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116-436: Evil , by one definition, is being bad and acting out morally incorrect behavior; or it is the condition of causing unnecessary pain and suffering , thus containing a net negative on the world . Evil is commonly seen as the opposite, or sometimes absence , of good . It can be an extremely broad concept, although in everyday usage it is often more narrowly used to talk about profound wickedness and against common good . It

232-530: A Proto-Germanic reconstructed form of *ubilaz , comparable to the Hittite huwapp- ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European form *wap- and suffixed zero-grade form *up-elo- . Other later Germanic forms include Middle English evel , ifel , ufel , Old Frisian evel (adjective and noun), Old Saxon ubil , Old High German ubil , and Gothic ubils . Evil

348-529: A quasi-mathematical style and states these further propositions which he purports to prove or demonstrate from the above definitions in part IV of his Ethics : Carl Jung , in his book Answer to Job and elsewhere, depicted evil as the dark side of God. People tend to believe evil is something external to them, because they project their shadow onto others. Jung interpreted the story of Jesus as an account of God facing his own shadow. In 2007, Philip Zimbardo suggested that people may act in evil ways as

464-497: A superstitious piety and devotion; Hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man's morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere." Religious value-systems can be used to justify acts that are contrary to general contemporary morality, such as massacres , misogyny and slavery . For example, Simon Blackburn states that "apologists for Hinduism defend or explain away its involvement with

580-476: A certain degree others such as Sikhism and Zoroastrianism , define right and wrong by the laws and rules as set forth by their respective scriptures and as interpreted by religious leaders within each respective faith. Other religions spanning pantheistic to nontheistic tend to be less absolute. For example, within Buddhism , the intention of the individual and the circumstances should be accounted for in

696-458: A complete explanation. Most theorists agree use of the term evil can be harmful but disagree over what response that requires. Some argue it is "more dangerous to ignore evil than to try to understand it". Those who support the usefulness of the term, such as Eve Garrard and David McNaughton , argue that the term evil "captures a distinct part of our moral phenomenology, specifically, 'collect[ing] together those wrongful actions to which we have ...

812-525: A group may depend on widespread conformity to codes of morality; an inability to adjust moral codes in response to new challenges is sometimes credited with the demise of a community (a positive example would be the function of Cistercian reform in reviving monasticism; a negative example would be the role of the Dowager Empress in the subjugation of China to European interests). Within nationalist movements, there has been some tendency to feel that

928-472: A kind of personal "militant ignorance". According to Peck, an evil person is consistently self-deceiving, deceives others, psychologically projects his or her evil onto very specific targets, hates, abuses power, and lies incessantly. Evil people are unable to think from the viewpoint of their victim. Peck considers those he calls evil to be attempting to escape and hide from their own conscience (through self-deception) and views this as being quite distinct from

1044-548: A moral judgment. According to such investigations, TMS did not disrupt participants' ability to make any moral judgment. On the contrary, moral judgments of intentional harms and non-harms were unaffected by TMS to either the RTPJ or the control site; presumably, however, people typically make moral judgments of intentional harms by considering not only the action's harmful outcome but the agent's intentions and beliefs. So why were moral judgments of intentional harms not affected by TMS to

1160-414: A moral judgment. Moral reasoning is controlled and less affective than moral intuition. When making moral judgments, humans perform moral reasoning to support their initial intuitive feeling. However, there are three ways humans can override their immediate intuitive response. The first way is conscious verbal reasoning (for example, examining costs and benefits). The second way is reframing a situation to see

1276-470: A nation will not survive or prosper without acknowledging one common morality, regardless of its content. Political morality is also relevant to the behavior internationally of national governments, and to the support they receive from their host population. The Sentience Institute , co-founded by Jacy Reese Anthis , analyzes the trajectory of moral progress in society via the framework of an expanding moral circle. Noam Chomsky states that ... if we adopt

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1392-424: A new perspective or consequence, which triggers a different intuition. Finally, one can talk to other people which illuminates new arguments. In fact, interacting with other people is the cause of most moral change. The brain areas that are consistently involved when humans reason about moral issues have been investigated by multiple quantitative large-scale meta-analyses of the brain activity changes reported in

1508-402: A perfectly rational being, respectively. Practical reason is necessary for the moral agency but it is not a sufficient condition for moral agency. Real life issues that need solutions do need both rationality and emotion to be sufficiently moral. One uses rationality as a pathway to the ultimate decision, but the environment and emotions towards the environment at the moment must be a factor for

1624-764: A person is considered, but also the relational distance. Ten Abominations ("十惡") The Ming Legal Code identifies Ten Abominations - categories of prohibited conduct so abhorrent and heinous that the usual considerations of pardon would not apply - these include plotting rebellion, great sedition, treason, parricide, depravity (the murder of three or more innocent persons or the use of magical curses), great irreverence (lese majeste), lack of filial piety, discord, unrighteousness and incest (fornication with relatives of fourth degree of mourning or less, or relationships with one's father's wife and concubines). Other views As with Buddhism, in Confucianism or Taoism there

1740-617: A person's territory, including his or her property and dependents, which is not to be damaged or interfered with. Apart from these proscriptions, territorial morality is permissive, allowing the individual whatever behaviour does not interfere with the territory of another. By contrast, tribal morality is prescriptive, imposing the norms of the collective on the individual. These norms will be arbitrary, culturally dependent and 'flexible', whereas territorial morality aims at rules which are universal and absolute, such as Kant 's ' categorical imperative ' and Geisler 's graded absolutism . Green relates

