant Tao." "The name that can be named..." Here the pun can be maintained in English, where "name" can be both noun and verb.

Names are fictional entities and Taoism is about stripping away the world of make-believe humans impose on reality.

http://ideas.ted.com/why-humans-run-the-world/

Why humans run the world
History professor Yuval Noah Harari — author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind — explains why humans have dominated Earth. The reason is not what you might expect.

I believe it exists, simply because we're talking about it. Even if everything is relative, and all ideas of morality are subjective, we still have the concept called Evil. So, at least in that sense, it exists.

Illusions, no matter how they are based in reality, are real one way or another.

Streen wrote: I believe it exists, simply because we're talking about it. Even if everything is relative, and all ideas of morality are subjective, we still have the concept called Evil. So, at least in that sense, it exists.

Illusions, no matter how they are based in reality, are real one way or another.

By that logic, God exists...

And unicorns...

Right?

I get what you are saying, lol....

I am simply asking, is it simply opinion, or something we agree on?

:lol:....

To declare that an action is evil, we much attach that value judgement to some desired outcome. "The antelope wishes to continue living and not to suffer; thus the actions of the lion that disembowels the antelope are evil."

the danger in viewing evil as "a matter of perspective" is that this view is only tenable from the safety of the mountain top

if you take four index card sized slates, red, black, blue, and green, and place them at the same height several feet apart from each other, under certain lighting and from a certian angle, i.e. from a certain perspective, they will all appear to be the same color

what the true colors of the world are, we, as humans, are not biologically equiped to percieve - what we percieve is limited by our physiology

since we cant percieve it all, there is no way that we even have the appropriate context from which to judge the bit that we CAN percieve - at least not beyond the parameters of saying "this is our perspective"

therefore we can say that the whole world and the whole universe and as far as we are concerned all of existence itself is nothing more than "a matter of perspective"

when it comes to colors, lets say red and green, these have a functional and important application (stop lights) and if you get these interpretations wrong it can result in "catastrophic" consequences

consequences whch could involve multiple families for instance

red and blue is also color combination that is pretty important, especially if it presents itself in the guise of flashing lights

if a bug bites you and its a little bit red, thats to be expected - it a bug bites you and it turns black, you have a problem

and so on and so forth

what im saying here is that to claim "its just a matter of perspective" doesnt really say anything at all because PERSPECTIVE IS ALL WE HAVE

i think one of the difficulties in the discussion (not just here but generally in discussions about EVIL) is that we all are saying the same word but we all have our own associations and experiences and references from which we draw our conclusions - lol our own perspectives - and though we use the same letters we are not all speaking of the same thing

personally, i use the word EVIL in the context of human beings treating other human beings in such horrible ways that even to say "horrible" doesnt quite express either the depth of degradation OR the element of genuine danger such a thing poses - the danger especially is that (as has been said) "good men do nothing" and the evil triumph

because "evil" is only a perspective

something to be careful is that often the word itself is used for evil purposes - "we are the just and the good and they are the evil enemies"

i think that because this has happened so much, many people are suspicious of the word and i think thats good

the "axis of evil" as declared by the guy who told us that the important question was this; "is our children learning?"

so its not useful to just throw the word around because you dont like another culutre - often this is just bigotry and ignorance, or outright manupulation

this does not mean there is no validity to the concept however

also its recurring to see the example of natural predation

some of the most shiver inducing images i have in my memory to this effect have to do with insects and parasites and how they treat thier prey or their hosts

basically it can be summed up by saying "no regard to the identity or value of the other whatsoever"

like Euryplatea nanaknihali fly or the "zombie wasp"


http://www.livescience.com/21326-smallest-fly-decapitates-ants.html


http://www.ticotimes.net/2014/10/04/the-zombie-wasp-that-gives-alien-spiders-nightmares

we are not physically capable of percieving the entirety of reality - we are not likely even capable of conceptualizing it

this understanding should keep us humble in regards to the certainty of our judgements

but we DO exists, so far as we can tell, and we DO have to live

and so what we do is come up with functional things and useful ideas, which may not be ultimately TRUE, but again, are functional and useful

and this, imo, is where EVIL comes in to play

pt 2 later

I'm not saying that evil is "just a matter of perspective". I'm saying that all actions exist independent of their contexts, and they only have labels when applying that context. Evil means something different to every person alive. But, each of us has to make that distinction, and also understand that the same perspective may not apply to the next person.

Simply viewing actions as actions with consequences can lead us to make decisions not based on some arbitrary value but rather what is in our hearts.

A lot of things didnt exist before humans.

God and unicorns amongst them.

The former is depending a lot upon that which your personally believe of course, but still...

or computers

careers

art

love, perhaps (i dont really think love is limited to humans but some do)

underwear didnt exist before human beings but some of you are wearing it

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concept-evil/

Thats my point.

And for a long time, things were just concepts, parts of the imagination, mind, perspective,etc.

The airplane was just part of someones imagination once.

Those with the right perspective brought it into being.

Not unlike discovering we were not the center of the universe.

Someone had to have the right perspective.

So, when saying it is just a perspective, judgement, or label, are people trying to take away value from it, or give it?

I am not sure, because by themselves that has no relevance to existence necessarily.

