When Bad Things Happen to Bad People

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Could the net outcome be considered "good"? Set aside any debate for the moment about what qualifies someone as a "bad" person and consider the question in an intellectual vacuum. I haven't fully formed an opinion myself at this point, but I think it's an interesting question, two wrongs may not make a right but a "bad" action effecting a "bad" person might equal a positive outcome. I have my own hypothetical practical application of this idea, but I want to wait until I hear some unbiased answers before I put my own spin on it.

It's wonderful when bad things happen to bad people. The worse the person, the more they should suffer.

I think a person is bad when they do something consciously knowing that it will harm others and help no one but themselves.

gee, this sounds a lot like "2 wrongs don't make a right, but 3 do." if the bad person [and people watching him/her] learned something positive from what happened to him/her [like to stop being evil], then it wouldn't be all bad. but if instead, they schemed to avenge what happened to them, then that is moral futility which means that more badness has been put onto our earth with nothing good learned, and that is worse than bad.
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"things are just peaches and scream all over the place"

What makes revenge worse than original act that caused the hate? There are many times I turn the other cheek, but on a rare occasion, I will get back tenfold. The way I see it, if someone does something to you that makes you hate them, you should relieve yourself of that hate. We all now the justice system isn't going to help.

Schadenfreude is one of my favorite hobbies. I love seeing the downfall of my enemies. It restores my faith in the existence of Cosmic Justice.

ruveyn

revenge is just putting more bad stuff out into the world. this is a closed-loop system we live in, and the bad stuff has nowhere else to which it can go, so it just hangs around and festers in this poor world and makes for a more poisonous environment for the rest of us - IOW "when the elephants fight, it is the grass which suffers."
when you hate and exact revenge, what this means is that you have proven to god that you are thinking and behaving no better than the next evil person. evil begets evil. you can do better than this. so keep turning the other cheek "seventy times seven." when you meet your maker after having lived a life "by the sword," do you think you will be greeted with, "WELL DONE! you have spread terror near and far by smiting thine enemies with malice aforethought! who needs all this "love thy neighbor" and "golden rule" crap?" have you not done evil yourself and would want to be cut some slack on your part? then how could you deny this same forgiveness to others who have wronged you?
if you still feel you must stoop to revenge, remember that it is a dish best served cold - IOW, dispassionately let karma take its own action, and watch from afar, as the universal law of cause and effect has the untimate "revenge" on us all.
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"if I didn't feel sorry for myself, then who would?"

The "bad" here is too vague. I suppose there is some likelihood of a hindrance to a Villain putting the Heroes at an advantage, though.

Last edited by PLA on 04 Apr 2010, 3:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This quote's a keeper.

So many of your positions become understandable in light of it.

I don't believe that, it's said that all humans have a good idea of what reciprocity is. If something bad happens that overweights whatever bad stuff someone did, does it not make his plight harder on us for ignoring him?

There's the ruveyn we all know and love. Decapitate your enemies and urinate down their severed necks, yes?

Technically, I think it'd more be like getting your prisioners of war to piss down the enemies severed necks. After, of course, you humiliate the enemies by pointing out their lack of a pilot's license.

Roflmao!

Sorry for the interruption, back to lurking.

Frankly, I doubt there is a ruveyn. He's an archetype invented by someone with a talent for seeking reactions.

Christopher Hitchens with any remanants of compassion removed?

it's not as simple as that but can't say i'd feel much sympathy for somebody i don't like brings something upon themselves as a result of the way they are

Let's use my first hypothetical situation: An abusive pimp gets run over by a bus, allowing the girls he'd forced into prostitution to escape. The "bad" action had no relation to the misdeeds of the "bad" person, in this case it's just completely random. For this example, assume the "bad" person is killed. No one learns anything from the random event, but the net effect is a positive one anyway, abused women are allowed to go free.

Now imagine someone threw him in front of the bus, how does that change the situation?