Evil In Norway

[La_Dolce_Vita]

Mmm. Hard one. How do you get to the objective criterion though?

[HeliX]

Being able to do whatever I want, mostly.

 

EDIT: I can probably pre-empt the 20 page discussion this is going to turn into. The counter argument will be "Ah but do you really or does it just seem like you do! What if it's all already decided" etc etc.

 

To which the only response is: "Why on earth would you invent a complicated and unprovable explanation for something that can be very simply observed and explained".

tl;dr for the next x pages: Occam's Razor.

It can't be very simply observed. That's the problem. You may THINK it can, because you think you have control over your decisions and future. But there is no evidence for this. It isn't even the simplest explanation.

 

It may be that there is a good that has mapped out and planned every action and choice that you will take. Or even has made such that you reach particular points in life. Calvinists believe in this sort of thing.

 

Also, it seems bizarre but the evidence points to the fact that the brain has betrayed something strange about how we come to take actions. It appears that processes are undertaken to effect a movement or a decision before you consciously decide to move or decide.

 

And then how much of your life has been determined already because of where you were born, who your parents are, what school you went to, the people you met, etc. etc. Your life is guided by these influences and many of them you cannot control but they affect you and lead you to think, act, and do as a result of them.

 

I would strongly argue against saying it's not the simplest explanation. If we don't have free will, then who/what is in charge of our will? That question alone turns it into not the simplest explanation.

 

Of course you don't have a choice in where you're born, but that's not part of your will. Your will can't really effect things that happen before you're born, or before you're capable of enacting anything yourself, else that would be a telepathic will.

 

There is no good reason to believe that my actions are already laid out. There simply isn't any evidence of that whatsoever. If I pick up my stack of business cards and throw them at the printer right now, would that have already been planned out? Who by? Why? What evidence is there for that?

 

If you believe that we don't have free will, then surely nobody is actually a murderer, or a pedophile, or a criminal of any sort, they're all merely following a path they have no control over. Which I simply can't agree with being true.

 

It may be a "belief" that some people have, but that's all it is. There is nothing to suggest it should be regarded as any more true than if I said I had a "Belief" that people are actually mind-controlled by ducks, and we just don't know it.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

There doesn't necessarily have to be a 'who' who controls us. As mentioned, who we are affects the choices that we make and what we can do. My life has been and will be determined to some degree as I live my life and encounter other people, things, and have particular experiences.

 

But yes, to a degree the murderer, paedophile, criminal is not entirely responsible for what they do. (Although there is another reason why this is the case).

Nobody is entirely responsible for their actions.

 

It isn't black and white in the sense of having free will or being entirely directed by external forces. But it is the case that you either have free will or you are controlled or determined to whatever extent.

[Evil Goblin]

Breivik was no doubt one warped individual,

But on what basis do you describe Breivik as "warped"? He may hold views contrary to those held by most other people but is that justification for saying he is "warped"? Is this not close to saying that anyone with views too different (how far different?) to the majority is insane?

 

but I feel it is possible to be so warped not by errors in the biochemistry of the brain, but rather by becoming obsessed with a particular ideology.

Does it make sense to speak of "errors" in the biochemistry of the brain? The neurons and their systems are impersonal and simply do what they do without any sense of purpose. And "obsessions" simply arise from the neurons doing what they do. So can it make sense to ascribe the adjective "warped" to any of this?

 

History is full of such warped individuals. They build concentration camps, fly planes into buildings, blow themselves and others up, and lynch and stone people who do not conform to their beliefs.

But Himmler, Heydrich, Terrorists, etc.obviously thought they had good reasons for doing what they did. So arguably we should say that they had good reason to do what they did - but most of us strongly disagree with their objectives.

 

LDV stop trolling - the mass deliberate killing of people is evil. There are times when you can debate whether it is a lesser evil - Breivik tried that one. He failed, I doubt any attempt by you would be different.

I don't think LDV is trolling. You might think that the mass deliberate killing of people is evil but someone else might think it a good thing (dependingon the ends they saught to attain). How can one person's idea of evil be said to be right and another's wrong? Evil is just a way of us saying we dissapprove or dislike something - it has no objective basis.

[Evil Goblin]

Isn't insane related to an issue of responsibility? I do believe in determinism, which mitigates responsibility, but I think the distinction would be between those who are considered to have had no control over themselves because they no choice about being made to think and act irrationally. This would not the case for the sane person.

 

What do you think?

I think this is all tied up with the question of Free Will - personallyI think our behaviours are totally outside of our control and so really no-one can be said, in any moral sense, to be responsible for anything that they do.

This will become clearer from my response to HeliX when I get round to it.

[Evil Goblin]

HeliX - I will give a comprehensive response to your posts but in the meantime I would say that if you believe in free will then you must believe in the existence of a "Self" of some sort which is independent of the physical brain and its workings. What would be the nature of this "Self" and where is it to be found? In the Pineal Gland, as Descartes was reduced to postulating? Where to find evidence for such a "Self"? If you look for it all you find are perceptions generated by the sensory sytems and brain, apart from which there is no "Self".. If there is no Self how can there be Free Will? Talking of Occams Razor, you are complicating matters by introducing the supposed existence of a "Self" when that is a totally unnecessary addition.

