What makes a character more evil: actions or intent?

[sageoftruth]

Kinda like comparing Hitler to Stalin, both are unimaginably evil and the answer "who is worse" depends heavily on where you came from rather than an actual metric.

While it heavily depends on circumstances, I'd say the person who is more evil is the guy doing it for "noble goals". Because in real life the solution to a problem is rarely completely one way, and a person committing genocide "for the greater good" is a bigger piece of shit than a murderer because at least the murderer knows he is a piece of shit.

That logic doesn't seem to resonate with me. Someone who refuses to acknowledge that he's doing evil things (note, I'm just using "evil" for discussion purposes here) is definitely insufferable, but I don't think that makes him more evil. If he needs to use mental gymnastics to delude himself into believing he's the good guy, then it shows that he has a conscience, which comes across as far less evil than some sociopath who openly embraces his evil side. If the delusion was stripped away, only the hypocrite would stop committing acts of evil.

Of course, good causes can enable some people to do far worse things, since it serves as a mental justification for their actions. Still, if we're talking about two people who are both doing equally bad things, then I think the person who's lying to himself to avoid cognitive dissonance would be the better of the two, simply because he's faced with that cognitive dissonance in the first place.

In the context of the thread the acts are not the same or comparable, as it's more case by case "who is worse" when that happens.

Yes, but you stated that the reasoning for one being worse than the other is because "At least the murderer knows he is a piece of shit". My argument was simply that him knowing he's "a piece of shit" should count against him rather than for him, since it shows that he has no moral qualms against being one.

 

[sageoftruth]

That logic doesn't seem to resonate with me. Someone who refuses to acknowledge that he's doing evil things (note, I'm just using "evil" for discussion purposes here) is definitely insufferable, but I don't think that makes him more evil. If he needs to use mental gymnastics to delude himself into believing he's the good guy, then it shows that he has a conscience, which comes across as far less evil than some sociopath who openly embraces his evil side. If the delusion was stripped away, only the hypocrite would stop committing acts of evil.

Of course, good causes can enable some people to do far worse things, since it serves as a mental justification for their actions. Still, if we're talking about two people who are both doing equally bad things, then I think the person who's lying to himself to avoid cognitive dissonance would be the better of the two, simply because he's faced with that cognitive dissonance in the first place.

In the context of the thread the acts are not the same or comparable, as it's more case by case "who is worse" when that happens.

Yes, but you stated that the reasoning for one being worse than the other is because "At least the murderer knows he is a piece of shit". My argument was simply that him knowing he's "a piece of shit" should count against him rather than for him, since it shows that he has no moral qualms against being one.

I find the added hypocrisy of not acknowledging the actions as evil to tip the scales. Remember I applied it to real life rather than fiction, where you have people under the illusion of being "the real heroes".

Is that sort of thing only in fiction though? If someone is deliberately putting on airs as being good and just while fully knowing that he's being rotten, then I agree that it does not work in his favor at all. In fact, as you said, it makes him even worse, since we're adding deceit to his list of crimes.
However, I don't believe that's the only way to be a hypocrite even in the real world. I believe a person can use it to deceive himself as well, sometimes without realizing it. In fact, I think this kind of self-deceipt is even more common in the real world than those who accept that they're scum and don't care. Even ISIS seems to think they're making the world a better place. The fact that they think so makes them all the more insufferable, but I'd consider them far more evil if they knew they were scum and were doing all this for the lulz.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

I always say actions reveal us more than intentions. Someone willing to slaughter thousands, for any reason no matter how practical, is a monster. More of a monster than a sadist who occasionally kills people for giggles. Scale of evil matters, in my opinion.

Now which of these people I would actually hate more... I'd probably say the small-scale psychopath, just because you can at least understand where the warlord is coming from and his evil may potentially lead to some good in the future from a restructured society, whereas murder for fun is impossible to understand or sympathize with and can only result in misery for the victims and those who know them.

To be clear, the guy killing on a bigger scale is a bigger priority to stop, but I would personally have more disdain for the individual killer.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I *love* classic fairytales and various Northern European pre-Christian mythology precisely for this reason. Not to mention even some of the latter romance re-envisioning.

