Evil allignement note

Danacm

I found something interesting from pov of sience about evil, if somebody want to read about it.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concept-evil/

mashedtaters

@Danacm
Thanks for the link. I read the whole thing and found it very intriguing. I like philosophy and science so thank you very much.

One thing I enjoyed about the article is that it communicated, albeit somewhat unclearly, that it is difficult to know all the variables. I have always believed that it is incorrect for me or anyone else to call someone else evil (or good, for that matter) because, as a mortal, you can never know everything about that person. In order to come to any real conclusion about someone else, you really have to know them well...and then you still won't know exactly how they perceive the world around them, which is a huge factor (probably the only factor) in how people react to their world.

However, it is perfectly acceptable, and should be expected, that certain actions can and should be called and considered to be evil (or good). We cannot ever really know whether or not another person is evil or good: but we can and should, as a society, outlaw or illegalize evil actions and activities. Then the issue becomes responding to people that perform those actions that our society has illegalized.

First, it should be necessary to prove the guilt of the accused (rather than expecting their guilt on the virtue of the accusation and then having to prove innocence). Then, once guilt has been "proven" to a certain predetermined acceptable extent, it must be determined how to react to the guilty.

A person guilty of heinous crimes should not be allowed to function as a normal member of society because they are a known, acknowledged, and recognized threat to the safety and freedom of those around them. So what to do with such people?

Well, if we say that such a person is "evil", then it becomes easy for people to dismiss their own conscience in the face of any actions taken against that person, be it cruel punishment, torture, execution.. It can even promote and foster feelings of revenge and hatred for those who may or may not have been wronged and the self-righteous. But, if our response (even if the response is severe) to a criminal is born out of compassion instead of "the easy way out" of judgement-labeling that person evil, then, regardless of the actions taken to protect against that person, it is more likely to help those who may or may not have been wronged to feel healing and the self-righteous to feel humility.

Of course, people will react in a varied way, but what I am trying to get at is that "calling for the blood" of so-called "evil" people out of revenge or hatred is still, in my opinion, an evil action: evil only begets evil. I acknowledge that identifying a perpetrator as evil can help people, especially the victims of severe abuse, come to terms with and understand their past and even help remove someone from current abuse, but my earlier statement was more aimed at the masses.

This is not to say that I am opposed to particular countries' reactions to criminal acts, even the death penalty for certain criminals (although I am opposed to intentional torture for any reason), simply because it must be the decision of that country's people on how they deal with deviance.

What I am saying is that there is some comfort in not knowing all the variables of a person's heart and inner being, lifting the weight from your shoulders, as it were, of having to "know" that they are "evil" to justify a response, and just freely giving them compassion and good feelings from your own heart and inner being, even if they "deserved" their fate, because the judgement and resulting response is based on actions which are measurable, instead of the abstract and ultimately undefinable and undeterminable concept of evil.

It is a more peaceful way to live, and less stressful. In a nutshell, hate the sin love the sinner.

The true challenge comes in actually implementing that philosophy, but that is a discussion for another post.

amika

the fact that theres an objective good and evil in d&d settings and that they're very tangible (they affect which spells will hit you, for example) is kind of a fun constraint for me because i generally have a hard time buying good and evil as concepts

i think you still get better antagonists when you keep in mind that no one wakes up in the morning, stretches, and goes "what a lovely day... for being a JERK" though