does evil exist?

[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.