What is "True Evil"
- Thread starter Albino Assassin
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Honestly I would say that evil is subjective what we consider evil now is not what has all ways been considered so.
Paedophilia is considered evil but only a couple hundred years ago it was completely natural for 12-13 year old's to be married with kids.
Human sacrifice is considered evil but the Aztec's believed it was a way to appease their gods.
I am also going to go ahead and say that anyone you call evil is to mentally twisted to even begin thinking of themselves in such a way.
Paedophilia is considered evil but only a couple hundred years ago it was completely natural for 12-13 year old's to be married with kids.
Human sacrifice is considered evil but the Aztec's believed it was a way to appease their gods.
I am also going to go ahead and say that anyone you call evil is to mentally twisted to even begin thinking of themselves in such a way.
the people who stop a microwave before it's done and leave it saying something like 2:24 so then all day when you look at it for a split second you think it is 2:24.
Okay. This is tricky, but bear with me.Wuggy said:
Being a Human Construction does not make it Fantasy. There might be rules and conditions under which a particular act can be deemed "Good" and "Evil", and as long as such rules are determinate in the public sphere for any given action then that's a sufficient condition for objectivity.
Take money. Your bank notes only have value in terms of deference to a central monetary authority (or to the stock market, consumer confidence etc.). But this authority has structure and a public licence to do so, so confidence in fiscal currency is maintained and the notes can be widely used to make trades and purchases.
The point is that social agreement does not simply "discover" this value - it actively determines it. And in determining it in terms of where it comes from, who is responsible for maintaining it and what needs to be done to do so, a publicly evaluable fact of the matter concerning the current value of the pound or dollar is set out.
The same might be true of morality for a particular class of action. If there are determinate conditions under which actions are agreed to be wrong, then those conditions can constitute the objectivity of Evil. And the presentation of case studies in which there is near-universal subjective agreement gives credence to the theory that there can be such an objective understanding.
Alright, I will.Indeterminacy said:
That's true. That wasn't what I was saying though. Morality as a concept and as a system currently in place in human society very much exists. I'm just saying that it isn't objective and there is no way it could be.Indeterminacy said:
No it's not. As long as it's dependent of values of an individual or a group of individuals, it's not objective. For it to be objective it would have to be independent of humans. In other words: For it to be objective it would need to be part of a mind-independent reality. And it's not, it's dependent on human society.Indeterminacy said:
Fair enough. However, this doesn't mean that the system in place is objective. It just means there's a system in place.Indeterminacy said:
Yes, there's a set of rules put in place to guide the value of currency. This is true. However, there's nothing to indicate that the rules are "correct" as it were. Nor that the rules should be there in the first place. This is a matter of subjective view.Indeterminacy said:
That's the thing though. There is no universal agreement on any ethical issue. And even if there were, there's no way to determinate whether or not the universal agreement is objectively right. Consensus does not equal objectivity.Indeterminacy said:
No there isn't. Tell me, what is the universal agreement on one of the most common moral issue: Taking another person's life? There isn't one, there's nigh infinite amount of "but"s and "however"s. There's centuries upon centuries of philosophical speculation of essentially what's the criteria for "good" and "bad". There has never been a consensus. And even if there were, it still isn't objective.Indeterminacy said:
You make fair, thought-out points but the main thing I disagree with is that consensus would a condition for objectivity. The condition for objectivity is that it's independent of a person or a group of persons, not the consensus even if it were universal.
It's been a while since I did the quote-tree thing. Anyway, thanks for taking my post seriously!
Here's one reason to be a little suspicious of it. What is an electron? Well, it's a charge-carrying elementary particle. But in order to understand what that is, we need to engage in the act of scientific theorising. We have historically arrived at an understanding of what electrons are through the experiments that invalidated the Bohr atom model, and currently witness them in terms of the impact our understanding of them has in electronics and chemistry, among other things.
We only think that electrons exist because we have a great model of how things work that posits their existence. You never see an electron directly; only the consequences of thinking it's there. To say that electrons are "mind-independent" thus isn't quite right. Yet if electrons do exist, that is an objective fact. Furthermore, it seems to me like the sense of objective existence of electrons that we try to ascribe to them is the central one of the demonstrable correctness and practical application of statements that talk about them, which is an independent matter to whether or not their fundamental character is as a posit of a theory or as some kind of "thing-in-itself".
Similarly, allow me to propose a "mind-independent" theory of behavioural values. Namely, an evolutionary-cum-neuropsychology account. Here's the idea - in the animal kingdom, where instinctive decision making is an important part of survival, some members of a species by chance become genetically disposed towards a neurology that favoured collective action. Their offspring begin to form groups. In doing so, they learn that each individual has a greater chance of warding off predators, and as a result, more of the group survive to reproduce. Consequently, in a few generations time, the mutated members of the species are thriving. Thus, these values have a very particular and important virtue - facilitation of survival.
I'm not saying either of these are necessarily good points in themselves, but rather that there is something dodgy about "mind-independence" that needs properly analysed. Furthermore, I don't see why "mind-dependence" necessarily means "non-objective". Electrons are posits in such a way that we didn't for a long time conceive of their existing, and there could be a thoroughly biological account for why people make exactly the valuations they do anyway. If you could elaborate on why you think that's not the right way to look at the problem, I'd be interested to hear what you think.