To me Gaunter is merely like the fae in countless tales. They almost act inhuman, unknowable, they're playing a role, and ultimatrly it's mortal weakness and fragility that is responsible for the hardship of his 'victims'. The fae might spirit you away, show you thd time of your life... feel as if truly alive for what seems but a breath... only to be returned to a brutal mundanity. Where you mortal love is fleeting, your day to day activities bereft of colour, where roses turn slightly ashen compared to that Hyperborea-esque playground you glimpsed. And eventually the rest of your days are merely numb with depression.

But are the fae bad for begifting you thst one moment of transcendental elation because they took a fleeting fancy with you? With Gaunter, he's like that. He epitomizes peopld are their own worst enemies. Is I give a junkie $1000 for somrthing they sell to me, am I to blame for when they OD?

More often than not the worst thing in life to happen to you is getting precisely what you asked for. In the end the buck still stops with you, however. I will argue till the cows come home that 'evil' is a ridiculous concept. Gaunter isn't 'bad' insofar of his actions. You don't blame a person that merely enables another's self-defeat... and ultimately sometimes such lessons are needed for growth.

To me Eredin is infinitely worse than Gaunter... because Gaunter isn't seemingly *bad*... he seems almost fae-like. An alien-esque idea of being... and as such him just giving people the means of their own unmaking, kniwing or not, might easily to be viewed as an ethical argument of liberal euthanasia. Using that junkie allegory above... if that person is near homeless, planning to kill themselves, then maybe an omniscient being might want to give that junkie a means to exchange longterm misery with short term bliss and death.

He doesn't (generally) force his options onto people. He's a drug dealer... not a murderer. Eredin is the guy that kidnsps you, forces you to become a junkie, then tells you it's for a good cause. O'Dimm merely offers you the option of self-destruction.... and to be fair ... you can actually beat him at his own game. It's not entirely one-sided whrn you want a way out of yout mistakes.

 

[Trunkage]

Another case child beggars in places around India. Westerners in particular give them money because they are in a dire situation. But they are being handled by an adult who wants to make money (usually not a parent). To get more sympathy, and more money, these adults will cut limbs off the child to make them more worthy of donation. So many people think that we shouldn't give money to these children to save them from amputation. The problems is that if they don't get money, no one will care for them and they will die. Are you more evil, if you donate, because you are damaging a child or if you don't donate, you possibly killing the child.

Sorry its not about "bay guys", this is more about understanding the term evil.

It's kind of a sadistic choice, in which case I'd rather blame the Indian government incompetence or the people hurting the kids than the people who want to help but can't.

We can't stop women from being stolen from our country to be sex trafficked overseas. Expecting the Indian government to do something without a lot of resources is a tall order.

People put you in sadistic situations all the time. Take Trump and Clinton. No good choices. There isn't even a third alternative.

 

[Vigormortis]

Without a doubt actions.

Judging someone based solely on intent is akin to thought crime, pure and simple. And I'm fervently against the very notion of 'thought crime', so actions are the thing one should be judged on.

You can have the worst intentions in the world and do nothing with them. I wouldn't consider that person evil. Likewise, you could have the best intentions and wind up committing some of the most repugnant atrocities imaginable. I would consider that person evil.

Intent only matters as a qualifier for ones actions. It should only be viewed as a means to add context.

The problem with a question like this is that good and evil are often hard to quantify and are never as cut and dry as they are in children's cartoons from the 80's. Sometimes "evil" actions are necessary because there is no other option, or rather the alternative is even worse. Would you call the person who has to make such a decision "evil?"

Yep. Perhaps a necessary evil, and probably not inherently evil, but evil nonetheless.

A person's state of moral standing isn't static. A person can be good one minute and evil the next.

Plus, good and evil are very much subjective, and utterly nebulous concepts. Which just further complicates the issue.

 

[Trunkage]

We can't stop women from being stolen from our country to be sex trafficked overseas. Expecting the Indian government to do something without a lot of resources is a tall order.