1856-417: A religious value system are two distinct kinds of value systems or action guides." Within the wide range of moral traditions, religious value-systems co-exist with contemporary secular frameworks such as consequentialism , freethought , humanism , utilitarianism , and others. There are many types of religious value-systems. Modern monotheistic religions, such as Islam , Judaism , Christianity , and to

1972-581: A response of moral horror'." Claudia Card asserts it is only by understanding the nature of evil that we can preserve humanitarian values and prevent evil in the future. If evils are the worst sorts of moral wrongs, social policy should focus limited energy and resources on reducing evil over other wrongs. Card asserts that by categorizing certain actions and practices as evil, we are better able to recognize and guard against responding to evil with more evil which will "interrupt cycles of hostility generated by past evils". One school of thought holds that no person

2088-713: A result of a collective identity . This hypothesis, based on his previous experience from the Stanford prison experiment , was published in the book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil . In 1961, Stanley Milgram began an experiment to help explain how thousands of ordinary, non-deviant, people could have reconciled themselves to a role in the Holocaust . Participants were led to believe they were assisting in an unrelated experiment in which they had to inflict electric shocks on another person. The experiment unexpectedly found that most could be led to inflict

2204-447: A sense of fairness. In related work, it has been convincingly demonstrated that chimpanzees show empathy for each other in a wide variety of contexts. They also possess the ability to engage in deception, and a level of social politics prototypical of our own tendencies for gossip and reputation management . Christopher Boehm (1982) has hypothesized that the incremental development of moral complexity throughout hominid evolution

2320-418: A serpent is evil in relation to man; but in relation to themselves they are not evil, for their poison is their weapon, and by their sting they defend themselves." Thus, evil is more of an intellectual concept than a true reality. Since God is good, and upon creating creation he confirmed it by saying it is Good (Genesis 1:31) evil cannot have a true reality. Christian theology draws its concept of evil from

2436-407: A shared neural network for both tasks. The results of this meta-analysis, however, also demonstrated that the processing of moral input is affected by task demands. Regarding the issues of morality in video games, some scholars believe that because players appear in video games as actors, they maintain a distance between their sense of self and the role of the game in terms of imagination. Therefore,

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2552-403: A shocking moral violation may involve quick, affect-laden processes. Nonetheless, certain cognitive skills such as being able to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, emotions to oneself, and others is a common feature of a broad range of prototypical situations. In line with this, a meta-analysis found overlapping activity between moral emotion and moral reasoning tasks, suggesting

2668-521: A sin out of hate and contempt for the Devil , so as not to give him the chance to make one scrupulous over mere nothings ... " The international relations theories of realism and neorealism , sometimes called realpolitik advise politicians to explicitly ban absolute moral and ethical considerations from international politics, and to focus on self-interest, political survival, and power politics, which they hold to be more accurate in explaining

2784-402: A society. It does not connote objective claims of right or wrong, but only refers to claims of right and wrong that are seen to be made and to conflicts between different claims made. Descriptive ethics is the branch of philosophy which studies morality in this sense. In its normative sense, "morality" refers to whatever (if anything) is actually right or wrong, which may be independent of

2900-510: A supernatural or universalist understanding of principles – values including integrity, trustworthiness, benevolence, and fairness. These values can be resources for finding common ground between believers and nonbelievers. Ten Abominations The Ten Abominations (十惡) were a list of offenses under traditional Chinese law which were regarded as the most abhorrent, regarded as ultimate threat to civilized society . They are listed below. The first three were capital offences : During

3016-441: A world they view as explicitly amoral and dangerous. Political realists usually justify their perspectives by stating that morals and politics should be separated as two unrelated things, as exerting authority often involves doing something not moral. Machiavelli wrote: "there will be traits considered good that, if followed, will lead to ruin, while other traits, considered vices which if practiced achieve security and well being for

3132-597: Is 'something' that occurs in the experience that ought not to be ." There is no concept of absolute evil in Islam , as a fundamental universal principle that is independent from and equal with good in a dualistic sense. Although the Quran mentions the biblical forbidden tree, it never refers to it as the ' tree of knowledge of good and evil '. Within Islam, it is considered essential to believe that all comes from God , whether it

3248-1070: Is a process closely tied to sociocultural evolution . Some evolutionary biologists , particularly sociobiologists , believe that morality is a product of evolutionary forces acting at an individual level and also at the group level through group selection (although to what degree this actually occurs is a controversial topic in evolutionary theory). Some sociobiologists contend that the set of behaviors that constitute morality evolved largely because they provided possible survival or reproductive benefits (i.e. increased evolutionary success). Humans consequently evolved "pro-social" emotions, such as feelings of empathy or guilt, in response to these moral behaviors. On this understanding, moralities are sets of self-perpetuating and biologically driven behaviors which encourage human cooperation . Biologists contend that all social animals, from ants to elephants, have modified their behaviors, by restraining immediate selfishness in order to improve their evolutionary fitness. Human morality, although sophisticated and complex relative to

