does evil exist?

[Ahriman]

Ostensibly, because some suffering does not qualify as evil, just as suffering -and- evil do not require miasma going around spreading it out like seeds in a terrible harvest.  That's why.

We saw some effect or some phenomena, and were wrong about it's cause or instantiation.  Getting rid of miasmatic evil does not get rid of the things it was supposed to explain.  "What possessed them?" standing in as an expression of ignorance , a failure of our imaginations to contend with the (hypothetical, lol.....) fact that no exterior force or entity is required to make some horrid thing manifest in reality.

It depends on your level of magnification whether a particular suffering is evil.

Take childbirth.  Most people consider the suffering of a woman giving birth a worthwhile sacrifice, herself included, because of the resultant "good" of a new human life.  Her temporary suffering is balanced by positive hormones before and during, and expectations of joys and pleasures to come.

Well-- maybe humanity is a cancer on Earth bent on creating life-ending systems like nukes or AI-gone-wrong.  Maybe the instinct to suffer pain for a greater good is really just another of genetic fuckery, aka evil.

This is correct, suffering is not necessary at all, no matter how many stupid people will claim suffering is necessary.

[bennyboy]

This is correct, suffering is not necessary at all, no matter how many stupid people will claim suffering is necessary.

Yes, but with a caveat.

Necessity implies a goal. If you want not to burn off your hand, suffering when you put your hand on a hot stove will cause you to remove it, thereby saving your hand. In that sense, it's necessary to suffer.

Is it necessary that humans keep their hands intact, or survive, or live in comfort, or exist on any level? No.

The same goes for "evil" itself. Can the devil be evil? Can a mass murderer be evil? No-- it's all just a change of material state, accompanied by suffering perhaps. What makes it evil?

Buddhists play with this-- see the emptiness in horror, in grief, etc. and analyze it all philosophically. Some of them get very good at disengaging from suffering. In that sense, I'd argue that to an enlightened Buddhist, nothing can really be evil.

[LinuxGal]

Aquinas says evil is the privation of the good.  So evil does not exist, because it is a lack.

[The Grand Nudger]

This is correct, suffering is not necessary at all, no matter how many stupid people will claim suffering is necessary.

Yes, but with a caveat.

Necessity implies a goal.  If you want not to burn off your hand, suffering when you put your hand on a hot stove will cause you to remove it, thereby saving your hand.  In that sense, it's necessary to suffer.

Is it necessary that humans keep their hands intact, or survive, or live in comfort, or exist on any level?  No.

The same goes for "evil" itself.  Can the devil be evil?  Can a mass murderer be evil?  No-- it's all just a change of material state, accompanied by suffering perhaps.  What makes it evil?

Buddhists play with this-- see the emptiness in horror, in grief, etc. and analyze it all philosophically.  Some of them get very good at disengaging from suffering.  In that sense, I'd argue that to an enlightened Buddhist, nothing can really be evil.

Necessity doesn't imply any goals.  If you step off a buildings ledge you will necessarily fall.  The building isn't looking to kill you, or make you fall.  Gravity, also not looking to kill you, or make you fall.  All necessity means is that there is no other logical alternative.

A necessary evil, therefore, is some thing which is evil, but for which there is no logical alternative. So, for example, when heterotrophs eat - this may be evil, depending on your definition of evil - and if so it is a necessary evil - because heterotroph. It's not logically possible for you to be a heterotroph without engaging in evil under such an understanding of evil.

Sometimes we see people split that baby, and say that..sure, killing things to eat is of moral import, but only killing things of a certain kind is of the moral import which concerns us most. Is evil. This, conveniently, is the conceptual difference between bad and evil, where vegan heterotrophy is considered..perhaps not exactly good, but not as bad, as omnivorous heterotrophy, which is the Bad Bad.

[Anomalocaris]

Inevitable is not the same as necessary

[The Grand Nudger]

Do you mean linguistically or logically? Logically, morally...that which actually is inevitable, is necessary, as there is no other alternative. I think people hear the word necessary and think "what we need to do" but, ofc, logically, it means "what must be".

It is necessarrily true that if you start with two pennies, and take one penny away, you will be left with one penny. You don't -have- to take pennies away, there doesn't -have- to be any goal to take pennies...but if you do, this will be the result, and there is no alternative. Hence (and again only under some understandings of evil) the necessary evils of heterotrophy. It's not possible for a heterotroph to be other than a heterotroph (identity) and it's not possible for that heterotroph to avoid the specific (asserted) evil of heterotrophy, because heterotroph.

[bennyboy]

Necessity doesn't imply any goals.  If you step off a buildings ledge you will necessarily fall.  The building isn't looking to kill you, or make you fall.  Gravity, also not looking to kill you, or make you fall.  All necessity means is that there is no other logical alternative.

A necessary evil, therefore, is some thing which is evil, but for which there is no logical alternative.  So, for example, when heterotrophs eat - this may be evil, depending on your definition of evil - and if so it is a necessary evil - because heterotroph.  It's not logically possible for you to be a heterotroph without engaging in evil under such an understanding of evil.

Sometimes we see people split that baby, and say that..sure, killing things to eat is of moral import, but only killing things of a certain kind is of the moral import which concerns us most.  Is evil.  This, conveniently, is the conceptual difference between bad and evil, where vegan heterotrophy is considered..perhaps not exactly good, but not as bad, as omnivorous heterotrophy, which is the Bad Bad.

We are using different definitions, but I think yours is more in accord with the etymology--  ne (not) + cedere (to go/yield), so something like "not going away" or in a more pragmatic sense, something which is inevitable or unavoidable. So let's go with yours.

But on second thought, I'm not sure that my usage is really that different-- if you have goals which you consider good, certain actions may be logically unavoidable.  For example, if you consider heterotrophy (new word to me, thank you for it) evil, then you may decide that going full-on 12 Monkeys is the best way to minimize evil. All it takes is one former hippie in a virology department to have an LSD flashback, and off we go.

[The Grand Nudger]

You may have goals, but that would be additional to and separate from whatever was necessary. It makes little sense (logicaly speaking) to aim goals towards or speak of goals as the necessary - as they happen whether you seek them or not. So, in your example, while heterotrophy may be a necessary evil, going full-on twelve monkeys is not.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Aquinas says evil is the privation of the good.  So evil does not exist, because it is a lack.

That is true. Kinda like holes. In one sense, holes are a lack but can still have properties, like you can count them so they are numerable, etc.

[The Grand Nudger]

One wonders why aquinas didn't decide that good doesn't exist, as it's the lack of evil - and then one remembers that aquinas was a nut.