Instigator / Pro

1500

rating

debates

0.0%

won

Topic

#4725

Nothing can be totally evil

Status

Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics

Winner

After 1 vote and with 1 point ahead, the winner is...

RationalMadman

Tags

Philosophey

Parameters

Publication date: 07.17.2023 01:22PM
Last updated date: 07.27.2023 07:04AM
Type: Standard
Number of rounds: 3
Time for argument: One day
Max argument characters: 10,000
Voting period: One week
Point system: Winner selection
Voting system: Open

Contender / Con

RationalMadman

1702

rating

567

debates

68.17%

won

Description

I believe nothing can be totally evil because every action has a set of consequences and all of these consequences can’t possibly be evil. Such as purposely burning down someone’s house in the moment it would be a bad action and alphabets bad consequences with potentially malicious intent. Although the house is replaced by a children’s Hospital.

Round 1

Coolm3n69

07.17.2023 01:50PM

Pro

I believe that no decision or action can be inherently evil I believe this because.

P1 the amount consequences caused by one singular action is so vast that it is impossible for every consequence to not benefit someone else in another way shape or form

P2 if it at least is seen as something good by even one person then it cannot be inherently evil because they saw it as good it benefited them.

RationalMadman

07.18.2023 12:38AM

Con

P2 is completely self-defeating. If one person sees it as evil, it therefore is evil to that person and if one person sees it as completely evil, it is then completely evil in the eyes of that person. Thus, P2 already annihilates Pro's case since Pro is saying someone seeing something as good makes it good (this backfires as stated).

We are debating is something can be completely evil not whether something actually is that.

The disctinction is important when handling Pro's P1.

Pro's P1 seems to suggest that if anything accidentally benefits someone in some shape or form (so even complete annihilation of Earth benefits the suicidal in a superficial way) that an act can then not be completely evil.

I am going to explain to you some situations where there is complete evil.

One thing that could be argued to be complete evil is female genital mutilation. It only robs the women of pleasure and traumatises them as they are betrayed by those meant to protect and nurture them (it's done to them as young or teenage girls and the parents blackmail them to go along with it if they resist).

In this scenario nothing and nobody benefits in a true sense but even if we say that somehow it 'could be good' what Pro is missing is this:

Accidental benefits in one context to some individual or thing does not mean the act was not evil.

If we follow Pro's logic, then every single helpful act that has even one slight iota of accidental harm or detriment cause, is renders 'not truly good'. This is quite absurd and makes me wonder how Pro is definine 'evil'.

morally bad, cruel, or very unpleasant:

something that is very bad and harmful:

dictionary.cambridge.org

Something can be completely evil to either an individual, a group or even as an overarching concept (such destroying the environment or engaging in smoking around non-smokers blackmailing them into second hand smoke in a situation if they can't walk away or avoid directly breathing it in).

If this 'somehow' magically had a benefit (perhaps to the evildoer) I maybe can see Pro's angle even though this wasn't what Pro meant.

Nonetheless, something like suicide bombing or any situation where there's pain and agony and nobody really ends up happy and painless can surely be called net-evil situations.

Let's take the example of an unhappy spouse cheating with someone that's shit at sex and also emotionally unintelligent just to hope that eventually his/her partner finds out and breaks up with him/her as they themselves were too afraid to do so.

This surely benefitted nobody in the end (as in the act of the cheating itself) even if the breakup ends up being triggered. What I am getting at is you get people so irrational they will hurt others just to spite themselves, often vengeance (as in pure retributive vengeance not deterrant or 'stopping and evildoer from doing more') qualify as this.

Round 2

Coolm3n69

07.18.2023 02:19AM

Pro

Just like how something cannot be totally evil nothing can be totally good. For example let’s say you save 1000 orphans from drowning chances are that 20 of them will become murderers so although the action is mostly good there will always be evil lurking behind each action and decision.

Furthermore you made the argument that a women getting cancer is inherently evil well this is not true what if said women gave birth to a serial killer. Furthermore a human produces carbon dioxide a green house gas which is the leading cause of climate change. So it could be said that this action benefits the environment and therefore cannot be seen as completely evil. This argument can also be used for the suicide bomber analogy

For the snootier of the man and his spouse this break up could lead to him meeting the love of his life or it could end up with him living alone for the rest of his life thinking he’s not good enough and never will be good enough meaning he will not produce more children and contribute to overpopulation,. Or he might commit suicide which as I stated before is good for the environment.