Is this an objectively good reason to trade in cash? Well, it's an objective matter of fact that doing so is less hard work when everyone agrees on it, that everyone else does in fact agree on it, and that you're going to be severely disadvantaged if you don't follow suit. We can postpone the question of value judgements for now, but you are going to be disadvantaged if you don't act accordingly, and this is feedback that you're going to have to deal with in the formulation and retention of your choice of values.
What I was trying to get at was that there might be an objective fact about the values people have that a general consensus would reveal, and that this might highlight an objective purpose or methodology in making the value judgements that they do.
Say for instance you ran a trial with some particular questions, and came back with the result that everyone thought that murder was wrong. That of itself doesn't tell us anything about whether murder actually is wrong or not.
But suppose you ran brain scans on people while they were making such judgements, and it turns out that everyone who made one particular judgement activated one part of the brain and everyone who made a different judgement activated another. This would tell you something interesting about the ways in which people arrived at the judgements they did.
What I propose is that there might be an objective fact of the matter as to why some moral value judgements might be more prevalent than others. Furthermore, it is also possible that this fact points to a standard, such as survival, reproductive success, territory etc. or even social conformity itself, that is something which you will be objectively punished or disadvantaged for not adapting to.
Or to paraphrase a friend, "street markings might be purely social constructs, but when you ignore them and crash your car, it hurts like hell".
One of my problems is with the deference to "mind-independence" you make here. I would like to draw out the precise meaning of that.Wuggy said:
Here's one reason to be a little suspicious of it. What is an electron? Well, it's a charge-carrying elementary particle. But in order to understand what that is, we need to engage in the act of scientific theorising. We have historically arrived at an understanding of what electrons are through the experiments that invalidated the Bohr atom model, and currently witness them in terms of the impact our understanding of them has in electronics and chemistry, among other things.
We only think that electrons exist because we have a great model of how things work that posits their existence. You never see an electron directly; only the consequences of thinking it's there. To say that electrons are "mind-independent" thus isn't quite right. Yet if electrons do exist, that is an objective fact. Furthermore, it seems to me like the sense of objective existence of electrons that we try to ascribe to them is the central one of the demonstrable correctness and practical application of statements that talk about them, which is an independent matter to whether or not their fundamental character is as a posit of a theory or as some kind of "thing-in-itself".
Similarly, allow me to propose a "mind-independent" theory of behavioural values. Namely, an evolutionary-cum-neuropsychology account. Here's the idea - in the animal kingdom, where instinctive decision making is an important part of survival, some members of a species by chance become genetically disposed towards a neurology that favoured collective action. Their offspring begin to form groups. In doing so, they learn that each individual has a greater chance of warding off predators, and as a result, more of the group survive to reproduce. Consequently, in a few generations time, the mutated members of the species are thriving. Thus, these values have a very particular and important virtue - facilitation of survival.
I'm not saying either of these are necessarily good points in themselves, but rather that there is something dodgy about "mind-independence" that needs properly analysed. Furthermore, I don't see why "mind-dependence" necessarily means "non-objective". Electrons are posits in such a way that we didn't for a long time conceive of their existing, and there could be a thoroughly biological account for why people make exactly the valuations they do anyway. If you could elaborate on why you think that's not the right way to look at the problem, I'd be interested to hear what you think.
Well when it comes to economics, there's actually a pretty good reason for why the rules are in place for fiscal exchange. Lugging all your stuff around to trade and barter is pretty inconvenient in comparison with a bank card, and most people aren't going to accept a chicken in payment for a cup of coffee. Anyone who has to make every kind of exchange with material goods is going to suffer when other people want to trade in a format that's more convenient for them.Wuggy said:
Is this an objectively good reason to trade in cash? Well, it's an objective matter of fact that doing so is less hard work when everyone agrees on it, that everyone else does in fact agree on it, and that you're going to be severely disadvantaged if you don't follow suit. We can postpone the question of value judgements for now, but you are going to be disadvantaged if you don't act accordingly, and this is feedback that you're going to have to deal with in the formulation and retention of your choice of values.
Sure, absolutely. I hope that wasn't what I said. People can be absolutely wrong about stuff despite everyone agreeing.Wuggy said:
What I was trying to get at was that there might be an objective fact about the values people have that a general consensus would reveal, and that this might highlight an objective purpose or methodology in making the value judgements that they do.
Say for instance you ran a trial with some particular questions, and came back with the result that everyone thought that murder was wrong. That of itself doesn't tell us anything about whether murder actually is wrong or not.
But suppose you ran brain scans on people while they were making such judgements, and it turns out that everyone who made one particular judgement activated one part of the brain and everyone who made a different judgement activated another. This would tell you something interesting about the ways in which people arrived at the judgements they did.
What I propose is that there might be an objective fact of the matter as to why some moral value judgements might be more prevalent than others. Furthermore, it is also possible that this fact points to a standard, such as survival, reproductive success, territory etc. or even social conformity itself, that is something which you will be objectively punished or disadvantaged for not adapting to.
Or to paraphrase a friend, "street markings might be purely social constructs, but when you ignore them and crash your car, it hurts like hell".