The end of good and evil | Slavoj Žižek, Rowan Williams, Maria Balaska, Richard Wrangham
Slavoj Žižek, Rowan Williams, Maria Balaska and Richard Wrangham debate the utility and meaning of 'good ' and 'evil'.
Are these objective categories?
Watch the full debate at iai.tv/video/the-end-of-good-...
Whether we see humans as essentially good or essentially selfish and violent has been central to our politics, our account of society, and our vision for social progress. But is this very distinction itself a mistake? Recently, Harvard scientists have shown humans to be both the kindest and most malevolent species on the planet. While figures like Hitler and Stalin though responsible for tens of millions of deaths were also remarkably empathetic in aspects of their private lives.
Should we give up the idea therefore that humans are either inherently good or bad and conclude that all of us are both at the same time with potentially profound consequences for our political beliefs? Or is it vital to retain the distinction to alert us to danger and to drive personal and social change? Or more profoundly, are the categories of good and bad themselves the underlying error and unhelpful, and even dangerous, ways of categorising human behaviour?
#morality #evil #zizek
Anthropologist and Harvard University Professor Richard Wrangham, renowened philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek, University of Hertfordshire professor Maria Balaska and the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams join Myriam François to discuss the nature of good and evil.
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Ancient Central Asian story: Farmer has a horse. Horse runs away. Neighbor says: "What a terrible thing. Your horse ran away. Bad luck." Farmer says: "Could be bad - could be good. Who knows?" Next day horse comes back, with three mares following. Neighbor says: "What a good thing. Surely they will bear foals. Good luck." Farmer says: "Could be bad - could be good. Who knows?" Next day farmer's only son breaks his leg trying to tame a mare. Neighbor says: "What a terrible thing. Your only son has broken his leg with so much to do on the farm. Bad luck." Farmer says: "Could be bad - could be good. Who knows?" Next day, the King's men come to conscript able-bodied young men to a war where he would most surely die. Could be bad; could be good. Who knows?
That kids kids kids kid grew up to be Hitler. Could be bad could be good
Bro will not give up on how he was wrong about Palestine, just back down and stop this foolish nonsense
@@sara-yk1sq ????
the exact same story is recorded in chinese folklore called 塞翁失马
what?
Love seeing new videos on Zizek and others. sad we can't watch the full session without having to register on the site.
True shame :(
thats the point lol
Yea, what the F..orschung. Can't they just let us buy this video for like 20 cents instead of forcing us to sub for 5 pounds a month. Someone please pirate it, there is no evil according to Maria.
I don’t know if it works on this one but the last panel they had with Zizek you could literally just right click the video preview and download it
The Institute of Art and Ideas (for subscribers who pay)!
It is always good to see minds conflict and collaborate from different perspectives, religious and atheists, male and female… I hope more debates could be like this instead of meaningless quarrelling.
"You never fall in love, you only realize that you are in love" beautifully said and I think it's true
your intuiting, that's its true, because you feel it, but don't think that its true, because you don't really unterstand it on an abstract level
@@critical_thinking_is_welcome Well said!
I can see that a video continues on another website for full content but please do not cut a speech of someone talking in half as you did at the end of this one. You literally muted him to add an advertisement cutting his talk, this behaviour doesn't makes me wish to subscribe your website since makes me feel angry. Other than that the title of the video didn't advise it's an extract, so it made me believe it were a full speech at least to arrive at the point of the discussion adviced in the title. Thx for your attention.
agreed, it is deceptive and clickbait
Yes, cutting him off in the middle of a point was barbaric. I will not be subscribing to this channel for sure.
Sometimes, the creator doesn't have a say on where to put the advertisement.
I like the way Wrangham brings in biology and anthropology into the conversation, and still agrees that there is a place to call certain human behaviours evil.
The Founding Fathers were Rich White Males - that would be his theory. They created the Constitution to preserve their power.
