Reddit reviews Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

> The player simply stated that she did not see it as murder, but instead as mercy because the woman was crying over an irreparable loss.

There's no real reason to think that murders cannot be merciful, so this is a bit of a false dichotomy...but at the same time, I don't think that's really the issue here. There are all kinds of reasons why murder is wrong, i.e. in what wrongness consists (and not everyone agrees about it)...but certainly among them is the removing from an autonomous being any possibility of future goods. The player's actions in this case only even begin to make sense if you know that the woman's loss is indeed "irreparable," and that there is no reasonable possibility that her life could improve in any significant way. This is the kind of thing, broadly speaking, that we never know, and to believe that we do, and then act drastically in accordance with that belief, is the very height of hubris.

Those who demonstrate such moral hubris (and with such vehemence!) tend to a) be responsible for the most unjustifiable harm, or b) have the deepest and most significant character flaws, or c) both a) and b). How you read the details there is going to depend significantly on your views about normative ethics and metaethics...but in either case, the shorthand we tend to use is "evil."

People who behave that way are evil (or at least "doing evil"). That they are able to offer some post-hoc rationalization is a big part of the difference between realistic, banal, human evil and cartoonish supervillainy; think Eichmann in Jerusalem. But have no doubts: that is evil.

> Morality is really the essential piece to this puzzle because what is considered to be fine in one persons mind is so completely different in another's.

This may be true about people's beliefs...but morality is not a matter of belief or opinion. Virtually all moral philosophers who have spent much time on the question come to the conclusion (by various arguments and via varied evidence) that whatever morality might be, it is objective; in short, there are very good reasons for this view. Perhaps there is such a thing as morality; perhaps there is not. But whatever the case may be, it has nothing to do with anyone's opinions on the matter.

actually a good book on evil is "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil" by Philosopher Hannah Arendt

Another good book is Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.

> the banality of evil

https://www.amazon.com/Eichmann-Jerusalem-Banality-Penguin-Classics-ebook/dp/B001RHOJSE/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=#nav-subnav