@jayjay
Hi jayjay, welcome if you’re new.
Not able to agree with that claim…
In attempting to claim suffering is evil it seems to me you are heading towards a moral absolute which I reject in principle. However,the hedonist might define suffering (especially his )as evil.
When I try to pin evil down and define it,it becomes smoke in the wind. Of course I can think of examples which I THINK are evil EG The rape/murder of children and the holocaust.
I am unable to define any behaviour by an animal as evil or wrong, because as far as I’m aware,an animal has no moral sense.
The most disgusting disease I can imagine is not evil in itself, imo. Nor is any suffering caused to any human being by disease evil. By definition,there is no such thing as ‘a cruel disease’. Nor is animal suffering evil in itself, it just is, part of life if you like.
Now, that I can’t imagine a valid definition of evil is irrelevant to reality. (argument from ignorance) There may well be a definition with which I can agree. I may simply not come across it yet.
I’ve been having a little bit of a think. Not claiming a definition, but I think I may have the beginning of one. Could evil be said to exist when one human being harms one or more
people for gain? By gain I include emotional satisfaction .Is revenge evil? What about killing a man to have his wife/partner? What about harming/killing others for personal power or material gain? What about the actions of the psychopath,who lacks empathy and any moral sense apart from personal gain?
If evil is to be found anywhere, I think a good place to start might be the things we human beings do to each other. May any behaviour of Donald Trump or his sychophants be defined as evil? If not, why not, it’s behaviour for personal gain,specifically, power, imo.
As I said, I’m only just starting in a quest to define evil. IE in a way which is universally acceptable. Not sure it can be done.
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Hedonism is a school of thought that argues seeking pleasure and avoiding suffering are the only components of well-being.[1] Ethical hedonism is the view that combines hedonism with welfarist ethics, which claim that what we should do depends exclusively on what affects the well-being individuals have. Ethical hedonists would defend either increasing pleasure and reducing suffering for all beings capable of experiencing them, or just reducing suffering in the case of negative consequentialism.[2][3] According to negative utilitarianism, only the minimization of suffering would matter.[4][5] Ethical hedonism is said to have been started by Aristippus of Cyrene,[6] a student of Socrates. He held the idea that pleasure is the highest good.[7]
For its part, hedonistic ethical egoism[8] is the idea that all people have the right to do everything in their power to achieve the greatest amount of pleasure possible to them. It is also the idea that every person’s pleasure should far surpass their amount of pain.[9]