# Good and Evil.



## ALB2012 (Jan 9, 2013)

The Spiraling Mind: Good vs. Evil – That Tired Ol’ Trope?

Now I am not sure I agree with this. Yes I tend to think many people think they do good things or even bad things for good reasons but there are evil people and evil situations in the world and they do not pretend to be otherwise.
However, that said, good and evil are relative.  One person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.

Now some people espouse capital punishment- either for societies revenge on the victim or to deter. Of course some people do not.  

How does this relate to writing? Often there is a clear case of Good Versus Evil in fantasy. Sauron vs the fellowship, Voldemort vs Harry Potter etc. In many cases it is not as clear cut- I will probably get shot down for saying this but to an extent Star Wars- the films tell us the Empire is evil and the rebels are the good guys but they still use terror tactics, they kill, they steal, they destroy and the bring civil war. At the end the Emperor falls (at least for a while) and everyone is happy but the films end with that - so what next, someone has to be in charge and you can bet there are people squabbling over it, usually people who want power shouldn't have it. From relative if rather restrictive peace to civil war and upheaval.
Often there are shades of grey, including people doing what they believe is right, or what is needed, which are not always the same thing.  

I do think in writing there is still a place for good and evil, most people like to root for the good guys and for them to be defined as such and cheer when the baddie gets his comeupance. The shades of grey can be ambiguous and misleading. Yet it is true often people look for others to blame, because they are powerless, ignorant or in some cases just bigoted and I think to an extent the good and evil argument reflects this- we blame the alien nazi zombies or the Dark Lord of Zog because we do.

So within my own writing the good guys are not actually that good, they kill, they steal they deceive but it is for a good reason, or at least they think so but at the end of it all will be war and upheaval. The "bad guys" also believe what they are doing is right, or a right. They are protecting the populace, they are maintaining the status quo etc etc, but in the end there will be war...


Anyway I am not sure that makes any sense at all. I did think it was an interesting article.


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## Steerpike (Jan 9, 2013)

Whether you have clear-cut cases of evil people in the real world or not doesn't necessarily have any bearing on whether you can have it in fiction. It works fine for me, and I also enjoy the shades-of-gray stories. It is probably no accident that the most enduring works, as well as the most of the works of great popularity, have well-defined good-guy/bad-guy sides (Narnia, LoTR, Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, and so on). In terms of popular appeal, Game of Thrones is probably the most popular on the "gray" side.


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## ALB2012 (Jan 9, 2013)

Yea think I was meandering a bit there. I think both work and often the good vs evil is just what is needed, the inner satisfaction when some bad guy gets splatted The real world is why we read fantasy and other fiction. If I want to see what the real world is like I will turn on the news.


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## Shockley (Jan 9, 2013)

I think the broad idea of 'history is gray' is something that doesn't stand up well in the long run. Right now we might be able to look at something like Sri Lanka and say 'this is a gray issue' but three hundred years from now, chances are people are going to look back at that and find a clear 'good guy,' even if a country or two broadly disagrees with that interpretation. 

 Most events become caricatures or lose their gore. Alexander the Great, for example - few people get that worked up over Alexander, even though he killed many thousands of people and subjugated many nations and tribes to his idea of what 'culture' and 'civilization' was. Or more recently, Hitler - anyone arguing for the Nazis is quickly (and I daresay justly) smacked down as evil in their own right.


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## emma (Jan 9, 2013)

The thing to remember about "good" vs "evil" is that the definitions are different depending on what side you're on and that historical events and facts tend to be written by the victors of the conflicts.  To use the Hitler example...if he'd won what is know of historical events before his time would now be completely altered and lost in the historical "facts" the Nazis would have replaced them with.  A hundred plus years later and no one would be alive to remember differently.  

And while the idea of good vs evil can sound old and over done story wise...the truth of the matter is we tend to look at the things in our lives as good for us or bad for us and it seems natural that the fictional beings we write do so as well.


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## JCFarnham (Jan 9, 2013)

The issue of whether true evil exists outside of fiction is a debatable one. Lets a grab modern example: Anders Brevik (to be honest I don't care if I spelt that wrong.) Most people would call him a serious piece of work, properly evil right? He commited a true horror. But in his mind, someone needed to be a martyr in order to change an evil _he _percieved. So to him he's the good guy. No one can say for sure, but I bet Hitler was twisted enough to reason his way to sleep at night...

Anyway, my point is very much echoing other opinions in this thread. It's all a matter of perception. Therefore, you could say that the question of whether your story is "shades of grey" or a "good vs evil" story, falls to the perceptions of your POV character. If they think in grey then its grey, but if they're strong good vs. evil then that's probably how your story will be painted.

That how I do it anyway, but I think even in those cases the story would have hints of grey in it. Between the lines. Who knows?

I think there is a place for it, just so long as you realise your characters need to be 3-dimensional as well. That particular blogger is on a bit of a rant......


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## Steerpike (Jan 9, 2013)

I disagree that it is always a matter of perception. An evil act doesn't become less evil because the person committing it perceives it as good. Would Hitler's gassing of Jews be less evil if we knew he had a rationale for it that let him rest his head at night? Would it even be less evil if a large portion of the world were to say he was right to do it? I don't think so.


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## JCFarnham (Jan 9, 2013)

Steerpike said:


> I disagree that it is always a matter of perception. An evil act doesn't become less evil because the person committing it perceives it as good. Would Hitler's gassing of Jews be less evil if we knew he had a rationale for it that let him rest his head at night? Would it even be less evil if a large portion of the world were to say he was right to do it? I don't think so.



Well, yeah, but you're somewhat missing my point (admittedly I can always state things more clearly). Of course it doesn't become less evil, but when we're talking about fiction, perception _does_ matter. Who your point of view character is will/should very much dictate how things are viewed. To me at least. That's where the good/evil/shade of grey things comes in. I was trying to use a readily avaliable example to show something. Namely, we think these people are evil. They are. But why do they do these things? 

That's the kind of thing fiction can explore you know.


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## Xaysai (Jan 9, 2013)

I'm always more interested in evil in the more "gray area/perspective" sense.

Evil as in, "this evil thing wants to destroy us because it's just plain evil" doesn't really do anything for me.

I enjoy being almost forced to understand the evil deed from the perspective of the perpetrator.

In real life, I don't believe in the evil of a supernatural or biblical sense. However, I am forced to believe that evil does exist in the acts of humans, such as someone who forces a mother or father to watch while they rape and kill their young child.


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## Penpilot (Jan 9, 2013)

I don't know that article felt a bit preachy. The author of the article doesn't like straight back and white morality in stories so she thinks everyone else should feel the same. She said literature should teach us something. Well I don't necessarily read to be taught something. Sometimes I read a story because it's fun escapism. Sometimes I like to visit a world where things are black and white, where good always triumphs and the hero gets the gal, or vice versa. 

Why? Because sometimes life gives me all the gray we can handle, and I want to taste something different, something black and white. Just because a story has a black and white morality to it doesn't make it bad and just because as story is gray doesn't make it automatically good.

There's room for all types of stories in this world, from simple black and white to all things in between. They're all part of life and just because one hasn't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There are some people who do some pretty evil things without good reason and some people who do tremendously altruistic things to. 

If the author of that article has a hard time finding stories with gray morality, I say she's not looking very hard. In some respects this is a golden age for TV. There are tons of shows like the Sopranos, Dexter, The Walking dead, Breaking Bad, etc where morality is firmly entrenched in the gray. And I'm sure there are even more in books and the movies.

Just because you don't like chocolate ice cream don't tell me it's a crappy flavor, because it isn't.


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## Steerpike (Jan 9, 2013)

I think that's true, JC, but I think the reader will also overrule the viewpoint character's perceptions on good and evil according to their own values and beliefs. Take, for instance, the narrator of _Lolita_, one Humbert Humbert. I expect (or at least hope) that not many people will buy into his rationalizations for his affair with young Dolores Haze.


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## Anders Ã„mting (Jan 9, 2013)

I write my heroes as good as you can reasonable expect a real person to be, and I write my villains as evil as you can reasonably expect a real person to be. It think that works out pretty well.


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## SineNomine (Jan 9, 2013)

There is certainly a place, a growing one at that, for literature that delves into the shades of gray (...ugh...) of human interaction, particularly since delving into a more complicated and nuanced set of motives in protagonists, and especially in antagonists, adds verisimilitude.  In fantasy though, it can get awkward, because of fantasy's link to the mythic and legendary.  For better or worse, I think that ultimately it is tales that can be reduced down to good vs evil that end up being timeless and classic.  There is something deep inside us that just CRAVES a hero you adore and a villian you despise without having to worry that the hero sometimes kicks a puppy and the the villian has this really interesting argument as to why what he is doing is right.


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## Anders Ã„mting (Jan 9, 2013)

Shockley said:


> Alexander the Great, for example - few people get that worked up over Alexander, even though he killed many thousands of people and subjugated many nations and tribes to his idea of what 'culture' and 'civilization' was. Or more recently, Hitler - anyone arguing for the Nazis is quickly (and I daresay justly) smacked down as evil in their own right.



Important distinction: Hitler lost. Alexander is considered one of most successful commanders in human history.

History is written by the winners, indeed.



JCFarnham said:


> The issue of whether true evil exists outside of fiction is a debatable one. Lets a grab modern example: Anders Brevik (to be honest I don't care if I spelt that wrong.) Most people would call him a serious piece of work, properly evil right? He commited a true horror. But in his mind, someone needed to be a martyr in order to change an evil _he _percieved. So to him he's the good guy.



Sure, but there is more to being "good" than just thinking you are good. Just because you think of yourself as the good guy, it doesn't mean you're not monstrously wrong.

Most cultures tend to agree that being "good" involves upholding certain standards and virtues - being honorable, showing mercy, having a strong and accurate sense of justice, etc. What matters is how you conduct yourself, not your intention. (Hence: "The road to hell is paved by good intentions." It's a reminder that you will be judged by your actions, not by what you tried to achieve.) 

Breivik killed a lot of defenseless, innocent young people. Even if he genuinely thought he was doing it for a good cause, it doesn't change the fact that he probably doesn't even know what words like "mercy" and "justice" actually means.



JCFarnham said:


> Well, yeah, but you're somewhat missing my point (admittedly I can always state things more clearly). Of course it doesn't become less evil, but when we're talking about fiction, perception _does_ matter. Who your point of view character is will/should very much dictate how things are viewed. To me at least. That's where the good/evil/shade of grey things comes in. I was trying to use a readily avaliable example to show something. Namely, we think these people are evil. They are. But why do they do these things?



I don't think their motivations are particularly interesting -  again, they do evil evil things mainly because they either cannot comprehend or do not care about basic human virtues: "It's okay to kill innoncent people for my cause, because I can see no actual value in showing them mercy or kindness," etc. Any human who doesn't value human life can become a killer for the sake of something he_ does_ value. 

They are people whose values have turned out wrong. If anything, exploring exactly what's wrong with them is more interesting than their goals and ideals.


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## atkogirl85 (Jan 9, 2013)

Have to admit I had a bit of a giggle while reading the blog. 

Seriously? Blaming entertainment media's 'forced' use of good & evil for society's issues? haha. People's attitudes, fear, trust etc of others is formed by experience, actions and life... I can't see anyone reading LOTR or watching an action flick and suddenly thinking it's 'me against them' or 'everyones out to get me' and so on. 

Without the element of good vs evil literature and film would be pretty darn boring. Watching an old man teach a woman how to feed her kids sound like ZZZ-ville to me... and almost everyone else. And for those who what that happy-happy growth journey muck - That is what Chick Lit and Chick Flicks are for!!

And as for whether evil exists in the real world? Of course it does. Evil is defined as* morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked/Profoundly immoral and malevolent.* Serial Killing Sociopaths... peadophiles... Serial Rapists... I don't think anyone would try to justify the 'goodness' or 'perceived right' of those examples. They would still be evil even if we had been ruled by hitler, i hope 

overall, pretty funny funny


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## JCFarnham (Jan 9, 2013)

Anders Ã„mting said:


> They are people whose values have turned out wrong. If anything, exploring exactly what's wrong with them is more interesting than their goals and ideals.



Exactly my point


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## Shockley (Jan 9, 2013)

> Important distinction: Hitler lost. Alexander is considered one of most successful commanders in human history.
> 
> History is written by the winners, indeed.



 I think the important distinction is that Alexander wasn't a total waste of human life who did evil things. He conducted war, which is not great, but he was very peaceful and conciliatory once his campaigns were concluded.

 A better example might be Napoleon. Napoleon lost, but is generally regarded as a more positive figure than the men who took him down - the Duke of Wellington and Von Blucher.


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## ALB2012 (Jan 10, 2013)

I agree the article was pretty one sided.  Yes the media portrays good and evil and them and us, of course but this has always been the case. What would you rather watch, the hobbits defeating Sauron, the young Jedi defeating the wicked Emperor and redeeming his father, James Bond defeating Blofeld or some fluffy film where some guy says to the downtrodden wife, "here grow vegetables to feed your kids."  

I live action films, I like fantasy and sci fi and I want my fights to be exciting, realistic maybe not. Sometimes the escapism of Arnie beating the snot out of some henchies or the armies of middle earth beating the Dark  Lord are what I need. It is a means to escape from the grey humdrum.


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## ALB2012 (Jan 10, 2013)

I wrote that about 3 times. It has been a hard week and I think my brain has left. Apologies if it was gibberish, when I am tired I find it difficult to get the scrambled thoughts in my head to coherent sentences.


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## Feo Takahari (Jan 11, 2013)

I don't think you can make evil interesting unless you in some way play off the idea that it's an aberration. This is not to say that you can't write an interesting _story_ with a deadpan portrayal of an evil villain, only that the villain won't be what makes it interesting--he'll just be a smarter stand-in for disease, disaster, or whatever other impersonal force you might use to menace your heroes. Nor is it to say that you can't make an evil villain interesting at all--_Monster_ (the manga, not the movie) does a very good job of portraying just how creepy a legitimately evil villain is when surrounded by selfish, greedy, or otherwise more human villains.

(Then again, my definition of "evil" is a lot stricter than most people's . . .)

P.S. To expand on that: In _Eternal_, I wrote an antagonist who enslaves, tortures, and murders men, women, and children for the sake of her twisted ideology. I didn't consider her evil--after all, she'd convinced herself she was serving the greater good. Nor would I portray a character as evil who did horrible things out of greed, or even for the sake of pointless vengeance. To me, evil is when people harm other people with no purpose and no excuse other than that they can, and the people who commit great evil are rare enough and horrific enough that we shouldn't trivialize them.

P.P.S. I suppose I might be reaching in saying that killing for an ideology isn't evil--my impression is that, say, Klansmen who kill black people feel the same sick glee as the kinds of torturers and murderers I typically call evil. Still, there's also some faint kinship to what small children feel when they kick over anthills, and I don't want to call that evil, so I need to place a dividing line somewhere, and I (somewhat arbitrarily) put it at there being not even the thinnest excuse. I have no objection to people writing about Klansman-level "evil", since that's something that's common in real life--I just don't call it evil.


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## Mindfire (Jan 11, 2013)

The article is wrong.

1. The idea of good versus evil isn't responsible for people's paranoia and spitefulness. People are.

2. Good vs. Evil is not tired. Stories that use that framework tend to become classics more often than those that don't.

3. The idea that people are mostly good is FALSE. Humans are not mostly good or mostly evil, but mostly _selfish_ from the cradle to the grave. Overcoming selfishness leads to a good life. Indulging it ultimately leads to evil.

4. The idea that good vs evil has nothing more to teach us is also false. Our world is full of people who clearly either don't know the difference between right and wrong or don't care. Not just serial killers and the like, but white collar crooks, corrupt politicians, hate spewing rabblerousers, kids who can imagine no higher calling than to bully other kids, and rap "artists" who exploit women use sensationalism to sell records. Good vs evil stories say "this kind of behavior is not okay, and the right thing to do is to stand up to it."

5. The article uses a very subtle false division fallacy. The idea is "either we can have destructive and limiting good vs evil stories, or we can have uplifting stories about old men helping stripper moms to better themselves." That's a false division  in two ways. First because there is room for both stories. Second because her story IS about good vs evil. Rather than having a righteous hero trouncing a black hat, it's about one character, through the good qualities of compassion and understanding, helping another to overcome the evils of ignorance, poverty, and bitterness. Ignorance, poverty, and bitterness are the story's villains. Evil doesn't have to be personified to exist. Any story about "growth" (which is a dumb idea, as the author admits every story is fundamentally about growth) implies that the protagonist must overcome something in order to grow. And you know what that is? EVIL!