3364-465: Is also asserted that evil cannot be correctly understood "(as some of the utilitarians once thought) [on] a simple hedonic scale on which pleasure appears as a plus, and pain as a minus". This is because pain is necessary for survival. Renowned orthopedist and missionary to lepers, Dr. Paul Brand explains that leprosy attacks the nerve cells that feel pain resulting in no more pain for the leper, which leads to ever increasing, often catastrophic, damage to

3480-619: Is also helpful at the individual level for the passing on of one's genes. For example, a mother who favors her own children more highly than the children of other people will give greater resources to her children than she will to strangers', thus heightening her children's chances of survival and her own gene's chances of being perpetuated. Due to this, within a population, there is substantial selection pressure exerted toward this kind of self-interest, such that eventually, all parents wind up favoring their own children (the in-group) over other children (the out-group). Peterson and Seligman approach

3596-461: Is also sometimes perceived in absolute terms as the dualistic antagonistic binary opposite to good, in which good should prevail and evil should be defeated. In cultures with Buddhist spiritual influence, both good and evil are perceived as part of an antagonistic duality that itself must be overcome through achieving Nirvana . The ethical questions regarding good and evil are subsumed into three major areas of study: meta-ethics , concerning

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3712-439: Is an illusion. Lastly, the authors explain a basic psychological mechanism that uses two well-established phenomena (distorted exposure to information and distorted memory of information) to cause the illusion of moral decline. The authors present studies that validate some of the predictions about the circumstances in which the perception of moral decline is attenuated, eliminated, or reversed (e.g., when participants are asked about

3828-608: Is called Dharmayuddha . This division of good and evil is of major importance in both the Hindu epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata . The main emphasis in Hinduism is on bad action, rather than bad people. The Hindu holy text, the Bhagavad Gita , speaks of the balance of good and evil. When this balance goes off, divine incarnations come to help to restore this balance. In adherence to the core principle of spiritual evolution,

3944-445: Is degraded or unavailable, moral judgments are shifted toward other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). For intentional harms and non-harms, however, the outcome suggests the same moral judgment as to the intention. Thus, the researchers suggest that TMS to the RTPJ disrupted the processing of negative beliefs for both intentional harms and attempted harms, but the current design allowed the investigators to detect this effect only in

4060-497: Is evil and that only acts may be properly considered evil. Some theorists define an evil action simply as a kind of action an evil person performs, but just as many theorists believe that an evil character is one who is inclined toward evil acts. Luke Russell argues that both evil actions and evil feelings are necessary to identify a person as evil, while Daniel Haybron argues that evil feelings and evil motivations are necessary. American psychiatrist M. Scott Peck describes evil as

4176-451: Is evil: envy is evil, hatred is evil, to cling to false doctrine is evil; all these things are evil. And what is the root of evil? Desire is the root of evil, illusion is the root of evil." Gautama Siddhartha, the founder of Buddhism, 563–483 BC. In Hinduism, the concept of Dharma or righteousness clearly divides the world into good and evil , and clearly explains that wars have to be waged sometimes to establish and protect Dharma, this war

4292-521: Is generally seen as taking multiple possible forms, such as the form of personal moral evil commonly associated with the word, or impersonal natural evil (as in the case of natural disasters or illnesses), and in religious thought , the form of the demonic or supernatural /eternal. While some religions, world views , and philosophies focus on "good versus evil", others deny evil's existence and usefulness in describing people. Evil can denote profound immorality , but typically not without some basis in

4408-554: Is morally acceptable in one culture may be taboo in another. They further contend that no moral virtue can objectively be proven right or wrong Critics of moral relativism point to historical atrocities such as infanticide, slavery, or genocide as counter arguments, noting the difficulty in accepting these actions simply through cultural lenses. Fons Trompenaars , author of Did the Pedestrian Die? , tested members of different cultures with various moral dilemmas . One of these

4524-467: Is no direct analogue to the way good and evil are opposed although reference to demonic influence is common in Chinese folk religion . Confucianism's primary concern is with correct social relationships and the behavior appropriate to the learned or superior man. Thus evil would correspond to wrong behavior. Still less does it map into Taoism, in spite of the centrality of dualism in that system, but

4640-635: Is not a single cognitive faculty dedicated exclusively to moral cognition, characterizing the contributions of domain-general processes to moral behavior is a critical scientific endeavor to understand how morality works and how it can be improved. Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists investigate the inputs to these cognitive processes and their interactions, as well as how these contribute to moral behavior by running controlled experiments. In these experiments putatively moral versus nonmoral stimuli are compared to each other, while controlling for other variables such as content or working memory load. Often,

4756-471: Is not always absolute, contending that moral issues often differ along cultural lines. A 2014 PEW research study among several nations illuminates significant cultural differences among issues commonly related to morality, including divorce, extramarital affairs, homosexuality, gambling, abortion, alcohol use, contraceptive use, and premarital sex. Each of the 40 countries in this study has a range of percentages according to what percentage of each country believes

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4872-415: Is not uniformly defined across different cultures, and is not, in all circumstances, necessarily an aspect of evil. Defining evil is complicated by its multiple, often ambiguous, common usages: evil is used to describe the whole range of suffering, including that caused by nature, and it is also used to describe the full range of human immorality from the "evil of genocide to the evil of malicious gossip". It

