# Evil **See Also:** > [!summary] > What is evil? Too many people have an imprecise definition of it. Here, I attempt to develop my own definition, based on the premise that [[Science can inform morality]]. - I exclude "supernatural" definitions a priori, because there is nothing supernatural; there is only the natural, some of which we don't yet understand. - There is (a) no robust [[Evidence|evidence]] of anything supernatural, including supernatural evil, and (b) plenty of robust evidence that explains perceived evils with purely natural, amoral processes. - Unless and until someone demonstrates robust evidence that the supernatural exists, all evil is natural. - Therefore, evil is a natural phenomenon. - Next, let's exclude some things that *cannot* be or do evil: - No one would reasonably claim that rocks, paperclips, and stars can be or do evil, because they are inanimate. - A weapon is not evil per se; only certain uses of it (by humans) may be tentatively labelled as evil. - A knife can be used to carve a work of art or kill another human. - A medicine can be used to save a life or end it. - Furthermore, no reasonable, educated person would claim that gerbils, oak trees, and viruses can be or do evil. - While there is a long history of humans attributing evil to certain (kinds of) animals, these claims are baseless. - The apparent “evil nature” of some animals (e.g., sharks, dingos, tyrannosaurs) is either easily debunked or explained by the [[Science|science]]s. - The only thing left is "humans". - Therefore, evil is a natural phenomenon particular to humans. - Problem: while there are quantitative differences between humans and other animals, there is nothing that *qualitatively* separates them. - That is, every quality of a human can be found, to a greater or lesser extent, elsewhere in the animal kingdom. - How then can a quality - the quality of evil - be particular to humans? - The question is ill-founded because it *assumes* evil exists as an *objective* quality. - If instead we propose that evil is *subjective*, then we have a way to explain *perceived* evil not only in humans, but as naive people also perceive it elsewhere in nature. - That is, we may *see* something as evil, even though, objectively, it is not. - Therefore, evil is a *subjective* natural phenomenon particular to humans. - By "subjective", we mean that evil is perceived by another human than the one that is claimed to be or do evil; it is *not* inherently a characteristic of the one. - There is no evidence that non-human animals perceive evil. - That is, evil is in the eye of the beholder. - Can people *be* evil? Or can they only *do* evil? - There are no physical characteristics - not handedness, not skin colour, not anything else - that has ever been correlated positively with being evil, without also including assumptions that are so baseless as to entirely negate the argument. - EG: A person who is violently psychotic may be considered evil by some, but this in fact the result of neuropsychological phenomena that are explained by science. Left-handed people were also discriminated against, often being labelled as evil by the ignorant. - We can only recognize evil in the *behaviour* of others. - Every instance ever documented of an accusation of one *being* evil has been based on behaviour of the one as observed by others. - Thus, people cannot *be* evil, they can only *do* evil. - So we now have: Evil is a subjective natural phenomenon particular to *human behaviour*. - Does evil behaviour transfer back to the person? (the property of being evil is not associative between an act and an actor) - Say you have a person who only does undeniable good for their first 50 years. - We might be inclined to infer that that person "is good". - Then, on their 51 birthday, they does something undeniably evil. - Does that change them instantaneously and completely from being good to being evil? - Does that one evil act wipe out all the good acts they did before? - Were they evil even before they committed the evil act, but just hadn’t "actualized their true self"? - There is no reasonable way to answer these questions, without recourse to supernatural arguments. - But no arguments involving supernatural phenomena are valid. - Therefore, there is no reasonable way to answer these questions. - Unless and until we find a naturalistic way to connect behaviour to some inherent characteristic of a person, we cannot ascribe *being* evil to a person who *does* evil things. - So now we have: Evil is a subjective natural phenomenon particular to human behaviour but not innate to humans. - Behaviour is a collective of actions. - That is: the collection of one's actions defines one's behaviour. - Thus if evil is particular to human behaviour, then it is a *property of human action*. - This is an important step because it clarifies that people are neither inherently good nor inherently evil. - That is, _people, like all other animals, are not inherently moral creatures_. - Unless, that is, we root morality in genetics and evolution - which some people do. - EG: [genetic basis of morality](https://www.google.com/search?q=the+genetic+basis+of+morality), [evolutionary basis of morality](https://www.google.com/search?q=the+evolutionary+basis+of+morality). :luc_expand: - So now we have: Evil is a subjective natural phenomenon particular to human *action* but not innate to humans. - How do we recognize an evil act? - By definition, no "accident" is evil. - Here, we take "accident" in the strict sense of having been unplanned, unintended, or more or less random. - An act resulting from an entirely unforeseen and unavoidable circumstance, or as a strictly causal result of the natural laws, is neither good nor evil. It just is. - The only way an accident can be "evil" is if we attribute some inherently malicious intent to the universe. - But that would be a paranoid delusion. - There is absolutely no meaningful evidence that the universe exhibits intent; it is, for all intents and purposes, a machine. - Thus, evil requires intent. - So now we have: Evil is a subjective natural phenomenon particular to *intentional* human action but not innate to humans. - We can by analogy also say that "good" is a subjective natural phenomenon particular to *intentional* human action but not innate to humans. - So how do we distinguish between good and evil? :luc_expand: - What are the consequences of these definitions? :luc_expand: