(March 8, 2021 at 9:39 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote:(March 7, 2021 at 2:50 am)Seax Wrote: Humans that act in ways contrary to what is naturally advantageous, that engage in pathological behavior, can be said to be acting unnaturally, and we are by no means the only species to engage in pathological behavior.
This is evil.
Is it? Let's run with it and see how you feel.
We consider two murders. One is naturally advantageous to the murderer - the victim has something he wants and the crime will produce no adverse consequences. The other is not. It's impulsive and in full view of many witnesses who will punish him severely.
Is the one murder good because it is natural by your description, and the other murder evil because it is not?
This argument was already refuted thousands of years ago by Plato in the early part of the Republic during his dialogue with Thrasymachus.
You are very kind, I said; and would you have the goodness also to inform me, whether you think that a state, or an army, or a band of robbers and thieves, or any other gang of evil-doers could act at all if they injured one another?
No indeed, he said, they could not.
But if they abstained from injuring one another, then they might act together better? Yes. And this is because injustice creates divisions and hatreds and fighting, and justice imparts harmony and friendship; is not that true, Thrasymachus?
I agree, he said, because I do not wish to quarrel with you.
How good of you, I said; but I should like to know also whether injustice, having this tendency to arouse hatred, wherever existing, among slaves or among freemen, will not make them hate one another page and set them at variance and render them incapable of common action?
Certainly.
And even if injustice be found in two only, will they not quarrel and fight, and become enemies to one another and to the just?
They will.
And suppose injustice abiding in a single person, would your wisdom say that she loses or that she retains her natural power?
Let us assume that she retains her power.
Yet is not the power which injustice exercises of such a nature that wherever she takes up her abode, whether in a city, in an army, in a family, or in any other body, that body is, to begin with, rendered incapable of united action by reason of sedition and distraction; and does it not become its own enemy and at variance with all that opposes it, and with the just? Is not this the case?
Yes, certainly.
And is not injustice equally fatal when existing in a single person; in the first place rendering him incapable of action because he is not at unity with himself, and in the second place making him an enemy to himself and the just? Is not that true, Thrasymachus?
TL;DR, justice makes a group strong and cohesive, while injustice weakens a group & is therefore disadvantageous. A unjust individual may be able to parasite off a group for some time, strengthening himself at its expense though selfishness, but if this were more advantageous than just behavior natural selection would have led to the extinction of those with a sense of justice in favour of sociopaths. This is why humans have evolved a sense of justice, of fairness & right & wrong.