Bad People

[AreEl]

I'd say that "the greater good" itself is no more concrete than the sense of moral purpose that serves it (or doesn't as the case maybe). As I said in one of my earlier posts: destroying the planet along with all life on its surface could arguably be for "the greater good," in some people's philosophies.

Agreed. You said it better than I could have. Wilson expresses the same idea:

"Bad" and "good" have no meaning aside from morality. And for most of us here, there is no absolute, objective morality. So calling someone "bad" means that you don't like his actions and that he's violated your own individual moral standards. Someone else, with a different moral worldview, wouldn't necessarily call him "bad". We as a society tend to have similar moral ideas, with some variations, so if someone has violated the moral standards of the community, then most of us - but not all - will agree that he is "bad". But it's not an absolute.

So, that leaves me with the question, how [can you affirm that morality as a science can be objectively known]?

You could be saying, simply, "There is a source of objective morality out there, which can be understood, although I don't necessarily understand it myself. My own moral opinions are still, if not subjective, at least extremely fallible." However a truly bold claim would be, "There is a source of objective morality out there and I also possess an objective, personal understanding of it."

I am making the truly bold claim that you resumed quite well:  ''There is a source of objective morality out there and I also possess an objective personal understanding of it.''

1) How do you know objective morality exists to be understood?
and if applicable
2) How do you then go about, objectively, understanding it?

3-ish. Sort of an incidental question) You say you follow the teachings of Jesus because they match an innate, instinctive morality that you already possess. This sounds like an admission of subjectivity to me. What about those of us whose innate 'moral compass' does not match those teachings? If they were truly objective, then there ought to be a reason for us to believe them, and to follow them, regardless of how we feel. Is there such a reason?

I'll answer and comment your question #3 above: (re italics portion, above) There are plenty of people who follow the teachings of Jesus (Christians and others) who can be some of the meanest, vilest people you'll ever meet. The ''instinctive morality'' you speak of is the one we are born with and all possess. While this is biblically correct and many non-Christians would agree it exists, the idea of instinctive morality does not sit well with some atheistic worldviews (Naturalism and Darwinism are the two that come to mind). The instinctive morality we were born with doesn't make us nice people - as human history will attest! - rather, it makes us pine for the Good. I'll repeat that so it sinks in: the morality we are born with makes us pine for the Good but we remain incapable of it. History is a witness that we as a species are given to hatred, discord, religious mumbo jumbo, egotism (personal & national), substance addictions, murder, incest, rape...I could go on for a long time! Atheists have chosen to blame organized religion for all this mayhem while turning a blind eye to the poor (a euphemism!) human rights record of atheist states like the ex-USSR, China, Mongolia, North Korea, to name only a few. Religion isn't the problem, and atheism isn't the problem; human nature is the problem.

As far as the teachings of Jesus are concerned, they are largely useless and wasted by most people, professing Christians or otherwise. They are impossible to live by for the vast majority. Christianity abused as a mantle of self-righteousness will produce the a type of sorry individual who will abuse and insult others. Such people have nothing to do with Christ. They can be found among other religions and among atheists as well. Christianity isn't the culprit; human nature is the culprit.

(re boldface portion, above) This will always sound like an admission of subjectivity to those on the outside! No one's innate moral compass matches any worldview's teaching, even less so the teachings of Christ! Remember: you'll pine for the Good but you'll never be good. Your nature prevents you. You may give intellectual assent to The Human Manifesto or the Bible or Buddhism,  but when your neighbor rapes your wife will you restrain him and wait for the police? or will you beat the shit out of him and then call the police?

(re underlined portion, above) No, we will not believe (objective moral teachings) nor want to follow them for that is our nature. We'll keep looking for some other way; we'll keep asking bizarre questions like, ''If Pol Pot did 80% good and 20% bad, does this make him a bad man?'' By this standard, we are all good.

By our standards, whatever they may be, we pronounce ourselves ''good''.

