Good and Evil

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by Gwaimir Windgem
Actually, I'm almost certain that the word translated "kill" there means "murder" or something equivalent. I just installed QuickVerse a couple of days ago, lemme see if I can find out.

...and?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

As I said in the post:

A primitive root; properly to dash in pieces, that is, kill (a human being), especially to murder

My emphasis added, of course.

[Lief Erikson]

Insidious Rex, the post that you sent directly following my first three quoting C.S. Lewis didn't answer any of C.S. Lewis's arguments except to say that they all sounded contrived. So, that's why I said you hadn't answered that one yet.

Lizra, I'm afraid you also haven't explained to me in a clear way where you found C.S. Lewis's logic to be off. He described two reasons why human intellect most likely isn't responsible for the moral code and you didn't really answer either of them except to say that they sounded like wishful thinking. I'm glad you've read the book, but it doesn't sound as if you have analyzed where and how you think C.S. Lewis's logic goes wrong.

Also, as C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity, at that point he hasn't even gotten to a divine, loving God yet, so there's no need to think it's wishful thinking. There are numerous forces effecting creation, numerous powerful and extremely weird forces. We expected the Earth would be flat, we expected that the sun went around the Earth. The atom, Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity, just all sorts of things we're discovering that frequently revolutionize our way of thinking.


The real problem with your theory, Insidious Rex, I think is really what C.S. Lewis said. I strongly dislike your theory because of the absence of responsibility of an individual for his or her actions. C.S. Lewis gives more well reasoned out opinions of why that doesn't work. He pointed out that sometimes we choose to emphasize one of our instincts over another. His examples about the piano keys and the man in danger were good for illustrating that point. Your theory says the stronger side of the scale wins. C.S. Lewis said yes to that, but that you choose which side of the balance to press down hard on. One can be heavier than the other, but you are sometimes directed to take the lighter side of the balance by this moral law. You can choose whether to take this advice or not, and either way, you choose which side of the balance you slam your weight down on, and that makes the decision. Anyway, you'd best reread what he said and respond to it. His argument is on page 7.


Deism basically says there is a mechanical universe and we have no choices possible to make other than the ones that are laid out for us by mathematical laws. Quantum Mechanics said that those mathematical laws don't always apply because everything is chance.

[Lizra]

Exactly what are you asking me. Please be specific. I read the passages and they struck me as wishful thinking. I'm not sure I understand what you want to know at this point. I will say that his thoughtful imagination on how things are, doesn't necessarily "make it so" for me. As you mentioned, there are many things we don't understand, and why humans "think" the way they do is certainly one of those things for me. "Intelligence" involves millions of years of evolution.....genetics, chemical processes, and a complex million (or is it billion? )year history of natural selection, (plus other "scientific" stuff I'm not even aware of, I'm sure ) I don't imagine it can be explained all that "logically", especially in a small book. (IMO) That is why I call it wishful thinking, and you won't find me telling you "the way it is"! Some things, we just really don't know! I can accept that.

[Linaewen]

Wow. This has taken me ages to read through most of this entire thread - I've only been absent for 4 days and there are 9 pages!

Originally posted by Cirdan
What if you kill hundreds of innocent women and children while liberating millions of others? Are those immoral acts ameliorated by the greater good? The bible says not to kill in the ten commandments, but then it approves of killing in many other circumstances. Why then is the the statement "thou shalt not kill" so unambiguously clear? Simple ideas have a more universal appeal as a basic truth, yet the reality is much more complicated.

Errr.. I think it depends on how 'necessary' it was too kill those hundreds of innocent people, and perhaps how necessary it was for those others to be liberated. I mean, if there were better options, then it would be wrong. But if that was the best option, then surely that is justifiable.

Just interested, where does the bible approve of killing? Hmm... I think we are supposed to extract the main teachings of the Bible and follow them, such as loving thy neighbour etc, as the Bible is quite a contradictory text made up of many books. Because if you loved 'one another as I have loved you', as Jesus said, then the evil actions discussed wouldn't occur. Slightly idealistic and simple, but you can see that is all you really need to follow.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

The most obvious examples would be animal sacrifice, but I don't think that was what he was talking about. But in the Old Testament, numerous crimes are given the death penalty; off the bat, I can think of murder and adultery. I could pore through Leviticus and see what else I can find...

