No, no I get what you're saying and to be honest I've had such skepticism before. xD I have different ideas than many people, especially when it comes down to what's good or bad. I agree with many people on the rights and wrongs in society, but when it comes to defining evil, I have a really hard time. Demons are evil, pockets of evil intent are evil, and people who willingly kill, maim, torture or whatever other people or animals or the earth for fun or because they like it or whatever willingly and totally on their on fault is evil. Granted, something in the physical makeup of their brain might make them that way and, thus, they aren't entirely evil, but that's as close as I'll go. The scientists and all them in World War II? Evil. I can't think of any reason why what they did could possibly be right in anyway whatsoever. DX It was wrong wrong wrong! But the suicide bomber in this or that war? Are they truly evil?
Oh. o.k., let me clarify one moment. I have been using the word evil to be synonymous with immoral and bad- anything that is the opposite of good, or righteous. But yes, evil often does have a much harsher connotation, and I think that’s the way you are understanding it, so I’ll try to use “bad” to mean “lighter” offenses, and “evil” to describe to the more universally perceived drastic ones. Though I may have to discuss that distinction itself later.
I agree about the WWII people. But I disagree with the thing about the suicide bomber. I know that suicide bombers believe full well that what they are doing is good- in their own mind, they have justified themselves.
But I think that’s another problem, not an excuse. I do believe that there is determinable right and wrong. It’s already one thing that suicide bombers will bring innocents into the mess, and it’s another thing if they’re doing it for a bad cause. I believe that is evil.
Of course, it is often a huge thing to question what is a bad cause and what is a good one. If, after all, the suicide bomber, believed in his cause, is there not, in and of itself, a chance that their cause was the correct one. And I would answer that question… yes. They’ve still done evil by bombing innocents, but the cause they fight for, even wrongly, may have been right.
Of course, I believe it will be one way or the other. It might be right, and it might be wrong. But in the end, it is only one of those two things, and it
is one of those two things.
Let me give an example. There is a story which I am not certain is true, although it seems very likely, and even if it is only hypothetical it would still apply. There are a band of Christians who take a group of non-Christians down to a river. They tell the first non-Christian to convert to Christianity. He refuses, and they chop his head off. The rest, in fear of this example, decided to “convert”, and were baptized in that river.
I am a Christian. So I will be the first to admit that their
cause was one I absolutely agreed with. But those men were evil. Period. Why? Because they used force to convert, rather than the love which Jesus professes, and took life which I completely believe was not theirs to decide to take.
Were those Christians misguided about their method of conversion? Yes. But does that excuse them for their deeds? Absolutely not. Their killing was either wrong or right. It was one of those two things. And what they thought it was did not change what it truly was.
And that is how I think of the Predacons. If they were mistreated, it ought to be judged that they were the protagonists. They were standing up for their rights. But then, I oughtn’t contradict myself. The original intent of defending themselves was the right cause. But even if it were, Megatron’s attempt to eradicate humanity (genocide, and genocide of a sentient race above all things) and his other fighting methods (such as forced programming- quite like forced conversion in the above example) still label him in my mind as evil.
I guess what my viewpoint boils down to is this: While many people see the world as black and white, I see the world as having black and white in everything in it and everything it does so that it's grey! o-o The world is grey to me. For everything bad a person or thing or idea does, there's some good to come out of it and vice versa. Call me optimistic or naive or hopeful, I don't care, but that's how I see it. n_n
You said there is good to be found in bad things. I would call that optimistic and hopeful. But certainly not naïve. Why? Because I agree. And we should feel good about our beliefs. I won’t call that naïve, and I hope you don’t either.
The only distinction I would draw is that I believe are
some things in which no good is to be found at all. Most things you can find good in, but not everything. What I do believe is that, as the Bible says “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.” ( Romans 8:28 )
In the end everything will work for good. And I think that an end result of absolute good is more of a thing to look forward -a more optimistic outlook- than the idea that some good will come out of anything bad, but with no guarantee of absolute good at the end. Take for example, a post you made in the other thread discussing Maximal and Predacons moral ramifications (since that is the topic, it seems relevant to put it here):
But does a decline in human population do for the world?