[Evil Goblin]

Being able to do whatever I want, mostly.

You may be free to do what you want but you are not free to want what you want.

[HeliX]

It isn't black and white in the sense of having free will or being entirely directed by external forces. But it is the case that you either have free will or you are controlled or determined to whatever extent.

 

I would partially agree in an over-arching sense, but for individual actions I resolutely disagree. An individual action at any particular time is entirely free will.

 

 

@EG: The only notion of "self" I would suggest is consciousness. Which is a collection of electrical impulses and chemical reactions. I don't think you need anything further than that for free will, why do you profess that you do?

[La_Dolce_Vita]

If all individuals actions are free will then how would explain the 'over-arching sense' as not being so. If our will is circumscribed in any way, is our will free?

[Evil Goblin]

[@EG: The only notion of "self" I would suggest is consciousness. Which is a collection of electrical impulses and chemical reactions. I don't think you need anything further than that for free will, why do you profess that you do?

Whilst not disagreeing with what you say here, how does it support Free Will? As to why I profess what I do - the reason is evidence - I want to look up references for you to various studies which have been conducted in pursuit of an answer to the question and will get back to you..

[HeliX]

If all individuals actions are free will then how would explain the 'over-arching sense' as not being so. If our will is circumscribed in any way, is our will free?

 

As I say, I "partially" agree. By that I mean we have limitations based on where we're born, our gender, what year we're born, etc etc. Our individual actions cannot take us outside these boxes for the most part. However, our individual actions are entirely free will in my opinion.

 

@EG I'll save my response for after you've linked the studies.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

Ah ok. I think Free Will needed to defined by EvilGoblin from the start, You seem to be referring to 'You can do, what you can do'.

[Chinahand]

Ignoring Free will and Determinism - EG, LDV - do you think you have the capacity to learn via appropriate environmental stimulus to alter a behavioural pattern you currently have to a new one when presented with a certain situation?

 

My view is that society judges whether an individual has the capacity to learn what behaviour is appropriate.

 

If society judges that a person can learn then if they do not confirm to the accepted modes of behaviour then they can be held responsible for that failure.

 

Free will hasn't got a lot to do with this - its a far more Skinnerian approach.

 

Over the nature of good and evil - I still feel that you lot are playing at post-modernism here. If you personally had to deal with such events as happened in Oslo you'd not quibble at people using the word evil.

 

The golden rule (Do as you would be done by, do not do what you would not like to be done to you) isn't perfect, but is a long standing moral principle. I also like the precept: "put yourself in their shoes" - both would preclude mass murder.

 

Now of course you could argue that this mass murder was a necessary evil and as soon as you get into qualifying lesser evils it gets complicated. Here I agree cultural influences become important. In my cultural milleu what Brievik did was unjustifiably evil, while say planning D-Day, a far more violent act wasn't. Brievik said what he did was a necessary evil to save Norway for white people - I'm glad the legal system of Norway disagreed, and frankly I think neither LDV or EG wish to argue differently. Neither do I. Do we really have to go - shock horror morality is culturally dependent?

[Declan]

MDO - "for no good reason"

 

But what about a bad reason?

 

The point is Breviek had a reason. Had he done it for financial gain or personal revenge - would we call him insane? How does that differ from killing to achieve political ends.

Yes, Declan - Breivik obviously thought he had a good reason to do what he did even if the rest of us think it was a bad reason. It seems appropriate to ask - what is the difference between a good reason and a bad reason? It cannot be left to just subjective opinions of what constitutes Good and Bad but must surely be based on some objective criterion such as "will this action lead to the attainment of my ends?". i.e. Good and Bad are not to be regarded as moral matters, just pragmatic

 

We might be making the same point. I was trying to say there assertion that killing for "no good reason" is evidence for insanity, doesn't apply in this case, because he had a reason.

 

The validity of that reason is another matter.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

It has nothing to do with post-modernism. I know what post-modernism is and I can't see the connection. The basis of the philosophical question goes much farther back to looking at whether there at objective morals. And also the question of evil is a longstanding one because evil was previously considered to be something influenced by the Devil and considered to be counter to God will. But what is it now?

It seems to be that it simply means that it is not good.

 

But it is necessary to ask such questions about what evil is because it appears to frame something in a specific and unique way. It is not simply very very bad, but it is EVIL. On the face of it, it seems that evil is a very specific thing that not all bad things fit into.

 

But what do you really mean by it? It might be best (though I am not sure) to start from the point of determining what is considered evil and what they have in common.

 

And no, I wouldn't usually quibble at the term. I don't know if I'd use it myself but I actually listened to the first minute of a podcast about evil and about this incident. And we are a reasonably intelligent bunch who can ponder about such things, aren't we? And it does help to analyse such things so we can understand what goes on.