It would have made more sense for the author to say "I don't like personified villains" instead. At least that would be an honest expression of preference rather than a self-righteous blanket statement.


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## Phietadix (Jan 11, 2013)

I agree with many of Mindfires points above, but I go as far as to say everyone is basicly evil and there's really nothing they can do to change that. Just overcoming selfishness, even if that were posible, wouldn't do it.


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## Mindfire (Jan 11, 2013)

Phietadix said:


> I agree with many of Mindfires points above, but I go as far as to say everyone is basicly evil and there's really nothing they can do to change that. Just overcoming selfishness, even if that were posible, wouldn't do it.



I actually agree with you, but the reason I said people aren't mostly evil is because saying "evil" isn't _specific enough_, if you know what I mean. Evil, especially in this kind of argument, has come to be defined as "slaughtering innocents + maniacal laughter", which is not an accurate depiction of basic human nature any more than tabula rasa is. The kind of evil that is at the root of human nature is the kind that isn't necessarily dramatic or spectacular, but is simply a dangerous indifference towards other people. C.S. Lewis points out in his writings that the safest road to hell is the comfortable one, without mile markers or signposts. That kind of evil is just as dangerous, far more common, and harder to detect in oneself than acts of monumental cruelty. That's why I chose the word "selfishness". As for not being able to fix ourselves, you're right. I don't buy in to that "change comes from within" New Age-y stuff either. But I'm trying to keep this on topic and not turn this thread into (yet another) religious debate.


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## Steerpike (Jan 11, 2013)

I think people are overall more good than evil. Whether it is inherent or due to rational self-interest, I'm not sure.


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## Mindfire (Jan 11, 2013)

Steerpike said:


> I think people are overall more good than evil. Whether it is inherent or due to rational self-interest, I'm not sure.



Being good and behaving good are not the same. I would not say most people are basically good. But I would say most people are taught to behave in good ways. In order to say humans are basically good, we'd have to observe a human with little to no social conditioning behaving benevolently consistently and ithout training. The closest thing to an unconditioned human is a baby or toddler, and they arent known for benevolence.


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## Steerpike (Jan 11, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> The closest thing to an unconditioned human is a baby or toddler, and they arent known for benevolence.



They are also immature and undeveloped, both emotionally and intellectually, and therefore not a good example.


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## Shockley (Jan 11, 2013)

My thoughts on the latest Steerpike/Mindfire dispute (no points if you guess who I end up agreeing with):

 I don't think you can disentangle action from intent, Mindfire. 'Being good' and 'acting good,' in my honest opinion, are basically one and the same. Let's break down what that means:

 - If someone is 'being evil' but only 'acts good,' then for all intents and purposes that person is 'good.'
 - If someone is 'being good' but only 'acts evil,' then for all intents and purposes that person is 'evil.'

 Aristotle (and a lot of the post-Socratics) argued that evil was merely the privation of good, and not a force in and of itself. As long as someone was fully aware of the nature of good, they would never engage in evil. Only ignorance (of many kinds) could lead to real evil.


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## Mindfire (Jan 11, 2013)

Shockley said:


> My thoughts on the latest Steerpike/Mindfire dispute (no points if you guess who I end up agreeing with):
> 
> I don't think you can disentangle action from intent, Mindfire. 'Being good' and 'acting good,' in my honest opinion, are basically one and the same. Let's break down what that means:
> 
> ...



I disagree vehemently. Your definitions of "being" and "doing" must be different from mine. Here, with being, I am speaking of whether the innate nature of man is to do good. If man is good _by instinct_. Is this the case? I cannot believe it is. I disagree somewhat with your Aristotelian view, but even if it is true, if evil is caused only by ignorance, that alone is enough to prove man is not good by nature. For if he was, by nature, good, he would require no education in order to do good. But that is not the case. Without any education or conditioning to the contrary, man will always follow his selfish impulses, even to the detriment of others, which will lead him to engage in evil acts. Man is, by nature, evil, and any good he does comes only by education or reformation.

EDIT: Also, to "be good" and "act evil" is a contradiction. A being that is naturally, intrinsically good cannot do evil so long as that nature remains intact. To do evil is to mar that good nature and reduce it to an evil one, which then requires reformation. However, it is possible to "be evil" but "act good"- for a time. Eventually the pretense will fall away.


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## Phietadix (Jan 11, 2013)

Shockley said:


> My thoughts on the latest Steerpike/Mindfire dispute (no points if you guess who I end up agreeing with):
> 
> I don't think you can disentangle action from intent, Mindfire. 'Being good' and 'acting good,' in my honest opinion, are basically one and the same. Let's break down what that means:
> 
> ...



While someone might doing good they will definitally be doing evil. Nobody has the good outwiegh the bad.


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## Devor (Jan 11, 2013)

I think there are plenty of times people do good or evil acts for inherently "neutral" or even contradictory reasons, like fitting in with a group or trying to avoid frustrations that come with doing otherwise.

I think people should still get a little credit for being good or evil in those situations.  I think they end up training you for when you have are faced with a situation where you have to do something that's more difficult.

However, I also think that good and evil do apply to something that transcends your current actions.  In some respects, I think what counts more than an impulsive good or evil action is how you choose to react to them afterwards.

Of course, that implies that this response counts to _someone_, because it isn't something society at large can measure or judge with any credibility.  Society at large has only your visible actions and testimony to take into account when passing judgments.


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## Steerpike (Jan 11, 2013)

Phietadix said:


> While someone might doing good they will definitally be doing evil. Nobody has the good outwiegh the bad.



Of the people I know personally, all of their good outweighs the bad.


