First, a quick example, then explanation.

Is Robin Hood evil?

Rich man held up on the road: “Yes, he’s evil, he took my money! What if he took YOUR money?” EVIL
Community at large: “Robin Hood is the best, he gives us money that the rich don’t need anyways.” GOOD
Society: “Well, he violates our laws, thus he’s bad.  We can’t have people robbing willy-nilly.” EVIL

So it would seem that the same action, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, is evil, then good, then evil again as you expand the scope of people you talk to and needs you optimize for.

Now, some high-level thoughts:

Every “evil” act benefits one entity at the too-great expense of another.   If a bandit raids a farmer’s cellar, the bandit eats while the farmer loses his hard-earned food.

Every “good” act benefits one entity without harming another excessively.  If a farmer spends a day in the fields helping his crops grow, that is good.

So, the real question is whether an act “harms another excessively.”

Cigarette companies

Let’s take cigarette companies’ executives’ decision to promote a product they knew was likely to result in early death for their customers.  Evil or not?

I think it comes down to whether you believe “doing everything legal to increase sales of a product that is likely to kill people” is “harming another excessively”.  The executive who made those decisions will say that the rule for what is excessive is set by the law and that people don’t have to buy their cigarettes.  So in their minds, the answer is “no, it’s not”.  However, many people think that aggressively selling a dangerous product IS harming others excessively, thus evil.

“But Darius, this is obvious stuff, cigarette companies and Robin Hood, c’mon.  Give me something interesting.”  Very well, lets it break down.

I think you can separate out the benefits and harms of an action into groups of people, time horizons and care factors.  Let’s try it out:

Effect of cigarette companies’ decisions

(time horizon is long-term, numbers made up)

Then you apply care factors:

Cigarette company decision equation: (Smokers’ Health=1,  Cigarette Company Profits=1000)
(loss of life) * 1  + (Make millions more) * 1000 > (lose less life) * 1 + (Make millions less) * 1000

Concerned citizen decision equation: (Smokers’ Healthy=1000,  Cigarette Company Profits=1)
(loss of life) * 1000  + (Make millions more) * 1 < (lose less life) * 1000 + (Make millions less) * 1

I think the above difference in the care factor is the true reason that cigarette companies can say they feel that they aren’t “harming another excessively”.  In their equation, the benefit to themselves outweighs the harm to their customers.  However, many people and indeed the government eventually, agree with the latter equation that takes the needs of customers into account more.  I think that often by breaking down decisions to people, time horizons and care factors, you can understand “evil” decisions faster and address them.

Some quick other thoughts:

• I think the history of justice is one of increasing the care factors on distant parties.  We have increased the care factor  by which we multiply the needs of minorities, the environment, the disabled and more over the last 100 years.
• Getting drunk makes less sense if you’re optimizing for 24 hrs than just 4 hrs.
• Adults and kids often disagree about the time horizons to optimize against.
• Having a child dramatically alters the core optimizations of people, time horizon and care factors.

Thanks for getting through my first post, feedback welcomed.