Good and evil

[Ganthan]

Anybody who reads the Peter is the Wolf discussion forum has probably noticed the somewhat heated discussion between me and couple of other folks about whether certain characters should be considered 'evil' or not. I thought I'd lay down some of my own beliefs on the matter and get perspective from the rest of you about them.

First of all: I don't care about thoughts and intentions. I only care about actions. Bad intentions don't get people murdered or raped. Murder and rape gets people murdered and raped. Any and all good intentions that ultimately lead to people getting murdered, raped or robbed shouldn't really make the crime any less evil. If some psychotic homophobe kills my sister, him thinking his own actions were justified in the eyes of god whoever isn't going to give me any consolation. I suppose I can't say the same for people who just don't know any better and get manipulated into doing evil things by someone else. That's really what this debate is all about isn't it? It's easy to hate people like Joseph Stalin or Tomás de Torquemada but it's not so easy to hate the mentally handicapped person tricked into shooting someone they didn't even know. The werewolf hunters like Lee and Papa Stebbins (I don't know his real name) are aware enough of what they're doing that they're actually choosing to kill people of their own will. To me, that's enough to label them as evil, good intentions be damned.

Kris, you said that true evil is defined by the presence of greed. I disagree. Greed, in and of itself, isn't really an evil thing. I think George Carlin said it best, "Coveting your neighbor's goods is what keeps the economy going. Your neighbor gets a vibrator that plays Oh Come All Ye Faithful and you'll want to get one, too." What exactly is wrong with wanting to acquire stuff for personal satisfaction? That doesn't automatically mean that you'll resort to skulduggery to get it, it's something that can motivate you to work harder. This is the primary reason I'm not a Democrat, by the way.

As for saying that Juniper is slanted more towards evil than Lee? Sorry, but nope. Lee openly wants to murder people. Juniper does not. Perhaps I need to offer a bit more perspective. In case it wasn't apparent from my sig, I am an atheist. Since conscious existence ends with your death, murder is the worst crime you can do to someone. That shifts Lee and his father straight to the maximum evil rating in my eyes. What does Juniper ultimately want to do? Become a werewolf herself. Sure, she's not considering any consequences of this idea and we're still not sure what she's willing to do to get there, but whatever she does could only, at most, make her as bad as Lee, not worse. Best case scenario: she becomes a thrall and nothing else happens. Worst case scenario: she loses too much control and someone innocent ends up dead by her hands.

I mentioned that from what we know so far I view Papa Stebbins as being a greater monster than even Gus Cramer. Stebbins wants genocide, flat out plain and simple. Has Cramer ever even actually killed anyone? Even if he has, no way is it more than Stebbins. I know what people are gonna say next, "Cramer raped his own daughter you dickhead!" Yes he did, and that makes him enough of a threat to society to need removing from it, but not as severely as Stebbins. I know people are gonna hate me for saying this, but murder is a worse crime than rape. Rape is a horrible horrible crime, I'm not disputing that, but at least rape victims are able to continue living out their lives. You can't ask murder victims how they're coping with their murder, BECAUSE THEY ARE DEAD.

I'm also not an unconditional side taker. I don't automatically agree with other atheists just because they're atheists. I don't automatically disagree with christians just because they're christians. One of my best friends is a christian who tries to raise money for his church through cookouts and such. Even though I dislike Christianity and would rather see it gone, I still support what he does because he's doing productive things. Conversely, if an atheist friend or family member ever sets fire to a church I wouldn't hesitate to turn them in. The church is there because someone wants it there and went to a lot of effort for it. Religion isn't fought by destroying physical things.

[bar1scorpio]

part if Kris' comment on Greed can be summed up in Going Postsal, where a golem Moist VonLipwig of having killed 2.8 people through his scams. He may not have dealt the mortal blow, but each additional hardship he indirectly afflicted hastened a person to their death, if only by inches.

[Monfang]

Ganthan, the problem is that you are looking at a context that Lee doesn't have. He doesn't know of these werewolves as those who just want to live their lives in peace. He sees them as a cancer, a stain and a danger to everyone around them. More than likely, his family doesn't roll into town because the locals talk about how one of the local werewolves saved the day. Usually they do because someone has gotten hurt or looks like they are going to get hurt. And what we had just before he showed up? A giant werewolf getting chummy with the locals.

Ask anyone who lives around wolves, they are at their most dangerous when they aren't afraid of humans. To him, he is just moving in to stop the problem before it gets started.

Now we have Juniper, the more selfish of the two now that I think on it. Her single minded goal of finding werewolves when she knows there are those who want to do them harm and have done so in the past, shows that she has let her desires override her common sense. If she truly wanted to be at peace with the werewolves, she'd leave them alone or help cover their tracks. Instead, she is openly speaking about werewolves, seeking them out and egging on the one with a line back to the rest of the family. If she doesn't know about the Thrall effect, it might be excusable. But if she does, then she is putting a whole lot of people in danger.

Nether of them is evil, but one of them is a bigger threat than the other. And it is not the one with the weapons.

[Kris@WLP]

[Kris@WLP]

[Ganthan]

It seems like what's happening here is that I'm operating on a different definition of the word 'evil' than the rest of you. You're saying that 'evil' only happens when someone is holding onto an intense greed for something that overrides their sense of respect for those around them. Yet it's amazing just how many genuinely harmful actions have happened and still do happen even when that particular type of greed is totally absent. What you guys seem to be saying is that it doesn't really matter even if thousands of people get tortured and killed, as long as the one responsible for it all is not doing it out of greed. It's tragically wrong, sure, but not evil. My question is this: What's the difference? I'm pretty sure that all of us here abhor such actions anyway, so why not take a stance of total and complete intolerance to it by calling it evil? I'm saying let's try to fight against this.

Maybe part of the problem here is the fact that Lee is a christian. No, I'm not trying to start a religious fight with anybody, I'm just trying to understand what's going on here. I have in fact observed alarming amounts of reflexive defense towards some people when the only thing known is that they are christian. I have never been a christian a single day in my life and I genuinely and sincerely do not understand it. I don't feel the slightest bit motivated to tolerate Lee's desire for murder just because he believes in deities.

As for the attitude that Juniper is a greater threat than Lee, I'm seeing an awful lot of faulty reasoning here. The two examples are...

A: someone who wants to kill werewolves
B: someone who wants to join werewolves

What you guys are trying to say is that B is a bigger threat to werewolves than A because B risks the exposure of the werewolves to A. I'm sorry, but, WHAT? Since A is the one doing the killing, you don't get to blame the consequences of A's actions on B. If someone happens to pull a fire alarm unknowingly when gang members decide to do a drive by shooting you do NOT blame the puller of the fire alarm for all those people's deaths. Logic does not work that way.

Besides, how do we know that Juniper isn't willing to fight even her own family to protect the werewolves she admires?

[Kris@WLP]

Evil is not the same thing as bad.

An act can be bad, but not evil.

An act can (technically) be evil, but not bad.

The tragedy of humanity is that a lot of good people end up doing very, very bad things, meaning well.

[Monfang]

The Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions.

[Happygun]

Very interesting discussion, but I think it's time we moved on...beyond this topic.

Couldn't resist.

[Kris@WLP]