Is there such a thing as an evil person?

[Med Tech]

MT, there was a tough situation in existance when the American Government came into conflict with native americans. Perhaps we can't expect a government to just admit they're on someone else's land and back away, especially not then. That's obvious. It happened. That doesn't make it right.

I didn't say it was right, only that the individuals involved in the decision-making process were not evil.

That's the historical context, but for things to be compared, they don't have to be identical--just comparable. As for proportionality, what are you saying exactly? I'd say it was "x" thousands worse to displace "x" thousands people than it is to displace you from your living room. Proportionately worse.

I'm in a wierd situation, Ian. Since the government provides my living room at no cost to me, and since I live in military housing, if the government wants to move me for whatever reason, I just have to accept that, pick up my wife and kids and move. That's a part of my reality. For someone who owns their own home, they already own their home by the law supported by our government. Now, comparably, if the United Nations ruled that someone else could move into your living room, well, I feel sorry for the UN.

[Bill Glasheen]

Why shouldn't you jump in, Panther?

Actually I wouldn't fault Undaunted Courage in any way. It told a fairly tight story from beginning to end, and backed up virtually every statement made with references. It did so while still maintaining a degree of readability. That's quite a "daunting" task.

The danger is in the generalization. Just as Ian brought up the English biological warfare practices in the F&I war, so I too brought up sexual practices of some NA Nations. It's all correct. What we don't know is the degree to which these various practices caused the ultimate end(s).

Disease and history is a big area of interest of mine. Naturally...because of my line of work (as a health services researcher). But it started with an innocent elective course taken in undergraduate called "The Natural History of Infectious Disease." Fascinating stuff...

Sometimes the actions of a few can affect many. I believe we now have the introduction of HIV in this nation pinned down to just a few characters. We know when, where, how, etc. And look what damage they caused! All it took was for the seed to be planted. The rest is history.

India and HIV are a similar story. Follow the virus from prostitutes, to the trucking routes, to the happy homes that these truckers went to, to the faithful moms... Same with Japan. It's those business retreats to Thailand, where virtually every prostitute is HIV-positive, and sex is a big industry.

And then there is the innocent irony of what perhaps was the cause of the end of WWI. It all started with some pigs on a rural Kansas farm, and a few soldiers that took this new virus to their training camps. They in turn were clustered in tight barracks. And these men then traveled around the world, spreading a disease that selectively killed the strongest and the healthiest because of the way it caused immune systems in their prime to attack the body (generally the lungs). It killed more than any other plague or pandemic. And it couldn't have happened as efficiently as it did without all the right things in place.

On the flip side, many of the Nations you mentioned, Panther, exist today (either in whole or dispersed throughout the general gene pool) because of their individual lifestyles, right? Food for thought.

- Bill

[Dana Sheets]

There is a few standard measures folks like to use to discuss how bad something is:

quantity
geography
relativity to the individual

So is it more of a bad deed for someone to kill 100 people in Somalia or for someone to kill your best spouse?

Is it more of a bad deed for 10,000 British to be killed in a war or 10 American soldiers?

Is it more of a bad deed for you to die or your neighbor to die?

[Med Tech]

So is it more of a bad deed for someone to kill 100 people in Somalia or for someone to kill your best spouse? Is it more of a bad deed for 10,000 British to be killed in a war or 10 American soldiers? Is it more of a bad deed for you to die or your neighbor to die?

That depends on why they were killed. You're using subjective means of discerning good/bad. I believe that it's possible to use objective criteria to determine good/evil.

[Panther]

Why shouldn't you jump in, Panther?

Bill... Otomodachi,

Sent my response in a PM...

[Valkenar]

I believe that it's possible to use objective criteria to determine good/evil.

What are the criteria? How is what we did to the native americans any morally superior to say, for example, if Mexico or Canada were to forcibly push U.S. citizens off their land so that they could expand their territory?

[Bill Glasheen]

Panther

Your PM and your posted comments are all well taken. You are right of course on every count.

In general

Pardon me for shaking things up a bit but... I never heard the term "liberal guilt" until I saw a cartoon spoofing some folks trying to conjure some up. Somehow as morally superior beings, our empathy is supposed to be finely tuned enough for us to take on all the "bad" that has happened, and make it our own. OK...

Then I see something like a reparations movement, and I recall how my starving Irish ancestors came over and fought in The Union Army as teenagers (my great granddad at age 14). So, I'm supposed to feel guilty now? Give up my tax dollars? I thought my great granddad already paid his bloody dues (literally).

Perhaps I feel more empathy for our First Americans. The western frontier, after all, was my great granddad's next assignment. Oh well... Got shot at there too! My fault? Hmm...

