Necessary evils

Author: secularmerlin

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Please give an example of something you think is a necessary evil along with exactly what makes it evil and why it is nevertheless necessary.


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@secularmerlin
I don’t get the distinction between a “necessary evil” and just plain evil.
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@Tarik
Necessary: required to be done, achieved, or present; needed; essential.
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@secularmerlin
Then good things qualify as that, not evil things.

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@Tarik
If you believe that welcome you to stay and prove anyone who thinks they have an example of a necessary evil wrong.

I myself do not really think "evil" is a particularly good term I only chose the word because of the popular colloquialism. I prefer immoral or unethical personally and of course I'm not sure you could make those distinctions without some goal or purpose (whether explicit or implicit) to use as a standard.


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@secularmerlin
I myself do not really think "evil" is a particularly good term
Your right it’s an “evil” term (pun intended).
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The definition I use for evil is counter to it ever being necessary. In short: the willful infliction of harm in excess to the benefit received by any.
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@Tarik
That was pretty funny. I didn't know you were funny.
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@secularmerlin
I have my moments, don’t say anything stupid and you’ll probably see that side more often.
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@Barney
in excess to the benefit received by any.
This seems an imprecise metric.

Does this mean it is not evil to willfully inflict excessive harm so long as at least one person benefits sufficiently?

Or perhaps to willfully inflict excessive harm to an individual  or small group that as long as enough people benefit?

If slavery benefits enough slave owners to a high enough degree does that effect the essential evil that comes from the harm slavery does to the enslaved?
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@Tarik
I have my moments, don’t say anything stupid and you’ll probably see that side more often.
Your implied ad hominem is less amusing. Please familiarize yourself with the basics of logical debate and argument structure before you try to cast aspersions upon the logic or arguments of others.
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@secularmerlin
Isn't a miscarriage a necessary evil?  It is necessary because in many cases, a new embryo will have more or fewer than the 23 chromosome pairs it’s meant to have. “It’s nature’s mechanism to miscarry those embryos, which are not destined to develop into a healthy fetus.
It's evil because it leaves the parents broken hearted.
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@secularmerlin
Fight fire wit fire, fight immoral with immoral, etc..

The higher{?} place---most moral{?}---   also takes the most courage is  ...'the only thing I will do for death is to die for it'.....

Fighting fire with fire is fine in wildfires. In war it fighting immoral with immoral often leads to collateral damage to non-combatants.

If a non-human animal attacks us we fight back.  To not fight back against human attack makes no sense. The Killing Fields of Comabodia come to mind.

The British somehow bombed the a congested city in Germany in WW2, instead of hitting the weapons factories on the edge and many non-combatant citizens killed uneccessrily and not planned.

It is debate-able the Trumans decission to drop not only one but two atomic bombs on Japan, as there were options USA could have chosen that would have been more morally acceptable to the moral minded.




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@secularmerlin
For an evil that is necessary, you’ll need to get real abstract. 
Evil is a subjective/intersubjective description. It’s a weighted word of what we consider immoral. 


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@FLRW
It is necessary because in many cases, a new embryo will have more or fewer than the 23 chromosome pairs it’s meant to have. “It’s nature’s mechanism to miscarry those embryos, which are not destined to develop into a healthy fetus.
You are not using necessary in the same context which I am. I mean something which is necessary to the "greater good" whatever you consider that to be. 

Your example would only be relevant if miscarriages where preventable (birth deffexts were curable) and we chose to allow them to continue. In that case you would still have to defend their necessity.
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@Reece101
For an evil that is necessary, you’ll need to get real abstract. 
Evil is a subjective/intersubjective description. It’s a weighted word of what we consider immoral. 
Well stated 
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@secularmerlin
Perhaps killing someone in self defense or a soldier killing an enemy during war.
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Please give an example of something you think is a necessary evil along with exactly what makes it evil and why it is nevertheless necessary.
  • Robert Craig Knievel was a necessary evil.
  • He was evil for promotional purposes- it sounded tough and rhymed with his last name.
  • Without him, Fonzie might not have ever jumped the shark and we'd all still be wearing neon nylon golf pants.

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  • Pooping is a necessary evil
  • It is evil because it is stinky and uncomfortable and dull
  • It is necessary because without elimination, the human body soon explodes

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@secularmerlin
Right back at ya kid.
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@Tarik
Please look up the running Krieger effect.
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@TwoMan
Perhaps killing someone in self defense or a soldier killing an enemy during war.
You are the first to offer a serious attempt at an answer and I appreciate that but you don't say why that is evil or necessary. 
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@oromagi
You are not using necessary in the same context which I am. I mean something which is necessary to the "greater good" whatever you consider that to be. 

Your example would only be relevant if pooping where preventable(without causing bodily harm) and we chose to allow them to continue. In that case you would still have to defend the necessity of poops. 

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@secularmerlin
Please look up the running Krieger effect.
I think you meant Dunning–Kruger effect.
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@secularmerlin
Perhaps killing someone in self defense or a soldier killing an enemy during war.
You are the first to offer a serious attempt at an answer and I appreciate that but you don't say why that is evil or necessary. 
It seems pretty self explanatory but okay....

In my opinion, if one cares about humanity then it is evil to kill another human. If one cares about one's own life more than another's and is forced to kill that person to protect it, then that makes it necessary for one's own survival. The "ifs" create the conditions needed to answer your question as they make a moral standard explicit. The term evil is not necessarily being used in the strictest definition (profoundly immoral) but in the colloquial sense that you mentioned (bad) as in a bad outcome which is how a person who cares about humanity would view it. The argument is basically the same for war.

Another example of your query could be voting for someone you don't particularly like in order to keep someone you really don't like out of office. That scenario employs the term evil very loosely and is another example of a colloquial use. That scenario requires that one's feelings about political candidates are important enough to make an "evil" (not preferred) vote for candidate A to mitigate one's feelings about candidate B. 
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@Tarik
I think you meant Dunning–Kruger effect.
I did despite my struggles with spellcheck.
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@secularmerlin
No need I know enough about it (at least enough to spell it right lol).
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@secularmerlin
The only necessary evil I am aware of is evil, itself. There must be opposition in all things, so, that there is righteousness means evil must exist to oppose it. Our challenge is to either ignore, or embrace evil. By complete ignorance of evil, I don't mean that we should be stupid as a reaction to evil, but that we be aware of it and choose to ignore its influence while acknowledging its existence. On the other side of the coin, we can ignore righteousness and its influence. Alexander Pope, I believe, gave us the perfect description of evil [or vice, in his vernacular] by the verses in his extensive Essay on Man:
Vice is a monster of such frightful mien
That to be hated needs but to be seen.
But seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first pity, then endure, and then embrace.
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@TwoMan
Seems like a structurally valid argument that doesn't overstate your epistemological limits.
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@fauxlaw
The only necessary evil I am aware of is evil, itself. There must be opposition in all things, so, that there is righteousness means evil must exist to oppose it. 
While this may seem intuitive it is actually a non sequitur. I have no reason to think that a necessary opposite or necessary opposition exists for all things or even just all concepts.