Evil is knowing better, but willingly doing worse.
Interpretation
Evil occurs when individuals are aware of the right choice but choose to act against it intentionally.
This quote by Philip Zimbardo highlights the moral failing involved in committing evil acts; it suggests that evil is not merely an ignorance of right and wrong but rather a conscious decision to act in opposition to good, despite knowing better. This suggests a deeper ethical dilemma where choices reflect not just a lack of understanding, but a deliberate choice to engage in morally reprehensible actions.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about ethical decision-making in leadership.
Before I knew that a man could kill a man, because it happens all the time. Now I know that even the person with whom you've shared food, or whom you've slept, even he can kill you with no trouble. The closest neighbor can kill you with his teeth: that is what I have Learned since the genocide, and my eyes no longer gaze the same on the face of the world.
Boys' brains are being digitally rewired for change, novelty, excitement and constant arousal. That means they're totally out of sync in traditional classes, which are analog, static, interactively passive.
Time perspective is one of the most powerful influences on all of human behavior. We're trying to show how people become biased to being exclusively past-, present- or future-oriented.
Many cults start off with high ideals that get corrupted by leaders or their board of advisors who become power-hungry and dominate and control members' lives. No group with high ideals starts off as a 'cult'; they become one when their errant ways are exposed.
Heroes are Ordinary People whose social action is Extra-Ordinary/ who ACT when others are passive, who give up EGO-centrism for SOCIO-centrism.
Bullies may be the perpetrators of evil, but it is the evil of passivity of all those who know what is happening and never intervene that perpetuates such abuse.
At times we can be self-absorbed. Lord, help us to open our hearts to others and to serve those who are most vulnerable.
Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world - and stop being its apologist.
No one is without Christianity, if we agree on what we mean by that word. It is every individual's individual code of behavior by means of which he makes himself a better human being than his nature wants to be, if he followed his nature only. Whatever its symbol - cross or crescent or whatever - that symbol is man's reminder of his duty inside the human race.
Victory is a fleeting thing in the gambling business. Today's winners are tomorrow's blinking toads, dumb beasts with no hope.
What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour?
How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.
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