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## Phietadix (Jan 11, 2013)

Steerpike said:


> Of the people I know personally, all of their good outweighs the bad.



Are you sure? You might just not be there when the bad happens.


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## FatCat (Jan 12, 2013)

To argue that evil rules humanity is, in my opinion, bizarre. You can cite our basic instincts to your hearts content, but good and evil are subjective terms. What is good and what is evil, and how does that correlate to your surroundings? Is an animal evil because it kills another for food? Is that self-preservation, is that evil? Or is evil ill-will towards others? Isn't that emotion? Is anger evil? You have to give credit to society, and mankind, despite our flaws. If we were all set on the downfall of each other, how could we create anything?


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## Steerpike (Jan 12, 2013)

Phietadix said:


> Are you sure? You might just not be there when the bad happens.



Yes, I'm sure. My feeling is that if you are surrounding yourself with people who's bad deeds outweigh their good, you need to find a new crew.


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## Devor (Jan 12, 2013)

FatCat said:


> Or is evil ill-will towards others? Isn't that emotion? Is anger evil?



Errr . . . don't be mad at me, but I think most of us can be angry at someone without wishing them ill.


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## Ireth (Jan 12, 2013)

FatCat said:


> Is anger evil?



If that was so, then Jesus' freakout in the temple, wherein he kicked out the money-changers with _*whips*_, would have annulled his status as the sinless Lamb of God, would it not?


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## Mindfire (Jan 12, 2013)

FatCat said:


> To argue that evil rules humanity is, in my opinion, bizarre. You can cite our basic instincts to your hearts content, but good and evil are subjective terms. What is good and what is evil, and how does that correlate to your surroundings? Is an animal evil because it kills another for food? Is that self-preservation, is that evil? Or is evil ill-will towards others? Isn't that emotion? Is anger evil? You have to give credit to society, and mankind, despite our flaws. If we were all set on the downfall of each other, how could we create anything?



Those arguments are only viable if you accept the premise that good and evil are subjective. However, if you DON'T subscribe to that view, it all falls apart. Guess what? I don't think good and evil are subjective. But as I said, I'm really trying not to make this into another "believers vs materialists" debate.


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## Mindfire (Jan 12, 2013)

Ireth said:


> If that was so, then Jesus' freakout in the temple, wherein he kicked out the money-changers with _*whips*_, would have annulled his status as the sinless Lamb of God, would it not?



Anger is not inherently evil. And sometimes it's a perfectly reasonable response to the situation at hand. Also, that scene was awesome. I should know. I was there, Ireth. I was there two thousand years ago...



Yeah, okay, not really. I was just reaching for a Lord of the Rings reference.


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## FatCat (Jan 12, 2013)

Devor said:


> Errr . . . don't be mad at me, but I think most of us can be angry at someone without wishing them ill.



It's too late, you've angered me and now I wish you ill-will.


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## FatCat (Jan 12, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> Those arguments are only viable if you accept the premise that good and evil are subjective. However, if you DON'T subscribe to that view, it all falls apart. Guess what? I don't think good and evil are subjective. But as I said, I'm really trying not to make this into another "believers vs materialists" debate.



How can good and evil not be subjective? 

Morals are based on societal standards, not some ingrained instinct. How can you argue true morality while societal bias inhabits everything the both of us debate?


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## Devor (Jan 12, 2013)

FatCat said:


> Morals are based on societal standards, not some ingrained instinct. How can you argue true morality while societal bias inhabits everything the both of us debate?



The argument is that there's a thread, or a code, or a "Natural Law," which weaves through all societies across all of history - that what we see in any given group of people at any given point in time is a _deviation_ from the thread, like the error from the trend line, uniquely caused by the circumstances of that group.

What you see as a _societal bias_, others like myself see as . . . well, bias, an effort to justify the particular failings of that group as acceptable under the Natural Law.


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## FatCat (Jan 12, 2013)

Who argues Natural Law when in true peril, though. Donner's Pass, love (haha), and war all try the Natural law of good and evil, and yet these 'errors from the trend line' are a trend in and of themselves.


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## Feo Takahari (Jan 12, 2013)

Although I don't entirely agree with Mindfire's argument, it's not what I'm afraid of in arguments like these. Rather, what I'm afraid of is "slavering beast theory", applied to the larger issue of evil rather than the subissue of rape. The following is a quote from an article on the feminist site Pervocracy (I've previously been told not to link the site directly, since it has NSFW content):



> In the Slavering Beast Theory, there are two kinds of men.  Two species, nearly.  (I've seen people go so far as to claim that Slavering Beasts are the result of evolution, which might make them literally a subspecies.)  There are ordinary guys and there are Slavering Beasts.  And they are very, very easy to tell apart.  They act different, even look different, to the point where any adult should be able to distinguish them in any casual social setting  . . .
> 
> •They are brutal. If they want to hurt you, they will physically beat you and leave marks.
> •They are isolated.  Nobody's son, father, best friend, favorite teacher, or golf buddy is a Slavering Beast.
> ...



I see this as the same phenomenon that gives rise to racism--"these people are like beasts, and we ought to exterminate them" --and related to sexism--"these people are like children, and we need to control them." That's why I stand so staunchly in favor of shades of gray.

P.S. Personally, I don't actually _care_ who's good and who's evil. I believe that some people make the world better and some people make it worse, and I concede that some of the latter people may not be possible to redirect towards making the world better, but I don't think making the world worse needs to overlap with being evil, any more than making it better needs to overlap with being good. I'm only concerned with the promotion of a society that's both free and safe, and with the reform (or, if absolutely necessary, removal) of those who make it unsafe on the one hand or curtail safe freedoms on the other.


