Good and Evil

[Rían]

Originally posted by Sister Golden Hair
Are you saying that you can't really answer this?

No, I'm saying I'm just too lazy at the moment, because it's a complex answer (to the best of my understanding). If you would like, I'll give it a whirl, but I'll have to get to some caffeine first....

[Rían]

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
*laugh* fair enough. see a true bible zombie (and there are many out there) would be incapable of such humar RÃ*an. So I salute you for that at least.

Thanks, and you're funny, too! I love good humor! (and I even like humour, which is the British version!)

its just such simple elementary logic to me. Think about how you feel about the concept that the earth is round. Its just a given for you. Thats basically how I feel about evolution because of all the studies Ive had regarding it. So when I talk about it just keep saying to yourself that its simply a basic given fact to him of the highest order. Its a no brainer.

OK, and please realize that the Creation by Intelligent Design theory is also a "no-brainer" for some brainy people (not referring to myself, obviously, but to the many intelligent scientists who believe it to be the theory best fitting the available observations). Hey, if you ever have a free week or two (AS IF!!) then read thru the thread on "should evolution be taught in schools" - I don't think you were around back then. BTW, I won the debate *runs and hides from BoP*

no no I apologize for puting it that way. Im sure there was a little frustration on my part in there. Ive been much much worse about it though with not so nice not so open minded christians in the past so gimme some credit. You guys would never ellicit such comments. Im talking about the off the chart right wing christian activists who only talk IN CAPITAL LETTERS!!! and preech about what an abomination it is to teach anything but creationism and bible study in public schools. It makes me cringe to even think such creatures even exist in this world. So thank goodness there are none here on the moot. Now Ill try not to be so evil....

Thanks for the apology, Mr. Rex - you're a dinosaur and a gentleman! *wonders if the younger 'Mooters are familiar with the quotation I'm parodying...*

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
*runs and hides from BoP*

*Pushes Rian down a very LARGE hole where she will be tickled mercilessly with a feather*

[Rían]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeee!

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
Hey, if you ever have a free week or two (AS IF!!) then read thru the thread on "should evolution be taught in schools" - I don't think you were around back then. BTW, I won the debate *runs and hides from BoP*

I actually briefly looked over that thanks to a tip by Jersey. Wish I had been around then. It looked like it was all played out so I didnt make a new post in it. Seems like it was the most exciting debate until that gay debate we had like 2 months ago. I miss that one too.

Thanks for the apology, Mr. Rex - you're a dinosaur and a gentleman!

Well Im definitely a dinosaur.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
Morals are entirely human construct. But only to a certain extent. They have their basis in (and here we once again hit the great divide between your thoughts and mine): EVOLUTION. On a species level murder within species is a detremental act on average. Because hey if I have no psychological quams about murdering you then that means you have none about murdering me and so nobody does and there will be murder aplenty and how can you survive like that as a species. you cant. you go extinct. self destruction. But if we evolve with a predisposition againts all out muder of each other then operating as a species is much easier and that enhances our survival abilities. we cant take this too far however and make self species murder an impossibility biologicaly because there are cases where its stil necessary as we all know. but it needs to be a pretty big deal in order for us to overcome that instinctual feeling of species preservation and go ahead and kill someone. it has to be the best choice of a worst case scenerio.

But anyway what i was getting at was that "morals" as we call them are simply the reflection of our instincts against killing (and other things) because A) its just plain dangerous to kill another living creature and B) its setting a real bad precedent within a species and C) it takes away from the altruistic benefit of being a social species which is a big factor in the survival of our genes - and that people is what its all about.

Of course as I said above this hinges all on the fact that you can accept evolution as a tool in our formation. I know for a number of you this is not an option you will entertain because of the limits of the rules of your religion so perhaps this is as far as we can go with it.

I actually like that answer . It's a good and intelligent one, which shows that you've thought about the subject. As a matter of a fact, it's a bit beyond me to answer that one on my own, so I'll go to another source.

I very much hope that you're willing to read this closely, not closed off against it, but willing to think about it. Thanks in advance for your time and attention .

[Lief Erikson]

Originally written by C.S. Lewis
Some people wrote to me saying, "Isn’t what you call the Moral Law simply our herd instinct and hasn’t it been developed just like all our other instincts?" Now I do not deny that we may have a herd instinct: but that is not what I mean by the Moral Law. We all know what it feels like to be prompted by instinct—by mother love, or sexual instinct, or the instinct for food. It means that you feel a strong way or desire to act in a certain way. And, of course, we sometimes do feel just that sort of desire to help another person: and no doubt that desire is due to the herd instinct. But feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not. Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires—one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. You might as well say the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.

Continuing . . .

[Lief Erikson]

Originally written by C.S. Lewis
Another way of seeing hat the Moral Law is not simply one of our instincts is this. If two instincts are in conflict, and there is nothing in a creature’s mind except those two instincts, obviously the stronger of the two must win. But at those moments when we are most conscious of the Moral Law, it usually seems to be telling us to side with the weaker of the two impulses. You probably want to be safe much more than you want to help the man who is drowning: but the Moral Law tells you to help him all the same. And surely it often tells us to try to make the right impulse stronger than it naturally is? I mean, we often feel it our duty to stimulate the herd instinct, by waking up our imaginations and arousing our pity and so on, so as to get up enough steam for doing the right thing. But clearly we are not acting from instinct when we set about making an instinct stronger than it is. The thing that says to you, "Your herd instinct is asleep. Wake it up," cannot itself be the herd instinct. The thing that tells you which note on the piano needs to be played louder cannot itself be that note.

Continuing . . .

[Lief Erikson]

Originally written by C.S. Lewis
Here is a third way of seeing it. If the Moral Law was one of our instincts, we ought to be able to point to some one impulse inside us which was always what we call "good," always in agreement with the rule of right behavior. But you cannot. There is none of our impulses which the M oral Law may not sometimes tell us to suppress, and none which it may not sometimes tell us to encourage. It is a mistake to think that some of our impulses—say mother love or patriotism—are good, and others, like sex or the fighting instinct, are bad. All we mean is that the occasions on which the fighting instinct or the sexual desire need to be restrained are rather more frequent than those for restraining mother love or patriotism. But there are situations in which it is the duty of a married man to encourage his sexual impulse and of a soldier to encourage the fighting instinct. There are also occasions on which a mother’s love for her own children or a man’s love for his own country have to be suppressed or they will lead to unfairness toward other people’s children or countries. Strictly speaking, there are no such things as good and bad impulses. Think once again of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the "right" notes and the "wrong" ones. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or any set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.

The End.

I might post more from this particular book, Mere Christianity, in response to some of the other opinions that have been laid out here. Because I really love C.S. Lewis's books because of their logic, and their intelligent approaches to certain issues.

[Lizra]

I have that book also. But I think deciding which instinct to follow, (at the the point of two opposing instincts pulling on you) often comes from previous experience and/or "good" upbringing. ( an older person who has instructed/instilled intelligent or civilized ideals in a non-experienced youth) There are many choices made, some good, some bad, some in-between. It depends on the individual and the situation. I do not believe there is a third instinct, or the "moral law". A lovely thought, but I don't honestly see it. That's just my opinion though!

Nice try Rian! I'll tickle her when you get tired BoP! I think she needs an excessive dose of chocolate also!

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Lief Erikson
The End.

I might post more from this particular book, Mere Christianity, in response to some of the other opinions that have been laid out here. Because I really love C.S. Lewis's books because of their logic, and their intelligent approaches to certain issues.

Well thats an interesting perspective to be sure. But it seems rather contrived to me. Heres basically how I see it: think of our actions as the end product of specific mathematical formulas. a million various factors go into a potential decision and however the numbers work out the decision is made. Calculus even shows this to us by telling us the liklihood that something will be in a certain place at a certain time. It can also be used to predict human actions rather well. Even though to us it seems like complete and total free will.

Whether I kill you or not (sorry for using this example over and over ) is based on many many factors. Is there a reason to kill you so great that it would benefit my survival or the passage of my genes? If I kill you will I be ostricized and cast away or imprisoned or worse yet killed by your tribe members as vengence? Do you have sharp teeth or long claws that could severly injure me in my attempt to murder you? Are you in close proximity to your tribe or group such that you could easily notify them of your danger? If so then the benefits dont outway the consequences. And I would predict I wouldnt kill you. However if I have reason to think I could actually get away with it and it would ultimately benefit my survival and my lineage with acceptable repurcusions then I may justify to myself doing that. However if I STILL dont kill you despite this then perhaps the species preservation instinct (honed and reinforced by the "moral" upbringing my mother gave me - and adult animals reinforce natural instincts with cognitive lessons all the time) has made me realize that even though I may gain some benefit in killing you without severe consequence to myself I still dont want to do that because I dont really have a TRULY urgent need to kill you and its just a really bad precedent to set biologically. Having an individual who is capable of killing in cold blood for any reason with no remorse is a bad thing for the population. For this reason these folks tend to be isolated, cast out or killed themselves. Often before they can breed and pass their dangerous kill-without-remorse genes onto their children (and that is evolution at work people). So I dont kill you and 5 years from now you save my life by donating blood when I have a car accident. Hey I benefited from following my compulsion to avoid murdering you. The instincts paid off. And I can pass my genes on now to my children who also may not kill your children and may benefit from it down the road as well. Social interaction is one big genetic scale. which way the scale tips on any given action depends on exactly what is placed on the scale.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
Well thats an interesting perspective to be sure. But it seems rather contrived to me. Heres basically how I see it: think of our actions as the end product of specific mathematical formulas. a million various factors go into a potential decision and however the numbers work out the decision is made. Calculus even shows this to us by telling us the liklihood that something will be in a certain place at a certain time. It can also be used to predict human actions rather well. Even though to us it seems like complete and total free will.