For observation’s sake- this is the present bad. And the following is the good that would come of it:
A lot of good, imo. Less pollution, more space for surviving humans to live in, fish populations could go back up, food would be more abundant, etc. Survivors would be devastated and mentally scarred for the rest of their lives because they're sentient, but the world as a whole regained some semblance of balance somewhere because that's life. Life always finds a way. If it can grow, it will. And it will grow "good" things and "bad" things all the time.
Are those positive effects? I would say so. But even among that, there are some negative aspects thrown in (the mental scarring that you mentioned for one thing). But there is an idea here of a constant flow from disorder back to balance, and the co-existence of good and bad. I’d far prefer an eventual resolution of complete good. That is what I would call hopeful. I don’t want to think we’re stuck with the bad of life forever. I want to hope that eventually, absolute good will be attained.
Furthermore, good may have come out the bad situation of world decline (and even then, only returned to a co-existence of good and bad), but what about that hefty price- what about that world decline? When we see people in danger of losing their life, we never content ourselves with the good that will come out of their bad situation. We say “you need to get to a hospital.” We call 9-1-1. We do whatever we can to keep that person alive. And rightfully so. We should never want to give up on life. If we left the person un-helped, and somebody asked us later what we did to help that person we saw, we would feel ashamed to say that we had let them be.
Many people fear over-population. But we certainly don’t kill people just to reduce the population (well, actually, many people, including my Calculus teacher from high school justified abortion based on this concept, but
that is a completely different discussion). If our fear from over-population is death, then we have merely given up and rushed into that fearful result if we somehow remove life to solve the problem.
And because of all of this, I can not content myself with the good to be found in bad. Sometimes that’s all we have to go on, and we must take some solace in it. But good from bad can not be the end result of our lives. We must fight against bad. We must stand. We must hope that good will eventually triumph in totality, or there has been no improvement. We are merely passing through this life, helpless against the big picture.
And then there’s the other side of the coin- that bad will come from any good. And here I strongly disagree. What if a student were to assemble a basket of fruit for an ailing teacher? What bad came from it? The people who grew the fruit were paid, and the teacher was encouraged (and fed). The only potential problem I see here is that the student had to pay for the fruit. But is that truly bad? For one thing money is meant to be spent at some point. Two, the student probably received some happiness from their own good deed, and three, the spending of the money on the fruit might have even prevented that student from buying bad or even less productive things.
I don’t believe bad has to follow wherever good goes.
From a Maximal viewpoint, the Preds ARE evil. :/ But from the Pred viewpoint, they're not evil, they have causes and stuff themselves,
Indeed, many probably do believe their cause is the right one. But it either
is or isn’t. From my viewpoint.
or maybe they think of themselves as evil because evil is cool.
Which, logic dictates, provides no justification at all. I think this is my problem with Rampage. He knows how evil he is. He admits to reveling in the fear and pain of others. He may have had a rough life, but it seems clear that he knows what good and evil are, and had openly chosen his path. To be certain, there is some torture he deals with inside himself, and he does have those problems to deal with. “Transmutate” made that abundantly clear. But if he truly is a conflicted individual, then there is further evidence that he knows the difference between right and wrong, and chooses the latter.
Maybe some Predacons view the MAximals as evil. Rampage certainly might. x_x
This may be true. But, again, I am quite convinced that he knows his own evil, and pursues it. Therefore, his opinions of others do not have direct bearing on his goodness or badness. He probably does see them as evil. But he says “You’re evil… And so am I. BLEAUGH HA HA HAHAHAHAHA!” That doesn’t justify him.
Depth Cahrge had a thing or two to say about the High Council for sure.
And he said those things out loud. But I think he was mad at them for their error of judgment in sending Rampage to a barren planet alive. I doubt he saw them as evil. He thought they didn’t go far enough, which means they were over-scrupulous rather than under-scrupulous. Then again, I am a Christian, and do believe what the Bible says when it says not to stray too far to the left or to right. Perhaps Depth Charge did see their lack of proper action as evil in a similar fashion. But even so, I would accredit that to the imperfections in any person. Nobody is perfect. It’s the overall good or evil of a person that can be a difficult thing to decide.
Dinobot freaked out when he thought he was in a "Maximal Torture Chamber"! x_x!!!!!!
That was a fear that Rattrap quickly pacified by informing Dinobot that Maximal Torture Chamber’s did not exist. This was perhaps a case of Dinobot’s self projection of Predacon methods onto what was previously an enemy affiliation, and certainly not a case of evidence for Maximal cruelty. Even if it wasn’t self-projection of Predacon methods, then it was, at the very least, an invalid fear.
Black Arachnia could be said to be evil because of the things she did. But what about later?
She was becoming a Maximal later. Her programming had not changed, but like Dinobot, her morals clearly had. Which could, technically, be evidence for saying that morals are not a part of Maximal programming, or be evidence that free will allows a transformer to go against this programming. But there is something to be said for the fact that when a Predacon’s ideals changed, they suddenly found themselves more at home with the Maximals- which would suggest a connection between affiliation and moral systems.
But what about later? And was it all her fault anyway? She, with Pred programming still, saved the 'childrens' lives and helped the Maximals and all that. She was still selfish, but she was learning.
Was it all her fault? She was certainly “nutured” in a Predacon manner. And to say, as you do, that her Predacon programming removed any of the fault from her, then there is further evidence that there is a connection between programming and morality. As for whether it is her fault, I would say that despite her programming, free will, as she clearly showed later in the show, made it her fault. All her fault? Perhaps all is
not the right word. Predacon programming had something to do with it. But in the end, it was still her fault, even if not in it’s entirety, and therefore her choice.
So what is the distinction to be made? I would argue that not all Predacons are evil. Dinobot and Blackarachnia showed a clear capacity for good. And peace has been maintained on Cybertron. But since they were influenced at times by their programming (if indeed we do seek to excuse them at all because of this programming), it seems Predacon programming is more inclined to immoral deeds.
Terrorsaur and Waspinator seemed to get along well and they're Preds.
I think it is because they were both Preds that they got along. They decidedly did not get along with Maximals.
Scorponok was just dumb but his idolization of his leader was not presented as selfish as it was obsessive or pure admiration. Is that evil?
I don’t believe all admiration is evil. But who one admires says a lot about what one believes in. Megatron was, to Scorponok, the embodiment of the Predacon cause. He was their true leader. He was the one that would bring them to their rightful glory. He admired Megatron, but he too, admired what Megatron stood for. And Megatron proved that what he stood for was evil, again and again. Even the Predacons on Cybertron derided Megatron as having jumped the gun. And many perhaps would have wanted peace. But Scorponok wanted domination and he wanted it immediately.
Take Rampage for example - he killed many many peeps. D: But for what? How? Why? It's explained he was an experiment, treated as such, viewed as a monster, albeit a brilliant one, and even Optimus Primal treats him like a monster, a thing, even though Rampage's actions in the show seem to indicate farrrrr more than jsut a mindless monster thing set to kill everyone.
That’s actually my biggest problem with him. Any lion out in the Serengeti can go on a rampage and kill a bunch of tourists. And while this would be a tragedy, we could never claim the lion had any opinion on it being right or wrong, or even knew such things existed. Morals don’t apply to mindless monsters, because they absolutely can
not make a decision based on morality.
Rampage is a brilliant monster. And therein is his greatest evil. He has an extreme capacity for sentient thought, and still does evil things. And like I said earlier, it seems very clear to me that he knows precisely what he’s doing. Evil treatment in the past will never excuse evil treatment in the future. Indeed, to turn around and do the evil that you’ve had such a clear sampling of, and therefore know causes such immense pain, only gives one less of an excuse. Rampage is evil.
To someone like Rampage, why is killing wrong? Why should he feel guilty about Omicron? Why shouldn't he rub it into DC's face with a laugh and a joke? I think it'd be nearly impossible to explain to Rampage exactly why he should or should not do something without a purely logical, even selfish reason. Unless there's something in it for him, why should he care? Does 'not knowing' make someone evil?