People put you in sadistic situations all the time. Take Trump and Clinton. No good choices. There isn't even a third alternative.

Still, I recall the Indian government being very corrupt which probably doesn't help matters and I won't be surprised if I see wealth distribution being total shit even compared to the USA.[/quote]

Probably. I think they are improving, but they started low down. I don't know where they are exactly. I do know, at least a couple of years ago that they still had trouble getting teachers to turn up to schools and they now have private cities. A developer owns huge tracks of land and sells them to companies. As far as I'm aware, that means there's no taxes but there is no sewerage and terrible roads (between companies but good between companies and where they house their employees).

I do think you original reply was a bit of a cop out, only because you still have to decide in that moment, even though many others influence the situation. I also understand your response is a preventative idea (not having those situations turn up) rather than just responding with the choices you have on hand.

 

[Trunkage]

Without a doubt actions.

Judging someone based solely on intent is akin to thought crime, pure and simple. And I'm fervently against the very notion of 'thought crime', so actions are the thing one should be judged on.

You can have the worst intentions in the world and do nothing with them. I wouldn't consider that person evil. Likewise, you could have the best intentions and wind up committing some of the most repugnant atrocities imaginable. I would consider that person evil.

Intent only matters as a qualifier for ones actions. It should only be viewed as a means to add context.

The problem with a question like this is that good and evil are often hard to quantify and are never as cut and dry as they are in children's cartoons from the 80's. Sometimes "evil" actions are necessary because there is no other option, or rather the alternative is even worse. Would you call the person who has to make such a decision "evil?"

Yep. Perhaps a necessary evil, and probably not inherently evil, but evil nonetheless.

A person's state of moral standing isn't static. A person can be good one minute and evil the next.

Plus, good and evil are very much subjective, and utterly nebulous concepts. Which just further complicates the issue.

While I wouldn't call myself feverently against thought crime, I'm against it. Where do you stand on speech? It is an action but many people (freedom of speechers in particularly) think that it doesn't count to any crime. I.e. saying you kill someone is part of the evidence towards murder but I've had some people argue against it being able to be used as evidence because freedom of speech (as in freedom from prosecution from the government).

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Without a doubt actions.

Judging someone based solely on intent is akin to thought crime, pure and simple. And I'm fervently against the very notion of 'thought crime', so actions are the thing one should be judged on.

How?

Regardless, that's not thoughtcrime.

Thoughtcrime assumes you have no right to the freedom of thought. For instance, writing in a private journal. That the government has a right to instruct you on what is or isn't an appropriate mindset even if said thoughts are benign. Intention is the difference between me getting manslaughter and/or murder.

Moreover it's all kinds of wrong to ignore fatal intentions of a person and do nothing about it.

It is actually incumbent in any court system to assuage the question of motive. Even if they have enough evidence to charge you already, at least exploring motive is given time and appropriste investigation. And for good reason might I add. Uncovering motive might transform a 'random' act of murder into a clue in and of itself of other criminality that person might have been associated with. In this case and these examples, 'intention' is almost always interchangeable with 'motive'. Only in exceptional cases does the pursuit of motive seem as entirely fruitless. For instance, guy hopped up on angel dust killing someone in a fit of rage.

For example... I was in the army. The first things they start drumming into you is reflex conditioning (operant and classical conditioning) and muscle memory to be an effective killer. After all... even going back to relatively recent conflicts like Vietnam, we learnt that most soldiers have a psychological wall between meaningful and unmeaningful contribution to the fight with their weapons and training. So modern soldiery teaches you reflex conditioning to limit the direct association of killing another person and disassociate yourself from it. (As a sidenote also one of the key theories why as soldiers have become deadlier combatants than ever before through understanding psychology and sociology, and incorporating theories from it into conventional training, they're also presenting a greater level of deterioration of mental health...)

But surely there is a difference between me shooting someone my government has told me to shoot (intention of shooting) anf some random spree killer shooting people in a school? I would even add it's important to consider why returning soldiers are also more likely to be violent than ordinary civilians.

