Is there such a thing as absolute good or absolute evil?
Ravenslight
Member Posts: 1,609
in Off-Topic
Judging by how quickly a debate rose up in a previous thread concerning what constitutes good or evil, there is a great desire among some forumites to express their feelings on this subject. Perhaps this thread will provide those who wish to participate in such a discussion a platform to do so.
Though I too have strong feelings concerning what is good and what is evil, I tend to think that discussions on this subject between anonymous participates is not the best idea. Perhaps you will prove me wrong.
Please be kind and respectful as you exchange ideas. The truth is, we are all only trying to find our way in this world. Each trying to make sense out of it as we struggle down our own road on our own individual journeys.
Though I too have strong feelings concerning what is good and what is evil, I tend to think that discussions on this subject between anonymous participates is not the best idea. Perhaps you will prove me wrong.
Please be kind and respectful as you exchange ideas. The truth is, we are all only trying to find our way in this world. Each trying to make sense out of it as we struggle down our own road on our own individual journeys.
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My evil parties burglarize peoples houses, they do odd jobs that are generally good for the sword coast but they do them out conquest and riches. They can be rude and they sometimes even kill people out of association to known enemy groups.
On the flip side, my party probably does more good for the sword coast than not and only hurts people who try to kill them or knowingly aid the group that is trying to kill them. Sometimes the bad guys will beg for their lives and I kill them all just to be sure that every last iron throne member is gone. After all, they are more evil than I am. I am just trying to survive and possibly save the sword coast from an iron crisis. they are responsible for creating the iron crises and sending teams of assassins after me so I can live with that justification. If I let them live they will just regroup and I will probably have to kill them later anyway. How many more people would die if I let these guys live anyway? The sword coast is no different than the wild west with swords as far as I can tell. I think it fits the bill.
Like I said, I don't play evil that often but you can still take on tasks and get treated very well without doing any major crimes. If you let it bother you or not depends on what you feel you need to do in order to justify your evil title and how you justify it in the world of the forgotten realms. The above is how I play it and how I justify it. Honestly it doesn't feel much different than playing it as a hero. I still save peoples lives, and help out people in need. The intent and attitude are all that is different and they are intangible.
If I steal a sandwich from a deli then I am a criminal. If my neighbor murders his wife then he is a criminal. We are both criminals but one of us lives a normal life with a minor altercation while the other one went off the deep end. Being evil in Baldur's Gate does not have to be off the deep end. That is all I am saying.
A prime example is unscrupulous merchants, who, recognizing their lack of busisness ethics argue that all people follow their egoism. Good deeds are simply another kind of egoism, where you are afraid of feelings of guilt, thus, egoistically saving yourself from those by being nice. However, since the merchants either do not feel guilt or can suppress or overpower these feelings they are more pure or some such nonsense and therefore in reality more moral.
It is telling the patron saint of merchants, Ayn Rand, hailed a serial killer as a ideal human, since he did whatever he felt like.
Likewise, all manner of major or minor ethical dilemmas are covered in thick layers of rhetoric manure, therefore creating the illusion of moral relativism. There is, however, an easy way to cut through such bull. Just get a sense of the detour required to declare a deed good. In general, the longer the detour, the more heinous the act.
Example;
I nursed a starving child back to health, it was a good deed. <-- No detour needed
I let a child starve to death on my lawn. Since the child was trespassing blah blah blah and also where is the childs parents blah blah blah the failure of society by degenerates who encourage communism by feeding the poor thus dooming is all in an inferior economic model blah blah blah. Anyways, letting the child starve to death was the most moral outcome, due to my rhetoric manure in the previous sentence. <-- Long detour
Do we now say "Oh, there is disagreement, I guess everything is relative!"? No, we do not. Arguments are not granted validity by virtue of their mere existance. To the contrary, we demand evidence and logical context and so on and so forth.
Back in the same classroom, we next say that genocide is an act of evil, whereby one student stands up and says "Nu-uh, the native americans / jews / armenians / bosniaks / whatever had it coming!"