4988-428: Is omnipotent and nothing can exist outside of God's power, God's will determine, whether or not something is evil. In Judaism and Jewish theology, the existence of evil is presented as part of the idea of free will : if humans were created to be perfect, always and only doing good, being good would not mean much. For Jewish theology, it is important for humans to have the ability to choose the path of goodness, even in

5104-436: Is one of the defining characteristics of psychopathy , and this would appear to lend support to Decety's view. Recently, drawing on empirical research in evolutionary theory , developmental psychology , social neuroscience , and psychopathy, Jean Decety argued that empathy and morality are neither systematically opposed to one another, nor inevitably complementary. An essential, shared component of moral judgment involves

5220-451: Is perceived as good or bad by individuals; and things that are perceived as evil or bad are either natural events (natural disasters or illnesses) or caused by humanity's free will. Much more the behavior of beings with free will, then they disobey God's orders, harming others or putting themselves over God or others, is considered to be evil. Evil does not necessarily refer to evil as an ontological or moral category, but often to harm or as

5336-457: Is sometimes thought of as the generic opposite of good. Marcus Singer asserts that these common connotations must be set aside as overgeneralized ideas that do not sufficiently describe the nature of evil. In contemporary philosophy, there are two basic concepts of evil: a broad concept and a narrow concept. A broad concept defines evil simply as any and all pain and suffering: "any bad state of affairs, wrongful action, or character flaw". Yet, it

5452-409: Is subsumed into three major areas of study: There is debate on how useful the term "evil" is, since it is often associated with spirits and the devil. Some see the term as useless because they say it lacks any real ability to explain what it names. There is also real danger of the harm that being labeled "evil" can do when used in moral, political, and legal contexts. Those who support the usefulness of

5568-557: Is that of universality, that is, If something's right for me, it's right for you; if it's wrong for you, it's wrong for me. Any moral code that is even worth looking at has that at its core somehow. Religion and morality are not synonymous. Morality does not depend upon religion although for some this is "an almost automatic assumption". According to The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics , religion and morality "are to be defined differently and have no definitional connections with each other. Conceptually and in principle, morality and

5684-422: Is that there is a qualitative, and not merely quantitative, difference between evil acts and other wrongful ones; evil acts are not just very bad or wrongful acts, but rather ones possessing some specially horrific quality". In this context, the concept of evil is one element in a full nexus of moral concepts. Views on the nature of evil belong to the branch of philosophy known as ethics —which in modern philosophy

5800-452: Is the active opposition to morality (i.e., opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any particular set of moral standards or principles. Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is the branch of philosophy which addresses questions of morality. The word "ethics" is "commonly used interchangeably with 'morality'   ... and sometimes it

5916-553: Is the aspect of Hinduism most difficult to understand". Religions provide different ways of dealing with moral dilemmas. For example, Hinduism lacks any absolute prohibition on killing, recognizing that it "may be inevitable and indeed necessary" in certain circumstances. Monotheistic traditions view certain acts—such as abortion or divorce —in more absolute terms. Religion is not always positively associated with morality. Philosopher David Hume stated that "the greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with

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6032-518: Is translated as 惡 in Chinese. The duty of the emperor and of his officials is to restrain it, thus preserving the cosmic order. The nature of good and evil was also ascertainable by natural faculties without the need for revelation - "one will not achieve a perfect perception of good and evil if one has not exactly examined the nature and reason of things." Offenses against the Three Bonds and

6148-498: Is typically to ensure a reliable supply of essential resources, especially for animals living in a habitat where food quantity or quality fluctuates unpredictably. For example, some vampire bats fail to feed on prey some nights while others manage to consume a surplus. Bats that did eat will then regurgitate part of their blood meal to save a conspecific from starvation. Since these animals live in close-knit groups over many years, an individual can count on other group members to return

6264-467: Is ultimately a source of absolute good, nothing truly evil can originate from God. Sikhism, like many other religions, does incorporate a list of "vices" from which suffering, corruption, and abject negativity arise. These are known as the Five Thieves , called such due to their propensity to cloud the mind and lead one astray from the prosecution of righteous action. These are: One who gives in to

6380-531: Is used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group, or individual." Likewise, certain types of ethical theories, especially deontological ethics , sometimes distinguish between ethics and morality. Philosopher Simon Blackburn writes that "Although the morality of people and their ethics amounts to the same thing, there is a usage that restricts morality to systems such as that of Immanuel Kant , based on notions such as duty, obligation, and principles of conduct, reserving ethics for

6496-622: Is used to refer to opposition to God in the human realm. Officially, the Catholic Church extracts its understanding of evil from its canonical antiquity and the Dominican theologian , Thomas Aquinas , who in Summa Theologica defines evil as the absence or privation of good. French-American theologian Henri Blocher describes evil, when viewed as a theological concept, as an "unjustifiable reality. In common parlance, evil

6612-466: The European Journal of Personality , found that moral foundations have significant genetic bases. Another study, conducted by Smith and Hatemi, similarly found significant evidence in support of moral heritability by looking at and comparing the answers of moral dilemmas between twins. Genetics play a role in influencing prosocial behaviors and moral decision-making. Genetics contribute to

6728-679: The Old and New Testaments . The Christian Bible exercises "the dominant influence upon ideas about God and evil in the Western world." In the Old Testament, evil is understood to be an opposition to God as well as something unsuitable or inferior such as the leader of the fallen angels Satan . In the New Testament the Greek word poneros is used to indicate unsuitability, while kakos

