Evil

Such a negative emotion and outright morally incorrect. However if you ask someone to define evil they stumble; maybe because what they define is their point of view. In someone else’s point of view the event, action etc may not be evil at all. What then is a simple explanation for evil ? Something that encompasses all situations , behaviours etc ?

The last couple of weeks have been interesting for me - I have had the opportunity to read history (something that I love doing) look at possible explanations of said history (one could argue that the explanation is fantasy) and have had the opportunity to look after a street cat ( been feeding her, and keeping her warm and protected from a hostile tom cat in our neighbourhood) This has obviously resulted in me thinking about evil.  

Philosophers often are very interested in evil and they tend to have broadly two points of view. A broad point of view which revolves around morality which many times might be influenced by theology. In essence an action or a result is considered evil based on a moral point of view which itself is based in accepted social values and norms. For example universally accepted is the killing another human is evil. However humanity’s actions are often at odds with this broad point of view; given the example above all killing during a war would be evil. However the society and people perpetuating said action find ways and means to justify the action - it suddenly becomes ok and in some cases a moral obligation to kill. Surely evil is not as fickle as this definition.  Then there is the narrow point of view; which is based on legal concepts. An action is considered evil if it falls foul of some concept of law and or personal moral behaviour. I find this view also fairly subjective and limiting. 

What then is evil ? Looking after the street cat made me realise that my actions while very simple were based on compassion and empathy. The reading of history also showed me exactly the same; rulers were considered “Great” when they were acting with compassion and empathy towards their subjects. In essence evil is the lack of compassion, the lack of empathy. The Nazis at the end of the Second World War did not show any empathy during the trials that took place towards other humans that they had slaughtered. 

Simply put our actions are governed by our biases (I have written about biases earlier) our own lack of understanding the consequences and how it could impact others that are party to the action is what I would consider evil. A total and utter disregard for the impact an action could have on some stakeholder is evil. 

Empathy is easy to understand but difficult to practice. No amount of putting up a false face of empathy will hid the fact that there is none. Zero empathy is evil.

C