I know I cut this paragraph from your post into two parts, and that’s why I’m restating some things. And I would say killing is wrong to him, and he should feel guilty and he shouldn’t rub it in DC’s face, because he does know. He understands pain very well, and feeds on it. He knows fear very well, and feeds on it. A noble person learns from their own past just how evil something is and chooses to avoid it. An evil person learns from their own past just how evil something is, and then passes it on to others. I don’t think Rampage doesn’t know. I think he knows full well, and revels in it all.
Rattrap seemed more than willing to actually KILL Dinobot a few times in the show. His dislike of Predacons runs deep and with his personality and from a few things he said, I wouldn't be surprised if his past is riddled with stuff like blowing people up, sniping, putting an incapacitated or defenseless enemy down simply because it would be a risk to himself to keep them alive, stuff like that.
Perhaps. Unfortunately, Rattrap’s past is a matter of speculation. We do know he was master marksmen and a demolitions expert. We know he somehow landed on an exploration with a secret mission for discarding protoform X. So he had to have had some sort of battle experience. Even if we did know of specific times where he sniped or blew stuff up, we would have to examine if these cases were valid or not.
Beast Wars is the story of a war. I do believe that violence in war is at times justified, but regardless of my beliefs, Beast Wars was based on ethical foundation that there are some things worth fighting for. They even delved into the validity of this question in “Law of the Jungle” and asked the audience to consider if the triumph of a cause was worth violence. In the end, at least the skeptical character had re-affirmed for himself that the answer was yes.
Maximals were shown almost always to be merciful to defeated Predacons, a trait severely lacking on the Predacon side. Rattrap himself stopped Dinobot from killing Silverbolt.
The bias we got to see from Rattrap was directed at Dinobot- a member of a crew that had stolen the Golden Disk and wished to start a civil war. I would contend that his fears were not undue. But remembering that there was peace on Cybertron, I would have to assume that the Maximals would have to live peaceably as well, and therefore, hot-headed soldiers would have to be kept in line. If they stepped out, they would have to get punished. We never got to see what Rattrap did on Cybertron, but if he ever did any of the things mentioned above, it is quite conceivable that he would actually have had his head on his shoulders at those moments. To be honest, if he was some sort of secret agent, I would trust his judgment. He made onto the
Axalon after all, so his superiors had to have trusted him. Which also means I doubt he would ever put down a defenseless foe. Dinobot was never defenseless after all.
I don't think Preds and Cons and Bots and Maximals are 'programmed' with morality, if RT's example has anything to say about that. I think they're programmed with a certain self identity. For Preds its suspicion and putting themselves before others and stubbornness against change and self righteousness and a will to change their surroundings to fit them,
There is peace on Cybertron, which as I have said before, means not all Predacons themselves have to be evil. But as for the programming, looking at what you have listed:
Suspicion: Fear. Fear is sometimes only natural, but if a system is based on fear, then there is a definite problem. Again, as I am a Christian, I perceive morality through what the Bible says about it. The Bible says perfect love casts out fear. I don’t see fear as a self-indentifying trait. I see it as a deficiency. Again, I may speak from experience. There are many things I fear- many things I do not trust God enough with.
Besides, what does fear feed into? Selfish acts. Some fear is natural, and some reactions are necessary, but if a major component of one’s identity is fear, it will only feed into over-reaction.
Putting themselves before others: That self centered nature which through examples such as Blackarachnia and Megatron can be seen to produce evil actions. Self-obsession, can, itself, be wrong, in my opinion.
Self righteousness: A problem if there morals are skewed.
A will to change their surroundings to fit them: Well, looking how Rhinox changed in “Dark Designs” this seems to be over-abundant. It’s a basically a component of being self-centered. Sometimes you have to change your surroundings. But the show showed the Predacons doing this in over-abundance.