Do we now say "Oh, there is disagreement, I guess everything is relative!"?
"But Lord DrakeICN, evolution is objective and genocide is subjective!"
Wrong again, my young Padawan. There are, contrary to your assumption, loads of measureable factors in any and all acts. For instance, killing someone for your own perverted sense of pleasure is, to start with, unproportional. You get some instant gratification, the other person is dead and gone forever more.
"But Lord DrakeICN, whether gratification for one sick and twisted individual is worth more or less than the continued living is for the other individual is also subjective!"
No, not really. A (mentally sound) observer without a stake in either side would agree that it is unproportional - and the killer would likely not want to see the roles reversed (depending, of course, on how much sanity the killer have retained).
Take now the witch burnings (and yes yes, we know there were also the occational warlock burning, equality and all of that). We know that all the burned women (and men) where innocent. Note how I did not say "we now know" - for the burners ALSO knew, deep down in their hearts of hearts. Inquisitors, for instance, would torture people who, because they were raised christians, did not believe in telling lies for they believe that would sentence their souls to hell, so they resisted confessing until the pain truly become unbearable. Even then, they would, in a last ditch effort to avoid being labeled liars in the eyes of God, say things such as "Yes, I agree to your charges, but only because I can no longer manage. God knows the truth!" Hesitation and doubt were rife in the ranks of the inquisition, as it is in any (non-sociopath) individual commiting acts of evil.
Thus, we invent ever more elaborate reasons for why good is evil and evil is good, to spare the fragile ego from accepting the truth either of ourselves (if deeds are mostly out of greed) or of the deeds we commit (if the deeds are mostly out of need). Now, there are such philosophical concepts such as lebensraum and rivalry, and yes, need and greed as already mentioned may force your hand lest you suffer consequences, and yes, there exists gray zones between acts of clear good and acts of clear evil. But make no mistake, such excusses are nothing but the langauge of the antagonist, and you accomplish nothing but emerging yourself ever deeper into willful ignorance. Circumstance never makes evil acts good, they merely make them understandable and occasionally even forgiveable - then there is of course also the matter of gravity. Should you steal your sisters candy bar? Probably not. If you do, assuming hell exists, is your soul condemned for all eternity? Also probably not.
As a metaphor, regardless of how much "evidence" is presented - such as that the age of the oldest living tree is 6000 years (the actual oldest living tree is actually 11 000 years) and how dinosaurs are "always" found in a layer of mud (from the flood, what else?) - the theory of evolution will not be disproven. Likewise, regardless of how much rhetoric manure you roll your motivations in, an evil act is an evil act.
Just like the inqusition were, modern moral relativists are also deluded, or rather willfully ignorant. Evidence of the evil of an evil act is not subtle, rather it is all around and plain for all to see but we chose not, to protect the fragile ego.
tl:dr The act of claiming one is not evil while committing evil does not make it so.
For instance, the drooling hordes of Trumpanzees could not possibly see any nuance in drone strikes and surveillance and the Israel-Palestinee conflict and such, beyond "ingroup good outgroup bad".
Analogy with evolution and creationism is flawed, because you are assuming singular system of belief that we use to judge arguments. Within criteria in scientific reasoning claiming that world was created 6000 years ago is ridiculous. But claim a) "there are objective moral values" is not superior than b) "everything is relative" in the same sense, because they clearly do not share the same criteria.
Do we now say "Oh, there is disagreement, I guess everything is relative!"?
"But Lord DrakeICN, evolution is objective and genocide is subjective!"
Wrong again, my young Padawan. There are, contrary to your assumption, loads of measureable factors in any and all acts. For instance, killing someone for your own perverted sense of pleasure is, to start with, unproportional. You get some instant gratification, the other person is dead and gone forever more.
You talked about "logical context" and "evidence" few senteces above, but here you provide none. Argument that "gratification is instant, but person is dead forever" cannot be treated as one, because you do not care to explain *why* it makes killing unproportional.
