Good and evil

Good and evil are opposing moral categories used to judge conduct, character, intentions, and outcomes as right or beneficial, or wrong or harmful.

Moral realism: The view that moral claims can be true or false independently of individual attitudes. It treats good and evil as more than expressions of personal approval or disapproval.
Ethics: The philosophical study of right and wrong conduct, value, and the good life. Good and evil are central subjects within this broader inquiry.
Virtue ethics: An ethical theory that centers moral character and the cultivation of virtues. It evaluates goodness through the kind of person an action expresses.
Euthyphro dilemma: A question about whether actions are good because God commands them or God commands them because they are good. It tests whether goodness depends on divine authority or an independent standard.
Free will: The capacity to choose among alternatives in a way relevant to responsibility. Responsibility for evil depends partly on whether harmful choices are genuinely free.
Moral relativism: The view that moral judgments depend on cultural, historical, or individual standards. It challenges the idea that good and evil have universal meanings.
Moral judgment: An evaluation of an action, person, or state of affairs as morally right or wrong. It is the act of applying the categories of good and evil.
Utilitarianism: A consequentialist theory that judges actions by their effects on overall well-being. It offers a concrete account of good as the greatest aggregate welfare.
Doctrine of double effect: A principle allowing some actions with foreseen harmful side effects when the harm is not intended as a means. It shows how intention can distinguish permissible harm from deliberate wrongdoing.
Moral epistemology: The study of how moral beliefs are justified and how moral knowledge is possible. It asks how people can know that an act is good or evil.

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Dean KoontzRelated: Koontz often frames suspense around moral choice and the struggle against cruelty.