What Do The Concepts of 'Good' and 'Evil' Represent?

[JackDaydream]

I just can't get past the realisation that good and evil are simple value-judgements, and nothing more. They aren't 'things'. They aren't even usefully meaningful until you add context, at least by defining the person, place, or thing that is 'good' or 'bad'. It all comes down to the simple question, "Good for who/what?".

I do struggle with the idea of good and evil as being mere value judgements, which is probably what led me to write the thread. Until a few years ago, I did cling onto the idea of there being some kind of cosmic battle between good and evil...

A battle between good and evil? But good has no hands to place the nerve agent into the water supply of your local children's hospital, and evil has no fingers to press the button, and send nuclear missiles flying toward your home country. Good and evil are not things that are able to fight, or to take any action, of any sort.

To the extent that good and evil are causes for which humans might fight, there could be a fight between those who fight for good, and those who fight for evil, which is, of course, what is meant. So why do we personalise these simple judgements? Why do we give them apparent personalities, which can struggle with each other for control of your world?

Good and evil are fence-posts, bounding a spectrum that reaches good and evil at its extremes. [This spectrum could well be multidimensional.] All of the practically-useful points on this spectrum are well away from the extremes. Even in this, good and evil are less informative than the yin-yang sign, that shows a tiny bit of black within the white, and a tiny bit of white within the black, as a reminder. The pure extremes are rarely, if ever, seen.

Definitely, the issue of certain events or aspects of experience being good or evil involves the question of who is something good for?

Exactly. And this is so arbitrary-seeming that the very concepts (of good and evil) seem to blur and fade. A particular thing might be judged 'good' for you and your family, but 'evil' for your next-door neighbours. Something else might be 'evil' for the men who play for your team, but 'good' for the children who attend your local nursery. Yet another thing might be 'good' for the (human) people of your country, but 'evil' for the animals, plants, fungi and bacteria of that same country.

Can there really be such things as good and evil when the meanings they carry vary so much, in every way? Something could even be 'good' today, and equally 'evil' tomorrow! What value (to humans or otherwise) does such a perspective bring with it? As this is a pure value judgement, I offer you the meta-question: are 'good' and 'evil' good, or evil?

All events and circumstances can have certain benefits or consequences for different people. Part of my own approach is trying to turn apparently 'bad' fortune into good fortune on an individual level. For example, when I had a broken wrist I tried to make such use of the time in which I could not do much...

So you were not preoccupied with arbitrarily assigning 'good' or 'evil' to your plight. You accepted what had happened, and acted so as to minimise any unwanted effects on yourself, while maximising any desirable effects. This is what any intelligent creature would do, surely? And what does it have to do with 'good' and 'evil'? Nothing that I can see.

The underlying criteria on which I categorise good or evil is the extent of suffering or happiness experienced.

People express many different definitions for 'good' and 'evil', and none of them (that I know of) cover all the uses to which 'good' and 'evil' are put (by humans). My dogs have a basic understanding of fairness and justice, but apparently no understanding of, or use for, 'good' and 'evil'. They accept what happens in the world, which they cannot control, and make the best of it. Why are humans not as intelligent as this, I wonder?

"Good" is not a thing, it's an opinion, normally personal. When I say "it's good", I mean that it is something beneficial to me. Rarely, I might add qualification, to make it clear I'm aiming my judgement at something else: "that's good for the environment".

"Good" and "evil" are used as simple amplifiers in our speech (and writing), like "f*ck" or "bl00dy". They carry no meaning, other than to say that we approve or disapprove of a particular thing.

I love the yin and yang symbol for the way it has the opposites curled up together, with the dot of the opposite side. If I ever decide to have a tattoo I think that it would be this symbol which I would choose, for how it shows good and evil, as well as the opposites.

The point where I probably did see an actual battle between good and evil was when I used to go to student 'Christian Union meetings. Having left home embracing Catholicism, it seemed natural to join the Christian Union and the people were so friendly. However, it did seem as if many of them were seeing others as the enemies in the war between Christ(good) and Satan(evil). At some point, I realised that I didn't fit into that group's philosophy, especially as I was reading Jung and books on Hinduism. Of course, the people were young(mostly 18 to 21), so their ideas may have changed just as mine did, but what I encountered was fundamentalist Christianity and, it began to disturb me more and more. There is a kind of militancy of fighting evil and trying to overcome evil. I actually think that this kind of thinking can be dangerous psychologically. I can remember people suggesting that certain music should be avoided, especially Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven', which played backwards is meant to contain the word, 'Satan is God'. Of course, any use of the word dog is God in reverse.