6844-429: The caste system , and apologists for Islam defend or explain away its harsh penal code or its attitude to women and infidels". In regard to Christianity, he states that the " Bible can be read as giving us a carte blanche for harsh attitudes to children, the mentally handicapped, animals, the environment, the divorced, unbelievers, people with various sexual habits, and elderly women", and notes morally-suspect themes in

6960-507: The maternal bond is selected for because it improves the survival of offspring; the Westermarck effect , where close proximity during early years reduces mutual sexual attraction, underpins taboos against incest because it decreases the likelihood of genetically risky behaviour such as inbreeding . The phenomenon of reciprocity in nature is seen by evolutionary biologists as one way to begin to understand human morality. Its function

7076-508: The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a region involved in valuation, while intuitive reactions to situations containing implicit moral issues activates the temporoparietal junction area, a region that plays a key role in understanding intentions and beliefs. Stimulation of the VMPC by transcranial magnetic stimulation , or neurological lesion, has been shown to inhibit the ability of human subjects to take into account intent when forming

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7192-683: The Bible's New Testament as well. Elizabeth Anderson likewise holds that "the Bible contains both good and evil teachings", and it is "morally inconsistent". Christian apologists address Blackburn's viewpoints and construe that Jewish laws in the Hebrew Bible showed the evolution of moral standards towards protecting the vulnerable, imposing a death penalty on those pursuing slavery and treating slaves as persons and not as property. Humanists like Paul Kurtz believe that we can identify moral values across cultures, even if we do not appeal to

7308-611: The Five Constants Chinese cosmology, moral philosophy and law regard offenses against the Five Constants with particular abhorrence - anything that diminished the proper relationship between ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger, and between mutual friends was a violation of the cosmic order and heinous. Anything that went against the Way embedded in the order of human relationships

7424-485: The Holocaust. Unlike the perpetrators of the Holocaust, the participants in Milgram's experiment were reassured that their actions would cause little harm and had little time to contemplate their actions. The Baháʼí Faith asserts that evil is non-existent and that it is a concept reflecting lack of good, just as cold is the state of no heat, darkness is the state of no light, forgetfulness the lacking of memory, ignorance

7540-552: The RTPJ? One possibility is that moral judgments typically reflect a weighted function of any morally relevant information that is available at the time. Based on this view, when information concerning the agent's belief is unavailable or degraded, the resulting moral judgment simply reflects a higher weighting of other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). Alternatively, following TMS to the RTPJ, moral judgments might be made via an abnormal processing route that does not take belief into account. On either account, when belief information

7656-493: The Sikh idea of evil changes depending on one's position on the path to liberation. At the beginning stages of spiritual growth, good and evil may seem neatly separated. Once one's spirit evolves to the point where it sees most clearly, the idea of evil vanishes and the truth is revealed. In his writings Guru Arjan explains that, because God is the source of all things, what we believe to be evil must too come from God. And because God

7772-460: The anthropological view looking across cultures, geo-cultural areas and across millennia. They conclude that certain virtues have prevailed in all cultures they examined. The major virtues they identified include wisdom / knowledge; courage; humanity ; justice; temperance; and transcendence . Each of these include several divisions. For instance humanity includes love , kindness , and social intelligence . Still, others theorize that morality

7888-582: The apparent absence of conscience evident in sociopaths . He also considers that certain institutions may be evil, using the My Lai Massacre to illustrate. By this definition, acts of criminal and state terrorism would also be considered evil. Martin Luther argued that there are cases where a little evil is a positive good. He wrote, "Seek out the society of your boon companions, drink, play, talk bawdy, and amuse yourself. One must sometimes commit

8004-423: The belief that morality is deteriorating continuously, and this conviction has been present for the last 70 years. Subsequently, they indicate that people ascribe this decay to the declining morality of individuals as they age and the succeeding generations. Thirdly, the authors demonstrate that people's evaluations of the morality of their peers have not decreased over time, indicating that the belief in moral decline

8120-405: The body of the leper. Congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP), also known as congenital analgesia, is a neurological disorder that prevents feeling pain. It "leads to ... bone fractures, multiple scars, osteomyelitis, joint deformities, and limb amputation ... Mental retardation is common. Death from hyperpyrexia occurs within the first 3 years of life in almost 20% of the patients." Few with

8236-486: The capacity to detect morally salient content within a given social context. Recent research implicated the salience network in this initial detection of moral content. The salience network responds to behaviorally salient events and may be critical to modulate downstream default and frontal control network interactions in the service of complex moral reasoning and decision-making processes. The explicit making of moral right and wrong judgments coincides with activation in

8352-399: The case of attempted harms, in which the neutral outcomes did not afford harsh moral judgments on their own. Similarly, individuals with a lesion of the VMPC judge an action purely on its outcome and are unable to take into account the intent of that action. Moral intuitions may have genetic bases. A 2022 study conducted by scholars Michael Zakharin and Timothy C. Bates , and published by

8468-422: The common moral issues are acceptable, unacceptable, or not moral issues at all. Each percentage regarding the significance of the moral issue varies greatly on the culture in which the moral issue is presented. Advocates of a theory known as moral relativism subscribe to the notion that moral virtues are right or wrong only within the context of a certain standpoint (e.g., cultural community). In other words, what

