Are Good and Evil relative or absolute?

Question

I know how most religions would deal with this question.

However, how does philosophy deal with these two concepts?

Answer 1

Good and evil are relative, culturally dependent concepts that are reflective of which behaviors have been evolutionarily beneficial for those cultures and societies to encourage and discourage over time.

Much like the physical characteristics of a species over the course of its evolution, the definitions of what constitutes good and evil are constantly in flux as codes of morality mutate, differentiate, and compete for fitness.

Contrary to what other answers to this question assert, it's hard to point to any moral absolutes that have been universally shared across all cultures over time. Even infanticide has been well documented as being regularly practiced by many cultures and viewed by them as just and good—whether for ritual sacrifice, as a method of destroying competing cultures, or as a way of conserving resources or strengthening themselves through preferential self-selection of the strongest.

An increasingly globalized world has contributed to the slow and often violent process of homogenization of the definitions of good and evil across cultures, but even if they do become mostly homogenized at some point in the distant future, they will remain in flux and wholly relative to what was most evolutionarily beneficial during that process of homogenization—and not some cosmic absolute.

Answer 2

You're not going to get a unified answer here -- this is a philosophy site after all ;)

My perspective is that for the most part, "good" and "evil" are absolute for all practical purposes (FAPP). This is not because of some deep metaphysical truth, but merely because we are all the same species, with the same set of evolved sensibilities. There are gray areas which take up the vast majority of the active debates (e.g., abortion, LGBTQ+ rights) but you'll be hard pressed to find a society where its seen as totally fine, even "moral" or "virtuous" to kill children, steal property, or lie. There may be varying degrees of punishments for these actions, but nowhere are they lauded as desirable things.

Of course, all bets are off when we go consider the morality of different species (on Earth or hypothetical extraterrestrials).

I can conceive of an intelligent species that values personal liberty above all else (perhaps they evolved as solitary hunters extraordinaire vs our heavy dependence on social groups) so their neural calculus would be very different from us and come across as cruel. Edited to clarify based on comment from @JustSomeOldMan:

However, as a human, I feel fine saying actions of people like Hitler, Dahmer, Chris Watts, etc are evil (FAPP) whereas helping the poor, volunteering, caring for you kids, etc are good (FAPP). Not in a deep metaphysical sense, but in the sense I've established above.

Anyone who disagrees needs to present reasons why we are wrong (they carry burden of proof) since the majority of humans have been guided by intuition to craft arguments for the widely held views (and these have been subject to repeated attempts by ne'er-do-wells to loosen some of these, in some cases)

Answer 3

I think the issue here is that you cannot have an absolute morality without a universal frame of reference that everyone has the same amount of access to. Humans (especially societies, as has been pointed out in other comments) trending away from murder, stealing, etc. is practical, but still relative to the society.

The motive for volunteering at a soup kitchen and recognizing LGBTQ+ rights are derived from the same desire (to do right), but many people view both activities through different lenses. It cannot be absolute because if it were, no human could claim those two activities don't intersect.

We often see a collective, loosely agreed upon morality on the level of society, but that isn't an example of a universal morality that applies to all beings.

Answer 4

There's an ancient Chinese story about good vs bad, which in morality terms is usually expressed as good vs evil. The specific story I'm talking about is a family that loses a horse and their only son breaks a leg, who eventually avoids having to go to war because of the broken leg. The link above tells it better and in more detail.

This shows that what is good or bad/evil is relative, and that it can change drastically given time, circumstances, socially, and even individually. Religion likes to take it to extremes of black and white, while ignoring the grays in between, calling everything that's bad is evil. If you are asking philosophy as a secular discipline, then there isn't anything evil, just bad. And both "good" and "bad" have an extremely wide range of meaning because it's a secular view.

