I don't really believe in Evil. Bad things happen, and humans sometimes do terrible things to one another, but I think ideas of Good and Evil are very subjective. There's no way that you could get the entire world to agree on what is Evil and therefore, what should be removed from the world. And if we are using someone else's definition of Evil, rather than finding a global consensus, then basically that is just enforcing your idea of what is Good onto everyone else. Yeah, maybe you could create an Utopia to one group of people, but you also risk recreating the Third Reich to another, if you get my point.
I'm gonna go ahead and disagree. A mother caring for a child is universally good, as is any act of making life even a little bit better for others. That doesn't mean we don't appreciate good more when evil is around (seeing people take the quick and easy path by screwing over others, especially) but IMO it can exist on its own. With that said, it's impossible to give a valid answer. As already stated, those terms are highly subjective, so by saying "a world without evil," what does that even mean? o.0
well the example caring for their child... some animals will kill their child if they feel they would not survive alone... that is their way of caring and would you think it good? (yeah I can be that one guy who will make a very obscure point, not being a jer I swear and not trying to "troll") I truly believe that good and evil should be a constant balance, because without hardships and "evil" you would never understand how "good" feels. Example Someone getting bullied at school, (evilish) you see this and did nothing, but the next time you see it and decide you will do something (the good). The "evil" showed you what can be done when no one helps others which led you to do good. ^^
Yeah. Life can be fun and interesting and good without genocides and dictators and murders and rapes and whathaveyou. Doesn't mean bad things and hardships won't occur, though; I don't class everything negative as evil. Life without evil ain't gonna happen, however.
Usually the way people use the word "evil" refers to a black and white approach to morality. It's usually used as excuse to degrade a wrong-doers humanity, to excuse mistreatment or capital punishment, and to place the blame solely on the person. People are complicated, they do good things for the wrong reasons and bad things for the right reasons. Not to mention the fact that people aren't born to be cruel or "evil", they are made that way by their parents and/or environment (though genetics can predispose someone to cruelty, i.e psychopathy which is heritable). Anyways, I personally believe that we need contrast for the good things in life to have meaning. All of the pain and suffering we experience serves to highlight the good things. Of course, that's not to say that it's "good" to feel pain (and to have "evil" in the world), of course one of the driving forces in life is to lessen the suffering we experience, but I can acknowledge that life would be a lot less interesting if everything was happy-go-lucky.
I agree with others that there is a necessary place for evil in the world. Though defining this evil and how much of it needs to exist is quite the challenge. In any case, I think the world would be a better place if it were not as ****ed up as it is now.
I could personally live without the really bad stuff (war, genocide, threats of a nuclear attack....) but even at that, everything has a purpose. We need she darkness to see the light.
Yes, the world would be better without evil, because there would be no unnecessary suffering. We would also be more functional and productive.
Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people living for today Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people living life in peace You, you may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one I hope some day you'll join us And the world will be as one Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people sharing all the world You, you may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one I hope some day you'll join us And the world will live as one
in the most literal of sense, yes. Evil is bad, remove evil then you remove all the bad things. If that we can categorize all things into and non evil such that it is agreed upon by any rational human being in their right mind without any hidden agenda (e..g things like wars) then removing evil would be good. The concept of evil can be very imprecise and subjective to people's various points of view. For example, i am sure that there are some who think that gays are evil. For this reason, a system that would remove evil could be evil in itself. Defining evil as anything that causes suffering would result in a confusion with what to do with abortion. From the parents point of view, letting the child live in a state which it may suffer would be evil, but some may think the parents are directly harming the baby and so committing an evil deed themselves. Evil is associated with anything ''bad''. Therefore in an ideal and purely theoretical sense, if all evil could be removed, then by definition, it would be welfare improving because only the good things (as defined) would be left. This is an obvious tautology. there are obvious advantages in having evil, one is that evil through wars improves technology. But i think in the scope of the question these arguments are relatively arbitrary. I study economics not philosophy, so my argument would lack in something, this is just what i think...
This. And we need hardships to evolve. Hardships are the only reason we are stronger, smarter, faster, etc. than we were years ago. Also, I like hardships. They tend to bring moments when ppl realize there are more outside of their comfort zones than they thought existed. I guess i've come to learn to appreciate life as is. As for the genocides, murders, rapes, etc., that stems from others insensitivity towards eachother brought on by -insert factor here-. Personally, I've come to find that my biggest issue, in my neck of the world, is ppl's need to feel "important." That drive to have ten million ppl staring at them in envy and lust. And always turn something into a heirarchy. I don't think "evil" is necessarily the issue here. It's more so how ppl go about stuff. For example: In this Utopia, "evil" is removed and it is a prime society focused solely around function and poduction. Now lets say at some point down the line, someone gets to thinking and says "Senior Citizens are wasteful and purposeless. How can we deal with them so that they no longer slow us down and leech off of our more functional members." Next thing you know, you got a secret elderly genocide going on. And for someone who may say that counts as evil, not completely because it's logic and it makes sense. And it plays along the lines of "Sacrificing a Few for the Many" or something like that.......Lets not mention how many of us would be burned at the stake for not being reproductive. So yeah, not fun. Overall, there are way too many variables. So truthfully it would be the same. The issue isn't "evil", the issue is when we let our carnal instincts beat out our humanity. Trying to pull "evil" out of it is a cop-out. It's not perfect as it but once we recognize the issues and GENUINELY, no political bs, move to fix them life wouldn't suck so much for ppl. Human Difference bites at times but I think we can make it work. Thats my opinion of it anyways.
My view of evil is kind of a hybrid of DollaStoreSushi's and 4AllEternity's. "Evilness" and "goodness" are relative, with most if not all acts having some of both, and it's hopeless (and perhaps even dangerous) to attempt to have a strict definition of each act in terms of the degree of good vs. evil and have every country agree because of the differences in culture and religion. Like 4AllEternity said, it's good to have both negative and positive events so that one can be able to appreciate the good (but also appreciate the bad because it highlights the good). The "bad" events can be said, then, to be lessons to learn from or challenges to overcome rather than "evil".
Cookie cutter evil? Like...plotting the destruction of the world and obliterating entire civilizations?
While it's difficult to label something as being absolutely, objectively evil (usually there's someone getting some joy out of it, or at least thinking they are getting joy, so from their perspective it's good), we can definitely say that some things are worse than others. The net outcome for the participants is negative. Murder is almost always worse than not murdering. Rape is always worse than not raping. Women being forced to be covered in some countries is worse than women having the option of going uncovered. We can't say they are objectively bad, but we can say they are objectively worse than an alternative. If we can move stuff towards the "better" side of the scale, then humanity would be better off. Silly sayings like "you can't know the light unless you've known the dark" are just that - silly. You don't need to have your legs chopped off to appreciate being able to walk. You don't need to endure bad things happening to you before you can enjoy the good things.