Thread: what is evil
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Old 07-30-2003, 09:36 PM   #22 (permalink)
nulltype
Crazy
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Pennington
This is somewhat true, Hilter thought that he was doing humanity good by getting rid of tha parasitic races and some neo nazis today feel that he was morally right in killing millions of people. People that they see as less than human. That's the key though, they see them as less than human, and therefore aren't considered when maximizing utility. We know that what he did was wrong and evil, but some future society might see our killing of animals and fetuses as horrible and unforgivable acts against civilization. But to talk about what is "right" and "wrong" we have to be able to look at it objectivly and utilitarinism is the best system to do so, in my opinion.
We <i>think</i> that what he did was wrong and evil. I suppose what we really think is that his assumptions were wrong and his actions were illogical. That his race was not superior, and had no right to kill the inferior races. Obviously if we agreed that this was the right path, we would not consider him to be evil. I don't think anyone can truly say that something is good or evil because there is no objective way to view such a thing. It is an inherently subjective judgement, a matter of opinion. Even if everyone agreed that something was good or evil, that does not make it objective fact. I didn't really understand your last sentance, I am unfamiliar with utilitarinism.

Then again, I think there's some law that once someone mentions Hitler on a thread, further discussion is pointless.

I'm not arguing that good and evil don't exist (they exist as much as other human constructs). Just that they are subjective.
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