What is good? What is evil? Can people be pure evil - or pure good for that matter? What started this thread is the notion I read that evil is 'just a social construct' - i.e., there are usually reasons why people behave cruelly, selfishly, and callously. Evil then is just a fairy tale, something just made up to justify why people behave in such a way.

I think this notion is patently false. Why? Because good and evil are probably distributed in something like a Bell Curve. Most people are neither purely selfless or cruel - most people have done some things right and some things wrong in their life, and they therefore lie in the middle of the curve; even if these traits are not distributed like an exact Bell Curve, the same principle probably holds true: most people are not completely good or evil. One may now notice that this actually works against my thesis - i.e., how does good and evil then exist? Clearly, just like for IQ, height, etc., there are people who lie way to the right or the left of the curve. These are then the people who are 'pure good' or 'pure evil.' This makes the notion that evil (and also good) are just constructs into nonsense.

I also realized something from this on a personal level: if I mind evil so much, how am I not actually 'Fi?' Because just like most people, I have done some things right and some things wrong. The people I then argue and fight with are at the absolute bottom of the barrel: it is not because I am so good, but because they are so bad. But if I'm not 'so good' why do I deserve to be treated like I'm 'a saint?' Because most people have done something wrong as well and don't deserve to be treated this way either! Most people probably couldn't even stand the people I fight and argue with - and it's not because most people are some kind of saint!

The End.