Evil †

Evil is the violation of, or intent to violate, some moral code. Evil is usually seen as the dualistic opposite of good. Definitions of evil vary along with analysis of their root motive causes, however general actions commonly considered evil include: conscious and deliberate wrongdoing, discrimination designed to harm others, humiliation of people designed to diminish their psychological needs and dignity, destructiveness, and acts of unnecessary and/or indiscriminate violence that are not legitimate acts of self-defense but aggressive and designed to cause ill-being to others. The philosophical question of whether morality is absolute or relative leads to questions about the nature of evil, with views falling into one of four opposed camps: moral absolutism, amoralism, moral relativism, and moral universalism.

Etymology

The modern English word "evil" ( Old English yfel) and its cognates such as the German Übel are widely considered to come from a Proto-Germanic reconstructed form *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. The root meaning is of obscure origin though shown to be akin to modern English "over" and modern German über (OE ofer) and "up" (OE up, upp) with the basic idea of "transgressing".

Philosophical definitions

Western philosophy

Evil is that which is not good. The Bible defines evil as the condition of being alone (the "not good" of Gen. 2:18). In this sense, evil may be seen as that which goes against, or is outside of society, both in terms of values and actions.

Some authors, such as Christian apologist William Lane Craig, have divided evil into moral evil, or harms perpetrated by some agent; and natural evil, harms resulting from natural disaster, disiase, or other agentless causes. Natural evil has particular import to theodicy, as it cannot be simply explained as the result of an agent's free will.

Spinoza

Benedict de Spinoza said that the difference between good and evil is merely one of personal inclinations: "So everyone, by the highest right of Nature, judges what is good and what is evil, considers his own advantage according to his own temperament... .”

The duality of ‘good versus evil' is expressed, in some form or another, by many cultures. Probably this results from bininary cognitive distinctions and separation of voluntary and involuntary acts both being cultural universal. However, identitively, distinguishing good and bad is also a cultural universal. Those who believe in the duality theory of evil believe that evil cannot exist without good, nor good without evil, as they are both objective states and opposite ends of the same scale.

Carl Jung

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.