The scale of evil cannot be interpreted or defined. “Evil” does not even belong to a clear part of speech in the dictionary. Some argue that evil is a psychological complex, a noun. Others perceive it as a word attached to reality after the fact, an adjective. Joel Feinberg acknowledges the different layers of evil, but peels them back to reveal one common distinguishing factor, regardless of part of speech. While pieces of his argument are compelling, Feinberg ultimately argues that evil causes confusion beyond explanation. Feinberg’s argument crumbles when emotion is removed from the situation because “evil” is, oftentimes, the simplest resolution to a given problem. If these acts of evil are viewed with understanding, evil becomes entirely …show more content…
I am sure of this because on hour six of our eight hour car ride to Vermont this winter break, I was introduced to a hypothetical. My little cousin started reading riddles aloud to the car. I was disinterested until she prefaced one by saying “Oh this one says it's used as a psychopathy test.” The riddle is as follows; “A woman is at her mother’s funeral. While she is there, she encounters a man who she has never seen before and falls in love with him. After the funeral, she tries to find him but she can’t. A week later, she kills her sister. Why does she kill her sister?” My father, mother and I spent the remaining two hours trying to solve this riddle. We came up with hundreds of possible, outrageous scenarios ranging from “the man was duo-personalitied transgendered ghost” to “he was her sister’s husband.” We asked hundreds of yes or no questions. My cousin kept responding “It makes perfect sense but it makes me uncomfortable.” The answer? (I sincerely hope you’ve at least attempted to solve it.) She killed her sister hoping that this man would return to her sister’s funeral. The man was likely distant family friend who felt obliged to attend a funeral. In efforts to find him, she created another funeral. Because this riddle is a hypothetical, it is easy to think about it rationally and without sentiments. The funeral example does make perfect sense, as do other acts of evil. An evil woman would kill her sister for personal
Tooley, M. (2002). The Problem of Evil. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved (2009, October 16) from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/
There are two kinds of evil, moral and natural. Moral evil is things like murder, rape, stealing, terrorism, etc. Natural evil is things like suffering and unpleasantness typically as a result of moral evil. Evil is that which has no power of its own. Evil is darkness, a negation of light. Its power is in us, in our fear of it, in that we consider it a "something" worth responding to.
An Analysis of Peter van Inwagen’s The Magnitude, Duration, and Distribution of Evil: a Theodicy
It’s not that uncommon for people to kill each other, and it happens every day. What is not common, is for someone to kill for no apparent reason. Typically there has to be some sort of benefit behind the murder. Whether that may be to get that out of their way for some reason, or to get something that they want. This article was meant to show resemblance between serial killers and your average everyday murderers. He brings up serial killer Lou Ford as an example of someone who acts as if they are normal, yet deep inside are very dangerous minded. Instead of using his physical attributes to murder people, he satisfies his needs by psychologically tormenting people. He does this as long as he possibly can, but there is only so much they can take of
Pickover, Cliff. "The Scales of Good and Evil." The Scales of Good and Evil. N.p., 2002. Web. 03 Mar. 2014.
The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry is a book by Jon Ronson, where he investigates the idea of psychopathy and the many individuals involved. Psychopathy is defined as “a person who is mentally ill, who does not care about other people, and who is usually dangerous or violent.” Ronson visited mental health professionals and psychopaths in order to determine the right way to control the diagnosis of mental health disorders. Throughout the novel, Ronson focuses on three main themes, which are the definition of madness, unnecessary mental diagnoses and the problem with confirmation bias.
The reasons or categories for committing filicide include: altruistic filicide, acutely psychotic filicide, unwanted child filicide, accidental filicide, and spousal revenge filicide. The cases that will be discussed in this paper will fall under the altruistic filicide, acute psychotic filicide, and unwanted child. One case that was highly publicized and brought filicide to the forefront of America’s minds was Andrea Yates. Andrea murdered all five of her children by drowning them in the bathtub in her home. Prior to this incident, Andrea had been in and out of hospitals and mental health institutions for depression and psychosis (West).
Evil can be a difficult thing to speak on, as it makes people uncomfortable. There is inherent evil in everyone, and Philip Zimbardo presents a compelling and frighteningly true case showing this. Zimbardo is the psychologist who headed the controversial Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, and was also an expert witness at Abu Ghraib. He has a book out called The Lucifer Effect, which explores the evil’s of the human mind, and how people will change when put into the right (or wrong) situations. Needless to say, Zimbardo is more than qualified to seriously explain the evils of the human mind.
for the killer whether it is a human or a ghost. The variations from the story create the
A study found that 22.86% of victims are children personally associated with the killer and another 14.29% of victims were children acquainted with the murderer such as being a patient or neighbor (Farrell et al, 2011, p. 240). One of the most common female serial killer classifications are known as “Angels or Death” and they are caregivers, usually nurses, who kill those in their care (Pozzulo, Bennell, & Forth, 2015, p. 410). They focus on individuals they care for, most likely because they are the easiest to control and have power over. Angels of death are often motivated by ego and the need to dominate (Freiburger, & Marcum, 2015, p. 125). They get the feeling of control and complete domination, then others give their sympathy because the killer is thought to have lost a patient or loved family member.
The meaning of evil has changed throughout history. In today’s world, evil has become a hazy term. What is evil? Who is evil? Men like Osama Bin Laden have been described as the term 'evil' for their atrocities against humanity. Now it seems evil has an exclusively human meaning; when a person violates the rights of others on a massive scale, he or she is evil. In Shakespeare's time, the Renaissance period, evil had a similar, but altered meaning for people. Evil was a being that violated Christian moral codes. Therefore, a man such as Claudius, from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, a murderer and a ruthless manipulator, who uses "rank" deeds to usurp the thrown is in direct violation with the Elizabethan societal rules, and he is evil. Greed,
... show that criminality and “evil” are not that different, as we tend to define them, but normal human responses that merely become amplified and find a destructive outlet.
Evil can be a scary thing many things can influence on why a person may be considered evil or do evil things.People do things because they were influenced by others or by their own selfish desires,
The lines that define good and evil are not written in black and white; these lines tend to blur allowing good and evil to intermingle with each another in a single human being.
There is no dilemma in their brain; the thought of someone dying does not affect them emotionally. Other brain studies measuring different aspects of the integration of emotions with other human experiences have shown the same abnormalities when it comes to psychopaths.... ... middle of paper ... ... Even though there are the few cases such as Rhoda who had the so called perfect but yet in the end turned into a cold hearted killer.