Regardless... neither of these is representative of 'thoughtcrime' when you evaluate them. It's merely criminology... the study of crime.

What would be actual thoughtcrime is doing as you wrote in your post. Refusing to assess why humans commit crime. Refusing yo see the reasons behind it. Refusing to allow others to question whether the actions of s person couldn't be avoided by having a better society and that it is incumbent on us to remember that humans are rarely simply born as monsters. Why wasn't that child taken into oug of home care when it was shown thrir parents locked them in the cupboard and beat them every night? Why wasn't there the support infrastructure to help treat a person's cry for help? Could we have done something that will stop it happening again?

Or are you making thr argument thst questioning current governance and social structures as they are is itself thoughtcrime?

Coming back to the soldiery dilemma... after the Great War the Australian government awarded land packages to soldiers rather than monetary dispensation. The normative answer was because Australia was bankrupted by war ... but the real answer was also partly that the Australian government actually secretly feared those that had returned. By giving them land packages it was assumed it would help mitigate soldiers gathering together with money and guns to commit further violence at home for whstever grievances and horrors they experienced.

By isolating them... it was hoped that they would either become hermit farmers, kill themselves, or simply not 'get in the way'. That's thoughtcrime. Also the likely outcome of any government that says exploring intentions and motives behind violence is itself 'thoughtcrime'. It's noticeably not bad, or thoughtcrime, when the Australian government modernized returning soldiery psychological services rather than just treat soldiers as if common people with common experiences and refusing to address the hot mess of s psyche that you get by having them do things that are ostensibly against most of our core 'programming'.

Fun social experiment... go up to one of your friends and talk them into killing a person because you, personally, want it yo happen. It's not very easy when you make it a conscious choice... also why you should evaluate thd role of intent. What wad to be gained by the action itself... that's assuming you believe in the right to defend yourself (limits of restraint)? I think guns for the argument of defence is stupid... but I'll be the first to say that it's not assault if a violent assailant gets their jaw broken when a victim fights back in thr struggle.

That being said if a farmer uses their gun to shoot and kill someone for stealing their car then prosecution is needed. Becsuse as always reasonable restraint is a common virtue of any civilization. You don't bring a F88 to a pub brawl.

 

[Rahkshi500]

It depends on the context, but generally those with both evil intentions and actions are the worse, because those who do evil for noble reasons, like someone else pointed out, still possess a conscious which factors into their delusions of righteousness, and thus it stands to reason that those kinds are capable of stopping their evil actions and seeking redemption. Those who acknowledge that they're evil aren't any less pieces of shit, because if they acknowledge their evil, then they have a responsibility to stop, but reject that responsibility to continue being evil.

(And I still embrace the terms good and evil to this day while practicing being vigilant to not become like the worst of humanity. And other reasons.)

 

[Canadamus Prime]

The problem with a question like this is that good and evil are often hard to quantify and are never as cut and dry as they are in children's cartoons from the 80's. Sometimes "evil" actions are necessary because there is no other option, or rather the alternative is even worse. Would you call the person who has to make such a decision "evil?"

Yep. Perhaps a necessary evil, and probably not inherently evil, but evil nonetheless.

A person's state of moral standing isn't static. A person can be good one minute and evil the next.

Plus, good and evil are very much subjective, and utterly nebulous concepts. Which just further complicates the issue.

Sometimes the only options available are "evil" and it comes down to picking the lesser of two evils. The person who has to make that choice has to live with both the guilt and being judged as evil by people such as yourself.

 

[sageoftruth]

Is that sort of thing only in fiction though? If someone is deliberately putting on airs as being good and just while fully knowing that he's being rotten, then I agree that it does not work in his favor at all. In fact, as you said, it makes him even worse, since we're adding deceit to his list of crimes.
However, I don't believe that's the only way to be a hypocrite even in the real world. I believe a person can use it to deceive himself as well, sometimes without realizing it. In fact, I think this kind of self-deceipt is even more common in the real world than those who accept that they're scum and don't care. Even ISIS seems to think they're making the world a better place. The fact that they think so makes them all the more insufferable, but I'd consider them far more evil if they knew they were scum and were doing all this for the lulz.

