Board Thread:False Info and Speculative Discussion/@comment-11533671-20140912050918/@comment-19765459-20140912184012

JEK wrote:

I hate it when people use the word evil. It's used far too liberally. Your argument is essentially that he was selfish and unlawful, ergo, he was evil. Seems a little off to me. Unless you equate illegaility with chaos/anarchy, and chaos/anarchy with evil. Still seems shaky to me.

By that logic, 90% of the characters in this GENRE are evil. Your logic is faulty, in that apparently you consider all types of misbehavior fundamentally equal, and therefore only quantity matters.

It is the manner in which Peter manifested his selfishness and unlawfulness that makes him evil, not merely the fact that he exhibited those traits. The insanity defense holds, at best, for the murder of his niece Laura, since he was possibly not fully coherent by that point. But his subsequent actions were all very well-calculated, meticulously-planned and carried out deliberately.

There were certain cases where there were variables involved. For example, when he rammed his entire arm through his nephew Derek's gut and then threw him into a wall, it was uncertain whether or not Derek could survive such an injury. As we have seen on the show, werewolves exhibit varying degrees of stamina (just like any other people) and may not survive an injury that severe. Derek just happens to be really tough.

Likewise, Peter plays elaborate games that involve literally endangering the lives of minors, some (e.g. Scott and Stiles) who had never done anything to him and did not deserve to be used, abused, threatened, exploited and/or Bitten. He does this without guilt or shame, because he really does not care about anybody's life but his own. His behavior here is also deliberate, not incidental, and therefore subject to moral question.

He has a highly-variable sense of justice. For example, apparently killing Kate once was sufficient. Having achieved some sort of abstract balance there it was no longer necessary to impede her evil behavior and the danger she posed to a great many people. Of course, since the original Hale fire was a whole laundry list of felonies, he could have just gotten her thrown in jail the first time around. But no, he had to pursue a vendetta that included personal acts of murder (regardless of whether the victims were themselves evil) and entailed him dragging innocent people into his web of intrigue.

Lack of conscience about this is the hallmark of his evil. It's not merely anarchy, not least because he puts so much thought into what he does. He is aware of the negative impact his actions have on other people. He just doesn't care about it because he is only concerned about what benefits him and fulfills his personal goals.

Hardcore philosophical anarchists argue that the assumption of complete freedom without the need for rules can only be achieved by the parallel assumption of personal responsibility. Basically, laws would be unnecessary if people could be relied upon not to willfully harm each other without the threat of societal punishment. Peter does not meet that standard. His personality includes both the assumption that he should be free to do what he wants and the belief that the negative impact of his actions on others is irrelevant. He does not believe the reverse however, since he claims the right to seek revenge for wrongs done to him!

Hence, Peter is Chaotic Evil.