5:41 *The fall, madness & civilization* “The fall opens up the space for the good. Before the fall there is no good, because fall is for me not simply ‘fall into sin’, fall is a fall from some organic, immediate unity into this vulnerable, open state. And incidentally to make Hegel actual, in a wonderful, very materialist way-Hegel in his Anthropology, the beginning of third part of encyclopedia, is more intelligent than Michel Foucault, where he says _the first stage of being human is madness._ We are are animals which got lost, no instinctual compass and so on, and then to control this potential evil we built civilization. So I think that yes, I totally agree, culture is contingent, socially produced and so on and so on-but you have to presuppose that this is always against a background of a certain fundamental disorientation/loss which defines human species. So no good without evil. And I think if you think you can have good without evil potential you end up doing real evil. What you [Richard] brought out, this is absolutely crucial, that no, Nazi killers and so on, they are not this demoniac romantic evil. No, they are guys who simply think they are doing the greatest self-sacrifice good for their own narrow group and so on and so on.”
🙏🫂
It's not all a big mystery zone for Marxists. 1) Human beings are naturally more cooperative than competitive. For 95% of human history people lived without economic classes. 2) The ruling ideology is the ideology of the ruling class.
Loving what Maria and Zizek have to say.
The objective idea of good and evil starts with the concept of compasion and empathy. This can be pervasive and all encompassing. There may be a subjective aspect to compassion but there is definitely an objective aspect in the experential sence, we know it when we experience it and it is universallly similar.
Thank you ❤️
I love Zizek.
But u didnt choose to
@@robertmusilbronson3118 🤣 ❤
He ain't no Socrates, tho
@thstroyur you're right he's diogenes.
@@thstroyur ruff ruff, growl, bark, bite...it's for your own good.
It’s saddening to find out that the full debate is behind the paywall.
Rowan Williams has a way of talking, where you just wish he goes on forever
Damn they got Zizek and Merlin from Shrek 3 to discuss about humans, amazing stuff.
The mind loves to pose questions to which there are no answers. To go even one step further, I claim, to which there are no answers even needed and so on and so on !
I smell some UG here!
Sometimes I wonder if in fact understanding the question is not the answer to the question. That way the inquiry that brought about the question remains open. Kind regards Eamonn.
Please post the full conversations.
There's a link to the full debate/convo in the description
@@sempressfiI think one has to pay for it though. This is hard for many people.
@@totonow6955 Reserved for rich man only? Dontcha just Hate greed 😅
@@totonow6955 1. Click the top left link 2. After about 20 minutes refresh the page, and you can continue watching
and so on and so on... think dear people, think
I'm totally thrilled by Balaska... ❤
i tried watching it on your website and it doesn't work very well... cant even watch on standard definition.
Can’t Watch the full video, the video in the link doesn’t play :(
Top left link worked for me
I see humans as a canvas, we start out plain, white, pure and we end up textured, layered and damaged by the circumstances of life
Goethes Faust says "I´m a part of this power that always want the good but creates the bad"
I like what Ms. Balaska is saying. There is something to the notion of moral realism.
hunger of a definition in reflection of sophism
Sometimes it is socially determined, but I can't help remembering that humans and animals have a sense of good and bad in nature, where they seek good and avoid bad. So moral concepts would arise from different places.
I agree with Rowan Williams - the categories of good and evil are not something inherent in human nature. I agree with Maria Balaska - the categories “objective”/“subjective” cannot be applied to morality.
C'mon! Zizek is like Plato's Socrates, always having the last say (but it is perfectly fine with me).
- Well, it is part of our culture that resisting is good. - the way in which i interpret that is that the ones who say that are the ones resisting and not the dominant power. - so the dominant power does not control culture completely. - oh... Absolutely... Did i just witness the murder of Gramsci?
Imagine smoking a blunt with Zizek
Most people are completely socialized as they learn to walk and talk, and they will never question that their culture's notions of good and evil are set in stone, and then they spend a lifetime rejecting other cultures as false.
I find the argument that right or wrong (good or evil) is a human attribute is wrong. Every animal that has a social structure (chims, wolves etc.) have a right or wrong concept that is relative to their social structure. The human one is just more complex and thought out.
What comes with the fact of being human is certain scope of moral potential, it is limited, what makes it judgable yet not easily. And if we define the dualism of good or evil as the capability to devote for other individuals outside oneself, we must aware that it is a topic about concrete method, sometimes it's easier, for example for good-looking individuals, and another fact is that we can transform the outside world or say reality, this makes this judgement of human nature fluidity and changable, it's based on the condition provided by material world, whether it allows us to be good with the scope of potential. So it is still valid to discuss the human nature, rather than the blunt talking that it is against the moral efforts to define it.