But, generally, the words good and evil are used in speech and thinking. I know people who speak and believe in being a 'good person'. Often, the idea of good is used to convey the idea of being virtuous, and people speak of having a 'good' conscience. I guess that I am aware of having so many weaknesses, that if I borrow the religious language that I can identify more with the concept of being a 'sinner, or even a 'fallen angel'.

[Pattern-chaser]

The point where I probably did see an actual battle between good and evil was when I used to go to student 'Christian Union meetings.

Those were battles between One-And-Only-Truthers and the rest of the world. Their proclaimed motives for their 'fight' are spurious; they had the lances anyway, they simply added a white (for 'Good') flag to the top of the shaft, and carried on looking for people to spear, which was their intention anyway. 'Good' was not present in your University, nor was 'Evil', yes? Did you see them, arraying their forces for battle, giving orders, and receiving casualty reports? Those were battles between people. Not only that, but these battles had little to do with any meaning commonly and widely associated with the terms "good" and "evil". These were simply struggles to place their own bigotry into a dominant position. Selfishness, not 'good' or 'evil'.

[JackDaydream]

The point where I probably did see an actual battle between good and evil was when I used to go to student 'Christian Union meetings.

Those were battles between One-And-Only-Truthers and the rest of the world. Their proclaimed motives for their 'fight' are spurious; they had the lances anyway, they simply added a white (for 'Good') flag to the top of the shaft, and carried on looking for people to spear, which was their intention anyway. 'Good' was not present in your University, nor was 'Evil', yes? Did you see them, arraying their forces for battle, giving orders, and receiving casualty reports? Those were battles between people. Not only that, but these battles had little to do with any meaning commonly and widely associated with the terms "good" and "evil". These were simply struggles to place their own bigotry into a dominant position. Selfishness, not 'good' or 'evil'.

It leads me to consider the psychology of projection, which may be relevant because the psychoanalyst, Melanie Klein, speaks of how children learn to split the 'good' and 'bad' mother, in her theory of projective identification. She describes how the child, in the 'paranoid-schizoid' phase identifies evil outside, projecting it onto the 'bad' mother. At another stage, the child feels remorse and guilt and this is the depressive stage. Klein argued that these processes are the basic aspects of human object relationships throughout life, and individuals' project evil outside of themselves onto other people, who are seen as 'bad'.

Within anthropology, there is projection of evil onto others occurs in groups, but can be seen most clearly in the creation of scapegoats. It is likely that many early aspects of rituals in the development of cultures was based on divisions between the 'good' and 'evil', and there may be a correspondence between this and the division between the 'clean' and the 'unclean'. This overlapped into religion and through history, with identified enemies, in the Crusades and the way in which people were cast out as heretics or 'witches.'

In the secular age, the process still occurs. Hitler and the Nazi philosophy was about eliminating the 'evil' of the impure, which included the Jewish race. It could also be said that Hitler, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden are identified as evil. In projection of evil onto others there is an attempt to cast the 'other' as evil, in order to hold onto a sense of goodness. However, on this level good and evil are seen more on a psychological level than as s metaphysical one. It could even be said that psychology as the science of behaviour has stepped into the void left by loss of interest in the metaphysical in thinking of basic causality. It does mean that the sources of good and evil are seen in human beings and nature rather than in hidden dynamics of the unseen.

[Pattern-chaser]

Yes, it's all about them and us; friends and enemies; right and wrong; good and evil. They're all just labels for the same thing, I think. In this context, at least.

We, as individuals, tend to classify people and things in a binary way: for-me or against-me. As an internal and personal thing, this is normal and expected, and internally, we know exactly what we mean by whichever of the above labels we apply. But when we try to pass on these 'understandings' to others outside ourselves, it starts to become confusing.

It is quite an unsavoury aspect of humanity that we're digging into here.

[JackDaydream]

Yes, it's all about them and us; friends and enemies; right and wrong; good and evil. They're all just labels for the same thing, I think. In this context, at least.

