Without evil there can be no good, so is it Good to be Evil sometimes?

Answer 1

you have to be cruel to be kind. if there was no evil then no one would notice the good and life would be dull and bland.

Answer 2

I really think there should be a 3rd option added to this whole "Good/Evil" debate. Me, I follow the way of Neutral, passive if you will. I'm not activeley good, i dont volunteer or worry that much about other people, but I also don't steal and as far as I know, never fancied killing anyone, so I'm pretty sure I don't qualify as actively evil. I can't be passively both, despite what some people may say about it, so that leaves me with neither. Not helping, nor harming.

Answer 3

Good and evil are in a constant struggle, we see good people doing bad things all the time, it is human nature.
I believe good needs evil to exist, if there were no evil, there would be no good.
It would be a paradox.
Yes sometimes good can be evil, sometimes evil is good.
A man commits a crime and the next day helps somebody with a problem (?) why, if he did wrong he can also do good.

Answer 4

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RE:
Without evil there can be no good, so is it Good to be Evil sometimes?

Answer 5

As Todd said, there is a flaw in your original presupposition.

Some philosophers and theologians concluded that rather than being the "opposite" of good, evil is, in fact, a "privation" of good. In other words, it is what you get when you take all good away--it is the lack of good, not its opposite. Therefore, to say that without evil there can be no good is false. It would be closer to true to say that without good there is no evil, because good is the, for lack of a better term, substance, and evil is the lack thereof. However, that doesn't sound quite right either. Because of the way language works, we end up with something that sounds like a paradox. It's not so paradoxical as all that, but I will let you work that out on your own. :D

However, simply telling you your presupposition is wrong isn't really playing nicely.

If we grant that good and evil are both opposite and equal in the same way, as you want to presuppose, you still aren't home free. I would ask why it wouldn't be better to have no good at all than to have evil in order to have good? Is it simply a matter of degrees, so that if you have more good than evil it all works out and more evil than good it doesn't? If not, then how can you justify evil ever?

Suppose that a state in which neither good nor evil exists would be possible. In that state, would it not be equally possible to say that doing good is also evil because by doing good you create evil? Surely it would also follow that evil cannot exist without good. Following this train of thought leaves us with nothing useful. Either good and evil end up being equivalent, and therefore useless to even identify, or good and evil end up being equally necessary, which also makes it somewhat silly to make a distinction between them. With one you just get the other, so how can you condemn either of them?

If I kill you (presumably you would think this is evil), I would always have the defense that I am merely creating good by creating its opposite. I doubt you would find that very satisfying. Here's part of why my argument is so unsatisfying: I don't exist in a vacuum. There are plenty of other people creating evil. I can't claim the right to call my horrendous action good because it creates the possibility for good when all it takes is someone somewhere telling a tiny white lie (also presumed to evil) to make good possible.

Does it take a big evil to make a big good possible? I sure hope not. If so, atrocities like 9/11 must be somehow "necessary" for really wonderful things, and I don't think most of us think that is a satisfying way of looking at morality.

Really, there's another problem. Your definitions of "good" and "evil" are a bit flimsy. Can a single action be both good AND evil? If so, then the so-called "evil" action is ALSO good, which means it isn't "evil" in the relevant sense of purely evil. Then I would ask if something that is purely evil can ever be considered to be good in any sense. By definition it cannot. So, if an action is both good and evil, then it is both for different reasons? That is, can you say that whatever makes the evil action evil is the exact same thing that makes the action good?

I think we prefer to have more useful ideas of what good and evil are. We like being able to say that something is good and have it mean something more than just "something is the opposite of evil". That's part of why the presupposition is so flawed... it leaves us without the ability to make a genuine description and to talk meaningfully about morality. If you prefer to live in that limbo, more power to you... but it is not the only option.

Answer 6

I realize that good is a relative term but it is not defined by evil. Without evil, you can have good. As long as you don't let religions define evil. They really like to define evil so it can skew their teachings.

Answer 7

Evilness is a trait of mankind.
No other animal has the capacity to be good or evil.
Evil doesn't have to precede good it just needs the intervention of men.

Answer 8

The first part of the statement is flawed. Without evil we would not appreciate the full distinction of what Good means, but there would still be good. So, no it isn't good to be evil.

Answer 9

Although there is certainly a duality in our collective societal psyche it's not necessary to switch from one side to the other in order to balance it. Nature itself determines who does what, not us. So it's not good to be evil. It's good to be the way that we are because that's what creates a natural equilibrium. an imbalance is created when people try and do something that they're not naturally doing. Just my thoughts.Good question!

Answer 10

Evil is the privation of being and exists only in a parasitic relationship to what is good-- as such you have it backward, without good, there can be no evil. Evil is always a lack of what is good, its absence-- as such an evil cannot be good.

Answer 11

A friend asked this question a few years back and immediatly another friend gave an interesting metaphor. to rephrase your question with another case like for instance.
without sickness you will not know when you are healthy, is it good then to be sick sometimes.
The obvious answer for me is no, good is the absence of evil just as good health is the absence of disease (and other things)