No, not really. A (mentally sound) observer without a stake in either side would agree that it is unproportional - and the killer would likely not want to see the roles reversed (depending, of course, on how much sanity the killer have retained).
Idea of "mentally sound observer" is so weak philosophically it's almost not worth debunking. Are we going to base morality not only on opinion, but opinion of imaginary person? It's kinda like religion, but religions at least have holy books.
And your example with reversing roles share the same flaws, as you bring some obviously vague critieria as "sanity". Basically all you say is "what is say is right, because it's reasonable, and it's reasonable, because reasonable person would agree that it's reasonable!".
If it's not idem per idem fallacy, then it's very close to one.
Sic!
I assume you are talking about Inquisitors from Diablo games, because obviously you do not refer to real life inquisitors (y'know, first guys in Europe that figured out that insanity may cause lack of guilt).
Sorry for being blunt, but that entire paragraph is all talk no action. All you do is say "this is how it is!" but provide no reason why we should believe you. All you propose is some kind of blind moral absolutism, based on... well, nothing really. At least christians have their God and damnation, while you just leave us with some expectation of... I don't know, Kantian intuition, but with no Kant's reasoning.
It's pretty bold to sway "rhetoric manure", while all of that lenghty post of yours is nothing but that. No, you can't just ignore relativims "no no no, what you did is JUST EVIL I CAN'T HEAR YOU NANANA!".
*sigh*. Yea, Sartre and Singer were just dumb.
tl;dr - you may want to reconsider that arrogant tone, since there is not much merit behind it. Maybe become some wise philosophers padawan?
They are simply not around long enough to come up with a definitive answer as to whether an act will ultimately be seen as evil or good.
Even the ancients figured that out and invented deities to back their various stances on what is or isn't evil to add authority to their opinions.
And that's all it is, opinions.
So, in contrary to your claim, sanity is a clearly defined state of mind. Of course, no written or spoken word can never be meticulous enough to avoid intentional misunderstandings. For instance, under these rules, Dumbos giant ears, as they cause social dysfunctionality, would be a personality disorder. But there is reasonable nitpickings and unreasonable ones... Now of course, a reasonable individual in the context of morality would include standard or higher levels of empathy and passion. As such, I need not explain the why - a reasonable individual will find the why self-evident. Indeed I do...
There are 12 of those;
0. (Moral axioms can be derived from the governing moral axioms. Derived axioms are valid because they are the practical application of the governing moral axioms while governing moral axioms are valid because of their inherent self-evidence in the eyes of reasonable sentients.)
1. Moral standards are guided by principles of maximized health, love and happyness. However, when governing moral axiom 1 conflicts with governing moral axiom 2,3 and / or 4, governing moral axiom 1 must bend.
2. You have certain undeniable right that cannot be foregone for any reason.
3. Humans have the right to lifeworthy existance as established by basic requirements for survival and personal fulfillment.
4. You ae entitled to drink your fill, but anything abive that is subject to transcendant will.
5. (Above all else, an axiom is plausible.)
6. You are free to do whatever you so please, provided you do not bring harm to others.
7. Might makes right*.
8. No human has any obligation but to themself, but apostates invites persecution.
9. First look to science, then to philosophy, then to your heart.
10. Philosophies, ideologies, religion and any other school of thought that do not comply with the governing moral axioms are inherently immoral and by extension false.
11. (An axiom disputed* is no such thing.)
* Do not take out of context: only transcendent minds fully understand governing moral axiom 7 and governing moral axiom 11. If you need to ask, you are not.
Notes:
Axioms 0, 5 and 11 only have logical implications but no moral implications, thus they are true axioms and not moral axioms, and are placed in parenthesis.