8584-430: The common perception of a decline in morality in societies worldwide and throughout history. Adam M. Mastroianni and Daniel T. Gilbert present a series of studies indicating that the perception of moral decline is an illusion and easily produced, with implications for misallocation of resources, underuse of social support, and social influence. To begin with, the authors demonstrate that people in no less than 60 nations hold

8700-542: The consequences brought about in the situation (Consequences-component, C). This, implies that various inputs of the situation a person encounters affect moral cognition. Jonathan Haidt distinguishes between two types of moral cognition: moral intuition and moral reasoning. Moral intuition involves the fast, automatic, and affective processes that result in an evaluative feeling of good-bad or like-dislike, without awareness of going through any steps. Conversely, moral reasoning does involve conscious mental activity to reach

8816-452: The cultural mix is greater, thus requiring more liberalism. Group morality develops from shared concepts and beliefs and is often codified to regulate behavior within a culture or community. Various defined actions come to be called moral or immoral. Individuals who choose moral action are popularly held to possess "moral fiber", whereas those who indulge in immoral behavior may be labeled as socially degenerate. The continued existence of

8932-419: The decision-making and moral behavior of players in the game are not representing player's Moral dogma. It has been recently found that moral judgment consists in concurrent evaluations of three different components that align with precepts from three dominant moral theories (virtue ethics, deontology , and consequentialism): the character of a person (Agent-component, A); their actions (Deed-component, D); and

9048-452: The development and expression of certain traits and behaviors, including those related to morality. However, it is important to note that while genetics play a role in shaping certain aspects of moral behavior, morality itself is a multifaceted concept that encompasses cultural, societal, and personal influences as well. If morality is the answer to the question 'how ought we to live' at the individual level, politics can be seen as addressing

9164-448: The development of a self-identity that is defined by moral purposes: this moral self-identity leads to a sense of responsibility to pursue such purposes. Of historical interest in psychology are the theories of psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud , who believe that moral development is the product of aspects of the super-ego as guilt-shame avoidance. Theories of moral development therefore tend to regard it as positive moral development:

9280-905: The development of morals, usually going through stages of different morals. Lawrence Kohlberg , Jean Piaget , and Elliot Turiel have cognitive-developmental approaches to moral development ; to these theorists morality forms in a series of constructive stages or domains. In the Ethics of care approach established by Carol Gilligan , moral development occurs in the context of caring, mutually responsive relationships which are based on interdependence , particularly in parenting but also in social relationships generally. Social psychologists such as Martin Hoffman and Jonathan Haidt emphasize social and emotional development based on biology, such as empathy . Moral identity theorists, such as William Damon and Mordechai Nisan , see moral commitment as arising from

9396-734: The development of territorial morality to the rise of the concept of private property, and the ascendancy of contract over status. Some observers hold that individuals apply distinct sets of moral rules to people depending on their membership of an " in-group " (the individual and those they believe to be of the same group) or an "out-group" (people not entitled to be treated according to the same rules). Some biologists, anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists believe this in-group/out-group discrimination has evolved because it enhances group survival. This belief has been confirmed by simple computational models of evolution. In simulations this discrimination can result in both unexpected cooperation towards

9512-400: The differential neural response to specifically moral statements or scenes, are examined using functional neuroimaging experiments. Critically, the specific cognitive processes that are involved depend on the prototypical situation that a person encounters. For instance, while situations that require an active decision on a moral dilemma may require active reasoning, an immediate reaction to

9628-728: The disorder are able to live into adulthood. Evil cannot be simply defined as all pain and its connected suffering because, as Marcus Singer says: "If something is really evil, it can't be necessary, and if it is really necessary, it can't be evil". The narrow concept of evil involves moral condemnation, therefore it is ascribed only to moral agents and their actions. This eliminates natural disasters and animal suffering from consideration as evil: according to Claudia Card , "When not guided by moral agents, forces of nature are neither "goods" nor "evils". They just are. Their "agency" routinely produces consequences vital to some forms of life and lethal to others". The narrow definition of evil "picks out only

9744-424: The electric shocks, including shocks that would have been fatal if they had been real. The participants tended to be uncomfortable and reluctant in the role. Nearly all stopped at some point to question the experiment, but most continued after being reassured. A 2014 re-assessment of Milgram's work argued that the results should be interpreted with the "engaged followership " model: that people are not simply obeying

9860-437: The face of temptation and yetzer hara (the inclination to do evil). Evil in the religion of ancient Egypt is known as Isfet , "disorder/violence". It is the opposite of Maat , "order", and embodied by the serpent god Apep , who routinely attempts to kill the sun god Ra and is stopped by nearly every other deity. Isfet is not a primordial force, but the consequence of free will and an individual's struggle against

9976-514: The favor on nights when it goes hungry (Wilkinson, 1984) Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce (2009) have argued that morality is a suite of behavioral capacities likely shared by all mammals living in complex social groups (e.g., wolves, coyotes, elephants, dolphins, rats, chimpanzees). They define morality as "a suite of interrelated other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulate complex interactions within social groups." This suite of behaviors includes empathy, reciprocity, altruism, cooperation, and