Does it exist? yes

it is a word made up by humans
the origins of the word and its definitions are still rooted in the relationship to behavior
with some parts of the definition still rooted in damnation

Does evil exist? yes
as a concept
not found in the dictionary, as one half of a set of opposites

when they are face to face so to speak like the Taoist symbol, harmony
when they are back to back and pulling away, disharmony

both a force in nature

from the point that both the word evil and the concept evil are made up, then evil does not exist

from the point of . . from nothingness, there was one, then two . . . any two opposites can be put at the point of
two for a creation story or creative forces

OB1Shinobi wrote: the danger in viewing evil as "a matter of perspective" is that this view is only tenable from the safety of the mountain top

if you take four index card sized slates, red, black, blue, and green, and place them at the same height several feet apart from each other, under certain lighting and from a certian angle, i.e. from a certain perspective, they will all appear to be the same color

what the true colors of the world are, we, as humans, are not biologically equiped to percieve - what we percieve is limited by our physiology

since we cant percieve it all, there is no way that we even have the appropriate context from which to judge the bit that we CAN percieve - at least not beyond the parameters of saying "this is our perspective"

therefore we can say that the whole world and the whole universe and as far as we are concerned all of existence itself is nothing more than "a matter of perspective"

when it comes to colors, lets say red and green, these have a functional and important application (stop lights) and if you get these interpretations wrong it can result in "catastrophic" consequences

consequences whch could involve multiple families for instance

red and blue is also color combination that is pretty important, especially if it presents itself in the guise of flashing lights

if a bug bites you and its a little bit red, thats to be expected - it a bug bites you and it turns black, you have a problem

and so on and so forth

what im saying here is that to claim "its just a matter of perspective" doesnt really say anything at all because PERSPECTIVE IS ALL WE HAVE

i think one of the difficulties in the discussion (not just here but generally in discussions about EVIL) is that we all are saying the same word but we all have our own associations and experiences and references from which we draw our conclusions - lol our own perspectives - and though we use the same letters we are not all speaking of the same thing

personally, i use the word EVIL in the context of human beings treating other human beings in such horrible ways that even to say "horrible" doesnt quite express either the depth of degradation OR the element of genuine danger such a thing poses - the danger especially is that (as has been said) "good men do nothing" and the evil triumph

because "evil" is only a perspective

something to be careful is that often the word itself is used for evil purposes - "we are the just and the good and they are the evil enemies"

i think that because this has happened so much, many people are suspicious of the word and i think thats good

the "axis of evil" as declared by the guy who told us that the important question was this; "is our children learning?"

so its not useful to just throw the word around because you dont like another culutre - often this is just bigotry and ignorance, or outright manupulation

this does not mean there is no validity to the concept however

also its recurring to see the example of natural predation

some of the most shiver inducing images i have in my memory to this effect have to do with insects and parasites and how they treat thier prey or their hosts

basically it can be summed up by saying "no regard to the identity or value of the other whatsoever"

like Euryplatea nanaknihali fly or the "zombie wasp"


http://www.livescience.com/21326-smallest-fly-decapitates-ants.html


http://www.ticotimes.net/2014/10/04/the-zombie-wasp-that-gives-alien-spiders-nightmares

we are not physically capable of percieving the entirety of reality - we are not likely even capable of conceptualizing it

this understanding should keep us humble in regards to the certainty of our judgements

but we DO exists, so far as we can tell, and we DO have to live

and so what we do is come up with functional things and useful ideas, which may not be ultimately TRUE, but again, are functional and useful

and this, imo, is where EVIL comes in to play

pt 2 later

one of the main points of all that was this: we very likely are not actually be capable of determining or comprehending the full scope of what is real

or for that matter, even of what REAL is

several others have hit upon this and basically have said

IT IS REAL BECAUSE IT IS DESCRIPTIVE OF REAL EXPERIENCE

so then the question shifts from "is evil real?" to "is the idea of evil FUNCTIONAL?"

and i think yes it is - but i also concede that we may be ready for a new conceptualization

the word EVIL is inherently moralistic in nature and legacy

as a modern person i have the perspective to be able to see us more in terms of optimal physical and psychological health than as beings of any divine or demonic orign or nature

and this is imo one of the biggest problems with the word - the historical foundation for the concept of evil is essentially in the realm of divinity and supernaturalism

demons and angels and gods, oh my

im not entirely ready to cast off the ideas of devils and gods for my own personal use, i find the supernatural to be an exoeriential and functional paradigm

but it does appear that our modern culture demands a modern interpretation

i think a substantial part of that has been provided by Akkarin, and if i may i would like to expand on it

the foundations of our need to cooperate dont just trace back to the development of culture by itself, and are not just a convenience of social order so that we can go to the movies and vote for crooked senators

our interdependence is both the cause and the result of our genetic disposition and biological evolution

as organisms we evolved in interdependence with one another, and from an evolutionary viewpoint we might say that EVIL is the act of defying the evolutionary groundwork which allowed us to develop and thrive as an organism - as a species made of interdependent beings who rely on mutual cooperation

and its pretty hard to argue with something when you put it in the context of "our bodies and our minds exist as they do because we followed specific rules during the course of our evolution and these rules, being integral to the very basis of our being, still apply today, even if our previous articulation of these rules does not"