Everything stems from the root. The root of us is our heart, our desire. Desires to receive for one self, in an egoistic manner. This is us from day 1 of being born. Our society teaches us to think of ourselves only. When one thinks only of himself in an integral world, a nature of harmony and unity we as human species become the very essence of all problems because we are selfish egoists. This is evil. What is love? Love is not about romance or sexual tendency. Love is when one stops thinking of himself and starts taking care for others - This is true love, it is about sharing, giving, uniting. Bestowal. It is difficult to hear this ... but this is where truth begins. I hope you all find your path to the wisdom of truth. ❤
hope = lack of knowlegde about the subject
@janklaas6885 what do you mean friend ?
@@richardgilmour1614 hope = lack of knowlegde about " you all find your path to the wisdom of truth "
@@janklaas6885 please enlighten me, I'd like to learn more
Very much agree with Richard Wrangham here.
Nietzsche already answered this: the "evil" is something new, unknown, but something one cannot resist.
Maria Balaskas second talk is on point
If we're given a time machine with the idea that through your influence Hitler could have had his mind changed would you still kill him? Most people would probably kill him rather than get him mental help. Not only could you save the Holocaust victims but also save a man from himself.
Hitler wouldn't have ever come to stage if humans learned to share and not only look after their own group. Hungry humans = dangerous.
Wrangham, the anthropologist, sneaked Nietzsche in there (brilliantly so) and no one seemed to get where he's coming from.
Isn't Zizek doing something similar? The idea that consciousness (human) is a mistake, that something went badly wrong when we develop self-consciousness. This is not unique to Nietzsche. It's a *Christian* idea, but it's definitely in Nietzsche. And it's in True Detective lol
He's definitely doing a Genealogy of Morals thing
Pretty sure they did
@@1otterclan the priest clearly did not
The girl hosting that debate. 😍😍😍
More adds please. One every 30 seconds is still making the video hard, but possible to watch.
Evil is the use of personal power to damage or destroy what is weaker and serves to nurture, create, preserve, of value ,for the pleasure that destruction produces.
Hey that sounds like the personality of the average postmodernist.
You've described power (in a way), and probably destruction But evil has a much simpler definition actually Power for the sake of it Or if it's too incomplete/confusing to you then it's Power for the sake of power That's it, everything extra is irrelevant (or part of the "game"), power for the sake of power is what defines evil, literally
Both good and evil require other people. Good is collective and evil is individual. Good is done for someone and evil is done to someone. We are social creatures where group pressure exists to prevent the chaos of what our individuality is capable of unleashing upon each other if left unchecked. We will never rid ourselves of evil in the world, but we can keep it in check.
for anyone starting the video now: there's a paywall at the end
Wow this talk is great, so many important points were made. No divine dictates, just rational human navigation of right and wrong.
Marxist- nietzschean "rational human navigation", whatever you meant by that, which is much worse than "divine"'s.
@@kavorka8855 ok
Culture is the result of some thing or things going terribly wrong for evolving human animals. What an interesting line of thought.
I can't agree that humans are without instinct. Most of the people I interact with every day act purely out of instinct and do not objectively reflect on their thoughts and actions.
When has there ever been a human culture that was really, truly fair? Is fairness just a myth we teach our children? Is it a lofty goal that is defeated by instinctive behavior?
Maria make a great point about love being the highest, but opens the questions is why love and non love or as Jung would say the will to power. God herself may have started life as unconsciuosness becoming self-aware through her love of creation especailly man.
As we live in a material word and we need to survive (ultimately the judgment of life and death) power covers that for us. As spiritual /conscious / having a soul / having emotions desire intertwining those two as one in love we are focused and see and understand, there is no good and evil which are social constructs and there is no social in love, we experience oneness (connection as some may call it)
What a wonderful set of speech defects from all speakers.
I love the way that Slavoj brings in mythology to his philosophy: "The Fall opens up the space for the good." "We are animals that got lost." "No good without evil." That's so Hegelian, man!
