Humans have been looking at life in a two-dimensional (2D) view; Good and bad, light and darkness, white and black, etc.
This has been our perspective about life, representing a 3D object on a 2D surface which makes us lose out on some details of the object.
This makes our assessment of life subjective and myopic because we can only see an object from our view, not its entirety.
The way to creating nirvana involves seeing life objectively which in turn brings us a bit closer to the truth.
The moment we start looking at life in the highest possible resolution, seeing the truth of the object will make us realize that life is a spectrum, with two extremes that are connected.
It is just like a rope that has two ends, with the ends representing the extremes of the spectrum, and in between the extremes lies different parts of the object. Thus the whole spectrum is the truth about the object.
The part of the object seen by the individual is going to be his subjective view of it, except the individual can see beyond his/her subjectivity.
The same thing applies to good and evil, we have been viewing it in a 2D manner, which shows us only a part of the spectrum.
We should be looking at It as a spectrum, with different degrees of good and bad depending on the standpoint of every individual.
According to the Adlerian philosophy, "Nobody Desires Evil", meaning that there is always a good reason for every evil act we perpetrate when we are executing it.
In short, everybody is justified in his/her actions subjectively.
Let us paint a picture about the good in the bad and also use the opportunity to show us that we should first understand evil before renouncing it because when you understand evil, doing it will look stupid.
Let us think of a rapist that is with a vulnerable victim, the individual has a short-lived desire to achieve which is good to him at that moment.
Objectively, it is a bad desire, because deep down, he knows what is good and what is bad, but because of his ignorance, he went ahead with his plan.
He executes his plan because his subjective good outweighs the objectivity of his action.
Looking at it from the victim's view, what he did is on the extreme of the spectrum's bad part.
Still, to the doer it felt good, thus his action is on the good part of the spectrum to him.
To us the observers that can see the whole picture, what he did is bad objectively.
Now, if he had put himself in the position of the victim, looking at it from the victim's perspective, feeling the pain and stigmatization that comes with his intended action, and also seeing its aftereffects (such as inability to trust again, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) on his victim.
If he can see past himself, he will have an understanding of his selfish desire(rape), the knowledge of its effect on his vulnerable victim, and lastly, the wisdom to discern if his subjective ephemeral good justifies the trauma he wants to inflict on the intended victim.
With all this awareness and understanding, I doubt if the rapist will want to go ahead with his plan.
To make it more interesting, have you ever wondered why we are always drawn to the protagonists of movies naturally, irrespective of the character's course of actions, either good or bad.
We are drawn to the protagonist because we are told their stories in a way that makes us feel what they feel.
We see the subjective reason why they do what they do.
So most times, we don't criticize them for doing the bad things they do because we see the good in their bad actions. Instead of doing that, we approve their actions.
Let us take another detour to put ourselves in two different viewpoints in the popular movie series "money heist".
During the process of perpetuating the heist, we were introduced to the professor's team members. We were shown the good side of every individual in the crew, to the extent that we felt what they felt.
For instance, we knew how Denver laughed, how the professor and the cop developed feelings for each other, how Tokyo and Rio became lovers, Why the policewoman betrayed the law because of the professor…
All these made us justify the reason for their actions, they became the hero to us the viewer, they also became the hero of the movie even though we all know that robbery is bad.
On the other hand, the security guard that was disrupting the crew's plan in season 3 became the bad guy, most of the audience don't like his character, whereas objectively, he is supposed to be the hero of the series.
If we are to look at the series objectively. Pulling a heist is bad because they broke the law and people got killed in the process, including their members.
Going back in time to WW2; Adolf and his followers believed in the Nazi dream, "a Supreme German race" which to us is objectively bad.
let us take a glimpse at how Hitler started his life. His father died when he was about 14, he watched his lovely mother suffered until she died about 4 years later because they were poor.
For some years he lived a lonely and isolated life, surviving on postcards and advertisements, drifting from one municipal hostel to another.
According to records, he didn't advance past secondary education, even though he had a dream of becoming an artist which he applied for and got rejected twice.
By now, Adolf being Adolf Hitler had started showing Understandable traits that characterized his later life: loneliness and secretiveness, an unconventional mode of everyday existence.
In 1913 Hitler tried to join the army but was deemed unfit because of his inadequate physical vigor. He was later accepted during WWI and thus found a means of escape from his purposeless civilian life. He found purpose in the hierarchical system of the army where you obey commands from your superiors. From there, his far-right thinking can also be understandable.
After the war, he found a family among people with the same ideology; the unhappy former servicemen and members of the Freikorps(free corps), which had been organized in 1918–19 from units of the German army that were unwilling to return to civilian life, and for political plotters against the republic. From there onward, the rest is history.
Adolf being Hitler was justified in his actions, and that was probably the best decision he could make being himself. He believed in his policies so much that he saw only his own subjective greater good, though his dream was the height of evil to us.
His willpower is something I envy, he accomplished a lot, he is a great man. But It's just that his greatness brought more division into an already divided world.
If only he could take some time to see the objective effects of his actions, put himself in his victim's position, and see beyond his subjective good and selfishness.
Who knows, he might have diverted his willpower to something more productive. We might be hearing a different story about Hitler and also have a different world today.
Evil is a measure of selfishness. It arises from ignorance, selfishness, and myopic thinking.
Selfishness makes it easy to justify our evil actions and from our history and experience, It is always not beneficial.
While objective good which is always the truth, on the other hand, sees the whole picture, sees beyond the individual subjective good and selfishness.
It makes him see the end in the means of his actions.
It influences the decision of an individual with the understanding, wisdom, and knowledge of the aftereffects of his actions.
This leads to actions beneficial to him and the environment, therefore it is a win-win situation.
The objective good is like scientific laws. Everybody agrees with it because it is the truth. It does not create segregation, it can only bring about a united and better world.
Although it is always obvious, it still takes an observant mind and eye to see it. But once it is seen, it can only make things better.
Good sees things not as they should be, but as they are i.e the whole spectrum. It is always beneficial to the environment in the long run.
Our little knowledge and understanding of good and evil so far is a step toward Nirvana.
However, as simple as it is, it is hard to practice and it is not something that can become part of us overnight, because we must all go through the process. It will take some time before getting used to seeing and practicing the objective good because it requires a lot of clear and objective thoughts, active choices, discipline, and Willpower. It is something we need to practice actively before it can become part of us.
This is where our mind comes in, within our mind lies an Angel(Good) and Demon(Bad) that is constantly under the control of our thoughts and choices. Hypothetically, what would be the result of an experiment of a world full of Angels resulting from our choices?