[Serious] Good vs Evil

[The Grand Nudger]

How do you define good and evil?
Do you think anything is objectively good or evil? If so what?
What do you think drives people to aim for what they believe is good and away from what they believe is evil?

Since I made the thread, I’ll answer the questions. (Also, not really sure why I posted this in the religion forum, can’t remember lol)

I don’t believe in good and evil really. Not like that. I think subjectively things can be good (better than neutral) or bad (worse than neutral). Good is a word I use often. Just to mean something I like or something I think benefits myself, others, or the world. Evil is a word I never use. The concept of evil is silly to me, because it seems to imply some sort of supernatural meaning to the word bad.

The thing is I think everyone is good by their own terms. No one sets out to be bad. No one chooses to be a bad person. I think I read once that human beings tend to base their morals on what they want to do rather than basing what they want to do on their morals. So there’s a lot of justifying that goes on, with all of us. But I think everyone tries to do good based on what they believe to be good. This is likely an evolutionary trait? I’m assuming. Being “good” and doing “good” gives us a better shot at surviving and at happiness I guess.

If evil were a term for a pathological commitment to harmful things, what supernatural component would there be in some act or person displaying that commitment?  

The thing is I think everyone is good by their own terms. No one sets out to be bad. No one chooses to be a bad person. I think I read once that human beings tend to base their morals on what they want to do rather than basing what they want to do on their morals. So there’s a lot of justifying that goes on, with all of us. But I think everyone tries to do good based on what they believe to be good. This is likely an evolutionary trait? I’m assuming. Being “good” and doing “good” gives us a better shot at surviving and at happiness I guess.

This strongly implies moral objectivity, assumed or actual.  If people are compelled to act by some set of terms with an external referent, and those referents are true - then they are pursuing an objective morality.  They may not have the right set of metrics, but that's a disagreement that carries an underlying requirement of moral objectivity.  

The rationalization of immoral behaviors (by one's own standard) is a feature, not a bug.  If virtue seeking behavior had no other practical benefit to the whole (which is rare, we've centered our virtue seeking ethos around collectivism) it would still effect status, which in turn effects reproductive success.  You don't have to go with a natural explanation, though.  Nature may have given us this thing, and it may be riddled with accumulated biological baggage -  but nature only has to explain the origin of the apparatus, not it's current use by humans.