I would say survival is the highest form of attention but I will accept love/care 😅
Você quer dizer que a sobrevivência é a forma mais elevada de atenção por ser a primeira a defender a fragilidade da vida? E daí, em consequência, que ela é o bem e o mal sua ameaça? Em termos individuais parece que sim, mas em coletivos não porque aí teríamos que nos defender dos egoísmos. Nestes então teria de ser o controle de todos e cada um o bem. Isso parece que é o que Zizek descobre em Hegel afirmando que a origem do bem é o mal ou a loucura original ou a queda, nos termos da Bíblia? Talvez que a distinção entre o indivíduo e o social, inevitável, se despercebida, gere confusão sobre o bem e o mal.
To make the concept of good and evil about sexuality, pigs and chickens is Slavoj in a nutshell. I must say Richard impressed me as well.
I think morality is objective but we need to discover it much like we have to apply scientific method to discover the laws of physics without being biased by our senses. The wax argument can apply to morality as well.
Slavoz = Briliant how we came out of 'organic immediate unity' (sin) to a vulnerable open state (some sort of madness) and to control it we built civilization. Gilgamesh "slays Mother Nature" and says "I have slayed Mother Nature and I have made a name for myself". A name for myself, as the First Man.
There is only good. Evil is jus the absence of good. Just like darkness is the absence of life.
I hear that a lot. It doesn't strike me as accurate. Because under it, one could label indifference or apathy as evil, but this obviously doesn't do justice to more robust examples we typically use the word "evil" to describe, such as serial killers, genocide, etc.
the anthropologist makes pretty reasonable points (though pretty classic in the discipline). however, thinking the turning point of morality is around our "speciation" 300k years ago is, imho, preposterous, such as linking that phenomenon to male dominance behaviour. these assertions should be regarded as mere hypotheses, and should also be criticised as reflecting contemporary human issues - which does not mean they are meaningless in the present, rather that the evidence is lacking in the past. please correct me with hard evidence if there is such thing, but in all likelihood there is not. humans from 300k ago are barely known nowadays, the very concept of speciation in regards to human evolution is largely debated (as in : we are bound to categorise species from the fossils we find, and have no idea what happens in between those, we have yet no objective means of placing a solid boundary between sapiens and his direct predecessor). for example, it is likely the neandertals had language : who is to say they had no morality ? because evidence of neandertal art is scarce ? how does art prove the existence of morality ? are we even sure sapiens from 300k years ago practised art ? and so on and so on.
Rowan Williams conserve this wonderful eyebrows for impresse his interlocutor. He transcend the norme u know
Sorry can i ask you a question ?if the Devil had a hobby what this could be?
Shorting stocks.
Not sure how a "social decision" about what constitutes good or evil is any different than having an ancient book designating righteousness or sin. I suppose contemporary man can appeal to a morality committee in the same way ancient man appealed to God, and I'd expect the committee to be about as responsive as any deity.
Try thinking a bit harder about it for 30 seconds. The first case is mutable and subjected to rational criticism, the second one is immutable and any rational criticism is pointless as the word of a deity would necessarily be dogmatic. One is a foundation for us to try and better our conducts, the other one is set in stone.
Life is fun.
what is evil?
Life forces us to compete for resources to survive and thrive. When we compete and win, we create a loser who will think evil has befallen him as he lost the competition. Our competition is the source of all human against human evil, and we must have that evil to survive. Without sin and evil, we all die.
I was hoping that Richard Wrangham would dissipate this debate at once, since he's more familiar with our connection to animals and social component of emerged civilizations. But that didn't happen in this preview... I think it lies in the plane of empathy as neurological phenomena, suffering and the animal group survival success. When animals from one species commit selfless act to defend another animal from predators, what does it tell you? Do they consider it as good thing to do or perceive it that way? Probably. They do it because they can understand that this experience is related to suffering. Which leads us to us humans. We definitely classify all acts that cause suffering as evil, primary to ourselves, our relatives or our group. We can even relate when suffering is caused to another group of people because of empathy. As animals we also tend to feel pain of injustice when it comes to distribution of resources, when our survival is at stake. So clearly you don't need to bring in theological categories to describe the origins of the good an evil when it traces back to evolution as social beings. Just keep in mind that we're not that far from other animals, we just came up with more abstractions and started brainwashing each other.
yutube deleted me. Lies. The emergence of evil and good is purely proto deterministic, from a metaphysical point of view. Transcending the mere emergent secondary characteristics of mere materialism. At the heart of Good and Evil lies the concept of causation. And at the point of metaphysical consideration is completely dissipated by the consideration of infinite regress. In other words turtles all the way down, making evolutionary considearation obsolete
"... who is usually dismissed as the vulgar materialist..."
