Good and Evil

Dang I need to think up a more creative title, but its late and there are way to many cliche phrases that would have been just as bad, so this will have to do.  Yes that's right, what we have here is a nice little pseudo-philosophical post on morality so if you don't care for that sort of thing here's you're chance to leave, though frankly you should be used to this kind of thing by now, I mean just check out how much use my probably useless tag gets.  Sorry, irrelevant tangent, did I mention that it's pretty late?  Let's try again, shall we:

Defining good or evil isn't exactly the easiest thing to do in any society, much less one such as this, what with all the side-swapping, brainwashed husks (thanks to messenger for this word, I personally find it much more accurate than hallowed), people forced into one side or the other against their will.  So since I can't exactly make a truly accurate definition for these terms why don't I provide a dictionary definition for them:

Good: (noun, adjective, adverb,)

1.  morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious: a good man.
2. satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree: a good teacher;good health.
3. of high quality; excellent.
4. right; proper; fit: It is good that you are here. His credentialsare good.
5. well-behaved: a good child.

Evil: (adjective)

1. morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life.
2. harmful; injurious: evil laws.
3. characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering;unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days.
4. due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evilreputation.
5. marked by anger, irritability, irascibility, etc.: He is known forhis evil disposition.

Well I could begin by dissecting the definition of each of the words in those two definitions that are equally vague or conditional, but we really don't want this to be a twenty page long post, so I'll skip past that and just leave these here for later reference.  

Morality is a tricky thing, how do you know if someone is a good person, if they are truly "morally excellent and virtuous?"  Do you define a person as good based on their actions, do you judge them on their intentions, or is there some other quality or trait that makes that distinction?  Perhaps it is a combination of the above, can you really justify slaughtering innocent lives if it is all a means to a virtuous end, or can you really call someone who has saved the lives of many people just to further his own selfish goals good.  

But then where lies the line, can "Joseph" truly be considered an evil person?  Yes he kills people, innocent people, but he does this for his own safety, and he grants his victims (who would probably die anyways) a sense of peace in their final hour.  What of Elaine, who sold out people who trusted her, but with the motivation of keeping others safe and protected.  Very few would likely call her evil, but does the goodness of her intentions outweigh the fact that people got hurt as a result of what she did, and even directly told their enemies.  There's The Mad Ventriloquist, who used to do some very bad things, but is trying to help people (he has his own view on morality of course, not sure I agree, but it deserves to be mentioned).  Have you seen Nightscream's most recent post, what would be the good answer to his question?  Is it good to let a cruel man go unpunished?  Where would Zero fall on this scale?  Was he a good man? Or was he a evil one (I went through hell for that link because I forgot the word "The" in the title and had to track down one of zero's old comments)?  What about the Husks, people brainwashed beyond their own control, with no real power over their own actions; can these people really be considered evil?

(Side note: none of these examples are meant to incite anger, resentment, or drama, they are just being used to show that very few people realistically fall into the categories of good or evil.)

The point I'm trying to make, in a long, drawn out, and heavily linked way (I do love my links, so good for showing examples) is that good and evil are not only vague, subjective, and inconstant, they're also rare and out of balance.  The fact is, if we had a single concrete method for determining whether a person was truly good or truly evil then there would undoubtedly still be an absurdly high number of people milling about in the middle (in fact I'm of the opinion that no one would really ever make it into the truly good side).  I sometimes wonder if anyone could really ever really sort everyone they know into either of those categories, if they could ever even find someone who was truly good.  Sometimes I wonder where I would fall if we were all being sorted into categories.  Then I remember who I am in my own mind and I realize that they'd have to cut my in half to sort me right, heh.

EDIT: Huh, I thought that was longer, well try reading through all of those links, that should more than cover the minimum length requirement for being to long.  Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to sleep, I get to sleep in tomorrow and I don't want to miss out on a moment of that.

See you around

FreedomCaged