We, as individuals, tend to classify people and things in a binary way: for-me or against-me. As an internal and personal thing, this is normal and expected, and internally, we know exactly what we mean by whichever of the above labels we apply. But when we try to pass on these 'understandings' to others outside ourselves, it starts to become confusing.

It is quite an unsavoury aspect of humanity that we're digging into here.

In talking about evil in this way it is digging into the dark side of human nature and nature. However, the post is also meant to be about good as well. I don't come from the perspective that human nature is necessarily flawed, but a complex mixture of both 'good' and 'bad' aspects, with the balance being extremely important.

In thinking of the good, human beings are not always selfish and there are examples of great human beings, like Jesus, the Buddha and Gandhi, and I am sure that there are so many unknown people who are great examples too. The goodness seems to be based on the underlying principle of 'love' or compassion. It can also be asked whether these positives are stronger than the force of evil. It can even be asked what is love? Is it a human emotion, or more than this metaphysically, as an energy or vibrational frequency?

In Christianity there was the whole tradition of the saints, and, of course, let's not forget the angels and devils who were believed to exist beyond the material dimensions. In Jung's 'Answer to Job', which is a specific discussion of evil, which is psychological, but touches onto the metaphysical, there is discussion of the way in which the Christian tradition emphasised perfection as the goal. He traces this in the ideas of Paul's writings in the New Testament. Jung argues that this was problematic because it could not be achieved, resulting in the shadow, as the problem of evil facing humanity, in the threat of mass destruction through nuclear weapons. But, he is not suggesting that human beings are doomed but need to integrate the positive and negative, or 'good' and 'evil' aspects consciously.

Of course, Jung was writing in the middle of the last century and there are a lot more 'evils', especially the ecological ones. Often, the ecological problems are seen as resulting from the 'evil' side of human nature. However, it may be that to cast all of the blame onto human beings is to almost place the 'metaphysics' of evil onto human nature itself. Of course, human beings have created a lot of harm but are not in control of everything, such as natural disasters. There is even the question of Gaia's revenge, as spoken of by James Lovelock. Here, what is important is that the earth itself is seen as a living being, which has certain metaphysical connotations. But, more than anything else, what may be a problem is that human beings may feel guilty and demoralised with the sense of evil residing in the human condition and history, as being the source of destruction of the planet. When once evil was cast outside as a metaphysical force, it is almost being traced to human nature. Also, it could be asked if nature itself is good or evil ultimately? It throws an assorted mixture of fortune on people and other forms of life, which from the human perspective can be classed as good or evil, or inbetween.

[Pattern-chaser]

In talking about evil in this way it is digging into the dark side of human nature and nature.

But, but, but...

We're not talking about 'evil'; we're talking about "the dark side of human nature", as you say. But it is not 'evil'. There is no 'evil' here that I can see. The way any animal behaves is not (IMO) suited to the adjective "evil".

[JackDaydream]

I just can't get past the realisation that good and evil are simple value-judgements, and nothing more. They aren't 'things'. They aren't even usefully meaningful until you add context, at least by defining the person, place, or thing that is 'good' or 'bad'. It all comes down to the simple question, "Good for who/what?".

I do struggle with the idea of good and evil as being mere value judgements, which is probably what led me to write the thread. Until a few years ago, I did cling onto the idea of there being some kind of cosmic battle between good and evil...

A battle between good and evil? But good has no hands to place the nerve agent into the water supply of your local children's hospital, and evil has no fingers to press the button, and send nuclear missiles flying toward your home country. Good and evil are not things that are able to fight, or to take any action, of any sort.

To the extent that good and evil are causes for which humans might fight, there could be a fight between those who fight for good, and those who fight for evil, which is, of course, what is meant. So why do we personalise these simple judgements? Why do we give them apparent personalities, which can struggle with each other for control of your world?

Good and evil are fence-posts, bounding a spectrum that reaches good and evil at its extremes. [This spectrum could well be multidimensional.] All of the practically-useful points on this spectrum are well away from the extremes. Even in this, good and evil are less informative than the yin-yang sign, that shows a tiny bit of black within the white, and a tiny bit of white within the black, as a reminder. The pure extremes are rarely, if ever, seen.

Definitely, the issue of certain events or aspects of experience being good or evil involves the question of who is something good for?