That is an evil that is not necessarily bad then.. very strange.
If evil can be reduced to what causes suffering, then there are natural, abiotic forces that are evil, e.g., hurricanes, volcanoes, etc. And if we apply it to people, the field of medicine causes suffering as well in the hopes of a higher end goal. Growth is built off of overcoming suffering, such as when completing goals, lifting weights, etc.
I don't think that suffering itself has anything to do with it. I was merely pointing out that acts that cause suffering of others is what considered evil. Moreover, we can trace back to a point when good and evil don't make sense anymore. In the food chain of primitive organisms without social structures. When one crocodile accidentally tears a leg of another one during a chase for food, the on abused suffers but unlikely is going to keep the grudge for years for the offender. In objective reality of social interactions good also emerges as something that causes positive outcomes, success of the group as a counterweight of destructive behavior. Even love to your peers.
who is the interviewer?
Dr. Myriam Francois
I think Zizek doesn't understand trans identities yet. As trans people we don't think we choose our gender. We know what it is (or learn what it is) by learning about societal norms and we know that we don't have something to say like "now I choose to be non-binary" but rather it's like "I don't fit into the binary societal gender norms, therefore I am non-binary and it's not my choice, it's just how it is". Hope he'd understand cause it seems like his thinking similarly
it always struck me as odd given how creative and open-minded he is that he doesn't seem to have much philosophical empathy regarding Trans people and self-identity, really hope he comes around on this too
I know its hard to accept, but I don't think he doesn't understand. I think he understands very well. The choice element of how conscious or unconscious conditioning is, is not the same as how the ideology is a distortion (because that is what an ideology is) which has unfortunately been used as a way for people to label others with words like "hate" and "phobic" when none exists.
Like someone else here said, I think he understands the concept of it, but he rails against the ideology of self-identification and the concepts we attach to human experiences.
The deepest truth I've ever heard is from an Indian zookeeper after one of the visitors was viciously attacked by a Bengali tiger: No problem, no problem, please get on with your lives.
She is Myriam Francois my fellow men of art and ideas.(we are complicated animals nothing more.)
Wrangham thinking really Nietzschean. Love it.
Zizek needs to play Elden Ring, it's the perfect parallel to his work
Not gonna happen man. I’m interested in your take here but I am firmly convinced that video games are a new media (with Hidetaka Miyazaki’s work being the highest form of art the medium has yet seen) and old men like Zizek will be unable to appreciate because they don’t play games. The next generation’s philosophers will fawn though
Seriously though, please make your case for Elden Ring being Zizekian. I am honestly intrigued
@@kevinbeck8836 In Elden Ring, we navigate a stagnant world where most of the effective illusion that structure life have faded away or been broken down altogether. Marika the Eternal, curses all of humanity to suffer under the same cycle for infinity, constantly doing battle with the passing of ages until there is nothing left but ash. A noble ambition becomes an unending, unbearable curse (very Zizekian). Like most great video games, it is a reflection of our own reflection on the world. It shows us the innate paradox of life, that we really cannot distinguish reality from illusion. "For our reality to make sense, it must always be supplanted by the virtual reality." Elden Ring does the exact opposite, where our experience in the real world overlays onto the game. Not only because the game world and characters are based on our own reality, but because the experience we have in the game is taken with us into the real world. That is what is meant by "a reflection on our own reflection of the world". Rather than running from ideology (the most ideological act possible), it presents a world where ideology is explicit. It is not only as ideological as our own world, it is almost more ideological. Tldr: Elden Ring is a game where the "effective dictatorship of illusion" (Debord) has been thrown into question. The world reduced to a stagnant cycle of the same, all because people tried, with good intentions, to create eternal life and cheat destiny. It is a game where "the future is already written into our fate, but we can change our fate. To open a path to a different future" (Zizek)