[Twentythree]

Objective morality, or a real morality will could never evolve, either in phenotypes or memes because it will always be subverted by mutations. A constant in our perception of good and evil would leave us susceptible to moral infiltration by parasites. Our ability to accept or reject ideas as good or bad have to be fluid and adaptable. Our behavior is going to be constantly reshaping as our environment changes. The most we can hope for are basic psychological constants, but I think that even deep irrational emotions are more taught than inherited. Things like shame, and guilt, pride and envy I think are not inherited adaptations but learned adaptations that help young people understand the complexity of moral understanding needed in order to be a functional part of the current culture.

[penfold]

[...]
1) We abandon all moral judgement, because while we can call Y a Bad action we cannot meaningfully identify an self (X) to anchor it too. So, literally, have no one to blame for Y.

2) We reconstruct morality allowing us to punish person X for action Y even though there is no coherent notion of self to 'anchor' Y on X.

3) We allow that even though our notion of X is vague and evasive, we stand by the principle that it is none the less a sufficient anchor to allow us to make X responsible for Y.
[...]

I'm more in favour of 1. It's easy to call actions and/or their consequences 'bad' but it's too difficult with people. The self may be defined enough, however, for you to judge whether or not  person X is likely to recommit action Y, and to intervene. Or you might see things like punishment as functional, regardless of accountability; merely a tool of the social engineer. In other words, although person X cannot be held accountable for action Y, and although s/he is not likely to recommit, punishing them for it will still provide a strong disincentive to others.

This is awfully bleak. Even if I could imagine a 'social engineer' making cynical policy decisions I do not think your view accurately describes reality.

You said in a previous post that things are Good or Bad "just because"; a view I strongly associate with. Given that we can meaningfully discuss bad actions, does that not presuppose notions of responsibility and intention?

To take a recent pair of examples: the Japan earthquake and the recent cluster bombing of civilians in Misrata. We, I assume, can all agree that these are both Bad. However I also think we would agree that we mean different things by Bad in each context. The use of cluster bombs in Misrata engages us in notions of 'justice' in a way that an earthquake does not. The crucial difference is that the horror of Misrata involved human agency.

It would seem to me absurd to abandon any coherent notion of human agency and responsibility. Else in ethical terms there is no difference between what St Augustine called man-made and natural evils.

I should point out that what I am appealing to is our intuitive 'common-sense' notions of justice (and at a deeper level our notion of 'the self'). This defence does, of course, beg the question. It may be that we have to completely abandon ideas like justice and responsibility because we cannot draw a coherent notion of 'the self'. All I would say is that I think your position is ducking the issue; your account fails to account for that vast set of human behaviour dealing with justice. You may be right that it has no analytical basis, but that does not account for our experience of the world. Whether we like it or not we all feel a sense of justice; those few who genuinely do not we call sociopaths.

[penfold]

I'll answer and comment your question #3 above: (re italics portion, above) There are plenty of people who follow the teachings of Jesus (Christians and others) who can be some of the meanest, vilest people you'll ever meet. The ''instinctive morality'' you speak of is the one we are born with and all possess. While this is biblically correct and many non-Christians would agree it exists, the idea of instinctive morality does not sit well with some atheistic worldviews (Naturalism and Darwinism are the two that come to mind). The instinctive morality we were born with doesn't make us nice people - as human history will attest! - rather, it makes us pine for the Good. I'll repeat that so it sinks in: the morality we are born with makes us pine for the Good but we remain incapable of it. History is a witness that we as a species are given to hatred, discord, religious mumbo jumbo, egotism (personal & national), substance addictions, murder, incest, rape...I could go on for a long time! Atheists have chosen to blame organized religion for all this mayhem while turning a blind eye to the poor (a euphemism!) human rights record of atheist states like the ex-USSR, China, Mongolia, North Korea, to name only a few. Religion isn't the problem, and atheism isn't the problem; human nature is the problem.

