Are these good classifcations of good and evil? Are there more? Examples?

Question

What is the difference between good and evil?
More specifically, suppose we have the following categories a person or action can fall under:

Ruthless Good--Justice with no mercy
Ruthless Evil--Injustice with no mercy
Compassionate Good--justice with mercy
Compassionate Evil--injustice with mercy

Can you provide examples of each? I have a few, listed below and am wondering what others think.

Ruthless Good--"eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth mentality", death penalty without regard for the convicted person's circumstances.

Ruthless Evil--serial killer/rapist, bomber of public places

Compassionate Good: rewards good behavior and punishes bad behavior while taking into consideration the circumstances for the behavior.

Compassionate Evil: rewards bad behavior such as providing welfare support to folks that do not exercise sound judgment, sparing the rod and spoiling the child.

I think most of us are compassionate good/evil. And a few are ruthless good/evil. What do you think?

Answer 1

The problem with your classifications is that it still requires subjective evaluation. Try tossing out "good" and "evil", and reclassifying acts into these categories:

Beneficial destruction - Stopping Hitler, Destroying anti-social conditions like slavery

Detrimental destruction - Unjustified harm to a person or property

Beneficial construction - Developing a useful government, Creating a farm or house, establishing a fair justice system

Detrimental construction - Building an offensive weapon, establishing an anti-social organization

While "beneficial" and "detrimental" are still subjective, they are far less so than "good" and "evil", and they provide a healthier context for argument and discussion.

It's a far better conversation when one says "you're act is detrimental to me, and here's why" rather than saying "you're evil!"

This model also helps the "white lie" paradox that "good/evil" presents. When I lie to my child about Santa, my deceit would be classifed as "evil" (albeit compassionate evil) in your model. My model would classify it as "beneficial destruction; the destruction being the deceit, but the benefit being the child's joy.

Some would add "beneficial neutral" (non-interference with a beneficial act) and "detrimental neutral" (non-interference with a detrimental act) to supplement the other four.

Answer 2

It's called a bell curve. everyone resides on it at a given place. some at the top, some at the bottom. but most are scattered all along the curve. this curve is used to describe virtually every aspect of life. good and evil are human constructs and as such a curve can be created for it. the same curve can be used for poverty, diet, hair loss or anything else that involves a group of like values. here's an interesting analogy for you. Race. humans call black skinned people coloreds and fair skinned people white. yet, black is an absence of color and white is a combination of all colors. the only way to see the individual colors themselves is to observe them in the absence of all other colors between the extremes, or on the curve. to do this it becomes necessary to remove preconceived notions of what something is to see it for what it truly is. having said all that, the answer becomes obvious, all good and evil co-exist together, because without the ends of the curve, there is no middle ground to rest upon nor basis to make a comparison

Answer 3

I never thought of good and evil as being categorized like this, it is an interesting study. I think good must be a balance of Justice (or truth) with Mercy (or grace). When justice or mercy is lacking, good does not change hats, it ceases to be good. Good becomes adulterated in that way.

I do not see Evil as being equal with Good. I see evil as a counterfeit of Good. There would be no evil without good, but there would still be good without evil. Infact, good would be real good without evil.

Here is my chart:

Good: full of grace and truth
duality (adulterated good): full of grace and no truth / full of truth and no grace
Evil (counterfeited good): no grace no truth