RE: The Veil of Good that Evil Hides Within
"...for there's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." says Hamlet to Rosencrantz.
Claim to ultimately know whats good and bad and you are already trapped.
You can sometimes categorize certain actions by the effect is has on all beings involved, but even that can be utterly shortsighted and misguiding.
Your assumption appears to be that something ultimately evil exists.
What makes you thinks so? One of the theist religions?
There are enormous levels of confusion and neurotic patterns that make people do things generally considered "evil". Usually, these persons have learned a normality that foresees no consequences of their deeds. Be it a generallly humanist upbringing, a humanist christan approach or the concept of karma.
Looking deeper to the substance of reality?
Thats quite an ambitious approach.
First thing may be to drop the word "evil" and replace it with "profoundly confused".
No, evil doesn't exist as a thing itself. Nowhere do I imply that. It's a word to symbolize a reference to an aspect of reality: our actions. certain actions can be categorized as evil, wrong, harmful, immoral, etc.
Yep. But without a comprehensive definition or at least a framework of categorization (ethics), the whole point of good or evil is a relative aspect within a cloudy topic.
Good or evil are such subjective terms, see any heated political debate for examples.
To make it a little harder, you may try considering some of history's worst monsters having nothing but a wretched and perverted perception of what is "good" and "evil".
Take stalinists for starters. And their secret police., the Cheka. Or any other war mongering bunch of torturers and killers. Many of them were probably convinced to do good for the sake of their country. With the means having to adapt to the noble purpose of course.
You know better? Thats what THEY said.
The term immoral makes me laugh.
Morality (by the meanung of consented rules of what is good or bad) is needed when ethics (reflections on values) have already failed or got perverted.