As far as the teachings of Jesus are concerned, they are largely useless and wasted by most people, professing Christians or otherwise. They are impossible to live by for the vast majority. Christianity abused as a mantle of self-righteousness will produce the a type of sorry individual who will abuse and insult others. Such people have nothing to do with Christ. They can be found among other religions and among atheists as well. Christianity isn't the culprit; human nature is the culprit.

To my mind the problem with Christian ethics is the capacity for judgement is vested solely in God. God is only known (in a public sense - obviously many Christians have deep personal understanding of their God) through scripture. But much scripture is arcane; I don't meet many Christians who feel the appropriate ethical response to insanity is to drown a heard of pigs; for all we know Jesus's dealing with Legion may represent the best wisdom of his times, but it is hard to understand how such a story applies universally to ethics. To make such a move Christians have to interpret scripture.

Interpretation of the ethical message of Christian scriptures have been adopted by everything from Marxist community organisers in Latin America (who interestingly defined the murder of Abel as original sin, not the fruit eating of Eden), to the use of the Genesis tale of Ham by the Dutch Reform Church to justify slavery. Scripture was used by MLK to help fight for civil rights but also by the Catholic church to justify genocides of the Maya and Inca civilisations.

If the same scripture can be used by all these different folk then it is not really providing a clear guide on morality. As we have no other evidence of God's judgement it follows we do not have a clear guide to God's judgement. In that sense there is absolutely no good reason to base a moral system on scripture even if you believe in God.

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Mongolia's original revolutionary leader was Sükhbaatar who was (and, to this day, is) loved. The terrible purges (and they were terrible, up to 8% of the population was killed) started after the USSR became involved appointing a vassal government. Since the end of the cold war Mongolia has emerged as a stable secular democracy (elections, independent judiciary, free press etc...). Apart from the occasional starvation following a hard winter (zuud) it is inaccurate to imply it is a bad place. Most of the population still live the traditional nomad lifestyle, the government impinges little on their lives. Given the realities of Western Russia to the North and China to the South it has a remarkably benign government.

[AreEl]

To my mind the problem with Christian ethics is the capacity for judgement is vested solely in God.

I'm not sure what ''judgement'' you are talking about. If it is judgement about who is saved from hell and who is not, then yes, that judgement is solely God's.

God is only known (in a public sense - obviously many Christians have deep personal understanding of their God) through scripture.

You stated the ideal situation, that ''God is only known through scripture [the Bible].''  As for the part of your quote in brackets, ''obviously many Christians have a deep personal understanding of their God,''  such a personal understanding must only come through study and prayer. Nothing more. I would be be suspicious of any Christian who tells me that he hears God in an audible voice, or receives messages in the form of dreams or automatic writing. Any mystical experience whatsoever is to be considered false. The canon of scripture is closed and has been for almost 2000 years, so anyone who claims new divine knowledge is not to be trusted.

But much scripture is arcane;

Arcane as in mysterious?...no, not at all! The Bible was - for the most part - written by simple men not given to mysticism. I know that many churches and most detractors claim that the Bible must be interpreted according to their rules; or, that there is no accepted correct interpretation of the text. Both positions are false.  The best way to read the Bible is as you would a newspaper, taking everything at face value and within the context.

I don't meet many Christians who feel the appropriate ethical response to insanity is to drown a heard of pigs; for all we know Jesus's dealing with Legion may represent the best wisdom of his times, but it is hard to understand how such a story applies universally to ethics. To make such a move Christians have to interpret scripture.

You are refering to the story in Luke 8:26-40. From your own interpretation, above, I can see that you didn't understand it. The story of the insane man and the pigs relates an event, nothing more. It isn't a parable - which is meant to teach a great ethical truth - it is only a news story telling of what happened when Jesus met the crazed man.