For example, killing in the form of murder is really bad, but killing as a soldier during a war isn't as bad. And killing to lawfully execute a criminal can be considered good for society, depending on societal norms. Or killing rodents and insects can be considered quite good to avoid disease and losing resources needed for humans. However, killing pollinators is considered bad, since we need them to grow food, but it's not as bad as murder. Killing a pet is usually considered bad, unless it's to relieve them of the extreme pain of disease, age, or injury, and then it's both good and bad.

So, yes, good and bad are relative. You can be glad your pet isn't in pain anymore (good), but also be sad that they aren't around anymore (bad). And those two viewpoints can even have different weights depending on what kind of day you are having.

Answer 5

Morality is a set of rules to control the social behaviour of humans.

1. These rules are taken over by the individuals educated in a given group. But they can also be questioned by some individuals during their further development, see Laurence Kohlberg's Stages of moral development. The reason for questioning are learning new arguments or e.g., making new experiences according to the Golden Rule.
2. From a binary point of view moral rules assess certain values as good or evil. Values, which underly the intention or the behaviour. Hence the values are relative alike the relativity of the rules. But certain rules are widespread because they ensure the stability of nearly all social groups.

Answer 6

• The philosophical doctrine of animalism is that humans are basically the same as any other animal, in sharing the characteristics of being physical and instinctive.

The animals at the top of the food chain have to kill to survive. They don't see killing as evil. Humans club baby seals to death to sell their valuable fur, bought by other humans who create a market for it. Good and evil are ideas in the minds of humans who have lost the connection to the animal world. Their instincts become dull, and their logic becomes confused. Belief in God is proof of my statements. Good and evil are chained to the idea of some absolute moral authority, who will judge us after we die. Thus enters the notion that we must obey our parents, and be good children. Wild animals are unfettered by the purely human notions of good and evil. I personally couldn't kill a child of my own species, but that's just me. Abortion doctors don't share my mental acuity, but then again their species developed and used the atomic bomb, to kill adults and children indiscriminately, so they don't surprise me. And most likely, terrorists will do the same thing to us here in safe America one day. We will call them evil, and they will consider themselves good. The idiocy will remain, until humans go extinct.

Answer 7

>Are Good and Evil relative or absolute?

There IS no good.
There IS no evil.
There is only FLESH.

Read Nietzsche.

Answer 8

Absoluteness of evil is relative to religious framing

In Christianity Evil is absolute; in most other religions it's relative to some more superordinating ontology.

Only in Christianity is evil made into a noun and then capitalized — Evil! Variously symbolized as Adam, serpent etc. Or directly personified: Satan, Lucifer...

• In Hinduism the superordinating ontology is Brahman-Maya — reality-error. And in addition to maya, the erroring tendency is also variously termed moha, ahankar etc.
• In Buddhism the superordinating ontology is dukha-nirvana — suffering-release, and the suffering tendency is tanha
• In Taoism I suspect the notion of Evil is so far away it could hardly be even given a vague equivalent. [But I am no Taoist expert]

The Modern Secular World

The difficulty of our time is that Christianity has been kicked out by secularism but not the addiction we inherit from it to calling others evil. So now we have «secular evil» eg. "terrorist", "racist", "Nazi" etc.

It's a worldview much more dystopian than the Christian one because in the latter there was evil (from Adam) and redemption (from Christ).

Now there is only evil, no redemption, and under newer and newer fashionable names!

Answer 9

One way of understanding "absolute" and "relative" is that absolute means having a stable reference outside this ephemeral changing world, whereas relative pertains entirely to concerns within this world.

From here it is a small step towards
absolute = religiously mandated
relative = of secular origins

Below is a selection of some philosophers/thinkers who have said that morality — i.e. our understanding of good and evil — needs a religious basis. These have a Christian slant. But one could find the same from any other (major) tradition.

1. Immanuel Kant

Without a God and a future life, the moral law would be a mere empty phantom.