Man's inhumanity to man is a constant. Our genetic existence today is a matter of survival, and our DNA doesn't care. A struggle for resources has existed forever. Hell, somehow homo sapiens won, and all other homonid creatures bit the dust. Should I feel some liberal guilt over the extinction of the Neanderthal man? Maybe we should after all. The circumstantial evidence is compelling.

Or... Maybe we should work a lot harder today focusing on how we as individuals can live the principles of personal responsibility, community involvement, and the inalienable rights of every person.

- Bill

[Med Tech]

What are the criteria? How is what we did to the native americans any morally superior to say, for example, if Mexico or Canada were to forcibly push U.S. citizens off their land so that they could expand their territory?

What are the criteria? That's what I started this thread for, to hammer that out. We've gotten sidetracked alot by the NA thread, which has basically taken over. Again, not comparable, since the US is a more powerful force than Mexico and Canada combined.

[Dana Sheets]

quantity
geography
relativity to the individual

Those are not subjective measures. Quantity is inherently quantifiable.

So I'm again asking if those three measure can be applied to define evil.

Is quantity a quality of evil? - I think most would agree that it is not a requirement {I submit Rory's grotesque example: willful sexual violation of wounds on a toddler}.

Is geography a quality of evil? Again - most of us would agree it is not. eg Rory's example is no worse if it happens in American or in Antarctica.

Finally - relativity to the self. Is Rory's example more evil it if happens to your child or if it happens to your friends's child, or if it happens to a stranger's child? This is a tough one for folks. The idea that genocide is someone else's problem until it happens to you.

There's an obvious disagreement about the Native American issue - why? It is because we are using different measures to define evil.

So far we've decided it must be:
willfully harmful (by intention)
the victim must be undeserving of the harm


And that's about it. So if the trail of tears wasn't intended to kill of tons of Indians then it's not evil.

The sticky situation lies in that there was knowledge that some of the native americans might die if they were forced from their land but all or a much greater number would likely die if they were not forced from their land but instead exterminated by settlers.

Which brings us to the axiom...
What is the lesser of two evils?

So revise what we've posted:
Evil must be:
willfully harmful (by intention) (is it also by outcome? - i.e. is intention enough?)
the victim must be undeserving of the harm
the greater harm of two harmful choices

{Mind you - I may not agree with the above - but I'm just summarizing the thread to date as I see it}

[Valkenar]

What are the criteria? That's what I started this thread for, to hammer that out.

Okay, so what are some of your thoughts on what is objectively evil?

We've gotten sidetracked alot by the NA thread, which has basically taken over. Again, not comparable, since the US is a more powerful force than Mexico and Canada combined.

How does that make it incomparable? Presume, hypothetically that Mexico was capable of pushing us aside. Would that then make it legitimate? What if we wanted to annex Mexico because we want the land? Would that be a moral action?

[Panther]

... we should work a lot harder today focusing on how we as individuals can live the principles of personal responsibility, community involvement, and the inalienable rights of every person.

That basically sums it up. I'm part Cherokee (right foot, maybe? ), so I have a certain perspective on this thread based on a circle of folks I get together with on semi-rare occasions. I'm part Scottish (ever-thin' that's covered by me kilt! ), so my heritage and background from being a registered member of my Clan, including knowing folks of that ilk, ALSO gives me a certain perspective and take on this thread. I'm part... well, let's just say I probably have more varieties in me than the (in)famous "57"! I'm a mutt with a few main ingredients. Regardless, there is one thing we all share in common... we are humans. And many on this thread are Americans. History is what it is... it was what it was... and even though we may rewrite it, we can never change what actually happened. We can only do our best, as I know personally some folks here work very hard to do day in and day out, to make things better for ourselves, our neighbors, our communities, our country, and our world...

The real problem is that, even as history unfolds every day, different people have different beliefs in what is "evil". One person's "evil" is another person's "necessity for survival". One person's "ain't no big thang" is another person's "evil". There are and always will be areas where people simply will not agree. When those areas cross moral boundaries, educating children, freedom/rights/liberties defined, philosophy, politics or religion... then there will never be any "common ground" because one group or the other (and often BOTH) will always feel like they are "fighting evil". It is a fact of history and of the human race... Ultimately, unless we are all brainwashed by the same machine with the erasure of individuality, any belief in ever achieving a happy utopia is unrealistic. It is not a lack of faith in the human race, but the fact that "freedom" has already been released from pandora's box. The only way a "one-world utopia" can be achieved on this earth is for people to be enslaved. No matter which side you are on, you can make a valid and viable argument that the other side has already gone "too far" towards enslaving you. Requiring "PC" words and thoughts is one form of enslavement. Denying someone's freedom because of the color of their eyes is another... Examples are available across the spectrum, depending on your perspective.

[Paul_C]

Dana said: And that's about it. So if the trail of tears wasn't intended to kill of tons of Indians then it's not evil.