I think it comes down to personnal opinion, I find ISIS doing it for the lulz to change absolutely nothing in their crimes or how evil they are.

Perhaps, but I'd really like to better learn your perspective if nothing else, if that's all right.
Your comment about ISIS may actually have be key to finding the reason why we see it differently. You could just be saying that ISIS has reached a threshold of evil where they simply couldn't get any more evil, but based on what we talked about earlier, I'm guessing it's that you're judging one's evilness based on the weight of his actions, while I'm judging it based on what's metaphorically speaking, inside the person's heart at the time of their judgment.

I don't believe in heaven, but I had a discussion like this once about the idea of heaven. The whole idea that one could live a rotten life and then repent and go to heaven sounded ridiculous at first, but if heaven was less like a reward for good behavior, and more like a country club exclusively for people with virtuous hearts, then their past deeds would be unimportant, as long as people REALLY meant it when they repented, and weren't going to go back to their wicked ways while in heaven.

Ultimately, it sounds like your concept of evil is about the moral debt the person has accrued, while mine is about the person's capacity for empathy and good will, and his or her abhorrence of the opposite. Is that about right?

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I don't believe in heaven, but I had a discussion like this once about the idea of heaven. The whole idea that one could live a rotten life and then repent and go to heaven sounded ridiculous at first, but if heaven was less like a reward for good behavior, and more like a country club exclusively for people with virtuous hearts, then their past deeds would be unimportant, as long as people REALLY meant it when they repented, and weren't going to go back to their wicked ways while in heaven.

Catholics kind of got rid of eternal damnation already. Mainly because if you keep eternal damnation it opens up a whole lot of metaphysical problems. Whereas Protestants don't give a shit about philosophy and make up garbage without trying to back it up with scholarly examination in the pursuit of the truth of value judgments. Ditto Irenaean theodicy opens up some problems, principally concerns of free will and the nature of good, just less than eternal damnation. In Irenaean theodicy, Hell is merely temporary (and far less Dante-esque). It is merely for as long as one has been punished enough. Dostoyevsky covers the problems of Irenaean theodicy in The Brothers Karamazov.

For starters, the problem of evil has the underlying connotation that Heaven is desireable ... but then again, there is the question whether Heaven can ever be universally desireable. A libertarian should be at odds with any idea of Heaven as a reward. A libertarian would posit that free will is the best thing a direct and involved creator deity of humanity could bestow. But how does free will exist if the only means it is exercised is by reward of something that everyone must then consider good (as per desireable, ala Heaven) ... and then be punished by the will of a tyrant until you are receptive to your 'penitence'?

The problem with the assumption that Heaven is desireable is problematic in a world full of evils (and many unjustifiable evils such as the suffering of lower animals that cannot be expected to make moral actions, etc) ... and this is why many people (like myself) have trouble accepting the idea of evil ... is that it makes the presumption there is correctness regardless of consequence.

I posit, what if in a world of unjustifiable suffering that Iwish to reduce the world's pains ... the world's anguish ... and I want to see pain eliminated from the face of the Earth. What if I wish this so much that I could never abide the company of God that could conceiveably end all that unjustifiable pain and I am personally angered by any assertion that 'God works in mysterious ways' or 'that you need evil so others can be good'? What if I abhor such a deity that I will spite their hand at my 'reward' of their company eternal,and instead as a good person suffer in Purgatory with other good people who challenge God? What if I choose Hell, so that I might bring some comfort to the victims of His judgment eternal or help them reconcile with their lives on Earth?

It's much more simple to say there is no good or evil, just pain and elation. And this is kind of the problem .... if no one suffers it's hard to call something evil. Even in cases like tax evasion, it is typified by the idea that others are doing the right thing and by extent suffer more than another who chooses to do the wrong thing at the perceivable expense of the total happiness of the collective.