[GrayMouser]

Originally posted by Lief Erikson
Insidious Rex, the post that you sent directly following my first three quoting C.S. Lewis didn't answer any of C.S. Lewis's arguments except to say that they all sounded contrived. So, that's why I said you hadn't answered that one yet.

Lizra, I'm afraid you also haven't explained to me in a clear way where you found C.S. Lewis's logic to be off. He described two reasons why human intellect most likely isn't responsible for the moral code and you didn't really answer either of them except to say that they sounded like wishful thinking. I'm glad you've read the book, but it doesn't sound as if you have analyzed where and how you think C.S. Lewis's logic goes wrong.

I'm jumping into this thread late (been busy running the war), but I'll take a crack at it- the opinions that follow are solely my own.

In the first quote, Lewis gives an example where faced with a situation of risking one's own life to save another, one is torn between the "herd instinct" and the self-preservation instinct, and then proposes a third thing, which tells you that you 'ought' to follow the herd instinct.

But there is no third thing - the voice in your head that tells you that you ought to save the other simply is the herd instinct.

The mental conversation is :

" Forget about him- save yourself"

"I ought to save him."

What does the third thing say? "You ought to ought to save him"?

As for the second quote, Lewis says that

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.

Again, the Moral Law is just that instinct that tells you to save the other- it's not a third factor brought into the situation- and if you do follow it, in this case it is the stronger of the two instincts.

From an evolutionary psychology point of view, the Moral Law is a case of rationalising and extending the instincts that evolved in the Ancestral Environment, which were suitable for small closely-interelated bands of hunter-gatherers.

Our genes are concerned with replicating themselves ( note that in any argument like this it's almost impossible to avoid anthromorphic terms like 'concerned') , and they don't care about the vessel.

This led to the great biologist J.B.S. Haldane's quip " I would gladly sacrifice myself for two brothers or eight cousins" because they would share the same amount of genes as you yourself possess.

In a small band where everybody is related it makes evolutionary sense to help others- to a point.

So rules that say "Thou shalt not Murder" (i.e. kill one of 'us' as opposed to 'them') ; "Thou shalt not Steal" (within the group) "Thou shalt not commit Adultery" ( have unauthorised sex within the group for men, or at all for women) would be necessary to keep harmony.

Though of course if you can break them and get away with it....

[GrayMouser]

Another quote from Haldane:

When asked what a life-time of study of life on Earth had taught him about the nature of the Creator, he replied "He has an inordinate fondness for beetles."

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by Gwaimir Windgem
The most obvious examples would be animal sacrifice, but I don't think that was what he was talking about. But in the Old Testament, numerous crimes are given the death penalty; off the bat, I can think of murder and adultery. I could pore through Leviticus and see what else I can find...

GW: I think there is a bit in Leviticus about stoning to death those that take another god even if they are your brother.

Lin:The point was precisely that it "depends" and that what constitutes evil is often in the eye of the beholder. Certainly many cases are clearly open to a quick concensus; other cases not so much. At this point the theist should step in an say that this is why the ultimate judgement is god's. Those let to chose must still operate under the subjective view.

[Rían]

IREX - I added reference numbers to your response to my post (I invented this, as far as I know, here on Entmoot at least - what a clever invention! *pats self on back*)

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
(1) This is an easy one. See my example above to lief about raping people. (2) killing children is an especially big taboo in our species because our INSTINCT to protect our helpless children is very strong. Why? because they carry our genes!! And our genes rule our world. So the instinct to protect them is paramount. (3)Killing babies like that would result in a mob of people tearing you to shreads no doubt causing two things: you dont pass on your baby killing genes anymore and people are shown by example that this kind of action is extremely dangerous to do. So those who might consider it dont do it. (4)you didnt improve the life for the people whos children you killed because you threw away all the investment and energy that put into bonding with a mate and producing and reering their child (their little gene carrier). In nature its very difficult to recover from something like that. Too much energy must be expended . (5)so the logical thing is to kill the being who does such a thing thus extinguising their genes from the population. and in this way you are selected against. and less baby killers are born.

(1) - well, easy if you don't answer the question I posed - I'll ask it again - was what I did in that hypothetical situation RIGHT or WRONG? (I did NOT ask if it was beneficial to the gene pool or to the survival of the species, altho you're free to comment on that)

(2) - when my children were born, I don't recall being particularly excited about their genes; I saw them as amazing and beautiful and valuable beings that God gave my husband and I the privilege to bring to life .
In your version, does our instinct calls us to protect our children, (the bearers of our genes, the little darlin's) because it is GOOD for our species to survive?

