Do evil thoughts make you evil? Like, really evil thoughts?

[retyopy]

First of all, I swear to deities I don't believe in that if you spend your whole post berating me for my crappy title, I'll... I'll... I'll write a very angry PM! If you have a better suggestion, just leave it and continue on.

Right, lets get started.[footnote]I love cats, but one of them is blocking my typing, so if I mess up... do... something.[/footnote] So say there's this guy, say, James. Seems sinister enough if you say it in the right tone. James...So James is a/an (insertcreative insult here). He's a misogynist, a racist, a mocker, a... a... A general shithead. So here we have Jim, in all of his infuriating self, a bad person. But he would do worse. Much worse. He would rape, kill, abuse, and he really would, but he's a coward, this James. he's afraid of the law. But if he had the chance, if he knew he wouldn't get caught, he would do all manner of evil things. But he doesn't. So he's a bad person, but is he evil? He hasn't really done anything truly wrong, but he would. Does that make him really EVIL?

Oh, and lets just say that evil can indeed be rated. Theres a scale from 1 to evil, kaykizzle?

TL;DR... Nah.

 

[Blobpie]

The title is a bit of an oxymoron...

To answer your question: Yes, in my humble opinion it does make him evil.

 

[Richardplex]

Retyopy! I haven't seen one of your threads for weeks! I can die happy now that you're back!

OT: Yes, intention as well as the act are important. Though he should totally see a psychiatrist.

 

[retyopy]

The title is a bit of an oxymoron...

To answer your question: Yes, in my humble opinion it does make him evil.

I know its a bad title, but... I'm so bad at them...

 

[retyopy]

Retyopy! I haven't seen one of your threads for weeks! I can die happy now that you're back!

OT: Yes, intention as well as the act are important. Though he should totally see a psychiatrist.

Was that sarcasm? Because if it was, I can live with it, and if its not, well, gee shucks, man, you've got me all flustered...

 

[ConstantErasing]

Well, without going too deep into the subject of good and evil, I would say yes. To me evil is defined by intentions not actions. A person like James is evil, where as a person who commits evil deeds for the sake of good or by accident is not. They are still committing evil deeds and should be treated appropriately but they are not evil.

 

[Hipster Chick]

By my standards, if he's a racist and a misogynist, then he's some shade of evil.

Then again, by my standards, racism and misogyny are pretty major and nigh-unforgivable character defects.

 

[Richardplex]

Retyopy! I haven't seen one of your threads for weeks! I can die happy now that you're back!

OT: Yes, intention as well as the act are important. Though he should totally see a psychiatrist.

Was that sarcasm? Because if it was, I can live with it, and if its not, well, gee shucks, man, you've got me all flustered...

Nah man, no sarcasm. Your threads always make me laugh.

 

[Shifty]

Simple bad is bad. society sometimes reduces the levels of badness but bad is still bad.

 

[retyopy]

Retyopy! I haven't seen one of your threads for weeks! I can die happy now that you're back!

OT: Yes, intention as well as the act are important. Though he should totally see a psychiatrist.

Was that sarcasm? Because if it was, I can live with it, and if its not, well, gee shucks, man, you've got me all flustered...

Nah man, no sarcasm. Your threads always make me laugh.

I'm going to take that as a good thing. Thanks!

 

[JonnyHG]

Even though thoughts can influence actions, morality is determined by what you DO...not by what you think.

 

[retyopy]

By my standards, if he's a racist and a misogynist, then he's some shade of evil.

Then again, by my standards, racism and misogyny are pretty major and nigh-unforgivable character defects.

Well, lets assume that he's evil, and then there's deathdoomevil. Is he deathdoomevil?

 

[zehydra]

Retyopy! I haven't seen one of your threads for weeks! I can die happy now that you're back!

OT: Yes, intention as well as the act are important. Though he should totally see a psychiatrist.

I disagree. Intention is irrelevant if he never commits any act associated with the intention.

 

[godofallu]

Yes he is evil because in his heart and soul he is an evil person.

Good people can do bad things, and bad people can do good things, and sometimes a good person and a bad person will do the same thing in a given circumstance. What separates them is the internal soul/thought process.

For example say you're walking down the stairs in a library and the person in front of you trips and falls down the stairs.

A good person would see the random stranger get severely hurt and feel bad.

A bad person would see that and feel nothing, or maybe even find it funny or enjoy it.

Even if both people still keep walking, the difference is how they feel about the event. Not the amount of help they offer.

 

[Richardplex]

Even though thoughts can influence actions, morality is determined by what you DO...not by what you think.

If you put a gun to a man's head and pulled the trigger, but the gun jammed, does that make you a better person than someone who's gun did not jam?

 

[OManoghue]

Of course being evil makes you evil. You don't need to do evil things to prove it to the world.

 

[LostAlone]

Evil is a point of view, not a binary state, so it depends more on your own moral standards than anything else when determining if someone else is evil.

Having said that, you can only judge someone on their deeds, not their thoughts. Also, the point of law providing consequences is that people are too scared to act on their bad thoughts. Having those thoughts doesn't make you evil. Everyone has thoughts of breaking the law, probably stealing is the most likely culprit. Nice stuff that you can't have. Rape and murder... well that's slightly different, but as long as its not being acted on then you still aren't 'evil' you are just kinda screwed up. It's not normal to think about that stuff (in a structured and continuos way anyway... we've all had times of 'Oh I just wanna kill that guy') but you do have the right to think whatever you want, you just don't have the right to act on it.

The point here is that your thoughts are uniquely private. You own what is in your head, and no-one could judge you for its content. If someone is sane enough to know not to cross the border between fantasy and reality, then if anything they are a better person than most. They know enough about themselves to not let it spill out and fewer people than you might think manage that.

To put it bluntly, Hitler wouldn't have been evil if he never did anything bad and just spent a lot of time thinking about how so many groups of people should be exterminated. That's screwed up but its not evil.

 

[retyopy]

Retyopy! I haven't seen one of your threads for weeks! I can die happy now that you're back!

OT: Yes, intention as well as the act are important. Though he should totally see a psychiatrist.

I disagree. Intention is irrelevant if he never commits any act associated with the intention.

Yes, but the only reason he doesn't do evil things is fear of punishment. Doesn't that change anything?

 

[staika]

My brain hurts from trying to figure that out but I think I get what you mean. I think that it is possible to be a complete ass hole without being evil but there is a fine line between the two.