Me eating ice cream is not evil. An overweight mother or father with diabetes is (sub)consciously weighed against the perceptible suffering of family, however, if they indulge and suffer poorly for it. Needless to say, I'm a utilitarian myself. Though frankly I agree with Mill over Bentham, as I do believe you can separate base desires and intellectual desires to avoid the pigs in mud conundrum of what is good being directly relative to all types of pleasure.

Also Mill helps solidify the idea of both short term and longterm 'harmony' of pleasure for all people. Ican drink, and smoke, and fornicate, and read books, and go to the opera, and meet new people, and at the cost of investing time gather resources ... and by achieving a certain ideal of balance find oneself with all I need to be mostly happy and have the agency necessary to correct pain in myself and others (say, by treating and paying your employees better, etc) ... One must always allow themselves the thought they can be happy if they simply do enough things in the right order and with the right fervour ... and it is therefore incumbent on all members of society to unbiasly support other people's means for happiness if they have sufficient quota that would ensure against the loss of happiness exceeding it. Basically through utilitarianism you can make the argument that rich people pay more taxes than the poor, for instance. And naturally it's something I believe in too. Because societies are meant to be ever happier with the results ofall production andshould be given the means to drag themselves out of unhappiness. Pay be means, receive by need and right to the tools of happiness.

I find being a decent person is as easy as doing that and so far it's been a pretty good life motto. Do enough things, in the right quantity, in the right order, and you have the best means to make yourselves and others happy and be a positive force of said happiness in the lives of other people that you outweigh the suffering you cause.

Also thinkabout the amount of crap you throw out that ends up choking dolphins ... their happiness matters, and a future with dolphins is happiness others will have after you're gone after all. Nice and easy system to live by.

Simple as that. Doesn't need Heaven, Hell, repentance, or damnation. Anybody that tells you that Jesus will make you happy is essentially selling you a drug. It's all too convenient and basically wrong. Heaven is no reward for a person who is already living it, and helping others to live happy without making demands on who they are and unbiased of who should receive your assistance to do so is always going to be of genuine decency to the society at large.

Even if you accept the idea that there isa Heaven or Hell ... I mean, if you can make Earth a progressively better place, and find means to elevate humanity as if to be a beauty beyond its flaws that are ever receding ... then Hell might be a better place to be in the long run if all people thereafter refuse to accept a tyrant's 'truth' and bargain, right?

 

[sageoftruth]

Snip

I see. I'm not sure exactly what you were responding to. As I said, I don't actually believe in Heaven. I was just using this to distinguish two different schools of thought: The concept of "evil" based on one's past actions, and the concept of "evil" based on one's current disposition. Simply put, who is more evil, the person who committed atrocities in the past but regrets it, or the person who wants to commit atrocities?
I'm only using the word "evil" in this case to stay relevant to the main subject: "What makes a character more evil... etc. etc."

So, if your intent was to disprove the biblical concept of morality, I'm afraid you've wasted your time, because I never believed it in the first place.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I see. I'm not sure exactly what you were responding to. As I said, I don't actually believe in Heaven. I was just using this to distinguish two different schools of thought: The concept of "evil" based on one's past actions, and the concept of "evil" based on one's current disposition. Simply put, who is more evil, the person who committed atrocities in the past but regrets it, or the person who wants to commit atrocities?

Right, but evil compared to what? This is kind of important ... because it depends on what is being evaluated here. It can't simply be a deontological value statement if you have an idea of regret because you're making the argument that this person places emphasis on consequence, not some categorical imperative that must be followed regardless of the pain it causes.

And this is principally why I elevated Gaunter as being less """evil""". Because, essentially, it is in his nature and he doesn't (always) force people to accept a fate that he spun himself. A person that does awful things in the name of good things, regardless of the degree of regret, is always going to be worse than a being that does awful things because arguably they're not even human. You don't blame the scorpion for stinging your hand when you try to pick it up.