Exactly. And this is so arbitrary-seeming that the very concepts (of good and evil) seem to blur and fade. A particular thing might be judged 'good' for you and your family, but 'evil' for your next-door neighbours. Something else might be 'evil' for the men who play for your team, but 'good' for the children who attend your local nursery. Yet another thing might be 'good' for the (human) people of your country, but 'evil' for the animals, plants, fungi and bacteria of that same country.

Can there really be such things as good and evil when the meanings they carry vary so much, in every way? Something could even be 'good' today, and equally 'evil' tomorrow! What value (to humans or otherwise) does such a perspective bring with it? As this is a pure value judgement, I offer you the meta-question: are 'good' and 'evil' good, or evil?

All events and circumstances can have certain benefits or consequences for different people. Part of my own approach is trying to turn apparently 'bad' fortune into good fortune on an individual level. For example, when I had a broken wrist I tried to make such use of the time in which I could not do much...

So you were not preoccupied with arbitrarily assigning 'good' or 'evil' to your plight. You accepted what had happened, and acted so as to minimise any unwanted effects on yourself, while maximising any desirable effects. This is what any intelligent creature would do, surely? And what does it have to do with 'good' and 'evil'? Nothing that I can see.

The underlying criteria on which I categorise good or evil is the extent of suffering or happiness experienced.

People express many different definitions for 'good' and 'evil', and none of them (that I know of) cover all the uses to which 'good' and 'evil' are put (by humans). My dogs have a basic understanding of fairness and justice, but apparently no understanding of, or use for, 'good' and 'evil'. They accept what happens in the world, which they cannot control, and make the best of it. Why are humans not as intelligent as this, I wonder?

"Good" is not a thing, it's an opinion, normally personal. When I say "it's good", I mean that it is something beneficial to me. Rarely, I might add qualification, to make it clear I'm aiming my judgement at something else: "that's good for the environment".

"Good" and "evil" are used as simple amplifiers in our speech (and writing), like "f*ck" or "bl00dy". They carry no meaning, other than to say that we approve or disapprove of a particular thing.

I love the yin and yang symbol for the way it has the opposites curled up together, with the dot of the opposite side. If I ever decide to have a tattoo I think that it would be this symbol which I would choose, for how it shows good and evil, as well as the opposites.

The point where I probably did see an actual battle between good and evil was when I used to go to student 'Christian Union meetings. Having left home embracing Catholicism, it seemed natural to join the Christian Union and the people were so friendly. However, it did seem as if many of them were seeing others as the enemies in the war between Christ(good) and Satan(evil). At some point, I realised that I didn't fit into that group's philosophy, especially as I was reading Jung and books on Hinduism. Of course, the people were young(mostly 18 to 21), so their ideas may have changed just as mine did, but what I encountered was fundamentalist Christianity and, it began to disturb me more and more. There is a kind of militancy of fighting evil and trying to overcome evil. I actually think that this kind of thinking can be dangerous psychologically. I can remember people suggesting that certain music should be avoided, especially Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven', which played backwards is meant to contain the word, 'Satan is God'. Of course, any use of the word dog is God in reverse.

But, generally, the words good and evil are used in speech and thinking. I know people who speak and believe in being a 'good person'. Often, the idea of good is used to convey the idea of being virtuous, and people speak of having a 'good' conscience. I guess that I am aware of having so many weaknesses, that if I borrow the religious language that I can identify more with the concept of being a 'sinner, or even a 'fallen angel'.

This is where the issue of binaries gets complex, especially in relation to the concept of good and evil. With binary thought the terms are used descriptively, like light and dark, masculine and feminine. There may describe blends of attributes, with extremes and in between areas too. With good and evil, there is not really any specific basis for it other than in human consciousness. So, the question is whether good and evil are mere constructs in human consciousness? There was a synchronicity really in the creation of the post which you may be aware of or not from the outposts. That is the thread which was written shortly after mine is asking if reality is a construct and, really, it is the same question as mine, except my thread is asking it about the idea of good and evil. You can see that I am influenced so much by Jung that I see synchronicities even on this site.

My own thinking about whether there is any metaphysical reality to good and evil or whether they are mere human constructs stems from my reading of Jung. He was influenced by Chinese philosophy of opposites. Generally, many opposites can be seen as aspects of qualia and in thinking about the nature of the binary thinking of good and evil in the mind while it would be problematic to think of them as entities or forces, there is still the question as to whether they are inbuilt aspects of qualia, and whether other concepts are too.
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