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Evil.
Evil
Evil is a very old term for describing that which is believed by some to be morally bad, corrupt, wantonly destructive, selfish, and wicked. It is one half of the duality of good and evil expressed, in some form or another, by some cultures. It describes a hierarchy of moral standards with regard to human behaviour; evil being the least desired, while love is usually the most praised. In a casual or derogatory use, the word "evil" can characterize people and behaviours that are painful, ruinous, or disastrous.
A similar term is malice; a criminal may be considered malicious.
In a number of religious traditions, "evil" is widely considered to be a mystery; that life and its rules are "governed" by an innate benevolence, and behaviour that directly contradicts "good nature" is not understandable in moral and reasoning terms. "Evil" characterises and describes aspects of human beings that deviate from the social, loving, righteous, natures within, which in contrast lead to social strength, and continuing survival, through love. In the forms of malice and selfishness, evil represents the socially-weakening and destructive behaviours that lead directly to a fruitless life and death.
Views on how good and evil are defined lie between two extremes. "Moral absolutism" holds that good and evil are fixed concepts established by God, nature, or some other authority. Moral relativism holds that standards of good and evil are only products of local culture, custom, or prejudice. Moral universalism is a recent humanist term to find a compromise between the unattainable absolutist sense of morality, and the unauthoritative relativist view.
Regardless of the source of their definitions, most human cultures have a set of beliefs about what things, actions, and ideas are undesireable. Some undesirable circumstances are categorized as evil within some cultures. Natural evils generally include accidental death, disease, and other misfortunes, although some cultures see these occurences instead as a healthy part of the natural order. Moral evils generally include violence, deceit or other destructive behavior toward others, although the same behavior toward "outsiders" of the group may be considered "good." War provides many examples, and "God is always on the winning side." The Unification Church's definition of evil is: "Taking advantage of another person for one's own benefit."
The Abrahamic religions, as well as others, are largely centered around the concepts of good and evil, and this has lead to much religious debate. Many cultures and mythologies personify evil, such as with Satan in Christianity. Others describe evil spirits or demons as the inciters of acts.
Some sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists and neuroscientists have attempted to construct scientific explanations for the development of specific characteristics of an "antisocial" personality type, called the sociopath. The sociopath is typified by extreme self-serving behavior, and a lack of conscience, or inability to empathize with others, to restrain self from, or to feel remorse for, harm personally caused to others. However, a diagnosis of anti-social or sociopath personality disorder (formerly called psychopathic mental disorder), is sometimes criticised as being, at the present time, no more scientific than calling a person evil. What critics perceive to be a moral determination is disguised, they argue, with a scientific-sounding name, but no complete description of a mechanism by which the abnormality can be identified is provided. In other words, critics argue, "sociopaths" are called such, because they are first thought to be "evil" - a determination which itself is not derived by a scientific method.
Research into sociopathology has also investigated biological, rather than moral underpinnings of behaviors that societies reject as sociopathic. Most neurological research into sociopathology has focused on regions of the neocortex involved in impulse control.
Many cultures recognize many levels of immoral behavior, from minor vices to major crimes. These beliefs are often encoded into the laws of a society, with methods of judgment and punishment for offenses.
See also:
As used by computer hackers, the jargon term evil implies that some system, program, person, or institution is sufficiently maldesigned as to be not worth the bother of dealing with. Unlike the adjectives in the cretinous/losing/brain-damaged series, evil does not imply incompetence or bad design, but rather a set of goals or design criteria fatally incompatible with the speaker's. This usage is more an esthetic and engineering judgment than a moral one in the mainstream sense. "We thought about adding a Blue Glue interface but decided it was too evil to deal with." "TECO is neat, but it can be pretty evil if you're prone to typos." Often pronounced with the first syllable lengthened, as /eeee'vil/. Compare evil and rude.
The usage of evil as a prefix for usernames or email addresses on the Internet can be traced back to "evilsteven", a founding member of the noend listservs in San Francisco and New York.
The above article is adapted from from Wikipedia All Wikipedia article text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
Deliver Us from Evil : Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism by Sean Hannity
Whisker of Evil by RITA MAE BROWN
The Science of Good and Evil : Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule by Michael Shermer
An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror by David Frum
Race Against Evil: The Secret Missions of the Interpol Agent Who Tracked the World's Most Sinister Criminals by David Race Bannon
The Complete Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush by Peter Singer
Deliver Us From Evil CD : Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism by Sean Hannity
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism by Robert Baer
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Fallen Angels and the Origins of Evil: Why Church Fathers Suppressed the Book of Enoch and Its Startling Revela by Elizabeth Clare Prophet
Cat Fear No Evil : A Joe Grey Mystery by Shirley Rousseau Murphy
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