That sounds rather like Deism, which was disproved by Quantum Mechanics. We now know that at the smallest level, everything is chance. Like Deism, you're saying that if you know where everything is at a specific point in time, you can predict everything else because of mathematics or other things.

If I believed in that theory, then I could go and rape someone and say that I was forced to do it. I had no choice; it was bound to be.

Death penalty would be ridiculous; the theory would be permitting complete free reign of animal and self centered behavior. So forgive me if I don't like that theory at all . I really am convinced that I have a choice in whether or not I am going to do what is broadly considered to be an evil deed.

I agree that an individual's background, and what led up to the point he's at when confronted by a decision of whether to do evil or not, is influential in his choice. I don't agree that those things are all there is to it, that it's all worked out and that you have no choice in the matter. On the contrary, what your background does is it biases you one way or another. It makes it so that you already have a predisposition to go for one course of action, but it doesn't have anything to do with making the decision for you. Unfortunately though, here we get off of common ground, for that's where the soul comes in.

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
Whether I kill you or not (sorry for using this example over and over ) is based on many many factors. Is there a reason to kill you so great that it would benefit my survival or the passage of my genes? If I kill you will I be ostricized and cast away or imprisoned or worse yet killed by your tribe members as vengence? Do you have sharp teeth or long claws that could severly injure me in my attempt to murder you? Are you in close proximity to your tribe or group such that you could easily notify them of your danger? If so then the benefits dont outway the consequences. And I would predict I wouldnt kill you. However if I have reason to think I could actually get away with it and it would ultimately benefit my survival and my lineage with acceptable repurcusions then I may justify to myself doing that. However if I STILL dont kill you despite this then perhaps the species preservation instinct (honed and reinforced by the "moral" upbringing my mother gave me - and adult animals reinforce natural instincts with cognitive lessons all the time) has made me realize that even though I may gain some benefit in killing you without severe consequence to myself I still dont want to do that because I dont really have a TRULY urgent need to kill you and its just a really bad precedent to set biologically. Having an individual who is capable of killing in cold blood for any reason with no remorse is a bad thing for the population. For this reason these folks tend to be isolated, cast out or killed themselves. Often before they can breed and pass their dangerous kill-without-remorse genes onto their children (and that is evolution at work people). So I dont kill you and 5 years from now you save my life by donating blood when I have a car accident. Hey I benefited from following my compulsion to avoid murdering you. The instincts paid off. And I can pass my genes on now to my children who also may not kill your children and may benefit from it down the road as well. Social interaction is one big genetic scale. which way the scale tips on any given action depends on exactly what is placed on the scale.

Well, obviously the decision making goes on in the brain, so chemical reactions and genetic information and brain knowledge all are necessary for you to make your decision.

Having everything on a genetic scale is a fine way of looking at things. Whatever has the most going for it at the moment is the thing you choose to do. However, that doesn't really answer the question C.S. Lewis brought up.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally written by C.S. Lewis
And, of course, we sometimes do feel just that sort of desire to help another person: and no doubt that desire is due to the herd instinct. But feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not.

Originally written by C.S. Lewis
You might as well say the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.

I think C.S. Lewis made some valid points here that you failed to answer (No offense intended). I think we all have felt what he calls the Moral Law, which basically tells us that we should behave in a certain fashion, whether we want to behave in that way or not. His example about a person in trouble needing help I also found good, for it's true that there are two instincts warring there, the herd instinct and the self-preservation instinct. And there is another force on you, the same one as is often telling you what you should be doing, which tells you to beef up one instinct so that you can act on it. Perhaps your self-preservation instinct wins over both and you run like a coward, that does happen. However, you know that you've disobeyed not just the herd instinct but another instinct/MoralLaw that tells you which is the one to obey. I don't think you really addressed that force that C.S. Lewis was speaking about.


