Absolutely Evil

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by B88

Laws and Rules are concrete and easily defined.

If that were true, being a lawyer would not be such a lucrative trade ...

Originally Posted by B88

But Morals aren't as easily defined.

Kuru's point was, I believe, based on the assumption that moral standards are objective and exist independently of temporal or regional trends. If true, they would be more "fixed" than the laws which we make for themselves (the assumption, I suppose, necessarily involving the concept of morality being externally formulated and imposed by God).

Personally, I don't subscribe to that view (and I have no idea whether Kuru does). While some aspects of morality vary little over time and space (and they are the aspcts that tend to be adopted within the framework of our self-imposed laws), other aspects can vary widely from one society or one age to another. In that respect, they are, as Fea has postulated, self-imposed by a particular society on itself (for the good of that society?)

Originally Posted by B88

Morals aren't so clear cut and dry, but what is good/evil is I think much more concrete.

I would disagree. While an immoral act is not necessarily evil (although some might regard it as such), it seems to me that an evil act must necessarily be immoral. And I am not so sure that the converse is true. A good act is a moral one and a moral act is a good one, surely.

Hmm. It seems that I'm just tying myself up in knots here ...