10092-449: The form of merit , to determine if an action is termed right or wrong. Barbara Stoler Miller points out a further disparity between the values of religious traditions, stating that in Hinduism , "practically, right and wrong are decided according to the categories of social rank, kinship, and stages of life. For modern Westerners, who have been raised on ideals of universality and egalitarianism , this relativity of values and obligations

10208-486: The higher stages are morally higher, though this, naturally, involves a circular argument. The higher stages are better because they are higher, but the better higher because they are better. As an alternative to viewing morality as an individual trait, some sociologists as well as social- and discursive psychologists have taken upon themselves to study the in-vivo aspects of morality by examining how persons conduct themselves in social interaction. A new study analyses

10324-399: The in-group and irrational hostility towards the out-group. Gary R. Johnson and V.S. Falger have argued that nationalism and patriotism are forms of this in-group/out-group boundary. Jonathan Haidt has noted that experimental observation indicating an in-group criterion provides one moral foundation substantially used by conservatives , but far less so by liberals . In-group preference

10440-427: The intention and consequence of an action, but also to unlawful actions. Unproductive actions or those who do not produce benefits are also thought of as evil. A typical understanding of evil is reflected by Al-Ash`ari founder of Asharism . Accordingly, qualifying something as evil depends on the circumstances of the observer. An event or an action itself is neutral, but it receives its qualification by God. Since God

10556-491: The lacking of knowledge. All of these are states of lacking and have no real existence. Thus, evil does not exist and is relative to man. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá , son of the founder of the religion, in Some Answered Questions states: "Nevertheless a doubt occurs to the mind—that is, scorpions and serpents are poisonous. Are they good or evil, for they are existing beings? Yes, a scorpion is evil in relation to man;

10672-474: The moral neuroscience literature. The neural network underlying moral decisions overlaps with the network pertaining to representing others' intentions (i.e., theory of mind) and the network pertaining to representing others' (vicariously experienced) emotional states (i.e., empathy). This supports the notion that moral reasoning is related to both seeing things from other persons' points of view and to grasping others' feelings. These results provide evidence that

10788-407: The moralities of other animals, is essentially a natural phenomenon that evolved to restrict excessive individualism that could undermine a group's cohesion and thereby reducing the individuals' fitness. On this view, moral codes are ultimately founded on emotional instincts and intuitions that were selected for in the past because they aided survival and reproduction ( inclusive fitness ). Examples:

10904-402: The morality of people closest to them or people who lived before they were born). Moral cognition refers to cognitive processes implicated in moral judgment and decision making, and moral action. It consists of several domain-general cognitive processes, ranging from perception of a morally salient stimulus to reasoning when faced with a moral dilemma. While it is important to mention that there

11020-408: The more Aristotelian approach to practical reasoning, based on the notion of a virtue , and generally avoiding the separation of 'moral' considerations from other practical considerations." In its descriptive sense, "morality" refers to personal or cultural values , codes of conduct or social mores that are observed to be accepted by a significant number of individuals (not necessarily all) in

11136-421: The most morally despicable sorts of actions, characters, events, etc. Evil [in this sense] ... is the worst possible term of opprobrium imaginable”. Eve Garrard suggests that evil describes "particularly horrifying kinds of action which we feel are to be contrasted with more ordinary kinds of wrongdoing, as when for example we might say 'that action wasn't just wrong, it was positively evil'. The implication

11252-508: The nature of good and evil; normative ethics , concerning how we ought to behave; and applied ethics , concerning particular moral issues. While the term is applied to events and conditions without agency , the forms of evil addressed in this article presume one or more evildoers . The modern English word evil ( Old English yfel ) and its cognates such as the German Übel and Dutch euvel are widely considered to come from

11368-476: The neural network underlying moral decisions is probably domain-global (i.e., there might be no such things as a "moral module" in the human brain) and might be dissociable into cognitive and affective sub-systems. Cognitive neuroscientist Jean Decety thinks that the ability to recognize and vicariously experience what another individual is undergoing was a key step forward in the evolution of social behavior, and ultimately, morality. The inability to feel empathy

11484-597: The non-existence embodied by Apep, as evidenced by the fact that it was born from Ra's umbilical cord instead of being recorded in the religion's creation myths. The primal duality in Buddhism is between suffering and enlightenment , so the good vs. evil splitting has no direct analogue in it. One may infer from the general teachings of the Buddha that the catalogued causes of suffering are what correspond in this belief system to 'evil'. Practically this can refer to 1)

11600-455: The opposite of the cardinal virtues of Taoism, compassion, moderation, and humility can be inferred to be the analogue of evil in it. In response to the practices of Nazi Germany , Hannah Arendt concluded that "the problem of evil would be the fundamental problem of postwar intellectual life in Europe", although such a focus did not come to fruition. Baruch Spinoza states Spinoza assumes

11716-513: The orders of a leader, but instead are willing to continue the experiment because of their desire to support the scientific goals of the leader and because of a lack of identification with the learner. Thomas Blass argues that the experiment explains how people can be complicit in roles such as "the dispassionate bureaucrat who may have shipped Jews to Auschwitz with the same degree of routinization as potatoes to Bremerhaven". However, like James Waller , he argues that it cannot explain an event like

11832-551: The prince." Notes Further reading Morally Moral philosophy includes meta-ethics , which studies abstract issues such as moral ontology and moral epistemology , and normative ethics , which studies more concrete systems of moral decision-making such as deontological ethics and consequentialism . An example of normative ethical philosophy is the Golden Rule , which states: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself." Immorality

