Evil is unintelligent and blind to one's own and another's pain

[Cortex_Colossus]

That is my definition of evil.

To be good one must be aware of one's pain and another's too.

 

[Tiassa]

Evil is definitely blind, driven by ignorance ... but it's still kind of relative. I mean, we don't actually know everything in the Universe. Were we not humans, what would we care about a genocide in Rwanda? If some advanced alien species were to observe us, would they look at us as evil, or simply as a lower life form? Wild dogs will tear the hell out of one another, and the pack will often turn on the weakest member. Is it really evil? Or is it just nature? Are we really all that, or are we just organisms in one of the Universe's great petri dishes?

 

[iceaura]

It is possible to be aware of another's pain, not blind to it at all but keenly attentive to it, and simply not be bothered by it - not feel empathy, in the usual sense of the term.

Even to find it entertaining, in the same way a windup toy is entertaining.

There are people like that, some of them intelligent.

but it's still kind of relative. I mean, we don't actually know everything in the Universe.

So is the concept itself. To the extent that evil exists, in any way meaningful to us, relative to human existence is as good as absolute.