Are You Good or Evil?

[Gordon]

BBC4 - Horizon at 10pm tonight.

Given the frequency 'good' and 'evil' crops up here this might be worth watching.

[Jack Knave]

That's an old programme. It has the excellent case of a psychologist who was researching psychopaths and their brain structures only to find out that he had a typical psychopath brain. He then found out from his mother that his family history had a line of murders in it.

[Bubbles]

Not seen it,  but I suppose, like many people, I'm a mixture of things.

I suppose you only know how low you can go ( or not) if you are put under extreme pressure.

I'd rather not find out.

I like to think I'm good, but how far would any of us go if there was a threat to our loved ones?

Maybe, under extreme pressure ( fall of civilisation etc) I wouldn't like who I'd become.

I guess soldiers face that when their colleagues and friends get killed and we then wonder why they appear to mistreat prisoners.

 

I think we all have the potential, under stress and threat, to behave in a way that civilisation ATM surpresses.

Some things like being involved in a war or family getting hurt can have the ability to cause us to behave in ways that are definately not good or acceptable.

They say that everyone can become epileptic it's just how much pressure to the brain we can take, perhaps we all have a hidden monster inside, given enough pressure of the right sort ( for us as an individual) we could become a monster.

I don't know.

But I don't want to find out, just in case.

[Aruntraveller]

Hi Rose

It is an interesting topic - I do remember years ago a picture of Fred West (I think - but it might have been the Dr who bumped folks off) with the headline "The Face of Evil" and I remember thinking at the time, hang on that's just an ordinary face - it didn't look evil; and I know that the papers were just doing what they do; but I also remember thinking if an ordinary looking person can do that what do we really know of the dozens of ordinary faces we see everyday of our lives.

The potential I would suggest is there under the skin for most of us - it's maybe that the triggers aren't activated in the vast majority of us.

As you suggest if civilization were to change to such an extent that we are all hungry and cold - I wonder how we would behave then. 

[floo]

Our eldest had the 'pleasure' of meeting Shipman in prison when she was training to be an Anglican Priest!  Apparently it was hard to believe he was such an evil man, no doubt why he got away with his crimes for so long!

[Sriram]

Evil can be seen in many ways.

1. Evil is what we normally associate with animal instincts. The further back we go in the animal kingdom (lower animals, insects etc), the more evil the behavior is considered. Maybe some of these instincts are still alive in some people and are strong enough to influence their behavior.

2. The pleasure principle. Hunger and sex are basic instincts but animals indulge in them more for survival and reproduction than pleasure.  Humans indulge in them largely for pleasure and it is this that is considered as the seed of most evil. How and why this pleasure principle arose and how it became dysfunctional,  needs to be studied.

3. Rationality can also sometimes contribute to evil because rational thinking is fundamentally divorced of any morality.

4. Fanaticism can also contribute to evil. It can be seen as a form of madness.

PS: Let me clarify that I am talking about animal instincts not about animals as evil.  Animal instincts in humans is considered as evil. Examples. Killing a rival male for a female. Killing of cubs of rival males and mating with the female. Abandoning disabled newborns. Animal behavior in humans is usually evil.

[Aruntraveller]

Evil is what we normally associate with animal instincts.

Is it? I don't. I associate evil with higher life forms. Like us. Ladybirds aren't evil.

Humans indulge in them largely for pleasure and it is this that is considered as the seed of most evil.

Quite an assertion. Can you back it up with facts?

Rationality can also sometimes contribute to evil because rational thinking is fundamentally divorced of any morality

Again is it? Or is rational thinking a way of arriving at moral decisions?

No. 4 Yes, but that is just stating the obvious.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Trent,

Ladybirds aren't evil.

To a gardener, no, to an Aphid, murdering bar stewards

Gonnagle.

[Aruntraveller]

Dear Trent,

To a gardener, no, to an Aphid, murdering bar stewards

Gonnagle.

Aye.

But seriously though, evil surely implies intent of some sort. As such creatures such as ladybirds are only acting on instinct and this can't therefore be classified as evil.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

BBC4 - Horizon at 10pm tonight.

Given the frequency 'good' and 'evil' crops up here this might be worth watching.

Does it? On a forum on which the loudest are moral relatavists, Surely Marmite gets a bigger airing. You either love it or hate it.

[Jack Knave]

Dear Trent,

To a gardener, no, to an Aphid, murdering bar stewards

Gonnagle.

Yeah, it's all relative and your own personal perspective.