RE: Humane and inhumane
if the world could not be called “messed up”, then we would have no way of evaluating it on a scale of good and evil
I think it's precisely the scale that's messed up, because, let's face it, we all know about those "very good people" who left this world so ridiculously early, while the "bad" people live long and prosper.
And I don't agree that everyone is aware of what they're doing and is aware of what's good and what's bad. If that were the case, if everyone had a conscience, the world would be a different place. From psychopaths, serial killers, politicians, to those who don't greet you back on the street - the vast majority of them don't realize that what they're doing is not good. If that were the case, wouldn't they be torn apart by a guilty conscience? How does a person live, realizing that their whole life revolves around bad deeds? Therefore, I don't think they realize it. And that's exactly what makes the game here and our participation in it even more complicated - for those who live with notions of good and evil, which notions are just illusions, personal illusions that have no value in the outside world.
It's always difficult to keep a discussion alive without trying to be right. Please allow me a third attempt.
A good pianist moves through a Beethoven sonata, for example, with seemingly somnambulistic confidence. But every keystroke is practised, carefully weighed against other fingerings, rehearsed in patient work with herself and the notes. An innate talent was necessary, not everyone can play at the same level. But nothing is improvised, everything is just as Beethoven wrote it down. Nobody can play a Beethoven sonata without having a concept, an idea of Beethoven sonatas. Automata can reproduce this without having the slightest knowledge. But automatons cannot "play well".
I think it is the same with good deeds. They can be imitated thoughtlessly, but they cannot be performed without conception..
Very easy to answer!
These people have learnt that their lives are easier if they do NOT weigh down their conscience. So they suppress their thoughts and talk themselves out of their actions. It's not witchcraft and it's not an art, we can all do it and we all do it.
Notions of good and evil are not illusions - nevertheless they cannot be proofed in a scientific way. That's why we are invited to distinguish between knowing, conjecturing, and believing. The possibility to freedom and to goodness is a strong personal believe (or not), but no illusion. (An illusion is something against facts. Freedom and Goodness are no facts.)