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## Steerpike (Jan 12, 2013)

It doesn't have to be "either" natural law or some kind of "positive" law or subjective force at work. I think it is a combination of the two, though I suppose the things that strike me as 'evil' rather than merely illegal tend to be in the realm of natural law.


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## Devor (Jan 12, 2013)

Feo Takahari said:


> Rather, what I'm afraid of is "slavering beast theory", applied to the larger issue of evil rather than the subissue of rape.



I've been around the block with ethics debates, and I've never heard anybody advocate a slavering beast mentality.  I think it's a strawman designed to scare people away from listening to other perspectives.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 12, 2013)

I agree with Steerpike that humans by and large tend more towards good than evil, at least in the sense that most abide by one set of social codes or another. The one thing I will say about human nature is that, far from being inherently selfish as Mindfire claims, human beings are highly social primates who depend on others of our own kind much more than the rest of the animal kingdom. Our very intelligence, or cognitive plasticity as I prefer to think of it, requires learning and nurturing from other humans in order to grow properly. If you want to look at truly selfish species, look at those solitary creatures who have all their "knowledge" for survival encoded in their instincts. They don't need others' input the way humans do.

Back to topic, but while we've all heard of "gritty" fantasy in which the good guys aren't so good, I for one would like to write something that departs from the black/white stereotype in the opposite direction; that is, the bad guys aren't _totally _evil. They may behave in ways we would consider evil, but their actions stem from sentiments we can relate to. In my scenario, the story ends not with the antagonists dying but with their value system or psychology changed for the better by the protagonists. Admittedly this would differ a lot from your traditional sword-and-sorcery story, but not every story needs a violent or vindictive resolution.


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## Mindfire (Jan 12, 2013)

Being social and being selfish are not mutually exclusive traits. But I would say the social inclinations of humanity are marred or fallen versions of their original states. Selfishness creeps into _every_ relationship sooner or later. If humans were naturally good, no social codes of any kind would be needed, because people would just follow the instinctual, unwritten law of goodness.


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## Feo Takahari (Jan 12, 2013)

Devor said:


> I've been around the block with ethics debates, and I've never heard anybody advocate a slavering beast mentality.



Actually, that's an interesting point--the people I've heard advocating a slavering beast mentality have never done so in a formal debate. (In fact, I've never seen anyone who advocated a slavering beast mentality participate in a formal debate on any subject. They're usually the sorts of people who deal with any moral or cultural issue by shouting at it until it goes away.)


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## Shockley (Jan 12, 2013)

> I disagree vehemently. Your definitions of "being" and "doing" must be different from mine. Here, with being, I am speaking of whether the innate nature of man is to do good. If man is good by instinct. Is this the case? I cannot believe it is. I disagree somewhat with your Aristotelian view, but even if it is true, if evil is caused only by ignorance, that alone is enough to prove man is not good by nature. For if he was, by nature, good, he would require no education in order to do good. But that is not the case. Without any education or conditioning to the contrary, man will always follow his selfish impulses, even to the detriment of others, which will lead him to engage in evil acts. Man is, by nature, evil, and any good he does comes only by education or reformation.



 The idea, again, is based on the idea of evil as the absence of good - you can have unintelligent good responses, just as you can have unintelligent evil responses. The idea is not that this doesn't happen, but that once a man is educated and made intelligent in the ways of morality he becomes, fundamentally, incapable of the evil response while the good response becomes instinctive. But before that intelligence happens, a man is capable of good and evil responses in equal portion.

 Or, shortly - You can be good without education (though you would not understand why you were doing good and thus, in a sense, was 'acting good' without 'being good) and you can be evil without education, but when you have the proper education you can not do evil. 



> EDIT: Also, to "be good" and "act evil" is a contradiction. A being that is naturally, intrinsically good cannot do evil so long as that nature remains intact. To do evil is to mar that good nature and reduce it to an evil one, which then requires reformation. However, it is possible to "be evil" but "act good"- for a time. Eventually the pretense will fall away.



 All of this is relative to 'for a time.' The point is that, if someone is 'acting good' in the long run, then there is only a small distinction between that and actually 'being good.' 

 A better way to explain this is through Aristotle's discussion on bravery - bravery is not something that comes natural to every man. If a man is not brave (a coward), then the best way forward is for him to act brave - put himself in dangerous situations, confrontations, etc. and fight against his cowardly nature. In time, even though he is a coward, his 'acting brave' will eventually make him indistinguishable from someone who is naturally brave.


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## Devor (Jan 12, 2013)

Shockley said:


> Or, shortly - You can be good without education (though you would not understand why you were doing good and thus, in a sense, was 'acting good' without 'being good) and you can be evil without education, but when you have the proper education you can not do evil.



A lot of people respond to that argument and forget that it's properly paired with another concept - namely, that there's something in a person in addition to the Intellect which can separate good and evil, let's call it the "gut," so that the education you're describing may or may not be a literal explanation.  That is, a person can both act good and be good without having a rational framework to support the decision.  Someone could also have a rational educational framework for doing good, and still do evil.




Mindfire said:


> Man is, by nature, evil, and any good he does comes only by education or reformation.



We could have a wholly different kind of religious debate sometime.


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## Mindfire (Jan 12, 2013)

Shockley said:


> The idea, again, is based on the idea of evil as the absence of good - you can have unintelligent good responses, just as you can have unintelligent evil responses. The idea is not that this doesn't happen, but that once a man is educated and made intelligent in the ways of morality he becomes, fundamentally, incapable of the evil response while the good response becomes instinctive. But before that intelligence happens, a man is capable of good and evil responses in equal portion.
> 
> Or, shortly - You can be good without education (though you would not understand why you were doing good and thus, in a sense, was 'acting good' without 'being good) and you can be evil without education, but when you have the proper education you can not do evil.