Ah yes, by the way, in your post you threw another wrench into the works that I hadn't heard of before. You mentioned what you called "The species preservation instinct". I've never heard of that before, and I haven't seen any such instinct visible among animals. They have herd or family protection instincts, yes, but those protection instincts don't cover the entire species, that I recall.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally posted by Lizra
I have that book also. But I think deciding which instinct to follow, (at the the point of two opposing instincts pulling on you) often comes from previous experience and/or "good" upbringing. ( an older person who has instructed/instilled intelligent or civilized ideals in a non-experienced youth) There are many choices made, some good, some bad, some in-between. It depends on the individual and the situation. I do not believe there is a third instinct, or the "moral law". A lovely thought, but I don't honestly see it. That's just my opinion though!

C.S. Lewis had some things to say directly to that opinion as well, and I hope you read them (Whether you find errors in his logic or not)

Originally written by C.S. Lewis
Other people wrote to me saying, "Isn’t what you call the Moral Law just a social convention, something that is put into us by education?" I think there is a misunderstanding here. The people who ask that question are usually taking it for granted that if we have learned a thing from parents and teachers, then that thing must be merely a human invention. But, of course, that is not so. We all learned the multiplication table at school. A child who grew up alone on a desert island would not know it. But surely it does not follow that the multiplication table is simply a human convention, something human beings have made up for themselves and might have made different if they had liked? I fully agree that we learn the Rule of Decent Behavior from parents and teachers, and friends and books, as we learn everything else. But some of the things we learn are mere conventions which might have been different—we learn to keep to the left of the road, but it might just as well have been the rule to keep to the right—and others of them, like mathematics, are the real truths. The question is to which class the Law of Human Nature belongs.
There are two reasons for saying it belongs to the same class as mathematics. The first is, as I said in the first chapter, that though there are differences between the moral ideas of one time or country and those of another, the differences are not really very great—not nearly so great as most people imagine—and you can recognize the same law running through them all: whereas mere conventions, like the rule of the road or the kind of clothes people wear, may differ to any extent.

Continuing . . .

[Lief Erikson]

Originally written by C.S. Lewis
The other reason is this. When you think about these differences between the morality of one people and another, do you think that the morality of one people is ever better or worse than that of another? Have any of the changes been improvements? If not, then of course there could never be any moral progress. Progress means not just changing, but changing for the better. If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality. In fact, of course, we all do believe that some moralities are better than others. We do believe that some of the people who tried to change the moral ideas of their own age were what we would call Reformers or Pioneers—people who understood morality better than their neighbors did. Very well then. The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other. But the standard that measures two things is something different from either. You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing as a real Right, independent of what people think, and that some people’s ideas get nearer to that real Right than others. Or put it this way. If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must be something—some Real Morality—for them to be true about. The reason why your idea of New York can be truer or less true than mine is that New York is a real place, existing quite apart from what either of us thinks. If when each of us said "New York" each meant merely "The town I am imagining in my own head," how could one of us have truer ideas than the other? There would be no question of truth or falsehood at all. In the same way, if the Rule of Decent Behavior meant simply "whatever each nation happens to approve," there would be no sense in saying that any one nation had ever been more correct in its approval than any other; no sense in saying that the world could ever grow morally better or morally worse.

The End.

Does anyone here really mind my quoting C.S. Lewis here at such length? I don't want it to kill off the thread or drain interest, it's just that he's thought about this subject so much more than me and his logic is far better reasoned.

And I don't think that he should logically drain interest, simply because his opinions differ from other people's. That's one of the things that I've enjoyed most, actually, about debating Christianity, theology in general and politics in these different topics, because it has broadened my thinking. All the Entmooters who have been involved in those debates have shown me more of what the world is like, and what some of the different opinions that exist are. If my religion or beliefs cannot stand up to questions people put to it or problems they see in it, then those beliefs aren't worth having, IMO.

So anyway, thank-you to everyone who's been debating with me.

[Lizra]

I don't mind. As I said, I have that book, and have enjoyed reading it. But you are right, I don't agree. To me, it seems he is dressing up "common sense" in fancy clothes. To each his own!

