In
philosophy
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
,
religion
Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...
, and
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
, "good and evil" is a common
dichotomy
A dichotomy () is a partition of a set, partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts (subsets). In other words, this couple of parts must be
* jointly exhaustive: everything must belong to one part or the other, and
* mutually exclusive: nothi ...
. In religions with
Manichaean
Manichaeism (; in ; ) is an endangered former major world religion currently only practiced in China around Cao'an,R. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''. SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 found ...
and
Abrahamic
The term Abrahamic religions is used to group together monotheistic religions revering the Biblical figure Abraham, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The religions share doctrinal, historical, and geographic overlap that contrasts them wit ...
influence,
evil
Evil, as a concept, is usually defined as profoundly immoral behavior, and it is related to acts that cause unnecessary pain and suffering to others.
Evil is commonly seen as the opposite, or sometimes absence, of good. It can be an extreme ...
is perceived as the
dualistic antagonistic opposite of
good
In most contexts, the concept of good denotes the conduct that should be preferred when posed with a choice between possible actions. Good is generally considered to be the opposite of evil. The specific meaning and etymology of the term and its ...
, in which good should prevail and evil should be defeated.
Evil is often used to denote profound
immorality
Immorality is the violation of moral laws, norms or standards. It refers to an agent doing or thinking something they know or believe to be wrong. Immorality is normally applied to people or actions, or in a broader sense, it can be applied to ...
.
Evil has also been described as a
supernatural
Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the Scientific law, laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin 'above, beyond, outside of' + 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanin ...
force.
Definitions of evil vary, as does the analysis of its motives.
However, elements that are commonly associated with evil involve
unbalanced behavior involving