Axiom 6 and 8 is bound to have conflicts with axioms 1 to 4. This contradictory nature is not an imperfection of the axioms. Axiom 1 to 4 are ideals, and ideals are much like exponential curves 1) impossible to bring to their maximum value and 2) increasingly costly to achieve the closer you get, while axioms 6 to 8 are bleak reminders of the limitations of reality.
Where such conflicts arise, each case is unique and have an unique solution. There is also no way in which this conflict can be solved by modifying existing or adding more axioms. The written word can never be meticulous enough and further, it would occasionally be difficult for even the most sound observer to determine which side have more merit.
Axiom 7 solves this conflict though a reality check, as it were. Note however, that might does not make an action moral. Axiom 7 simply states that might is not in itself unfair or should at all costs be avoided. Quite the opposite; without might, there will be no society to impose morals on in the first place.
We are better off discussing harm reduction than Utopias; despite an inevitable lack of perfection, societies can be more or less desirable. Moral actions jeopardizing previous wondrous achievements are counter-productive.
Axioms 9 and 10 are simple reminders that it is universally important to never shy from the truth; a castle build on sand will sink.
Puppets! You are ALL MY PUPPETS! ! ! Am I saying this out loud?
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*Cough*
Sorry... Just being subtly Evil... Best kind of Evil... Carry on...
I find manipulation is the key ingredient for smart evildoers. If you cannot convince others that you are the epitome of goodness while through intrigue you change the playing field behind their backs then you are not helping your self-preservation. There is bound to be a force of goodness that contests you when you are openly evil. The smarter kind of evil never gets identified.
I find it very difficult to play evil in a proper way in any game.
Sarevok in BG arguably succeeds in avoiding the sillier stereotypes of evil. Irenicus is only taken seriously as a villain through the skill of the voice actor who portrays him. Melissan fails completely to be compelling as a villainess, being obvious from the beginning, and begging the question, "Why not confront her immediately in Saradush, before she gains control of the Throne?"
The "evil" playable NPC's are worse. Every single one of them is a comedic caricature. The main character's options to be evil come down to either being a psychotic mass murderer, like the Joker from "Batman", or a selfish, rude jerk. If a player wants to play a satisfying villain (unless playing the Joker appeals for some reason), he or she must make up the necessary story elements in his or her own imagination, and "head canon" in a lot of dialogue and actions.
To the point of the thread, I think the most satisfying evil run would be a role-played documented run like the ones often seen in the no-reload thread or in the "Challenges and Playthroughs" sub-forum. The player would create and then write out in mini-novel form a playthrough with Charname as a villain, running with the available evil party members (Edwin, Viconia, Montaron, Xzar, Tiax, Dorn, Hexxat, etc.), and presumably enjoying the project as an exercise in creative writing.
@DrakeICN because I think they lack some perspective.
1) "So, what is a reasonable individual? The romans solved this issue rather neatly: they had a jury of a houndred men or more. Yes yes, some people will be convinced the subject is innocent regardless of the mountain of evidence stacked against him / her, but if 3 jurors think he is innocent and 97 think he is guilty, then those thinking he is innocent are unreasonable." You're assuming that all of those people are reacting logically and without bias but people often don't. Just because a large number of people think one way doesn't necessarily make it the right way of thinking. To put it in better perspective there are a lot of people that think that being gay is a sin and/or wrong. Just because 97/100 people think that doesn't make that opinion right. The "collective intelligence" needs to be challenged or else it creates a self-perpetuating circle of narcissism that says "I'm right because no one disagrees" and also silences all disagreement.
2) "Likewise, a mental disease is anything that cause discomfort or hampers general functionality, except not in a physical way but in a mental way. Such as extreme OCD, whereby one might take 2 hours to exit the house, as one runs back and forth from the stove to the front door, just ensuring "one" extra time that the house wild not burn down. Mild OCD however, is managable simply through an effort of will to ignore the impulse, is not therefore not a mental disease. Personality disorders thus are quirks that cause discomfort (due to awkwardness) or hampers functionality in society." You are trivializing mental health here by removing the individual element from it and being incredibly dismissive of the daily struggle of other people. I have a friend who has SEVERE depression and anxiety (it's medically diagnosed and she's trying to find the right antidepressants and everything) but she gets through most days because she is strong. Her strength does not make her mental disease weak. Both are strong but she is stronger. If you only classify disease by the outcome then you're really ignoring the conflict that goes on inside. Her depression (and my own mental health struggles) are not personality quirks just because we are functional.