What’s to be said about all this? I do not believe all Predacons are evil. Indeed, to maintain peace despite what they are programmed with indicates great moral resolve. That or general apathy. But I would still contend that their programming is not a set of self-indentifying traits as much as it is a set of problems, whose primary intent really is that self-centered nature. Rhinox was changed and immediately wanted to control the Predacons. Terrorsaur continually tried the same thing. Blackarachnia plotted for power. Megatron wished for people to cower at his name, and he wanted to rule Cybertron. And in the end, I don’t their switch to being self-centered was a neutral effect, I believe it was an immoral one.
Now the Predacons are different. Morals and ethics keep order in a society and help uphold law and vice versa, so when I say they have different morals, I mean to a Predacon it's okay to do this or that, that to a Maximal would be an atrocious thing to do. Killing someone for some reason might be okay given they did this or that in return. OH! It's like, to a Predacon, the rules might be "An eye for an eye" or "get them before they get you" while to Maximals the rules might be "everyone deserves a fair trial" and "give everyone a chance." 'Morals' can be derived from both.
"Morals" are hard to define, but I think they're rules that come about in society to protect each person and thing's personal rights. It is morally wrong to kill someone. To someone not raised and taught such a moral, killing someone is the perfect way to get rid of something one doesn't like or finds annoying or hates or whatever. It means that they never ever have to see or deal with that person ever again. It also means that other person can't harm this Someone anymore.
It's easy for someone in stable, nice society to spout off about law and upholding justice and stuff, but putting oneself into the other man's shoes - is stealing food for your children when you have no money and no way to get hired even if you tried really hard 'bad' or wrong? And does doing so make you 'evil?' Granted, someone with a reason or selfless cause gets of the hook easy with that one. But what about someone into a crime for the money or power or glory? To you and me, such a thing is wrong. It infringes on other peoples' personal rights and stuff. And because it does that, it is wrong, and therefore it's 'bad.' But is it evil? Or, rather, does it make that PERSON evil? I don't think so. Unless they do what WWII scientists did, I don't think they're evil.
From other thread:
Humans and other sentient creatures are the ones that ace what is good and what is bad because to them, they want to live and they have aspirations and anything that gets in the way of that is bad and anything that helps them is good. It's all selfish.
This brings up an even more interesting question- have we invented morality ourselves? Or is morality a definitive concept which we have been shown?
Well, I may as well just say my opinion and work from there.
I believe in fixed morality. There is right and wrong, and how a person perceives something will not change whether it is truly good or bad in the end.
If we invented our morality based on selfishness, then why is it that the things we so often perceive as immoral are the things that are based on a selfish nature. If a kid wants a candy bar from the store, but doesn’t want to lose money, they might gratify their selfish nature by stealing it. If I want to gossip about someone, even if I might degrade that person’s reputation, I might selfishly gratify my need to make jokes at that person’s experience or selfishly show my knowledge of current social events, etc.
But what it really boils down to, what lies at the heart of how I perceive morality, or at least how I ought to, is my belief in God. It may perhaps seem strange for me to bring God up, but He is at the crux of everything I believe.
Without God, we must presume to have invented morality ourselves. There wasn’t Anybody there to tell us the truth, and that’s where the idea that our laws are made selfishly becomes the best possible answer.
If God is real, at least the God described in Christianity, then He gave us our moral foundation, and things will either be wrong or right. It won't matter that someone thinks they're in the right- only whether they truly are or not.
) And yes, looking out for yourself is good- modern society in general advocates a healthy self-image and a willingness to defend one's basic rights. But gaining access to a weapon of mass destruction for use towards your own ends is not generally viewed as a good thing.
Maybe some Predacons view the MAximals as evil. Rampage certainly might. x_x Depth Cahrge had a thing or two to say about the High Council for sure. Dinobot freaked out when he thought he was in a "Maximal Torture Chamber"! x_x!!!!!! Megatron was willing to eradicate the entire current Cbertronian race to make the Decepticons win. o-o That is certainly very bad from a human's and Maximal's and Autobot's viewpoint, and honestly, I think Megatron's the closest to "evil" among the Predacons you've got. x_x Oh wait, Tarantulas is quite evil as well. But what about the others?
