Where does evil come from?

[Slimebeast]

The_vagabond7 said:

Slimebeast said:

Mise said:

Slimebeast said:

The_vagabond7 said:

Good and evil aren't real tangible objective things, they are entirely decided by the cultural zeitgeist of the day.

Really? So can think of a scenario where it's a good act to torture a baby?

Or rather, do you mean it is irrelevant to ever describe the act of torturing a child good/right or evil/wrong?

Don't know if this applies, but some cultures consider things like infant circumcision (without painkillers, of course) and ritual tattoos to be a good thing - and because both procedures tend to be quite painful, they could be considered physical torture by someone with a different point of view.

Otherwise, I pretty much agree with  The_vagabond7.

 

Please put at least a little thought into this.

Your examples were horrible and don't apply here, because in your scenarios the procedure of cirumcising the child has a purpose, some kind of gain.

Instead think of a scenario where you have one guy in the woods alone with a baby. And he's got a hammer. There is no gain except for his own temporary pleasure.

Right or wrong? Good or evil?

 

If you're asking if I think it's acceptable to torture a baby, absolutely not, obviously. But if you're asking whether there is some intrinsic built in "sense of right and wrong"  that tells me this, then no, because there are people that would think it is ok to torture a baby as in various examples already given above.

Humanity doesn't have some built in "protect all defenseless children" morality in them, at best they have a "protect the children that belong to my societal group" instinct. As with the Israelites, slaughtering children of other nationalities was perfectly acceptable, and encouraged, they were to protect their young. Alot of modern people though, don't draw the line in nationality or religious group anymore, but rather the human race, and thusly feel that torturing or executing any baby would be wrong. Sometimes people even extend it to all mammals or life that is sufficiently complex. Protect baby seals, or other wild life, but who cares about insect larva, ect ect. Where as others would just as soon hunt aa baby seal for profit. We have an instinct to a certain extent to protect our own young, and mirror neurons give a certain degree of empathy (that is to say we experience pain or pleasure that we see, even if the stimuli isn't being directly applied to us) but such things vary wildly and are hardly concrete, and certainly doesn't represent a unified morality.

So why is it not acceptable to torture a baby? Just because you happen to have genes that tell you so?

So what if I don't have those genes and I am not a product of your particular culture? Then your argument ends there. I would not listen to you and you would have no influence over my decisions.