I don't agree with your conclusions. This would seem to imply that every problem can be solved with education. That if you tell a man the difference between good and evil he then magically becomes incapable of making the evil choice. Not only does that seem odd to me, it violates the principle of free will. Anyone, no matter their education, has the _opportunity_ to choose good or evil. Telling them what the good choice is does not make them incapable of making the evil one. At best it makes them _less likely_ to choose the evil one. But then, what do you do when you meet someone who knows the difference between good and evil, but simply doesn't care? Someone who has no interest in changing? Such people are probably rare, but they exist.

Now part of your idea I think I can agree with, and Lewis supported it in his Abolition of Man: the purpose of good education is to train a man's tastes and inclinations so that he will want to do good. It doesn't make him magically incapable of evil, but it trains him not to pursue it. But again, this training is necessary because man is not good by instinct. Left without this training to reform his nature, he will not pursue good instinctively. He will pursue whatever suits him.




Shockley said:


> All of this is relative to 'for a time.' The point is that, if someone is 'acting good' in the long run, then there is only a small distinction between that and actually 'being good.'
> 
> A better way to explain this is through Aristotle's discussion on bravery - bravery is not something that comes natural to every man. If a man is not brave (a coward), then the best way forward is for him to act brave - put himself in dangerous situations, confrontations, etc. and fight against his cowardly nature. In time, even though he is a coward, his 'acting brave' will eventually make him indistinguishable from someone who is naturally brave.



Practice makes perfect, yes. BUT, if the actions are _only_ a pretense, if they do not "sink in" so to speak and affect the person's heart, then eventually the mask will fall off. To use your example, a man who places himself in fearful situations will in time overcome his fear and will be indistinguishable from a man who is brave by instinct. HOWEVER, a cowardly man who merely blusters and brags about being brave without ever truly seeking to master his fears and reform his nature will shrivel in the face of danger.


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## Anders Ã„mting (Jan 12, 2013)

FatCat said:


> How can good and evil not be subjective?



I wouldn't go as far as call it subjective - we don't really get to decide, as individuals, what is good and what is evil. 

Rather, humanity collectively defines what good an evil is, so it's a matter of human standards. And the more unified we become as a species, the more unified is our definition of good and evil.

Good and evil may be very well be subjective between different species, but until we meet some other alien society with a radically different idea of what good and evil is, that doesn't really matter to us in a practical sense.



> Morals are based on societal standards, not some ingrained instinct. How can you argue true morality while societal bias inhabits everything the both of us debate?



I would say that morals are based on societal standards, that are _in turn_ based on things like empathy, understanding and social harmony. It's not something we created from scratch and pure reasoning, rather we codified some types of behavior that turned out to have a positive and negative influence on our society, respectively.



Mindfire said:


> Being social and being selfish are not mutually exclusive traits. But I would say the social inclinations of humanity are marred or fallen versions of their original states. Selfishness creeps into _every_ relationship sooner or later. If humans were naturally good, no social codes of any kind would be needed, because people would just follow the instinctual, unwritten law of goodness.



I'd just like to mention something: I often see people use the word "selfishness" wrong in debates about ethics and morals.

Selfishness does not mean: "Doing something for your own gain and benefit." Selfishness means: "Doing something for your own gain and benefit _at the expense of other people."_ Likewise, selflessness is to benefit others at your own own expense. 

This leaves us with quite a considerable middle ground: Selfishness is not the absence of selflessness or vice versa. You can absolutely do things that benefit others for personal gain without being selfish.

I'm bringing this up because I have seen people twist the the words to the point where one can argue that "doing something nice to others because it makes you feel good inside is selfish", and then it's only a matter of time before you end up with: "It is impossible to do _anything_ without being selfish," and at that point the word kinda stops having any real meaning.


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## Shockley (Jan 13, 2013)

> I don't agree with your conclusions. This would seem to imply that every problem can be solved with education. That if you tell a man the difference between good and evil he then magically becomes incapable of making the evil choice.



 Educating is the term Aristotle used (and Plato, as well), but education is not quite accurate as the term. It's not 1 +1 = 2 and now you're good, but more a concerted campaign to teach the community at large the destructiveness of evil. Not just saying 'be good because good is the best' but a campaign where evil was very viscerally put down, and everyone understood that. A carrot and stick (or whip and sugarplum, which is my preferred term). Educating the good and educating the evil. 



> Not only does that seem odd to me, it violates the principle of free will. Anyone, no matter their education, has the opportunity to choose good or evil. Telling them what the good choice is does not make them incapable of making the evil one.



 I (and quite a few other people who turn their mind to this subject) am not entirely convinced that free will is a real thing, and that we have an illusion of choice as opposed to the reality of choice. While at any given point you could kill someone or give them a piece of cake, your decision is really determined by all of the things that have happened in your life prior to that point. 



> At best it makes them less likely to choose the evil one. But then, what do you do when you meet someone who knows the difference between good and evil, but simply doesn't care? Someone who has no interest in changing? Such people are probably rare, but they exist.



 We call those people sociopaths/psychopaths, and we either put them away for a long time or put them in charge.



> Now part of your idea I think I can agree with, and Lewis supported it in his Abolition of Man: the purpose of good education is to train a man's tastes and inclinations so that he will want to do good. It doesn't make him magically incapable of evil, but it trains him not to pursue it. But again, this training is necessary because man is not good by instinct. Left without this training to reform his nature, he will not pursue good instinctively. He will pursue whatever suits him.