By analogy, if I tell you that my telephone number is 514-662-6395, this would be nothing more than information. On the surface, if you dial that number, I'll answer the 'phone. If you read between the lines, you'll see that I live in Canada, in Montreal, in the northern part of the city, and you'll be able to estimate my socio-economic level. That is the only information you'll get if you dig a little. There is no more information than that.  Now, if you are of a mystical bent, you may do a numerological study of my phone number and come up with all kinds of nonsensical information about me and my life, my past lives, my ultimate destiny and my relation to you! Would any of this be accurate? No! Unfortunately, many churches and non-believers pursue biblical studies this way. It's all crap. Just crap.

There is a proper way to interpret scripture and there is are many improper ways. The proper way is called the Normal method, AKA the grammatical-historical method, AKA the literal method. Any other method (Mystical, Allegorical and admixtures of these) will produce perversions in understanding the Bible.

Perversions in understanding: you're in a very big club populated by most people in the world. It includes theists, agnostics, atheists and most Christians.

[penfold]

@ AreEl, I note with interest you decided not to address my point about the historical divergence of interpretation of scripture. A point which underlies both that question and all I have to say that follows is this: How do you know you are right in your particular interpretation of scripture?"

You are refering to the story in Luke 8:26-40. From your own interpretation, above, I can see that you didn't understand it. The story of the insane man and the pigs relates an event, nothing more. It isn't a parable - which is meant to teach a great ethical truth - it is only a news story telling of what happened when Jesus met the crazed man.

The meaning of this passage is highly debated amongst Christians. You chose to interpret it as a 'news report' but here are a few suggestions it is talking about something more. The pig is a Jewish symbol of uncleanness. The insanity in the text, is clearly of demonic origin. The sea in Semitic culture is seen as symbolic of primordial chaos. Here are two other possible interpretations:

1) Evil is a real present force and can manifest in a person as insanity. By the power of God and through Jesus Christ, unclean demons (pigs & legion) can be banished into primordial chaos (sea). ie Insanity can be cured by exorcism.

2) Jesus's particular act symbolically stands for the removal of what is unclean in all of us (foreshadowing the resurrection) by taking the unclean and destroying it. ie Our sinful natures, will through the sacrifice of Jesus be brought to harmony (the kingdom of God).

Both of these interpretations are ethical in tone. How do you know your 'news report' one is correct and not them?

Arcane as in mysterious?...no, not at all! The Bible was - for the most part - written by simple men not given to mysticism. I know that many churches and most detractors claim that the Bible must be interpreted according to their rules; or, that there is no accepted correct interpretation of the text. Both positions are false.  The best way to read the Bible is as you would a newspaper, taking everything at face value and within the context.

This is just factually false. This thread is not the place to discuss the HUGE hermeneutic problem that is scripture. But if you are interested there is so much material out there (wikipedia is a reasonable starting point, but any academic theology department should have whole libraries on the topic). But suffice to say the following; every few years we discover more texts and sources that shed light on the world the bible was written in, and each discovery has profound impact. We are no where near able to read scripture with the same contextual confidence we do a newspaper. To claim we can is just wrong - an untruth peddled by preachers who require the notion of authoritative interpretation. We know very little about the world of the authors of the bible, we know less about the individuals themselves, we do not even know how many people were involved in the writing. And that does not even touch on the problem of how it was complied...

[AreEl]

I've been a pilot for over 25 years - since 1984 - and whenever a friend is with me in the cockpit, he will invariably ask ''Is flying difficult?'' My stock answer is ''No'' to which I then offer to hand over the controls. Men always accept! After about 30 seconds, the 'plane is out-of-control and I must take over. The really good ones will last over a minute before losing it. However, if I talk them through, if I keep saying, ''you're turning, correct it!''  ''you're climbing, correct it!''  ''you're descending, correct it!'' then they can go for quite a long time. I inwardly chuckle as I see their white-knuckled grip on the controls!  So, did I lie to them when I said that an airplane is easy to fly? Absolutely not! I find it very easy...but that's because I have the knowledge and the skill to do so and I don't confuse flying with driving.