(3) - just curious - IYO, how inheritable are baby-killing genes? How about being-kind-to-others genes and other beneficial-to-preservation-of-species genes? And is it a GOOD thing to discourage people from killing others? If so, why? Is it because it is GOOD for people to exist?

(4) - Is it a BAD thing to lose people's investment and energy?

(5) - Is it a GOOD thing for less baby-killers (assuming that the trait is inheritable) to be born?

Summary - basically, your entire argument has the unstated basis that it is a GOOD thing for the human species to survive. Now please note the capitalized words in my response - RIGHT, WRONG, GOOD, BAD - you try to hide it by saying things like 'instinct' and 'selecting', etc.; but by 'selecting', for example, you imply that one choice is BETTER than another. Why better? Because one choice improves the chances for the survivial of the species, which is GOOD. And I ask you: if we are the results of random beneficial mutations over a great period of time (greately oversimplified, I know, but basically the gist of it) - how can anything that is a result of random chance be declared GOOD? It would be equally "GOOD", then, if we had NOT survived.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by GrayMouser
Another quote from Haldane:

When asked what a life-time of study of life on Earth had taught him about the nature of the Creator, he replied "He has an inordinate fondness for beetles."

Thats hilarious. Not to mention finches.

[Rían]

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
wait wait come back here you. I didnt suggest killing babies. I said thats a major taboo. Rian is the one who wants to kill babies.

Hey, I take an evening off Entmoot and come back and see this! Libel, you insidious dino, you - libel!

Just for the record - Babies of the world, you may rest easy tonight - I do NOT want to kill any of you! (even if you DO spit up on me!)

[Coney]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
Just for the record - Babies of the world, you may rest easy tonight - I do NOT want to kill any of you! (even if you DO spit up on me!)

Wait till you've held a nappieless (diapers in America?) two year old above your head (he likes to play "grab the lampshade) and he chooses that precise moment to take a pee .....It gets tempting I can tell ya

To our more sensitive mooters, that was a joke

[Aragorn_of_the_west]

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
Free will is an illusion. But this whole discussion brings up the point that there are no real evil or good acts. Evil and good is defined by human perception only. If one man attacks another man with his bare hands, rips him to shreds and eats him I think we would all consider that the ultimate act of dispicable evil. However..... if a lion does that to an antelope well thats just nature. So evil and good are a lens through which we humans percieve our world. And in this way we need opposite extremes as the frames to keep our world in perspective. In this way we cant have evil without good or vice versa.

i agree- i also believe that good and evil are names people give to thier own actions so as to define thier own behavior and give
them the possibility to jugde each other according to thier actions.

[Rían]

Originally posted by Coney
Wait till you've held a nappieless (diapers in America?) two year old above your head (he likes to play "grab the lampshade) and he chooses that precise moment to take a pee .....It gets tempting I can tell ya

(hee hee) I bet you only did THAT once!! Anyway, urine is supposed to be sterile, so it didn't hurt anything but your dignity

I'm very unusual in that I'm a mom with 3 kids that has NOT been thrown up on while holding a kid in the air...that's happened to most of my friends

[Insidious Rex]

RÃ*an! *being whinny* Ok basically what you are asking me is to ignore the scientific and talk about the moral aspect (moral based on our shared culture I assume). Well I dont think I can really do that but here goes...

[QUOTE]Originally posted by RÃ*an

(1) was what I did in that hypothetical situation RIGHT or WRONG? (I did NOT ask if it was beneficial to the gene pool or to the survival of the species, altho you're free to comment on that)

"right" and "wrong" are meaningless terms. ok ok! Hang on i can hear you getting worked up already. what i mean is when you are speaking from strictly a biological stand point then those terms are irrelevant. now how do I PERSONALLY feel about your little baby killing scenerio? of course i think its wrong. and you already knew that I thought that. you just wanted me to say it so you could say ha! see and draw a moral law conclusion from it. but it wont work. Im much too slippery for that.

(2) - when my children were born, I don't recall being particularly excited about their genes; I saw them as amazing and beautiful and valuable beings

well of course you did. your genes have no interest in making you aware of their ultimate motivation in making you their vehicle for their propagation. they just supply the programing and you do all the work. and you did just great by being so loving and protective of your children. clothing them. sheltering them. keeping them warm and safe and happy thereby allowing them to develop into healthy individuals capable of passing your genes once again to another generation and make you a proud gramma. if you hadnt done all that they would be a lot less likely to be in position to pass on their (your) genes. and your lineage might have died out. so good job! your genes are proud.

