Evil
Evil, by one definition, is being bad and acting out morally incorrect behavior; or it is the condition of causing unnecessary pain and suffering, thus containing a net negative on the world.
It can be an extremely broad concept, although in everyday usage it is often more narrowly used to talk about profound wickedness and against common good.
Evil can denote profound immorality,[3] but typically not without some basis in the understanding of the human condition, where strife and suffering (cf.
[4] Elements that are commonly associated with personal forms of evil involve unbalanced behavior, including anger, revenge, hatred, psychological trauma, expediency, selfishness, ignorance, destruction, and neglect.
[7] In cultures with Buddhist spiritual influence, both good and evil are perceived as part of an antagonistic duality that itself must be overcome through achieving Nirvana.
While the term is applied to events and conditions without agency, the forms of evil addressed in this article presume one or more evildoers.
"[12] Offenses against the Three Bonds and the Five Constants Chinese cosmology, moral philosophy and law regard offenses against the Five Constants with particular abhorrence - anything that diminished the proper relationship between ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger, and between mutual friends was a violation of the cosmic order and heinous.
[11] Anything that went against the Way embedded in the order of human relationships was considered vile, and invited the displeasure of Heaven and ghosts, who were seen as inflicting retribution through the instrumentality of legal punishments on earth.
[13] Chinese moral and legal philosophy views the violation of family and kinship order with particular abhorrence, considering it especially heinous.
[14] In assessing the degree of evil, not only the severity of the effect against the life, health or dignity of a person is considered, but also the relational distance.
Ten Abominations ("十惡") The Ming Legal Code identifies Ten Abominations - categories of prohibited conduct so abhorrent and heinous that the usual considerations of pardon would not apply[11] - these include plotting rebellion, great sedition, treason, parricide, depravity (the murder of three or more innocent persons or the use of magical curses), great irreverence (lese majeste), lack of filial piety, discord, unrighteousness and incest (fornication with relatives of fourth degree of mourning or less, or relationships with one's father's wife and concubines).
[15] Other views As with Buddhism, in Confucianism or Taoism there is no direct analogue to the way good and evil are opposed although reference to demonic influence is common in Chinese folk religion.
[22] In 1961, Stanley Milgram began an experiment to help explain how thousands of ordinary, non-deviant, people could have reconciled themselves to a role in the Holocaust.
[25][26] Thomas Blass argues that the experiment explains how people can be complicit in roles such as "the dispassionate bureaucrat who may have shipped Jews to Auschwitz with the same degree of routinization as potatoes to Bremerhaven".
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, son of the founder of the religion, in Some Answered Questions states: "Nevertheless a doubt occurs to the mind—that is, scorpions and serpents are poisonous.
"[2] In the Old Testament, evil is understood to be an opposition to God as well as something unsuitable or inferior such as the leader of the fallen angels Satan.
[31] French-American theologian Henri Blocher describes evil, when viewed as a theological concept, as an "unjustifiable reality.
"[32] There is no concept of absolute evil in Islam, as a fundamental universal principle that is independent from and equal with good in a dualistic sense.
For Jewish theology, it is important for humans to have the ability to choose the path of goodness, even in the face of temptation and yetzer hara (the inclination to do evil).
Isfet is not a primordial force, but the consequence of free will and an individual's struggle against the non-existence embodied by Apep, as evidenced by the fact that it was born from Ra's umbilical cord instead of being recorded in the religion's creation myths.
Specifically, evil means whatever harms or obstructs the causes for happiness in this life, a better rebirth, liberation from samsara, and the true and complete enlightenment of a buddha (samyaksambodhi).
[42] In adherence to the core principle of spiritual evolution, the Sikh idea of evil changes depending on one's position on the path to liberation.
These are known as the Five Thieves, called such due to their propensity to cloud the mind and lead one astray from the prosecution of righteous action.
Inversely, the "Gurmukh, who thrive in their reverence toward divine knowledge, rise above vice via the practice of the high virtues of Sikhism.
Marcus Singer asserts that these common connotations must be set aside as overgeneralized ideas that do not sufficiently describe the nature of evil.
A broad concept defines evil simply as any and all pain and suffering: "any bad state of affairs, wrongful action, or character flaw".
[53] Yet, it is also asserted that evil cannot be correctly understood "(as some of the utilitarians once thought) [on] a simple hedonic scale on which pleasure appears as a plus, and pain as a minus".
There is also real danger of the harm that being labeled "evil" can do when used in moral, political, and legal contexts.
[53]: 1–2 Those who support the usefulness of the term say there is a secular view of evil that offers plausible analyses without reference to the supernatural.
One must sometimes commit a sin out of hate and contempt for the Devil, so as not to give him the chance to make one scrupulous over mere nothings ... "[69] The international relations theories of realism and neorealism, sometimes called realpolitik advise politicians to explicitly ban absolute moral and ethical considerations from international politics, and to focus on self-interest, political survival, and power politics, which they hold to be more accurate in explaining a world they view as explicitly amoral and dangerous.