You asked me questions about biblical interpretation. I'll try to answer them as succinctly as possible because that is my style. You will be like my friend in the cockpit. If you insist that you know it all, you will crash and burn. I can talk you through correct biblical interpretation but I'm well aware that you will not cry Eureka! because there will be a lot of mental blockage in the way. The ride is important, as is seeing familiar sights from new perspectives. With that in mind, let us start:

 

AreEl, I note with interest you decided not to address my point about the historical divergence of interpretation of scripture.

I didn't address it because I didn't see it as important. There was no other reason. Since this appears to interest you, there have been over the centuries a number of schools of interpretation. They are - in no particular order - the Halachic, Hagadic, Allegorical, Accomodation, Mystical, Moral, Naturalistic, Dogmatic, Mythical, Grammatico-historical/Literal. The earliest of these (in New Testament times) is the Literal method. This Literal method which - as its name implies -  interprets the Bible literally, was the method Jesus used himself. That Jesus uses the Literal method of biblical understanding is significant in itself. Literal interpretation was also the method of the early (Jewish) church and remained the standard method of interpretation until Origen. Thereafter, the Bible gradually loses its importance as the Roman Church's teachings become the prime source of knowledge about God. The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) continues to use - to this day - the allegorical method of biblical interpretation.

If the history of biblical interpretation interests you, may I suggest: Biblical Hermeneutics, by Milton S. Terry.

How do you know you are right in your particular interpretation of scripture?"

There have been many different methods of interpretation over the years but today there are only two major schools left: the Allegorical and the Literal. The RCC, the Eastern Orthodox Churches (EOC) and many Protestant denominations use the Allegorical method. (There are also elements of Mystical interpretation in EOC and RCC.) The Literal method is used by some Protestant denominations and by Messianic Judaism.

What is the Allegorical method?  Let me quote an authority:

''Allegorism is the method of interpreting a literary text that regards the literal sense as the vehicle for a secondary, more spiritual, more profound sense'' (B. Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation.)

This method divests the literal and historical significance of a biblical passage and every word is then made the vehicle of some other ''deeper'' meaning (as in your bizarre explanation of Jesus' encounter with the crazed man will attest!). The advantages of the allegorical method are:

1. theological difficulties arising from a literal interpretation are avoided,
2. the plasticity of meaning infused into the text means that any peculiar religious view may be promoted.

The dangers of the Allegorical method are:

A. the Allegorical method does not interpret scripture. It ignores the common meaning of words and infuses a passage with other meanings at the whim of the interpreter. In other words, once the principle of allegorical interpretation is seen as valid,  the only basis of exposition is found in the mind of the expositor.
B. The interpreter's psyche, his culture, his education, his personal situation will all influence his interpretation of scripture. The Bible's words cease to have any set meaning. A peculiar denomination's doctrinal positions may then be promoted even though there is no biblical basis for them. In other words: it is a simple matter to twist the words of scripture into mystical imaginings. Or into nonsense. The choice is yours!
C. The Allegorical method makes it impossible for the conclusions of the interpreter to be validated. Anything goes. To assume that the true meaning of the Bible lies beyond its words is to encourage undisciplined imagination and speculation.

So, the Allegorical method makes true interpretation impossible, leaves no basis for the testing of these interpretations, leaves interpretation subservient to pre-established doctrinal positions and removes authority from the Bible and places it in an interest group.  All atheists and most Christians use the Allegorical method and it admirably serves their varying positions! Don't you just love the irony?!

To be continued

[penfold]

AreEl,

Thank you for your post. Lots of stuff to say about it. However scriptural hermenutic is not the topic of this thread. I will split this discussion off into a new thread in the Religion forum (i will entitle it "AreEl Scripture debate"). I very much hope you will join me there.

[Melmoth]

I am still alive, just about. Been having problems with the internet connection in my house.

I'm more in favour of 1. It's easy to call actions and/or their consequences 'bad' but it's too difficult with people. The self may be defined enough, however, for you to judge whether or not person X is likely to recommit action Y, and to intervene. Or you might see things like punishment as functional, regardless of accountability; merely a tool of the social engineer. In other words, although person X cannot be held accountable for action Y, and although s/he is not likely to recommit, punishing them for it will still provide a strong disincentive to others.