If no state of well-being follows [man's] well-doing; then there would be a contradiction between morality and the course of nature. . . Why should I make myself worthy of happiness through morality if there is no being who can give me this happiness? Hence without God I would have to be either a visionary or a scoundrel. I would have to deny my own nature and its eternal moral laws. I would have to cease being a rational man.
Lectures on Philosophical Theology

Even the Holy One of the Gospels must first be compared with our ideal of moral perfection before we can recognize him as such"

Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals

The first quote makes God necessary to morality; the second makes morality sufficient for religion.

2. Fyodor Dostoevsky

If God does not exist, everything is permitted.
(Variously attributed to) Dostoevsky

3. C.S. Lewis

A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.
C.S. Lewis

4. John Henry Newman

Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.
John Henry Newman

5. Alasdair MacIntyre's Thought Experiment

Imagine that the natural sciences were to suffer the effects of a catastrophe…. A series of environmental disasters [which] are blamed by the general public on the scientists. This leads to rioting, scientists being lynched by angry mobs, the destruction of laboratories and equipment, the burning of books, and ultimately the decision by the government to end science instruction in schools and universities and to imprison and execute the remaining scientists.

Eventually, enlightened people decide to restore science, but what do they have to work with? Only fragments: bits and pieces of theories, chapters of books, torn and charred pages of articles, hazy memories and damaged equipment with functions that are unclear, if not entirely forgotten. These people, he argues, would combine these fragments as best they could, inventing theories to connect them as necessary. People would talk and act as though they were doing “science,” but they would actually be doing something very different from what we currently call science. From our point of view, in a world where the sciences are intact, their “science” would be full of errors and inconsistencies, “truths” which no one could actually prove, and competing theories which were incompatible with one another. Further, the supporters of these theories would be unable to agree on any way to resolve their differences.

The hypothesis I wish to advance is that in the actual world which we inhabit the language of morality is in the same state of grave disorder as the language of natural science in the imaginary world which I described” (After Virtue 2, After Virtue 256).

IEP continues

People in the modern liberal capitalist world talk as though we are engaged in moral reasoning, and act as though our actions are chosen as the result of such reasoning, but in fact neither of these things is true. Just as with the people working with “science” in the imaginary world that MacIntyre describes, philosophers and ordinary people are working today with bits and pieces of philosophies which are detached from their original pre-Enlightenment settings in which they were comprehensible and useful. Current moral and political philosophies are fragmented, incoherent, and conflicting, with no standards that can be appealed to in order to evaluate their truth or adjudicate the conflicts between them – or at least no standards that all those involved in the disputes will be willing to accept, since any standard will presuppose the truth of one of the contending positions. To use an analogy that MacIntyre does not use, one might say that it is as if we tore handfuls of pages from books by Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Danielle Steele, Mark Twain, and J.K. Rowling, threw half of them away, shuffled the rest, stapled them together, and then tried to read the “story” that resulted. It would be incoherent, and any attempt to describe the characters, plot, or meaning would be doomed to failure. On the other hand, because certain characters, settings, and bits of narrative would reappear throughout, it would seem as though the story could cohere, and much effort – ultimately futile – might be expended in trying to make it do so. This, according to MacIntyre, is the moral world in which we currently live.

From IEP on Alasdair MacIntyre

6. Voltaire

His quote is famous

If God did not exist we would need to invent Him.
Voltaire

What is not so easily realized that Voltaire's and our world's are very different. For Voltaire, God not existing was a wild counterfactual, in today's world it is the norm!

Tom Holland

Finally, secularism is just Christianity in a new format. This is the thesis of Tom Holland's magnum opus Dominion. A summary:

1. Human Rights

• Modern Idea: The belief in universal human rights is foundational to contemporary legal and moral systems.
• Christian Formulation: The concept of human rights stems from the Christian idea that all people are made in the image of God (Imago Dei). This intrinsic value attributed to every individual laid the groundwork for the notion that every human being has inherent dignity and worth, deserving of protection and respect.

2. Equality

• Modern Idea: The principle of equality asserts that all people, regardless of race, gender, or social status, should have equal rights and opportunities.
• Christian Formulation: Christianity's radical message that "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28) challenged the hierarchical structures of the ancient world and promoted a vision of spiritual equality that would later influence social and political equality.

