The Concept of Evil - Joey Adelman

The Concept of Evil

The idea of "good vs evil" has been debated for many years, and the truth is that there is no simple answer. The main issue I see with many arguments is that people view "good" and "evil" in different ways. An example of this is pushing your friend off their bike. While some might say its funny, it may seem evil if he landed on gravel rather than sand. So at what point does a morally good or acceptable action turn evil. This may also bring in the Ship of Theseus, and decided when an action changes "form". As for the question, "Is it better to promote good or prevent evil when making rules?", i believe it is better to promote evil. My reasoning for this roots towards how many society functions. Obviously laws will still have to be put in place, but promoting good seems to give off a better "Vibe" for that society. Personally, when i think of a war torn country or country under a dictatorship, i seem to sway towards very strict laws and curfews to help prevent the spread of evil doings. Most of the time, the citizens have a very low quality of life. I think that promoting good in the world will not only help the standard of living, but it would influence people to do what they see. The second question was about the problem of evil, and whether a higher power wouldn't allow evil. This obviously raises many questions about existence, but my theory is that if a higher power were to create us, maybe they don't care anymore. This possibility would assume that a higher power created our universe or our "space" and then let it be. I am not completely living by this theory, but its an idea to maybe understand why evil occurs. The last question that sparked my interest is if humans are evil by nature. I personally think that all animals have some sort of evil intent within them, but it may take a very rare or certain scenario to discover it. I think the only true way to test this in humans is to create a society that promotes good, and never even mentions evil. People will still live and die, but ideas like murder, stealing, and arson would have to be created by the people themselves. That test to me wold determine how evil people can be when living without knowing what evil already is.