The Nature of evil pt. 6
Did you know that if you hope to rent a place, and that you call a landlord and he/she tells you over the phone that you they won't rent a place to you sight unseen, they aren't saying that they won't rent a place to you that you haven't seen? It's that they won't rent to you until they've seen you. Maybe they aren't racist. Maybe you're just not their kind of people. Regardless, that's what that means.
More on the nature of evil. I'd like to drop out of the hypothetical for a second and instigate something only a slight bit more concrete--a thought experiment.
Here is the set-up. You go to visit your friend at work--he's a janitor--and he's showing you around the place where he works. He shows you a rather technical looking room with a control panel and a big red button and then begins to empty the trash. No ones looking. There's no indication that the machine to which this control panel is connected is even on. Now I ask you, at what point are you evil? What extra details do I have to add to this story for you to consider the guy in the experiment, which I have deemed "you", evil? Thank of this as a Mr. Potato Head of morality. Right now, you aren't evil. You're in a room. Big deal. Maybe you shouldn't be there, but most people aren't going to say that you being in an off limits area is immoral.
So, what if you press the button? What if you press the button, and do to whatever it is the button does, someone dies. Are you evil then? Do you have to know that someone dies in order for you to have committed an evil act? Do you have to have some suspicion that there might be dire repercussions should you press that button? How strong do the implications have to be?
If I say that the button controls the launch of a nuclear warhead and that you know this, and that you press the button anyway, well, yes, then that's clearly evil. But what if you just know that this is a military base that you're in, and you don't know what this particualar part of the base does? What if you do know what this particular part of the base does, but you don't know what this particular machine does? Also, is it only evil if the machine with the red button controls a nuclear warhead? What if the machine caused some robotic arm in plant that makes artificial hearts skip some all important screw, and the deffective heart goes out? What then? Do you have to figure in whether there is a sign or not that tells you not to touch the button. What about common sense, common decency, common ettiquette. Which of these, if breached, constitutes evil.
And what if the button does none of these horrible things that I've suggested? What if the button only might have done something, but you'll never know what it does or doesn't do, are you let off the hook then?
There is obviously potential for evil in these circumstances, but the question is what shape this scenario would have to take in order for it to pass the level of potential and settle finally in our own ability to call it evil?
More on the nature of evil. I'd like to drop out of the hypothetical for a second and instigate something only a slight bit more concrete--a thought experiment.
Here is the set-up. You go to visit your friend at work--he's a janitor--and he's showing you around the place where he works. He shows you a rather technical looking room with a control panel and a big red button and then begins to empty the trash. No ones looking. There's no indication that the machine to which this control panel is connected is even on. Now I ask you, at what point are you evil? What extra details do I have to add to this story for you to consider the guy in the experiment, which I have deemed "you", evil? Thank of this as a Mr. Potato Head of morality. Right now, you aren't evil. You're in a room. Big deal. Maybe you shouldn't be there, but most people aren't going to say that you being in an off limits area is immoral.
So, what if you press the button? What if you press the button, and do to whatever it is the button does, someone dies. Are you evil then? Do you have to know that someone dies in order for you to have committed an evil act? Do you have to have some suspicion that there might be dire repercussions should you press that button? How strong do the implications have to be?
If I say that the button controls the launch of a nuclear warhead and that you know this, and that you press the button anyway, well, yes, then that's clearly evil. But what if you just know that this is a military base that you're in, and you don't know what this particualar part of the base does? What if you do know what this particular part of the base does, but you don't know what this particular machine does? Also, is it only evil if the machine with the red button controls a nuclear warhead? What if the machine caused some robotic arm in plant that makes artificial hearts skip some all important screw, and the deffective heart goes out? What then? Do you have to figure in whether there is a sign or not that tells you not to touch the button. What about common sense, common decency, common ettiquette. Which of these, if breached, constitutes evil.
And what if the button does none of these horrible things that I've suggested? What if the button only might have done something, but you'll never know what it does or doesn't do, are you let off the hook then?
There is obviously potential for evil in these circumstances, but the question is what shape this scenario would have to take in order for it to pass the level of potential and settle finally in our own ability to call it evil?