@@kevinbeck8836Elden Ring is a study into many things, but mostly the relationship between the ideal and the material. A world where humanity is cursed to suffer under the same cycle for infinity, constantly doing battle with the passing of ages until (usually) there is nothing left but ash from which a new world will arise. A noble ambition for life and order becomes an unending, often unbearable curse. It is a reflection of our own reflection on the world. It shows us the innate paradoxes of life, that we really cannot distinguish reality from illusion/virtual reality. "For our reality to make sense, it must always be supplanted by the virtual reality." In Zizek's common Pokémon Go example, the virtual reality overlays reality in a totally and you question now which is the real and which is the virtual; a pure form of ideology (see Zizek on Pokémon Go) Juxtaposed to this, Elden Ring does the opposite like most; but with a twist where our experience in the reality overlays onto the virtual one, not only because the world and characters are based on our own reality, but because the experience we have in the game is taken with us into the real world. That is what I meant earlier by "a reflection on our own reflection of the world" (very Nietzschean/Hegelian) The world of Elden Ring is totally, completely ideological. Great runes, demigods, the strength of one's will, fate written in the stars, arcane powers of life, fleeting bounty, trying so hard but so foolishly to prolong things which are meant to die. It is a world of good intentions going horribly wrong. Rather than running from ideology, it presents a world where ideology is explicit. It is not only as ideological as our own world, it is almost more ideological. Just as the near-hollowed subjects of an abandoned world, we, who will die over and over and over again for the sake of some accursed, ever-fleeting will, possess the strength to persevere in the face of such a fate. Because we are the ones who die for capitalism, for grace, for reason, for absurdity, for will, and even for nothing. Perhaps a blessing is a curse. And a curse, a blessing. Who is to say. The ones who die choose how they meet their end. Death is revolutionary. That is why Elden Ring is one of few examples of great art in our contemporary world that successfully does battle with the ideology of today; though it neither defeats or is defeated by it. It spurs the cycle, contributes something to the world, though it doesn't make claim to anything
@@kevinbeck8836Elden Ring is a study into many things, but mostly the relationship between the ideal and the material. A world where humanity is cursed to suffer under the same cycle for infinity, constantly doing battle with the passing of ages until (usually) there is nothing left but ash from which a new world will arise. A noble ambition for life and order becomes an unending, often unbearable curse. It is a reflection of our own reflection on the world. It shows us the innate paradoxes of life, that we really cannot distinguish reality from illusion/virtual reality. "For our reality to make sense, it must always be supplanted by the virtual reality." In Zizek's common Pokémon Go example, the virtual reality overlays reality in a totally and you question now which is the real and which is the virtual; a pure form of ideology (see Zizek on Pokémon Go) Juxtaposed to this, Elden Ring does the opposite like most; but with a twist where our experience in the reality overlays onto the virtual one, not only because the world and characters are based on our own reality, but because the experience we have in the game is taken with us into the real world. That is what I meant earlier by "a reflection on our own reflection of the world" (very Nietzschean/Hegelian) The world of Elden Ring is totally, completely ideological. Great runes, demigods, the strength of one's will, fate written in the stars, arcane powers of life, fleeting bounty, trying so hard but so foolishly to prolong things which are meant to die. It is a world of good intentions going horribly wrong. Rather than running from ideology, it presents a world where ideology is explicit. It is not only as ideological as our own world, it is almost more ideological. Just as the near-hollowed subjects of an abandoned world, we, who will die over and over and over again for the sake of some accursed, ever-fleeting will, possess the strength to persevere in the face of such a fate. Because we are the ones who die for capitalism, for grace, for reason, for absurdity, for will, and even for nothing. Perhaps a blessing is a curse. And a curse, a blessing. Who is to say. The ones who die choose how they meet their end. Death is revolutionary. That is why Elden Ring is one of few examples of great art in our contemporary world that successfully does battle with the ideology of today; though it neither defeats or is defeated by it. It spurs the cycle, contributes something to the world, though it doesn't make claim to anything
Are there any philosophers that can successfully connect objective goodness to objective success?
Are either of those viable concepts (mostly the latter one)? What would "objective success" even consist of? I haven't heard of that before.
@@wet-readsuccess for any species would be to live a healthy and productive life - I don't think there is any dispute that this is objective. Goodness would be actions that contribute to healthy and productive living. My thoughts are that a good, successful life involves being healthy and productive without impeding other's abilities to live a life of equal success. I don't think there is anything about this that isn't viable. Such a life involves a balance of self reliance and cooperation.