 I have to disagree with Lewis on what man is naturally, but that's an easy objection because I am a logical positivist and he isn't. But as you've said, that's another part of the debate for another day (though one I am more than willing to have).


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## Feo Takahari (Jan 13, 2013)

Remember, prior to the Holocaust, there was a strong belief that some national cultures were more or less "advanced" than others, and Germany was considered to have one of the most "advanced" cultures in the world. Stripping away people's sense of moral propriety is surprisingly easy if you put the right conditions in place.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 13, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> Being social and being selfish are not mutually exclusive traits. But I would say the social inclinations of humanity are marred or fallen versions of their original states. Selfishness creeps into _every_ relationship sooner or later. If humans were naturally good, no social codes of any kind would be needed, because people would just follow the instinctual, unwritten law of goodness.


I don't advocate that there exists one "unwritten law" of goodness. Social groupings vary on what they consider acceptable behavior within their confines. What they share in common is the idea that people within them have to abide by certain conventions for the group as a whole to function. Even racial supremacists, gangsters, and pirates have their own codes of honor among themselves, albeit very different from "conventional" morality.

Whatever particular social codes they follow, I would argue that the vast majority of human beings do feel the desire to affiliate with their conspecifics. Even the people we commonly regard as selfish may actually want to associate with certain others. Take "greedy" businessmen for example; they want to make as much money as possible not because they inherently like green sheets of paper but because in capitalist society money and the things you can buy with it symbolize socially imparted prestige. Of course you might argue that these social urges come from education rather than instinct, but then that only reinforces my point that humans as a species depend on mutual cooperation to survive.

Maybe if we left a newborn baby alone in a remote wilderness, that baby might not develop any social desires whatsoever. The hyenas would eat him in no time. That is because human infants do not have all the necessary survival behaviors instinctually encoded into them; they need to learn those from their elders. That is an inevitable consequence of the cognitive plasticity inherent to _Homo sapiens_, the very cognitive plasticity that has allowed us to adapt to many different environments, develop many different cultures, and invent the most varied repertoire of tools of any animal that has ever evolved.

Are humans born good? Perhaps not, if we identify "good" with a specific philosophy or set of social conventions. However, there can be no dispute that social interdependence is critical to our development both as individuals and as a species.


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## Zireael (Jan 13, 2013)

> Morals are based on societal standards, not some ingrained instinct. How can you argue true morality while societal bias inhabits everything the both of us debate?



Good point. How do we avoid societal bias when writing fantasy works? This societal bias is the reason people periodically claim that "D&D is evil" or "D&D promotes evil"...



> I wouldn't go as far as call it subjective - we don't really get to decide, as individuals, what is good and what is evil.
> 
> Rather, humanity collectively defines what good an evil is, so it's a matter of human standards. And the more unified we become as a species, the more unified is our definition of good and evil.
> 
> Good and evil may be very well be subjective between different species, but until we meet some other alien society with a radically different idea of what good and evil is, that doesn't really matter to us in a practical sense.



Yes, I agree that a group creates the definition for good and evil. They are more of societal ideas than individuals' ideas. However, a society is made of individuals, isn't it?


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## Mindfire (Jan 13, 2013)

Shockley said:


> We call those people sociopaths/psychopaths, and we either put them away for a long time or put them in charge.



*snicker* Okay, that was good. Kudos.


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## Mari (Jan 19, 2013)

I think there are folks who are nuts and evil. There are those that unable to see beyond anything but their own needs. 

And I think there are very few who are truly good people. Most aren't. Most of us are more self-serving than we would ever admit. Take the Dali Lama, most thinks he is wise and good. If so than why was country improved by having the Chinese take it over. Tibet under his rule was far from Shangri-la. Tibet Is No Shangri-La, and the Dalai Lama Is Not What You Think - By Christina Larson | Foreign Policy

And Mother Teresa was no saint. 

Evil is important to life and any story. It forces us to grow. It forces change. Sometimes it isn't pretty. Humans are not always up for change.


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## Nihal (Jan 30, 2013)

Good vs Evil, oooh, those are sweet and murky waters.

I believe that we are "Evil" for the same reason we are "Good". Rewards. It's sad and sounds wrong, but is somehow natural. We need those rewards, I don't know why, but we need it.

I believe in treating people in the way I would like to be treated. If some kind of action would hurt me I avoid at all costs doing it to other people. I dislike hurting people and dislike being hurt. The way they're going to pay back is my reward. That's right, this is a selfish behaviour!

I like to make people laugh too, I like to make people I like happy. It's not even because they're going to be happy with me, just because they're going to be happy and I like to see them that way. It makes _me_ happy. It's, basically, selfish too.

Things that hurt people in some way are regarded as evil, this usually the line between the two. People who feel cheated in some way, who feel that they're not getting what they deserve sometimes are going to do things that hurt other people to achieve their objectives. They may be aware or not they're hurting those people, but if they are and if they don't care they're regarded as plain evil. (The ability to emphathize with other beings is often decisive when judging if someone is being good or evil.)

They only know it's their reward, their _right_, deep inside they're not wrong at all. It's not their fault. Or, maybe, they feel the need the reward somehow. They want it, _really_ want it.

However the reward can be so twisted to our eyes (like having fun with the pain of other people/animals) that they become monsters to normal people eyes.

You can twist it the other way around. If being honourable, being true to your original beliefs is your reward you may end being intolerant and hard, you may kill people for it. And it can be regarded as good or evil.

The pure good or pure evil characters are those that are so far from the initial line that we just can't understand them. We're unable to feel what they feel, their way of thinking sounds alien to us. They're so far from the line that it's otherwordly, and even if we sympathize a bit it's just too weird.


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