Immoral vs. Amoral

This is a revisit to the earlier "good vs. evil" blog entry. It occurred to me that "evil" is somewhat simplistic in describing the behavior, and more importantly, the ethical motivations, of those who fall into that category.

 The "immoral" are those who have moral standards and ethics, probably fairly close to the "moral", but who, for whatever reason, choose to ignore them. Most likely the reason is because morals get in the way of getting them what they want: money, power, sex, etc. They either cannot achieve these goals morally, or simply find it easier and more convenient to do so immorally. If people get hurt, too bad for them. That’s life. If the "easy" thing and the "right" thing were always the same, we would always be angels and there would be no problem (at least from those who might otherwise be immoral). The issues and problems arise when the "easy" way is not the right way. That’s when moral choices have to be made, and which choices are made determines our moral guilt or innocence.

 The "amoral" are those without any moral standards at all. They do not know right from wrong. Left to their own devices, they do as they please without any hesitation, guilt, or shame. The only thing stopping them from committing crimes is concern over "retribution from authority figures" (to paraphrase Beldar, the Conehead father). The extreme example is the Mob assassin who cold-bloodedly kills his target and then goes off to lunch without so much as a second thought. Not all amoral people are this dangerous, but they are certainly more dangerous and less trustworthy than the immoral, since they have no internal standards to control their behavior.

 The major difference is shame and guilt. While the amoral are immune to this and cannot be shamed into behaving "good" – criminal laws and vengeance from their victims are the only restraint they obey – the immoral can sometimes be affected. Criticize an immoral person and the likely result – assuming they intend to continue their behavior anyway – is resentment. Do so to an amoral person and they will simply ignore you. Any "guilt" or "remorse" they display is insincere, designed only to placate those unexplicably bound and motivated by these alien ideas called "morals."

 Which is not to say that the "moral" are perfect. Ultimately the temptations we face in our lives overcome our resistance and get the best of us – some more than others. But our guilt affects us and drives us to resist, to some extent, and ideally take full responsibility for our mistakes and failings. We will sin, we will fail, despite our best efforts, but the end result will inevitably be far better, for us and all concerned, than if we made no effort at all or worse – as the amoral do – never even cared in the first place.

 There may be hope for the immoral. They may tire of their ways, grow wracked with guilt, or otherwise choose to abandon immorality. They have some frame of reference, some moral state of grace to which to return, that they recognize as good, however far from it they may have strayed over the years – which is the whole point of the parable of the prodigal son.

 I’m less sure there is hope for the amoral. They simply have not developed moral standards, and I don’t see what would cause them to suddenly develop morals and a conscience at any point in their lives. It’s not there inside them to return to...it simply doesn’t exist, it wasn’t created at the time it was supposed to be established inside them. "Right" and "wrong" are vague terms with little meaning, concepts which other people understand and care about, but not them.

Good vs Evil

This topic comes back to my mind time and time again. Are people basically good or basically evil? Are they the aggregate of their behavior? Can they change their nature?
Clearly "good" people are not perfect. They make mistakes. Some are "honest" mistakes, but some are not - selfishness, lying, etc. They try to do the best they can and, being human, fail from time to time; but not from lack of effort.Also, "evil" people sometimes do good.

Sometimes it's because, momentarily, it's in their best interests to do so. Sometimes it's a rare moment of goodness. Back during Nazi Germany, Himmler gave one high ranking SS general a sword for his birthday. The general, stunned by this act, took it upon himself to discover the factory which made the sword, and ordered an even more ornate and luxurious one to present to Himmler on HIS birthday. These are the men responsible for the Final Solution and the Holocaust, outdoing each other on birthday presents (!).

This context provides other examples of "good" and "evil". While many of the SS and police men the Germans assigned to Einsatzgruppen (the units which took Jews out to the forest to shoot them down) were outright sadists or indifferently accepted this duty as "just doing their job", many others had serious moral problems with it. Some even went insane and shot themselves. Recognizing that these jobs were... unpleasant...the SS freely allowed men to transfer to other jobs. So even within the SS at least some of its personnel could recognize evil when they saw it and refuse to participate in it.

On the other side are local civilians and German Army personnel who not only cooperated with the Nazis efforts to weed out and exterminate local Jewish populations, they enthusiastically volunteered. In Poland, Ukraine, and Romania, local civilians sometimes mistreated and even killed some of the Jews before the SS even got their hands on them. Clearly, the Nazis had no monopoly on evil. I won't even get into Nanking, where the Japanese even took pictures of themselves raping Chinese women or bayonetting prisoners as sport, to the point where a Nazi businessman, John Rabe, complained to Hitler and the Japanese about this.

The story of Faust has been told dozens of times, and resurrected in various forms. Professor Faust makes a pact with Mephistopholes, the devil, whereby he gets renewed youth and vigor and almost unlimited power for 24 years, after which time the devil claims his soul. But throughout that time, and all the adventures he has with the devil at his side, he uses these powers of evil for good. His last act, before the 24 year period expires, is to have the devil save an elderly couple whose house, located on Faust's property, went up into flames. The power of evil, used for good. This alone prompts God to rescue Faust's soul from Hell and breaks the pact he had with the devil.

Do the evil perceive themselves as evil? Another complex question. One rationalization is that "everyone does it". It's a slippery slope: to the extent no one is perfect, and even so-called "good people" occasionally lapse into selfishness, everyone is evil; some are more honest about it than others, and those who claim to be good are nothing more than arrogant hypocrites. But it only takes a moment of thinking to dispel this. Clearly there are those who lie, cheat, steal and kill without any reluctance or remorse whatsoever; not as a "last resort", not "compelled by unique circumstances", but as easily as they walk, talk, eat, sleep or breathe. I know several people who lie without hesitation about anything. Maybe no one can claim to never have lied in their lives, but that doesn't mean they're not honest in their dealings and even tell the truth when it hurts their own interests. At some level, the evil do recognize that others do not act they way they do, and there is some definite moral distinction. But rather than admit to themselves, much less to others, their own evil, they prefer to rationalize it away and continue with their business of lies, deceit and evil. To them, the "good" are simply those too stupid to lie effectively, too lazy, too weak or just plain not ambitious or competent enough to assert their will over others. I'm not sure how this translates into modern times.


Can evil people change? I hate to quote religious sources, but three examples jump out. First is St Paul, formerly Saul. He started out persecuting Christians to the death, but experienced a dramatic vision on the road to Damascus and converted. St. Augustine had a similar conversion; he previously lived a wild and debauched life until his mother and Bishop Ambrose of Milan helped him to convert. Finally, there is the famous parable of the prodigal son, who spent his inheritance on gambling and whores, returned home a wretched beggar, but sincere in his remorse, and was welcomed home by his father. 

In fact, a remarkable take on this is "My Name is Earl", a new TV show with Jason Lee, who is a frequent actor in many of the Kevin Smith films and the main role in "Mallrats". Earl is a redneck who leads a fairly decrepit lifestyle, lying, cheating, stealing, basically a bad person. Finally he gets hit by a car and figures that this major injury was well-deserved. He decides, from that point on, to turn his life around and only do good things. He makes a "list" of all the nasty, evil, dishonest things he's done over his entire life (the list is very long and can probably string the series over several seasons) and sets out to correct each and every evil deed, one by one. He invokes "karma", which he describes as "if I do good things, good things will happen to me." It's not completely selfless, as his motivation is to have a good life, not merely to do good for the sake of doing so. But he does recognize that certain things are "wrong" and that he shouldn't do them even if others around him are doing it.
More things to think about.