Insert evil laugh here

My psych professor asked a question about the nature of evil, and below is my answer. It's not very good.

The very concept of evil didn't originate until the advent of the concept of morality and right and wrong. That being the case, it took a lot of time until people were able to reason that murdering your neighbor because you envy his flock of sheep is wrong because it is detrimental to the community, animalistic, and barbaric.

The most native and fundamental motive to the human being is the sense of self-preservation, aka selfishness (to a degree). The concept of evil can be attributed to a human's desire to survive well and beyond his means, though in this case I am circumventing the average person's ability to reason and behave rationally. This selfishness, when humans hunted in tribes, would be diffused to the other members of the tribe, essentially creating an entagled web that was almost analogous to one complete person rather than many. Tribal raids between humans were common, and the tribes that emerged victorious also reveled in the spoils of their victory, oftentimes being the women, weapons and supplies of the defeated tribe. In more evolutionary anthropological terms, winning a raid essentially meant the diversifying of the gene pool, creating more fit and better adaptable offspring. Thus, as self-preservation in this case extends to the entirety of the tribe, the human is fulfilling his primal desires.

As we live in a time where good and evil are more defined, though the boundaries become fuzzy, it is somewhat easier to determine. However, there are special cases: is acting evil in order to produce a good outcome still evil? Is acting with good intentions but achieving a deleterious outcome still considered evil? (I have often heard that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, though I find that to be a logical fallacy.)

In this case, I choose to ignore religious precepts for good and evil because there are many different religious standards in different beliefs, though all (or at least most) religions can agree that there are several things that are universally considered "evil": murder without justifiable reason, theft, and pork. (Interesting note: There was an ancient Greek cult which forbade the consumption of beans. Go figure.)

Just to explain my pork statement, and to quote one of my favorite movies:
Vincent: Want some bacon?
Jules: No man, I don't eat pork.
Vincent: Are you Jewish?
Jules: Nah, I ain't Jewish, I just don't dig on swine, that's all.
Vincent: Why not?
Jules: Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.
Vincent: Bacon tastes gooood. Pork chops taste gooood.
Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy mother****er. Pigs sleep and root in ****. That's a filthy animal. I ain't eat nothin' that ain't got sense enough to disregard its own feces.
Vincent: How about a dog? Dogs eats its own feces.
Jules: I don't eat dog either.
Vincent: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?
Jules: I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're definitely dirty. But, a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.
Vincent: Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filthy animal. Is that true?
Jules: Well we'd have to be talkin' about one charming mother****in' pig. I mean he'd have to be ten times more charmin' than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I'm sayin'?

The rule was written that pork was disallowed in many religions because, essentially, pigs are dirty. That's it. They're evil.

I think I lost track of the question.

That's all for now,
Das Flüg