10:01 Click this, close your eyes, and enjoy Count Dooku giving his guest lecture to your 2nd year philosophy class.
Zizek's comments on the fall, etc are brilliant & beautiful. "No good without evil... and if you think you can have good without evil potential you end up doing REAL evil." Wrangham has a firm grasp of the obvious. Williams has a classically fake-naïve Christian approach that doesn't even try to understand the metaphorical nature of Jesus' teachings because that would require a kind of original thinking that undermines the hierarchical, autocratic structure of the church. This structure is modeled on a perverted view that God is the jealous, vengeful boss and Jesus was his enforcer. This autocracy represents the complete abandonment of love as a guiding principle in favor of the worship of power. The church is not a spiritual enterprise and has nothing to do with the actual teachings of Jesus. It is simply a power structure. The abuse of children by the church - and the never-ending effort to avoid accountability for that evil - is not a foreign thread that somehow became entangled in the fabric of the church: it is at the very core of its corrupt, hierarchical value system.
Come on…
Bottom line - In 60 years, I have not observed human morality evolve toward good. We have advanced greatly in exploitation of the Earth, science is in a Renaissance, and made tremendous technological progress, but we are not morally better beings.
That Rowan Williams, even though he is a devout Christian, is a highly intelligent person. He is a professor of systematic theology, a polyglot, Anglican bishop, 104th Archbishop of Canterbury ( December, 2002 - December, 2012 ), and a Carcanet Press published poet. Obviously being a believer of God lowers his intelligence greatly but to be a professor of theology at Cambridge still shows a high degree of intelligence in the same way as being a professor of mythology does.
Being a believer of God neither lowers nor raises his intelligence. At its most fundamental it's simply the claim that the universe is inherently ordered, or purposeful, and that it's possible to live in increasingalignment with that ordering principle. The problem most moderms have with the idea of God is largely because they've redefined it to fit their reductive materialist conceptual framework - this is the problem new-athiests like Sam Harris and Dawkins have. They reduce the concept of god to the level of a material phenomenom and then apply material heuristics to it, which of course render it rediculous. A theologian like Rowan will be contending with the concept of god in a metaphysical way that has sadly been lost to most self defined rationalists of today.
Too easy questions
Maria Balaska is brilliant!
Evilness seems to be present in humans and animals in a natural way. We correlate the definition of evil to religion, but religion did not create evilness it only shaped how we more intelligently define it.
Since when was iris murdoch a philosopher outside of her novels? Genuinely surprised
She was a philosopher first
@@1otterclan thought she was just a novelist outside sovereignty on god but turns out she wrote a book on Satre first, neat!
We can never define evil. It's not absolute it's relative even at any specific point of time.
Power may indeed define what is good and evil. So the question is who has the power? Atheists may claim humans do, or the universe. However theists believe God has the highest power, which can explain the argument between subjective and objective.
on the note of animals: Erst das Fressen, dann die Moral
is there a psychologist on the panel who works with so-called "sociopaths" and "psychopaths"? How about someone like Jonathan Marshall who studies the mafia amd rogue intelligence networks influence on business and politics?
What’s the moderator’s @? Asking for a friend who loves existential philosophy
Love Zizek, but it seems like was having a(n albeit interesting) conversation with himself
Evil is part of humankind. It is not very possible to end it. We are last in the line of beastly evolutions.
The debate moderator's remarks appear to resemble her fashion choices: khaki. Ready to take a hike. 😂
Calvin: depraved Everyone else: 😅
4:26
People who say good and evil are relative terms rarely realize the full extend of that statement. On that view, you have to say that when a pedophile r*pes and murders a defenseless child in horrible way, that no real evil has been commited and that all moral judgements are purely subjective, personal feelings. I sincerely hope people don't go that far.
Nobody likes to suffer, so to cause suffering is evil. does the exception strengthen the norm or break it?
Good and bad is Doing, not Being.
Ok Heidegger
The foundation of Persian civilization is "Think Good, Say Good and Do Good", all is doing something to be Good. @@chilledtorsion
We can't. Good and evil are both human ideas. As human ideas they terribly flawed, they are mutable and they won't disappear by simply deciding they no longer exist. Like Zizek points out the meaning of these ideas are changed by humans whenever they feel it makes sense.