11948-434: The principle of universality: if an action is right (or wrong) for others, it is right (or wrong) for us. Those who do not rise to the minimal moral level of applying to themselves the standards they apply to others—more stringent ones, in fact—plainly cannot be taken seriously when they speak of appropriateness of response; or of right and wrong, good and evil. In fact, one of them, maybe the most, elementary of moral principles

12064-414: The rape of women, by men, is found in every society, and there are more societies that see at least some versions of it, such as marital rape or punitive rape, as normative than there are societies that see all rape as non-normative (a crime). In nearly all societies, killing except for defense or duty is seen as murder. Yet the definition of defense and duty varies from one society to another. Social deviance

12180-474: The remaining three values more. Both groups gave care the highest over-all weighting, but conservatives valued fairness the lowest, whereas liberals valued purity the lowest. Haidt also hypothesizes that the origin of this division in the United States can be traced to geo-historical factors, with conservatism strongest in closely knit, ethnically homogeneous communities, in contrast to port -cities, where

12296-452: The result to be truly moral, as morality is subject to culture. Something can only be morally acceptable if the culture as a whole has accepted this to be true. Both practical reason and relevant emotional factors are acknowledged as significant in determining the morality of a decision. Celia Green made a distinction between tribal and territorial morality. She characterizes the latter as predominantly negative and proscriptive: it defines

12412-604: The same question at the social level, though the political sphere raises additional problems and challenges. It is therefore unsurprising that evidence has been found of a relationship between attitudes in morality and politics. Moral foundations theory , authored by Jonathan Haidt and colleagues, has been used to study the differences between liberals and conservatives , in this regard. Haidt found that Americans who identified as liberals tended to value care and fairness higher than loyalty, respect and purity. Self-identified conservative Americans valued care and fairness less and

12528-405: The sense synonymous with moral universalism . For example, universal prescriptivism is a universalist form of non-cognitivism which claims that morality is derived from reasoning about implied imperatives, and divine command theory and ideal observer theory are universalist forms of ethical subjectivism which claim that morality is derived from the edicts of a god or the hypothetical decrees of

12644-672: The temptations of the Five Thieves is known as " Manmukh ", or someone who lives selfishly and without virtue. Inversely, the " Gurmukh , who thrive in their reverence toward divine knowledge, rise above vice via the practice of the high virtues of Sikhism. These are: A fundamental question is whether there is a universal, transcendent definition of evil, or whether one's definition of evil is determined by one's social or cultural background. C. S. Lewis , in The Abolition of Man , maintained that there are certain acts that are universally considered evil, such as rape and murder . However,

12760-419: The term say there is a secular view of evil that offers plausible analyses without reference to the supernatural. Garrard and Russell argue that evil is as useful an explanation as any moral concept. Garrard adds that evil actions result from a particular kind of motivation, such as taking pleasure in the suffering of others, and this distinctive motivation provides a partial explanation even if it does not provide

12876-410: The three selfish emotions—desire, hate and delusion; and 2) to their expression in physical and verbal actions. Specifically, evil means whatever harms or obstructs the causes for happiness in this life, a better rebirth, liberation from samsara, and the true and complete enlightenment of a buddha (samyaksambodhi). "What is evil? Killing is evil, lying is evil, slandering is evil, abuse is evil, gossip

12992-530: The understanding of the human condition , where strife and suffering ( cf. Hinduism ) are the true roots of evil. In certain religious contexts, evil has been described as a supernatural force. Definitions of evil vary, as does the analysis of its motives. Elements that are commonly associated with personal forms of evil involve unbalanced behavior, including anger , revenge , hatred , psychological trauma , expediency , selfishness , ignorance , destruction and neglect . In some forms of thought, evil

13108-434: The values or mores held by any particular peoples or cultures. Normative ethics is the branch of philosophy which studies morality in this sense. Philosophical theories on the nature and origins of morality (that is, theories of meta-ethics ) are broadly divided into two classes: Some forms of non-cognitivism and ethical subjectivism , while considered anti-realist in the robust sense used here, are considered realist in

13224-423: Was considered vile, and invited the displeasure of Heaven and ghosts, who were seen as inflicting retribution through the instrumentality of legal punishments on earth. Chinese moral and legal philosophy views the violation of family and kinship order with particular abhorrence, considering it especially heinous. In assessing the degree of evil, not only the severity of the effect against the life, health or dignity of

13340-445: Was due to the increasing need to avoid disputes and injuries in moving to open savanna and developing stone weapons. Other theories are that increasing complexity was simply a correlate of increasing group size and brain size, and in particular the development of theory of mind abilities. In modern moral psychology , morality is sometimes considered to change through personal development. Several psychologists have produced theories on

13456-845: Was whether the driver of a car would have his friend, a passenger riding in the car, lie in order to protect the driver from the consequences of driving too fast and hitting a pedestrian. Trompenaars found that different cultures had quite different expectations, from none to definite. Anthropologists from Oxford's Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology (part of the School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography) analysed ethnographic accounts of ethics from 60 societies, comprising over 600,000 words from over 600 sources and discovered what they believe to be seven universal moral rules: help your family, help your group, return favours, be brave, defer to superiors, divide resources fairly, and respect others' property. The development of modern morality

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