Letters to the Editor
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@Taliesan Huh?
I can't imagine any other way to describe this.
Absolutism, the idea that something is absolute, defined and set without legalistic or contradictory wiggeling with regard to said definition.
Relativism, the idea that something is relative defined only by other things around it, and with no true independant definition of its own.
ERGO, if I say evil is an absolute, that means that one cannot justify it by saying it is evil in the defense of good. Evil in the defense of good is relativism, as it suggests Evils ceases to be evil when good people do it. That flys in the face of Absolutist philosophy with regard to evil.
Thusly, the gaggle of bush administration persons and Senator McCain, (and likely many people on this earth)are relativists in their view of evil, for an action they would define as evil when perpetrated against them, is justified when they perpetrate it in response.
I will stand with the absolutists on this, and state that wrong is wrong, regardless of one's justification. If you don't want it done on to you, don't do it on to others.
'nuff said.
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@Clockwork Smurf
You seem to not understand the differnce between relative notions and absolute realities.
"Evil" is a judgment, not a "reality". This is one of the many places you start to go wrong in your thinking. Way back at your first mistaken assumptions.
Citing concepts like "absolute Celsisus" and claiming that concepts like "evil" or "good" are exactly as quantifiable is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read here.
Absolute temperature is a scientific concept. Evil and good are morality calls. It's rather beyond belief that you actually can't see the difference, but then this is Salon letters, so why would I be surprised. Enough. Over and out.
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@Timelagged
If evil is a judgement and not a reality, then no one and no action is evil, and thusly, all actions are justifiable.
You may disagree with someone elses justification, but that's just your opinion of the facts in evidence, no more important or correct than any other fools opinion.
This is the understanding that the Bush/Cheney Administration have. Their actions are justified because they are doing good, and their enemies deserve it. That is moral relativism.
Just because you are a moral relativist and judge others to be evil does not make them absolutists. Only those who hold uniform beliefs about the quality of actions devoid of purpose are absolutists. Absolutists do not need jusitification for their actions, relativists do.
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Clockwork Smurf
However, if you leave evil as having no wriggle room, you are left with the definitions of evil - which leaves you with issues like "Should your wife be stoned to death for engaging in adultery?"
That is the power of declaring something evil - and why evil is always a situational concept (Where what is evil in one circumstance is good in another, such as the cliched argument about lying.)
If you apply the label "Evil" too tightly, you end up with far worse than people debating whether gay marriage should be allowed.
Now right and wrong? Those concepts are just absolute enough to allow someone to be wrong - but being wrong isn't a death sentence.
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Moral Absolutism
All human life is equal, therefore any action to cause suffering to any human is evil.
It's absolute an absolute definition and not a relativistic definition.
Now you can have a relativistic definition of evil, just as you can have a relativistic definition of motion, temprature, etc.
The question is whether you will measure something in absolute or relative terms, that is a phiosophical choice each person makes depending on thier needs.
There are times when one should be absolute with regard to things, and times when a relativistic point of view is more practical.
You can be absolutist with temprature and wear shorts at 70 degrees Ferinheit and not before. Or you can be a relativist and do so when the temprature suits you.
For things of greater importance like, say the use of torture, or other violent or terrible acts against fellow humans, an absolute scale of right and wrong may seem better.
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@Taliesan
Why do you presume the punishment for evil is death, and not forgivness?
If one is an absolutist, that is your option when faced with evil. To passivly resist or forgive the infraction. Such a stance doesn't sit well with many who feel an eye for an eye is the better rule.
But even the Talmud aknowledges that such a plan for retribution leaves everyone blind. Absolutism is not legalism, legalism justifies and sets punishments and rewards, absolutism mearly defines, and sorts actions into one group or another, and leaves you with a choice to be good or evil.
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Aristotelians unite!
Hoo whee, I feel like I'm back in school reading St. Thomas Aquinas! You so rarely see an argument constructed just that way anymore, with a big loaded term treated as if it were a solid agreed-upon entity like a brick and manipulated with the whole if-A-then-B game. You find yourself riding a train you got hoodwinked into boarding.
I think Taliesan and Clockwork are just disagreeing on semantics...I dislike the world "evil" myself, with all its infinite connotations, many of them religious and calling up the image of a red horned guy with a pointy tail.
Deliberately causing extreme pain and suffering just NOT GOOD.
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OK, maybe not just semantics
You guys have been busy since I took time off to write.
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@justlikeawoman - you are right
It is largel a semantic argument.
And you are also right that the term evil does carry with it a bit of baggage.
But in the end I think we all agree that torture and related activities are not good, the question seems to arise from whether this notion is absolutist, or relativistic, though the larger moral question of what is good and what is not good is also at its core, and weather or not one can define good and not good as independant entities within the human experience.
When discussing good and not good I always come back to a particular scene a strange little film from the 80's called Rock and Rule.
The villian of the piece argues the relativistic understanding of good and not good, and his childlike thug presses for further clarification due to the entreatments of a character called Uncle Mikey.
Is the man being good to the cow, or evil? Uncle Mikey Asks.
Evil spelled backwards is live, and we all want to do that now don't we, retorts Mok.
Such a simplistic understanding is the core of absolutism. That these things can be defined and are universal, something the modern mind often rejects, even as we drawn back to it, and I have yet to see someone endorse a relativistic stance that is not used to justify their own not good actions towards those they feel have wronged them.