[Millane]

i got here a bit late but ill add my 2 cents anyway (if someone has already said this well i read 3 pages and got exhausted )
first off my definition of good and evil is that evil is just a lower degree of goodness... so basically evil is good and hence you cant have evil without good becuase they are one in the same... but thats just my view.

[Rían]

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
Well thats an interesting perspective to be sure. But it seems rather contrived to me.

I would apply what you said in the above quote (referring to what C. S. Lewis wrote) to the rest of your post, which I will quote here:

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
Whether I kill you or not (sorry for using this example over and over ) is based on many many factors. Is there a reason to kill you so great that it would benefit my survival or the passage of my genes? If I kill you will I be ostricized and cast away or imprisoned or worse yet killed by your tribe members as vengence? Do you have sharp teeth or long claws that could severly injure me in my attempt to murder you? Are you in close proximity to your tribe or group such that you could easily notify them of your danger? If so then the benefits dont outway the consequences. And I would predict I wouldnt kill you. However if I have reason to think I could actually get away with it and it would ultimately benefit my survival and my lineage with acceptable repurcusions then I may justify to myself doing that. However if I STILL dont kill you despite this then perhaps the species preservation instinct (honed and reinforced by the "moral" upbringing my mother gave me - and adult animals reinforce natural instincts with cognitive lessons all the time) has made me realize that even though I may gain some benefit in killing you without severe consequence to myself I still dont want to do that because I dont really have a TRULY urgent need to kill you and its just a really bad precedent to set biologically. Having an individual who is capable of killing in cold blood for any reason with no remorse is a bad thing for the population. For this reason these folks tend to be isolated, cast out or killed themselves. Often before they can breed and pass their dangerous kill-without-remorse genes onto their children (and that is evolution at work people). So I dont kill you and 5 years from now you save my life by donating blood when I have a car accident. Hey I benefited from following my compulsion to avoid murdering you. The instincts paid off. And I can pass my genes on now to my children who also may not kill your children and may benefit from it down the road as well. Social interaction is one big genetic scale. which way the scale tips on any given action depends on exactly what is placed on the scale.

(IOW, no offense, but I think what YOU wrote is very "contrived"). Do you really think that is typically what goes thru people's heads every time they consider whether or not to go thru with an action? My goodness, everyone would be completely at a standstill with considering everything!

An internal moral law would make much more sense - instant feedback on whether something is right or wrong. And that's what's referred to in the Bible in the book of Romans:

Romans 2:14,15
Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.

(I added the bold for emphasis). (The Gentiles are non-Jews, and they did not have the Jewish laws)

[Rían]

BTW, IR and others who favor the 'preservation of species'-type explanation for things, what do you think of the following scenario?


I quite like to target shoot, but paper targets get boring. Hmm, let me think of a place where there's lots of people - say, India. I get on a plane with my husband's .22 rifle (the one immortalized in the Entmooter picture links photo) and my lovely 23-pound recurve bow and some arrows and head to India. I go over to some place where there's lots of little babies and consider - let's see, I think if I pick off 100, that certainly wouldn't cause the human species to die out. So I kill 100 babies - or better yet, maybe toddlers - hey, babies are too easy of a target - let me now go and pick off 100 toddlers for a bit more of a challenge. Hey, what a nice day - I had some target practice, had fun, and our species is still going to survive - hey, I probably even improved the quality of life for the locals because there will be less demand for the already scanty resources!

Now, regardless of whether or not I get caught - was what I did ok with you guys? Was it right or wrong, or does right/wrong not apply?

[Rían]

Originally posted by Sister Golden Hair
Are you saying that you can't really answer this?

OK, let me answer it now, to the best of my ability.

you asked:

Is there such a thing as "justifiable evil" Can you commit evil intentionally to further a cause for a greater good?

I would say IMO that the answer is NO! The reason I didn't answer it earlier was that I doubted that you would be satisfied with a simple "NO" and I just didn't have the energy to get into it at that point. (and now I'm running out of time, so I might have to continue it in a few hours, but I'll at least start )

I think we can see that the answer depends on what you define as 'evil'. Is cutting off someone's leg evil? Well, if your goal is to hurt/torture them, YES! If it is to stop the spread of gangrene, NO!

I think that if you allow a definition of good to basically be (and this is pretty simplistic, but gets to the gist of the matter) an action that is intended to be for the benefit of someone, and evil would then be an action that is intended to be harmful to someone, then I could say again that the answer to your original question is "NO".

And now I gotta run - I'll check back for comments later - I imagine you mean things like lying to a Nazi officer if you were hiding a Jew in your house - was that it?