In your version, does our instinct calls us to protect our children, (the bearers of our genes, the little darlin's) because it is GOOD for our species to survive?

well your genes only purpose is their own survival. you see our genes are what make us truly immortal (see its not just the elves). If we can pass on the same series of DNA code to another "vessle" and our body dies then we live again in them. and it keeps on going like that generation after generation with slight modification each time. So when instinct tells us to protect our children its because our children contain our genes and therefor its EXTREMELLY imperative that the children be kept safe and allowed to develop or the genes die. Thus the programming is set up so that the mothering (parenting) instinct kicks in big time at this point. this is in our genes. and thats the perfect circuit. think about it. you contain something that says PROTECT THE CHILDREN! AT ALL COSTS! EVEN IN SOME CASES YOUR OWN LIFE! therefor you do that. and in that way those same instructions are passed on to them. and in turn they do the same thing with their kids. the perfect system. we are a physical extention of our genes. just like my hand is a physical extention of my body. when i pick something up i dont think good job hand! you did the right thing! its all one unit. genes. brain. body and all.

[Insidious Rex]

(3) - just curious - IYO, how inheritable are baby-killing genes?

are you ready for this? sometimes baby killing is necessary. ok stop throwing things at me. think about the genes again. you have an alpha male (thats clear from the gun ) Im a dorky betta male. I have no chance of mating with you. But i want to pass my genes on. But no females will consider me since im not dominant in the group. so if i kill the babies of the alpha male it limits his genes in the population. and if i rape another female i have a chance of passing my genes on. there you go. justification for infanticide and rape. BUT doing this is extremelly risky and your alpha male might decide to come after me with his gun if i do that. not to mention the rest of the group might be a little upset because if i can come after your babies then i can come after theirs too. so its an enormous risk. and all the factors for it will need to outweigh (theres the scale again lief) the tremendous weight of the factos against it.

How about being-kind-to-others genes and other beneficial-to-preservation-of-species genes?

ok by the way we arent just talking about one gene for these things of course. its a highly complex mix of things going on here. which is why its so easy to confuse it with concious moral "thinking". but anyway, yes altruism is a fairly common trait in mammalian species. working as a group is a benefit to the individuals within the group and therefor to our genes. so it gets passed on because its benefits us. if it didnt benefit us we would be like spiders or something that eat their young and eat their mates. then evil would be good.

And is it a GOOD thing to discourage people from killing others? If so, why? Is it because it is GOOD for people to exist?

the existance of people is irrelevant to the universe. its a good thing to discourage people from killing others because if others can be killed then we can be killed. and guess what happens to our genes when we are killed.....

(4) - Is it a BAD thing to lose people's investment and energy?

well yes. Because then you limit the variation of the genes in the population. Its good to have a nice diverse gene pool.

(5) - Is it a GOOD thing for less baby-killers (assuming that the trait is inheritable) to be born?

well to a point. Too many baby killers kills off the population. Too few and the gene pool suffers. But im avoiding your point again. Of course I don’t want any baby killers around. But they are out there. Its just nature.

And I ask you: if we are the results of random beneficial mutations over a great period of time (greately oversimplified, I know, but basically the gist of it) - how can anything that is a result of random chance be declared GOOD? It would be equally "GOOD", then, if we had NOT survived.

good for who? Good for what? Like I said earlier good and bad are simple words that don’t really apply to nature. I guess when I say good in these arguments im talking about the good of the gene. Horrible things like the extinction of an entire species are simply normal occurances in nature. Its part of the whole game. What we see as horrific is really just natural. Does that make it bad? It just is. That’s the best you can say.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Lief Erikson
The real problem with your theory, Insidious Rex, I think is really what C.S. Lewis said. I strongly dislike your theory because of the absence of responsibility of an individual for his or her actions.

But there is responsibility in that there can be dire consequences from our actions. If I do something that results in my injury or death then how much more responsible can you get? But you are probably getting at "moral" responsibility. And thats basically what I was trying to address. That you cant go doing horrible things willy nilly because it can back fire on you and on your genes. We are hampered in our actions by that very fact. but not by some devinely inserted moral code.