3. Abolition of Slavery

• Modern Idea: The movement to abolish slavery was a significant moral and social reform in modern history.
• Christian Formulation: The abolitionist movement was driven by Christian activists who believed that slavery was incompatible with Christian teachings. They argued that all people are equal in the eyes of God and that enslaving another human being was a grave sin. Figures like William Wilberforce, who were inspired by their Christian faith, played crucial roles in the abolition of slavery.

4. Charity and Social Welfare

• Modern Idea: The practice of charitable giving and the establishment of social welfare systems to support the poor and vulnerable.
• Christian Formulation: Early Christian communities were known for their care for the poor and sick, inspired by Jesus' teachings about loving one's neighbor and caring for "the least of these." The establishment of hospitals, orphanages, and charities throughout Christian history set a precedent for modern social welfare systems.

5. Forgiveness and Rehabilitation

• Modern Idea: Modern justice systems often emphasize rehabilitation over retribution.
• Christian Formulation: The Christian concept of forgiveness and redemption has influenced the idea that wrongdoers can be rehabilitated. The story of the Prodigal Son and Jesus' forgiveness of sinners illustrate the belief in the possibility of repentance and transformation, which has informed modern practices of restorative justice.

6. Secular Humanism

• Modern Idea: Secular humanism emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, often without reference to religious doctrines.
• Christian Formulation: Secular humanism's focus on the intrinsic worth of individuals and the moral imperative to improve the human condition can be traced back to Christian ethical teachings. Even though secular humanism operates without explicit reference to God, its moral foundations are deeply influenced by the Christian view of human dignity and moral responsibility.

7. Women's Rights

• Modern Idea: The advocacy for gender equality and women's rights.
• Christian Formulation: While historically the Church has been criticized for its treatment of women, the Christian message included revolutionary ideas about women's value and roles. The veneration of Mary, the recognition of women saints, and Jesus' own interactions with women challenged contemporary norms and contributed to the gradual development of ideas about gender equality.

Answer 10

If we look at the Bible's morality from a philosophical viewpoint, I think we will see that it gives us a foundation which is absolute and surprisingly simple and elegant.

Natural good corresponds with being intact, healthy, alive, and functional; while natural evil is a destruction of this good. Examples of natural evils are sickness, wounds, death, physical pain, emotional pain, etc.

When we talk of moral good and evil, we are talking about the will, which includes our desires and decisions. Moral good stems from a desire for final good toward God and toward others, while moral evil stems from a desire for final evil toward God and toward others. God commands us to desire and seek the good of our neighbor--who is of equal value with us--to the same extent that we desire and seek our own good; or put more succinctly, as God put it, to "love thy neighbor as thyself". All of the moral commandments dealing with our relationship toward other people are merely examples and expressions of this basic, absolute principle (James 2:8-11). If you love your neighbor as yourself, you will not murder him; you will not steal from him; you will not commit adultery with his wife; you will not tell lies about him; you will not covet what he has but will be happy at his success; etc.

Apparent exceptions do not violate the underlying principles, and thus do not make biblical morality relative; for instance, God commanded capital punishment for murder (Genesis 9:6); but this is out of love for the victim and his family, and out of a love of justice. God does not love the murderer to the exclusion of His love for the victim or His love of justice. (He can show mercy through the cross of Jesus Christ; but since Jesus bore our punishment, it still does not violate absolute justice; it's mercy at God's own expense.) Capital punishment thus does not at all excuse murder that has no just cause. And in a lot of cases, our vision is very cloudy from sin, frailty, and the complexity of life and situations; and so we rely on Someone who is perfectly levelheaded and has perfectly clear vision (hence, the repeated phrase in the Bible, "good in the sight of the LORD"). But God has made the underlying moral principles of good and evil perfectly clear to us, and I believe that biblically, they are absolute and extremely simple!

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40)