This is awfully bleak. Even if I could imagine a 'social engineer' making cynical policy decisions I do not think your view accurately describes reality.

You said in a previous post that things are Good or Bad "just because"; a view I strongly associate with. Given that we can meaningfully discuss bad actions, does that not presuppose notions of responsibility and intention?

My view describes what I think I can understand about reality, without metaphysical embellishment, that's all. I'm not saying that people should play the cynical, 'social engineer,' or that they shouldn't, just that if we want to hold people 'accountable' for being 'good' or 'bad' in a sort of general and impersonal sense ('murderers should go t jail,' and not just 'you murdered my friend, therefore I will murder you'), then that would be, in my opinion, our best excuse. And that's only if we need an excuse, which I'm not saying either. If we need a reason, then we can rely on this one because it's a pragmatic and not a moral approach. Morally, I think that all we have is 'just because,' which isn't a reason at all.

It would seem to me absurd to abandon any coherent notion of human agency and responsibility. Else in ethical terms there is no difference between what St Augustine called man-made and natural evils.

Indeed! That's a lovely way of putting it. And don't we also tend to hold nature personally accountable in the same way that we do human beings? Isn't that basically what God is all about, or gods as the case may be? My loved ones will not die, because I have prayed to God, and God is good. Or what if your computer crashes before you get a chance to press 'save?' Then is it not a "fucking narcoleptic bastard piece of shit"? After all, you were muttering to it, "please don't crash, please don't crash, please don't crash" when it went ahead and did it anyway, the swine! It's nice to have something to negotiate with, a god, or a person, or a sense of 'self'.

No, I don't think there is much difference. And yes, I agree, it is absurd. I wouldn't call it bleak though - I find this stuff more uplifting than depressing.

I should point out that what I am appealing to is our intuitive 'common-sense' notions of justice (and at a deeper level our notion of 'the self'). This defence does, of course, beg the question. It may be that we have to completely abandon ideas like justice and responsibility because we cannot draw a coherent notion of 'the self'. All I would say is that I think your position is ducking the issue; your account fails to account for that vast set of human behaviour dealing with justice. You may be right that it has no analytical basis, but that does not account for our experience of the world. Whether we like it or not we all feel a sense of justice; those few who genuinely do not we call sociopaths.

I know sociopaths lack a sense of empathy but I'm not sure if 'justice' really requires one. I think justice can be, and often is, very cold.

But you're right of course, and I see why you would think I'm 'ducking the issue', though it isn't what I'm trying to do. I don't want to just say, we evolved to see things this way because it's how we survive. That would be a true statement, and I think it does account for our experience of the world, but it still feels a bit bland and insubstantial. So I'll try to give you a purely present-tense answer. I think our sense of justice can come from one of two things:

1. Base emotional responses. We assign blame because it's empowering; it gives us a reason to act, and the feeling that we're accomplishing something, which we need to maintain any semblance of sanity, even if that blame is pointed at ourselves. And I'm not pretending that I don't do this myself, by the way, in case you were concerned. I think it would be impossible for anyone not to do this.

2. Self decoration. We not only express but sincerely believe moral directives because they help us to establish our identity within a group. Ie. "I think eating meat is bad"/"I disapprove of vaccines"/"I am a nihilist" because it's an interesting thing to say, it makes me unique, it spurns a conversation, it gives me something to talk about with others. I think murderers should go to prison and that the Earthquake in Japan is bad because not to do so, or worse, to think the opposite, would make me stand out a little too much. I believe in God because it makes me feel closer to others who also believe in god, and every sunday we can get together to remind ourselves of this; yet at the same time it makes me feel glamorously one-apart from what I shall always condescendingly refer to as 'secular society,' again, to emphasise my own identity, my own place in the world. I am an atheist because that is the most 'rational' position, and I am rational - would you believe - because it is congruent with my sense of self to try or claim to be such. That's all there is.