The sticky situation lies in that there was knowledge that some of the native Americans might die if they were forced from their land but all or a much greater number would likely die if they were not forced from their land but instead exterminated by settlers.

Which brings us to the axiom...
What is the lesser of two evils?

Unfortunately the lesser of two evils is still an evil.

The trail of Tears is a perfect example of defining evil since the situation was evil. We then try to justify it by saying the NA are better off if they are moved off their land.

"Half of them live, we get the land it's a win win situation!"

Ultimately the situation was evil because we made the choice for them. We chose to expand we chose to push them out, and in some cases kill them to get them out. Granted I understand thats how civilizations rise and fall. But the concequeces of our actions were evil.

[Dana Sheets]

Paul - you hit on what folks are trying to distinguish.

Are evil outcomes separate from evil acts? Or is any act that results in an evil outcome evil?

(Can you tell I miss my college philosophy class?)

So we must again revise what we've posted:
Evil must be:
willfully harmful by intention or by outcome
the victim must be undeserving of the harm
can be either of two choices that already qualify as being evil

So an something is evil if either the intention or the outcome causes harm to an undeserving victim.

[IJ]

I wouldn't get bogged down in the semantics of everything being evil if there are only imperfect choices. Watch a couple Holocaust movies and you see some examples... I think it was the Pianist where a mom accidentally smothers an infant to save herself and her family from discovery. Evil? Ordinarily I think of purchasing people from a Nazi to be evil, but then, it was the right thing to do for Oscar Schindler. There's not much that the Golden Rule can't sort out.

There does come a point at which everyone can just say they were a cog in the machine. Things were happening. I did nothing wrong.... And it doesn't ring true. I don't know the details--but did those responsible for the Trail of Tears exhaust all other options and make their disgust with the choices given them obvious and work to prevent the next one? How did they FEEL about what they did? And since my CD cycle has temporarily brought me back to the 60s, who killed Davey Moore? Why, and what's the reason for?

[Bruise* Lee]

Starting from an assumption that all people would choose good for themselves and progressing to a moral assumption that "life" is good and "death" is bad we can progress to determine if a person can be good or bad. I choose life and death as epicenters for good and evil since everyone if given a choice would choose life over death, - this is not knowledge from scientific research, and on occassion perhaps a depressed individual would say they would rather die, but could just as well decide otherwise the next day or when death became an imminent reality.

I am sure that most people would choose life over death for themselves the vast majority of the time. And those who would briefly or at a specific time choose death would do so believing the end result would bring them more good than living - so again people would choose good for themselves whenever possible, and all people would choose life over death. We choose good things becuase inside most of us believe we are mostly good.

We could also state that life for all other good beings is good, and death for all good beings is evil. So that which brings death to good things is evil. Death in general being classified as evil, and that which brings death to good beings is evil. Conversely, that which brings death to bad beings is good.

Death can also be expanded into figurative terms to include death on levels other than physical : emotional, financial, marital, social. That which destroys or brings death to good things must therefore be evil. The more prolonged, premeditated or cruel the death the more evil it is.

At times perhaps there is a matter of a choice of the lesser of 2 evils - sacrificing a limb to avoid the spread of infection to the body.

Hitler having a premeditated, prolonged campaign to systematically deal death to entire races must have been evil. He had relationships - but if the sum residue of those relationships resulted in increased death, those relationships must have also been evil. The death of evil is also good.

Cancer is decidedly evil as it brings death to our being. It is part of our body yet our body itself determines it is evil and fights against it. Many Germans themselves felt and feel Hitler was evil - when I was a kid and we played driveway basketball, and someone cried foul - you knew it was a truly heinous foul when the accused's own team members turned against him also crying foul. When the body turns on its own tissues crying "cancer" it is truly a fould disease. When my dad was a POW in Nazi Germany therre were gaurds who helped the POW's and felt they were being horribly mistreated, but were not in a position to do much about it.

Total evil is like cancer - it has a relationship to the body, takes in nutrients and gives off waste - but it does nothing good for any other tissue in the body. it is entirely self serving. Cancer is of benefit to not one other tissue.

Living tissue, life is not that way. The eye does not function for itself - it does so for the rest of the body. The liver when it produces glucose through gluconeogenesis does not do this solely for its own benefit - it produces glucose to be used by the brain, and other tissues.

Hitler believed "Gott Miit Uns" or "God is with us" - but his actions did not benefit anyone else - not even his own people. There was perhaps a temporary increase in their economy but Hitlers actions brought death and destruction to everyone, and were of benefit to nobody.

Hitler brought no good anywhere - he had the Midas touch, everything he touched turned to destruction. he was evil.

Living tissue benefits the collective - cancer and other destructive worthless cells do nothing at all for the collective being. Life is good. Death is bad.

That which brings death and destruction to the collective is evil.