RationalMadman

07.19.2023 12:29AM

Con

Just like how something cannot be totally evil nothing can be totally good. For example let’s say you save 1000 orphans from drowning chances are that 20 of them will become murderers so although the action is mostly good there will always be evil lurking behind each action and decision.

But your P2 states the following:

If it at least is seen as something good by even one person then it cannot be inherently evil because they saw it as good [it benefited them.]

This means that if one person thinks it is evil, the following is true:

If it at least is seen as something EVIL by even one person then it cannot be inherently GOOD because they saw it as evil [it maligned them.]

So, either you drop it or concede at least that something firstly can be truly evil.

Now, we get to the 'completely' aspect.

I said this:

One thing that could be argued to be complete evil is female genital mutilation. It only robs the women of pleasure and traumatises them as they are betrayed by those meant to protect and nurture them (it's done to them as young or teenage girls and the parents blackmail them to go along with it if they resist).

In this scenario nothing and nobody benefits in a true sense but even if we say that somehow it 'could be good' what Pro is missing is this:

Accidental benefits in one context to some individual or thing does not mean the act was not evil.

You keep talking about incidental and accidental side-effects of acts.

Firstly, how are you going to deny that a nuclear war that eradicates all humans isn't evil if your defintion of complete evil is that nothing 'good' came of it? I am sure you will somehow say 'good for environment' but nuclear radiation is not good for the environment.

On a smaller scale, there are scenarios of mutual destruction. These scenarios involve somebody being willing to hurt and suffer themselves while hurting others and causing malignant outcomes and emotions in others.

Each of these scenarios, such as female genital mutilation, will be somehow said by you to maybe accidentally have a 'good' if that led to her having a friend she otherwise wouldn't have had, on a life path that her clitoris and labia being mutilated led her down. This is not how you dismiss evil, this is how an evil person nods their heads and says 'I'm not that bad'. It is delusional and narcissistic or at least sociopathic reasoning.

Round 3

Coolm3n69

07.19.2023 08:54AM

Pro

Well you say that a nuclear war does not benefit anyone but with the destruction of our race further evil cannot be committed by us therefore eradicating the possibility of us colonising and destroying more planets. This nuclear war that destroys the earth and us with it, to others around us will be like the cutting away a growing tumor before it’s large enough to cause a substantial amount of evil and havoc in the grand scheme of things. It is evident that selfishness and greed are all parts of human nature evident by the atrocities throughout history as even day to day. If humans are capable of of electing a leaders such as Adolf hitler who says we wouldn’t do it again but instead of Jews it’s aliens on a galactic scale. So although life forms in other planets will not know or ever know that in our self destruction we brought them salvation. And sacrificing yourself for someone to live cannot be seen as an action that is entirely evil can it.

RationalMadman

07.20.2023 07:04AM

Con

So now the entire fundamental argument is different. My opponent is no longer arguing that good happens due to it but that evil is prevented due to the evil.

The problem is that accidentally doing something is not how morality is measured. Intent is an intricate part of it and I have continually explained that grasping at abstract aspects is not the way to disqualify it.

My opponent agrees to this, since in Round 1, Pro's P2 states that a person seeing something as good is valid enough to disqualify something as evil, even if they are 'wrong' according to Pro. That can be flipped around onto Pro by saying the inverse if someone sees it as evil.

whiteflame

07.22.2023 01:28AM

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@RationalMadman

@Coolm3n69

@Pevensie

**************************************************
>Reported Vote: Pevensie // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 1 point to Con
Although I personally agree with the Pro position, I found Pro's arguments extremely weak and believe Con won debate.

The weakest argument I believe Pro made is the following: "if it at least is seen as something good by even one person then it cannot be inherently evil because they saw it as good it benefited them." Pro degrades evil to subjective opinion. It is theoretically possible, however unlikely, that every human agrees something is evil. Finally, suggesting that if at least one person benefits from evil means it is not inherently evil is absurdly consequentialist.

>Reason for Mod Action:
The voter does not sufficiently explain his reasoning. While the voter is welcome to provide some insights into how he perceives certain arguments within the debate, the voter should not award points to either side on the basis of points the voter himself is making. Decisions must be based on points made within the debate. Also, the voter must assess arguments made by both sides in the debate. The voter only assesses a single point made by Pro, and does not establish that Con had better arguments.
**************************************************

RationalMadman

07.20.2023 07:09AM

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@Barney

@Slainte

@Savant

You may enjoy this simple unrated debate.

I tried to keep it as concise as possible.

Your votes would be appreciated.