Is that an improvement?

I'll engage more with what I've missed later, in a different post. Don't want to produce too much of a wall.

[darkcyd]

I think the problem here is we have tried to socially evolve a little faster than we are consciously and mentally able to. Let me try to explain my point from our evolutionary roots and then apply it to the stutter step we are having now.

Evolutionarily we are still at tribal level. We function well in smaller subgroups but can function within a larger common subgroup but as a species we REALLY like to be grouped. This is for good reason, 5000 years ago, you just didn't make it very long alone. You got sick and couldn't hunt, you were screwed. That is aside from other predators and adjacent tribes. Now, living in your group, you knew there was a tribe over the hill that was always hunting and foraging on your land. Those bastards. So you went over the hill and killed/beat up who you could and raped their women. This was okay, they weren't in your IN group. They weren't going to take care of you while you were sick. They may have your kids but that just spreads survival of the fittest. It wasn't your problem and they probably high 5'd their buddies around the camp fire about it. I think this opinion is further shown by Dan Ariely's Ted Talks on our buggy moral code.

Bringing this into a discussion about modern behavior. I don't think most human men have empathy for people outside our IN groups. I really don't. I believe women have brought this into being with their natural maternal nature and as they begin to shape public policy more and more. Men may be staying in line but our minds and cognative processes are very easy to slip back into our tribal thinking. Both of these incidents are obviously the complete lack of empathy for a group of people who were not in a leading males in group and whom he felt a threat somehow.

To answer your question, good or evil? I don't think people who are leaders think about those sort of things. They are more concerned with making sure their group comes out on top. I also don't think this will be a popular view as some may feel it somehow justifies the holocaust or rape by saying its just in our "nature." All people are in control and responsible for their actions.

Pol Pot btw I don't think was evil. I believe he was just a piss poor idealist who happened to get a country and then set the standard for how not to run a country.

[xSilverPhinx]

I think the problem here is we have tried to socially evolve a little faster than we are consciously and mentally able to. Let me try to explain my point from our evolutionary roots and then apply it to the stutter step we are having now.

Evolutionarily we are still at tribal level. We function well in smaller subgroups but can function within a larger common subgroup but as a species we REALLY like to be grouped. This is for good reason, 5000 years ago, you just didn't make it very long alone. You got sick and couldn't hunt, you were screwed. That is aside from other predators and adjacent tribes. Now, living in your group, you knew there was a tribe over the hill that was always hunting and foraging on your land. Those bastards. So you went over the hill and killed/beat up who you could and raped their women. This was okay, they weren't in your IN group. They weren't going to take care of you while you were sick. They may have your kids but that just spreads survival of the fittest. It wasn't your problem and they probably high 5'd their buddies around the camp fire about it. I think this opinion is further shown by Dan Ariely's Ted Talks on our buggy moral code.

Bringing this into a discussion about modern behavior. I don't think most human men have empathy for people outside our IN groups. I really don't. I believe women have brought this into being with their natural maternal nature and as they begin to shape public policy more and more. Men may be staying in line but our minds and cognative processes are very easy to slip back into our tribal thinking. Both of these incidents are obviously the complete lack of empathy for a group of people who were not in a leading males in group and whom he felt a threat somehow.

To answer your question, good or evil? I don't think people who are leaders think about those sort of things. They are more concerned with making sure their group comes out on top. I also don't think this will be a popular view as some may feel it somehow justifies the holocaust or rape by saying its just in our "nature." All people are in control and responsible for their actions.

Pol Pot btw I don't think was evil. I believe he was just a piss poor idealist who happened to get a country and then set the standard for how not to run a country.

I had watched the TEDTalks video sometime ago, especially when it comes to religious morality which is bound by a rigid structure, heavenly incentives and religious social honor codes. Just the mere thought of no heaven makes people see things differently, which seems to be more important for some than social honor codes and community ties.

It is a good framework for some kinds of people, though that generalization does not extend to all religious people and the motivations they have for being religious.