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
12:41 PM
2 Comments:
Is pushing the button evil? I don’t think so. Stupid, yes. Ignorant, yes. Evil? You’ve said that stupid evil is the worst kind, but I think that the act is only assigned the name of “evil” afterwards. In the case of evil, it would appear that context always spills over the container of the thought experiment. The difference between the thought-experiment button and the actual button is that the actual button is never contextless. If it was, you’d be living in one of those old Infocom games.
But it’s a red button. That’s context. Red, when the color of a button, means either “danger” or “emergency.” And if you walk into a room and you don’t know where the hell you are, it might very well be a good idea to push the button. And how well do you really know this janitor? Then you remember that janitor in California who killed that girl. Is this an EVIL janitor? Not the kind of unthinking evil, but the “motiveless malignity” type? Let’s face it: he could potentially snap at any moment.
But what if the button isn’t red? What if it’s blue, or even green?
There’s no sign that says “don’t push this button.” If the button could result in the killing of someone, shouldn’t there be a sign to keep the common janitor from pushing it? I know what you’re thinking here: this simply moves the thought experiment into the janitor’s realm. But what I really mean is that the janitor, going in and out of the room on a regular basis, might lean his broom up against the button and cause a person’s heart to explode. Maybe they didn’t need the sign: maybe they sat the guy down and lectured him long and hard about not pushing the button. If so, he’d pass the knowledge on to you when you followed him into the room, wouldn’t he?
It seems finally to come down to ignorance and stupidity. And in doing so, it moves back to your earlier posts on the nature of evil. Evil, it seems, is always assigned at a later date. Were the guys who designed the World Trade Center evil for not providing more reinforcement?
(1)no; at the time, they thought they were providing enough reinforcement. After all, who builds a structure with the idea in mind that a jet will actually hit it? They were perfectly reasonable.
(2)no; they were ignorant. Only after the WTC tragedy did we find that they had stupidly provided insufficient reinforcement to account for ANY catastrophe.
(3)In the eyes of a casualty’s family, they WERE evil. They were responsible for the person’s death.
Had the jet not crashed into the tower (providing us with context), we might never know that they were evil. THEY might never have contemplated the fact that they might be evil.
So, in answer to your thought experiment’s question of evil's “threshold” the answer would not be a where, but a when.
Is pushing the button evil? I don’t think so. Stupid, yes. Ignorant, yes. Evil? You’ve said that stupid evil is the worst kind, but I think that the act is only assigned the name of “evil” afterwards. In the case of evil, it would appear that context always spills over the container of the thought experiment. The difference between the thought-experiment button and the actual button is that the actual button is never contextless. If it was, you’d be living in one of those old Infocom games.
But it’s a red button. That’s context. Red, when the color of a button, means either “danger” or “emergency.” And if you walk into a room and you don’t know where the hell you are, it might very well be a good idea to push the button. And how well do you really know this janitor? Then you remember that janitor in California who killed that girl. Is this an EVIL janitor? Not the kind of unthinking evil, but the “motiveless malignity” type? Let’s face it: he could potentially snap at any moment.
But what if the button isn’t red? What if it’s blue, or even green?
There’s no sign that says “don’t push this button.” If the button could result in the killing of someone, shouldn’t there be a sign to keep the common janitor from pushing it? I know what you’re thinking here: this simply moves the thought experiment into the janitor’s realm. But what I really mean is that the janitor, going in and out of the room on a regular basis, might lean his broom up against the button and cause a person’s heart to explode. Maybe they didn’t need the sign: maybe they sat the guy down and lectured him long and hard about not pushing the button. If so, he’d pass the knowledge on to you when you followed him into the room, wouldn’t he?
It seems finally to come down to ignorance and stupidity. And in doing so, it moves back to your earlier posts on the nature of evil. Evil, it seems, is always assigned at a later date. Were the guys who designed the World Trade Center evil for not providing more reinforcement?
(1)no; at the time, they thought they were providing enough reinforcement. After all, who builds a structure with the idea in mind that a jet will actually hit it? They were perfectly reasonable.
(2)no; they were ignorant. Only after the WTC tragedy did we find that they had stupidly provided insufficient reinforcement to account for ANY catastrophe.
(3)In the eyes of a casualty’s family, they WERE evil. They were responsible for the person’s death.
Had the jet not crashed into the tower (providing us with context), we might never know that they were evil. THEY might never have contemplated the fact that they might be evil.
So, in answer to your thought experiment’s question of evil's “threshold” the answer would not be a where, but a when.
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