I think people are both evil and good. As Jung said: “No tree can grow to Heaven unless it’s roots reach down to Hell.”
if you change an idea, it's no longer the same. what we refer to as good and evil TODAY is what we are talking about here.
@@yonaoisme Yes but changing of ''ideas'' is really a illusion. Don't get me wrong there is nothing bad about illusion, to a certain degree illusions construct our reality therefore ''ideas''. And it really doesn't matter what background it comes from and/or historical period. Does it come from Islam, Christianity. Buddhism. Does it come from Stone age, Bronze age, Medieval. Modern age etc. The deviation of ''ideas'' across cultures and time periods are really minor, and boil down to really small details more than big differences, in the grand scheme of things. I don't buy the theory that ''ideas'' constitute what's good and evil. For example: Murdering and raping is inherently evil always has been. No matter what ''ideas'' a culture has. Never will you see a person with a sane brain claiming that going around raping and murdering is a virtue therefore ''good''. No matter the culture, religion or time period. On the other hand sharing, giving emotions and/or goods is inherently good. Again no matter the culture,time period or religion. We really have two options on the table here. Either there is good and evil, and people are both, because you can't have negative without positive.For example: We can see that in that the fabric of the universe. For example: Look at mathematics, the language of the universe. You can't have a plus without a minus, you can't divide without multiplying etc. The other option is that everything is neutral, and nothing really matters which is a pretty nihilistic view and a dangerous one. And if that is the case( that nothing really matters) then there is no difference between animals and humans. And if we take that root, that nothing really matters, then we get lunatics running the asylum. People like Hitler, Mao, Stalin etc.
@@yonaoisme Yes but changing of ''ideas'' is really a illusion. Don't get me wrong there is nothing bad about illusion, to a certain degree illusions construct our reality therefore ''ideas''. And it really doesn't matter what background it comes from and/or historical period. Does it come from Islam, Christianity. Buddhism. Does it come from Stone age, Bronze age, Medieval. Modern age etc. The deviation of ''ideas'' across cultures and time periods are really minor, and boil down to really small details more than big differences, in the grand scheme of things. I don't buy the theory that ''ideas'' constitute what's good and evil. For example: Murdering and raping is inherently evil always has been. No matter what ''ideas'' a culture has. Never will you see a person with a sane brain claiming that going around raping and murdering is a virtue therefore ''good''. No matter the culture, religion or time period. On the other hand sharing, giving emotions and/or goods is inherently good. Again no matter the culture,time period or religion. We really have two options on the table here. Either there is good and evil, and people are both, because you can't have negative without positive.For example: We can see that in that the fabric of the universe. Look at mathematics, the language of the universe. You can't have a plus without a minus, you can't divide without multiplying etc. The other option is that everything is neutral, and nothing really matters which is a pretty nihilistic view and a dangerous one. And if that is the case( that nothing really matters) then there is no difference between animals and humans. And if we take that root, that nothing really matters, then we get lunatics running the asylum. People like Hitler, Mao, Stalin etc.
@@yonaoisme This perfectly crystalized idea - exists nowhere, not even in you. Relational and in flux.
forrest gump could answer this question: "evil is as evil does..."
We are all in rehab here
Who makes this claim? Like you’re just born evil or born good? I’m not sure I’ve heard someone say that seriously.
Every social animal has a sense of morality.
I like the way Friedrich Nietzsche said this 137 years ago 😂
Evil is just ignorance, fundamentally. Sometimes it is goal-directed and volitional ignorance, sometimes evil sneaks about the periphery of ignorance as it develops, and it may be catalyzed by fear. Ignorance.
Good and evil both are choices to be made. We are free to choose and we can always choose to be good.
I choose to be evil
@@TKDHH8841 Choices have consequences...
@@jusoneofdemgods I agree
People who believe they act good, are in fact evil, while people who choose to be evil are confused @@jusoneofdemgods
Slavoj Žižek, always watching the ‘invisible’. What we call ‘evil’ is what we need to construct the building to call it ‘evil’. We need the category itself to this debate, temples and culture. We need to be evil to be evil.
Our current Western obsession with identity plays very heavily in these issues, as Zizek points out at the end.
now seriously - most people are evil. now who said that? and how long ago?