One of the reasons why in my first post I alluded to Gaunter being as if the fae from pagan mythology. It's not necessarily """evil""" when they ultimately make mortals suffer. The fae are not evil when they accidentally enamour the heart of the Pale Knight that they wither away by the lake's edge for all their days, wondering when that lady of the Fair Folk may return to enchant his now numbed soul again. It's not """Evil""" when they take a lonely mortal soul, and bewilder them in some Hyperboreal wonderland of enchantment ... only to return them back to their now even grayer, darker, more miserable world for having seen such a wondrous one they can never be a part of again.

Gaunter is like that. He offers a pact ... the other guy kills you or conscripts you if you areable, and butchers everyone who disagrees with him. Gaunter is, in all manner ofspeaking, less """evil""". This is kind of the problem with artificially extracting intention from action. Both represent awill to power ... your intentions are inevitably actions youcan will into being ... your actions are therefore decided unless the choice to act intentfully have been taken away.

If my intention is to 'start a war', I could be some vizier suggesting it to a king, I could be that king, or I could be that general that the king tells me to draw up a campaign plan and instead voice no revolt against the idea. The level of guilt is determined solely by the capacity of one's agency to influence.

 

[Legomaniac91_v1legacy]

I'd say a character's actions can make them more evil than their intentions. Intentions are just dreams and fantasies about how you want something to play out, completely harmless to anyone but yourself. Its only when a person acts on said fantasies that they become harmful to others. In addition, its a person's actions that will be remembered more often than their intentions.

A perfect example in fiction would be the Inquisition from Warhammer 40k. Their intentions seem simple and noble: Keep humanity and the Imperium safe from hostile aliens and the forces of Chaos. However, 9 times out of 10 their actions to achieve that goal wind up killing just as many of their own people as their enemies would. Even then, they often take the stupidest, most convoluted methods in order to do it! Just saved a planet from a horde of Chaos demons? Sterilize the survivors and work them to death! Somebody jacked off with some barbed wire and accidentally summoned a demon or two? Nuke the continent! Want to get your hands on a Genestealer hybrid? Deliberately infect a planet, then send your acolyte in to get captured, raped, and impregnated with one and send in a Deathwatch kill team to retrieve her!

 

[sageoftruth]

I see. I'm not sure exactly what you were responding to. As I said, I don't actually believe in Heaven. I was just using this to distinguish two different schools of thought: The concept of "evil" based on one's past actions, and the concept of "evil" based on one's current disposition. Simply put, who is more evil, the person who committed atrocities in the past but regrets it, or the person who wants to commit atrocities?

Right, but evil compared to what? This is kind of important ... because it depends on what is being evaluated here. It can't simply be a deontological value statement if you have an idea of regret because you're making the argument that this person places emphasison consequence, not some categorical imperative that must be followed regardless of the pain it causes.

And this is principally why I elevated Gaunter as being less """evil""". Because, essentially, it is in his nature and he doesn't (always) force people to accept a fate that spun themselves.

A person that does awful in the name of good things, regardless of the degree of regret, is always going to be worse thana being thatdoesawfulthings because arguably they're not human. You don't blame thescorpion for stinging your hand when you try to pick it up.

Ah, I see. That is a good point. If I am to base good and evil off of anything it would be empathy. When people ask how morality can exist without religion, "Empathy" is my usual response. I could go on about that, but I'm probably preaching to the choir in this case, so I'll just move on.

Still, empathy aside, this is a tricky one for me. Who is worse: The person who works around his empathetic nature to harm others, or the person who has no empathy? You mentioned the scorpion, but a scorpion stings for its own survival, either by attacking potential predators, or by killing prey. Malice or sadism is never a factor.

Before I go any further, could you tell me who Gaunter is? I couldn't find him in your previous post, and don't know who he is. Whoever he is, I feel like making him the focus of our discussion could help me reach a satisfying conclusion.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Ah, I see. That is a good point. If I am to base good and evil off of anything it would be empathy. When people ask how morality can exist without religion, "Empathy" is my usual response. I could go on about that, but I'm probably preaching to the choir in this case, so I'll just move on.

Still, empathy aside, this is a tricky one for me. Who is worse: The person who works around his empathetic nature to harm others, or the person who has no empathy? You mentioned the scorpion, but a scorpion stings for its own survival, either by attacking potential predators, or by killing prey. Malice or sadism is never a factor.

