Marka Ragnos Posted July 13 VT Supporter Share Posted July 13 5 hours ago, Follyfoot said: DVB’s Donny van Beeks? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marka Ragnos Posted July 13 VT Supporter Share Posted July 13 (edited) 6 hours ago, fruitvilla said: In world that is dominated by cause and effect the notion of evil is not particularly coherent. I agree. Also, it's almost by definition an incoherence, if we're talking about definitions. But at the level of community standards, the notion of evil has seemed often to play a complex if often misunderstood role in creating functional societies and the criminal justice system, as some recent philosophers have asserted (not saying I "agree" with this, btw). I myself have been thinking a lot this week about how an evil action isn't always mephistophelean and devious, but often seems to originate in certain dim stupidity, the "banal" as Arendt writes. Quote Can one do evil without being evil? This was the puzzling question that the philosopher Hannah Arendt grappled with when she reported for The New Yorker in 1961 on the war crimes trial of Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi operative responsible for organising the transportation of millions of Jews and others to various concentration camps in support of the Nazi’s Final Solution. Arendt found Eichmann an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat, who in her words, was ‘neither perverted nor sadistic’, but ‘terrifyingly normal’. He acted without any motive other than to diligently advance his career in the Nazi bureaucracy. Eichmann was not an amoral monster, she concluded in her study of the case, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963). Instead, he performed evil deeds without evil intentions, a fact connected to his ‘thoughtlessness’, a disengagement from the reality of his evil acts. Eichmann ‘never realised what he was doing’ due to an ‘inability… to think from the standpoint of somebody else’. Lacking this particular cognitive ability, he ‘commit[ted] crimes under circumstances that made it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he [was] doing wrong’. Arendt dubbed these collective characteristics of Eichmann ‘the banality of evil’: he was not inherently evil, but merely shallow and clueless, a ‘joiner’, in the words of one contemporary interpreter of Arendt’s thesis: he was a man who drifted into the Nazi Party, in search of purpose and direction, not out of deep ideological belief. In Arendt’s telling, Eichmann reminds us of the protagonist in Albert Camus’s novel The Stranger (1942), who randomly and casually kills a man, but then afterwards feels no remorse. There was no particular intention or obvious evil motive: the deed just ‘happened’. 5 hours ago, Xela said: Can you be born evil? I can't see how that can be possible. Could you be going in the direction of asking about the concept of original sin as practiced by Christians? Apart from the Jansenists, if I recall? -it seems to involve something other than "evil," per se. Oddly, I don't think "sin" and "evil" are quite the same thing, actually, at least in Christian doctrine and certainly not anthropologically speaking. Edited July 13 by Marka Ragnos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitvilla Posted July 14 Author Share Posted July 14 (edited) On 12/07/2024 at 18:36, Marka Ragnos said: But at the level of community standards, the notion of evil has seemed often to play a complex if often misunderstood role in creating functional societies and the criminal justice system At the level of community standards, the concept of evil is incredibly useful for motivating people to do what the community might want. It is much like calling our local fire truck red. A useful term, but it is only red in our mind's eye. As all colours are. On 12/07/2024 at 18:36, Marka Ragnos said: ... and the criminal justice system And this is where the concept of retribution comes from. You seem to insist on keeping evil as a concept in your worldview. And by extension things like morality and ethics. I argue they are not necessary. Just listen to your inner wants ... occasionally you will find that you have conflicting wants. The strongest will win and you will confabulate a morality play around your action. Edited July 14 by fruitvilla Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitvilla Posted July 14 Author Share Posted July 14 On 12/07/2024 at 13:02, Xela said: Can you be born evil? Ahh nature versus nurture. There seems to be a genetic predisposition to psychopathy and life's circumstances will tell us if it will develop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugeley Villa Posted July 14 Share Posted July 14 The Devil is never a maker so no you cannot be born evil 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marka Ragnos Posted July 14 VT Supporter Share Posted July 14 16 hours ago, fruitvilla said: You seem to insist on keeping evil as a concept in your worldview. I think I'm trying to be descriptive not prescriptive. What is evil? I think it's an interesting and difficult question. I definitely don't know (and I definitely do know). I myself think it's very easy to operate in a practical way with a concept of evil in one's life -- God is far harder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitvilla Posted July 14 Author Share Posted July 14 2 minutes ago, Marka Ragnos said: God is far harder. For me .. God and evil are misleading and unnecessary concepts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitvilla Posted July 30 Author Share Posted July 30 Philosophically speaking the "Gun and Knife Crime" thread has turned into a train wreck. This is in large part, I think, due to people's latent and overt belief in free will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitvilla Posted July 31 Author Share Posted July 31 1 hour ago, PaulC said: I think the perpetrator should be punished severely. To what purpose? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 10 minutes ago, fruitvilla said: To what purpose? Wrong thread but if I must reply to eradicate evil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitvilla Posted July 31 Author Share Posted July 31 1 minute ago, PaulC said: Wrong thread but if I must reply to eradicate evil. So you believe evil exists? Interesting. How does harsh punishment eradicate evil? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 3 minutes ago, fruitvilla said: So you believe evil exists? Interesting. How does harsh punishment eradicate evil? How do you feel about innocent children being murdered? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitvilla Posted July 31 Author Share Posted July 31 2 minutes ago, PaulC said: How do you feel about innocent children being murdered? Saddened. Don't like it. And how does harsh punishment eradicate evil? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 1 minute ago, fruitvilla said: Saddened. Don't like it. And how does harsh punishment eradicate evil? Ok I'm not an advocate of the death penalty or not into vigilante punishment but it never used to be as bad as this and there's probably many reasons for that but certain crimes are so heinous that we'd be better off without them and if you make the punishment very severe then it might also act as a deterrent but of course I may be wrong there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugeley Villa Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 25 minutes ago, PaulC said: Wrong thread but if I must reply to eradicate evil. We’ll never eradicate evil no matter how harsh we become with sentences, and we’ll make ourselves ill trying to. Good trumps evil every time though take solace in that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitvilla Posted July 31 Author Share Posted July 31 1 minute ago, PaulC said: it might also act as a deterrent but of course I may be wrong there. Fair enough ... the data about deterrence is mixed at best. If a young man is likely to re-offend in the future, then by all means, keep him under lock and key. If he is suffering from mental illness then deterrence is unlikely to be a factor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 4 minutes ago, fruitvilla said: Fair enough ... the data about deterrence is mixed at best. If a young man is likely to re-offend in the future, then by all means, keep him under lock and key. If he is suffering from mental illness then deterrence is unlikely to be a factor. Yes quite true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitvilla Posted August 2 Author Share Posted August 2 1 minute ago, Davkaus said: I mean if you're going to try and go down the free will versus determinism route, the thought requiring effort is nothing to be proud of, you were just destined to do it anyway. There's got to be a thread for pretentious philosophical rocket polishing though Oh there is ... but only the best rocket polishers can take part. If we believe everything is a result of cause and effect, it is difficult to justify free will. If we believe at least some things are indeterministic then free will is also difficult to justify. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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