To give a thought experiment: imagine that through some disaster or other, you're left with 100 humans of which 97 (to use your values) happen to be complete psychopaths by sheer chance. If within that society of 100 humans someone kills someone else, 97 people would not see a problem, while 3 would (or 1 less for either, respectively, since someone died). If there were no other humans around whatsoever, would that act of murder be "evil" just because 3 people disagree with it? Would it be evil only because we look at it from an outside perspective with a different set of moral values?
Also agreed that Sarevok is the better evil villain compared to the others. If could play more like him then that would be very appealing.
Lets call it the least common nominator (minus the wackos and the jackasses). I hope I make more sense now? For instance, which sound observer, when reading governing moral axiom #2 thinks "Aww hell no, we should be allowed to kill innocent people to harvest their organs, more people will live this way, thanks to transplantation?" However, by your very act of bringing up the problem of some people thinking homosexuality is a sin, you prove that many sound observers would object to that statement.
For the second part of your argument, I am sorry that "mentally ill" is often seen as perjoratory when it is in fact descriptive. For instance, I am diseased, for I have asthma, yet noone thinks lower of me because of it. But mentally ill is none the less the proper descriptive term, so it is what I must use - the fact that your friend must struggle means that yes, it is hampering and therefore it is a disease. But I do not believe I suggested that having one makes you weak? If I did, I apologise.
I am aware of existence of juridical use of "reasonable observer". Judges, however, do not construct general moral systems, but are construing patterns of proper behaviours in specific situations, and that is different matter whatsoever.
...well, you given no definition, just provided example of how someone somewhere tried to used mechanism of "sound observer". Is this just a matter of vote? It seems so to me.
So, in contrary to your claim, sanity is a clearly defined state of mind. Of course, no written or spoken word can never be meticulous enough to avoid intentional misunderstandings. For instance, under these rules, Dumbos giant ears, as they cause social dysfunctionality, would be a personality disorder. But there is reasonable nitpickings and unreasonable ones...
So a person that feels perverted pleasue from killing is clearly insane - at least until we put that person as soldier of Temüjin; then he/she has perfect functionality, given environment. So is a person with no feeling of empathy mentally ill, if they are intelligent enough not to violate the law or provoke a wrath of society they live in, and generally have pretty normal lives? Is medieval flagellant mentally ill, given how he intentionally inflicts pain and injury on himself, or is he sane, because he lives in 13th century?
That "sanity" doesn't seem to be "clearly defined" - at least not clearly enough to provide ethics more sophisticated than "whatever society at this time and place considers to be ethical".
...so you cannot even explain why you think murder is wrong. I'm pretty amazed.
So... how many moral relativists have you read?
Given current state of physics - yeah, he was wrong. Aren't you aware of that?
Also - I wonder why you put physician as authority in ethical matters.
I'll try to take on your proposed axioms some other time. Exams.
Yes, local culture may set a precedent for "normal" behaviour depending on time and place, but you cannot remove the human from the human equation. The most elemental components of good and evil are eternal - or at least as ancient as modern man.
Citation needed.
Also - I don't recall saying that PTSD was invented in 1940s.
What "most elemental components"? What "most elemental compotents" are we sharing with Greeks from "Iliad"?
Because there are no direct connections between ethics and ilness developed due to exposure to certain conditions. People are suffering from PTDS after being raped as well.
Are you trying to say that PTDS is somehow proving some inherent moral sense? This is ridiculous fallacy that even Hume would laugh at. You cannot derive statements about obligations from statements about facts.