Before I go any further, could you tell me who Gaunter is? I couldn't find him in your previous post, and don't know who he is. Whoever he is, I feel like talking around him specifically could help me reach a satisfying conclusion.

Gaunter is the guy in the OP ... he was principally one of the examples given about intent and actions. Though my argument isyou can't separate the two. Particularly when one is a force of nature, immutable as the storm and has rules to how they can act and operate. You can (and do) beat him at his own game, and frankly his acronym is G.O.D for Christ's sake (not exactly subtle).

As per my fae example before in my first post and in my edit, I liken Gaunter to the fae. Beings that are meant to be inhuman. Have inhuman values. Have inhuman rules of being. Who are therefore beyond conventional ideas of morality, because without intent you cannot measure morality. The fae are not evil when they make mortals suffer. The Fair Folk are not evil when a mortal falls in love with one and withers away to death waiting forbut a glance of her once more from the lake's shore. Intention is to one's will to power. The only time when intention is irrelevant to justice is when one's plans are, for lack of choicer words, utterly cocked up or purely insane.

You can't arbitrarily separate intention and actions. People do not act mindlessly, and 'evil' is a dumb concept. I can totally foresee a good king killing a handful of people to make a world of good. Like hunting down bandits harassing some towns. It's a matter of diminishing returns, and that's how it should be viewed as.

Eredin, regardless of whether he believes or not in whatever he is doing, regardless of the degree of guilt, is worse than Gaunter... I' still try to kill both of them, but I will harbour far more of a grudge against a self-styled monster over an actual inhuman creature with only a questionable degree over their will to power in whatever their actions are. While Gaunter isawful, and bad ... Eredin is not only a bigger threat, but one that I can accurately judge is being a worse monster by dint of shared humanity.

He is a greater violator of any ethicalcode you might uphold ... but as per my scorpion allegory, Gaunter is awful but at least inhumanly awful. If you can arbitrarily separate actions from intent, lower animals are evil and the bigger the predator, the more immoral they are.

Even if you make the argument that Eredin 'will stop' at a certain point and everything will be fucking roses, why would, or should, anyone believe that and how does that make it any less monstrous and necessary to be put down?

 

[Vigormortis]

While I wouldn't call myself feverently against thought crime, I'm against it. Where do you stand on speech? It is an action but many people (freedom of speechers in particularly) think that it doesn't count to any crime. I.e. saying you kill someone is part of the evidence towards murder but I've had some people argue against it being able to be used as evidence because freedom of speech (as in freedom from prosecution from the government).

Speech, in many ways, is an action. Ones speech can be drawn from their intent, but unlike intent, it can directly instigate action, in the first or third person.

Someone can think to themselves, "I wish I could kill that guy", but I wouldn't view it as a crime. However, if someone says to another, "We should kill that guy.", I would consider that a crime. Or rather, if an actionable crime is committed, that speech is evidence of the crime and the intent.

I guess you might say speech, within the context of actions taken, is a linkable path between ones actions and ones intent.

So is speech a crime? Depends on the context and circumstances. Do I believe all speech should be protected? Absolutely. Do I believe all speech should be free from criticism? Absolutely not.

 

[Vigormortis]

Sometimes the only options available are "evil" and it comes down to picking the lesser of two evils. The person who has to make that choice has to live with both the guilt and being judged as evil by people such as yourself.

Absolutely. And I'd expect nothing less were I the one who had to make that choice.

Evil isn't a cut-and-dry, black-and-white thing to me. It, as a concept, is very nebulous. Very...fluid. One person's villain is another's hero.

If ones actions or choices directly harm another against their will, I consider that action evil. But, as with most things in life, there is a very large spectrum of evil, from the mild(pranking someone) to the grotesque(committing genocide).

I also do not believe evil is free from the confines of time. Someone can commit an evil action but not be inherently evil themselves. In fact, I do not believe 'evil' or 'good' are necessarily states of being. They are concepts that can be applied to actions but a person is never good nor evil.