Is the ability to differentiate between good and evil really necessary for the doing of evil?

Answer 1

No. No sane person ever considers himself 'evil'. Even Hitler considered himself the savior of Germany. Evil is just the absence of good. That happens all the time in this world.

Answer 2

What is, IS. Nothing is inherently good or evil.

Many people seem to regard evil is a 'thing'... something that has some form of corporeal existence in the physical universe. In that sense, evil does NOT exist.

Evil 'exists' only as an abstract concept... one that is 'dualistic' in nature. 'Evil' cannot 'exist' without 'good'. They are the two sides of the same coin, in the Yin/Yang sense. One cannot 'exist' without the other; neither can be defined or described except in terms of the other.

Good/evil is further abstracted in the sense that it represents a 'judgement'... not a 'thing'. As a judgement, good/evil is wholly subjective, since it relies entirely upon the 'criteria' that is employed in making the judgement.

So, the real issue is not good/evil per se... rather it is the criteria that people use in making their judgements of good/evil.

Since we are pretty much all wired the same, and share pretty much the same cultural values in a larger sense, we usually find ourselves on common ground when we judge questions such as "Was Hitler evil?", since we can agree on the criteria. However, we should realize that if Hitler had been asked the question "Are you evil?", he most certainly would have been thoroughly offended by the very idea. According to HIS criteria, he would have seen his actions as good, for his people and for 'The Fatherland'.

When we get down to subtler questions, where someone's 'criteria' might depend upon interpretation of a particular bible verse, for example, these kinds of judgements can get a little stickier.

Remember, though... it's not really about good/evil, it's really about criteria... which ultimately comes down to one's moral compass.

**************
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." ~ Steven Weinberg, Freethought Today, April, 2000

Answer 3

People don't necessarilly do evil things for the sake of evil. They do evil things because it benefits them in someway. I suspect most don't even consider what they do as evil as they can justify it to themselves.

As an example, consider a drug addict breking into your house and stealing your valuables to pay for his smack habbit. He will not necessarilly see that as evil, because all he cares about is feeding his habbit not specifically doing something evil as such.

Circumstances often dictate how we act. Most people can rationalise the difference between good and evil and will on the whole try to do good, but sometimes people do what will benefit them the most which in certain curcumstances could be classed as evil.

I really don't think life is that simple and things are not simply good and evil, there is a lot of ground between the two extremes.

Answer 4

I don't think it is necessary. In many books the most evil people can't understand the difference between good and evil, so they unwittingly do evil. Or they do evil in an attempt to do good because they don't understand that what they're doing is evil.

Answer 5

Without knowledge of evil or good is just a feeling of neutrality.
Animals kill without remorse, but if we kill, we feel remorse because we have knowledge of what is right and wrong.

So, no, it's needed to do evil, knowledge of it that is, but it's needed to be aware that you are doing something that will make you feel worse.. which is generally something that is wrong, not always evil.

Answer 6

Don't you have an innate ability to know when you are doing a bad thing?