C.S. Lewis gives more well reasoned out opinions of why that doesn't work. He pointed out that sometimes we choose to emphasize one of our instincts over another. His examples about the piano keys and the man in danger were good for illustrating that point. Your theory says the stronger side of the scale wins. C.S. Lewis said yes to that, but that you choose which side of the balance to press down hard on. One can be heavier than the other, but you are sometimes directed to take the lighter side of the balance by this moral law. You can choose whether to take this advice or not, and either way, you choose which side of the balance you slam your weight down on, and that makes the decision.

No we have no input in which way the scale tips. The scale tips and we react because of it. The items on the scale are incredibly complex and their interactions effect the weighting as well so its almost impossible to say there is X,Y,Z over here and A,B,C over there. Its much messier. But in the end it is us who reacts. We are the final piece of the equation. We dont oversee the equation in anyway. Thats all done on the genetic level. Nuerons fire and our actions are dictated.

The piano keys example didnt work with me because it ignores genetics all together. It speaks of "instinct" but not of the genesis of instinct. Which are genes. Add this to the equation and you have your sheet music. But I think even this is too simplistic. My overriding problem with the Lewis approach is that if we are to assume theres 1. "herd" instinct 2. self preservation instinct and 3. a moral code provided by god, then shouldnt this moral code always over ride the compulsion (based on the weight of instinct) to do something that would otherwise be a "bad" thing to do? Why would god insert this in our being if we are still going to have problems doing the right thing? was it meant as just a little more of a nudge toward goodness? why be so arbitrary? why not have a primary program line like they do in I Robot that makes it impossible for us to do the wrong thing? oh and what about not so bad things? or debatable situations? like if im hungry is it ok to steal bread? its wrong. thou shalt not steal. but im starving. is it ok? where does our moral code fall on things like that? and theres a whole pantheon of morally wrong choices out there from killing babies (Rian's favorite *running away!*) to the most benign almost acceptable minor wrong choice. Are they all the same? is the moral code stronger for one and not the other? does the moral code change as cultures change? does the moral code change under certain conditions? It leaves me with a lot of incompletes. This is why I said it seemed contrived. Because I couldnt really apply it to reality. I couldnt really apply it to nature.

[Rían]

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
you have an alpha male (thats clear from the gun )

My poor husband! He'll never live that picture down! He's NOT a redneck at all, he's kind and funny and intelligent, and just rather leery (and with good reason) of the Internet...we were busting up making those pictures!

Im a dorky betta male. I have no chance of mating with you. ... But no females will consider me since im not dominant in the group.

If you were a Christian, IRex, I would have considered you (in my single days) because you are intelligent and have a good sense of humor . I didn't pick my spouse because he was the dominant one in a group, I picked my husband primarily because of his MORAL qualities and his personality.

will get to the rest later, it's too late now - I kept getting phone calls *yawn*

[Lief Erikson]

What really bugs me about that theory though is that getting up and vacuuming someone's floor for them isn't any better than shooting them in the head. If you're right and good and evil don't exist except in our minds, then everything is irrelevant. We have no right to execute someone for doing an evil deed. Imagine executing someone because "They have bad genes that need to be culled."

And culling the bad genes plainly hasn't worked throughout history. Thinking that bad genes get eliminated by natural processes (Us executing a murderer) for the further benefit of our species doesn't make much sense when you note that culling bad genes plainly doesn't work. Every human being has the potential for evil; it's plain through historical examples. If it's simply our genes, and it's genetic whether we are the sort of person to do an evil deed or not, then it's illogical to think that our genes will get alterred by other people telling us things. Indoctrination does happen and people do become bad through brainwashing or indoctrination. Does that change their genes?

You can't throw people into categories- this person is 14% bad, this person is 28% bad, this person is 75% bad . . . OH, Jee whizz, 75% bad! That's pretty bad, we'd better eliminate him.

But what if the person who's 28% bad goes up to the person who's 14% bad and starts talking him into becoming a worse individual. He might then move up to 28% bad or so. Or suppose that one of them suddenly has the restraints of law taken off them because their government has been conquered. Suddenly they hop up from 14% bad or so to 50% bad so that they can go and loot.

People do change in badness, so it's plainly not genetic, unless the genes alter at a very fast rate according to the changes in the brain due to outside influence. And if the genes are alterring at such a fast rate, then there's no point in culling the bad ones out of humanity, for there are no bad ones.


So since human beings change in goodness and badness (As is extremely plainly evident; I can bring up examples if you like ), I think it's plain that our perception of evil isn't simply our perception of genes effecting our species improperly.