An innocent(ish) question

I like strange questions...

Is Chaos inherently evil? Chew on it for a while, I want to see what you people think.

that would depend on what you term evil, but in a simple defination yes it is evil, and in most definations/explations that could be used it could fall under the catagory of evil.

Depends. Pretty much everything in 40k can be considered evil/not evil. I see chaos being the d&d version of Chaotic nutral. It's simply chaos. Dark eldar and necrons are evil.

It would all depend on the Faction u are talking about they would all be evil in terms of the Emperor or Inquisition. If u wanted to break it down like in there D&D terms then they all very. World Eaters and followers of Khorn would be chaotic evil for sure. The Word Bearers i would say lawful evil they still follow all the rules and laws just a little diffrent version. but they are all EVIL but not always Chaotic.

As defined in most "human" terms Chaos is inherently evil. Both Naturally and Morally evil and most often expressed horrendously in both situations. I use the terms from below. A good read.

Quote :

The terms ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are, if nothing else, notoriously difficult to define. Some account, however, can be given of these terms as they are employed in discussions of the problem of evil. Beginning with the notion of evil, this is normally given a very wide extension so as to cover everything that is negative and destructive in life. The ambit of evil will therefore include such categories as the bad, the unjust, the immoral, and the painful. An analysis of evil in this broad sense may proceed as follows:

An event may be categorized as evil if it involves any of the following:

some harm (whether it be minor or great) being done to the physical and/or psychological well-being of a sentient creature;
the unjust treatment of some sentient creature;
loss of opportunity resulting from premature death;
anything that prevents an individual from leading a fulfilling and virtuous life;
a person doing that which is morally wrong;
the ‘privation of good’.

Condition (a) captures what normally falls under the rubric of pain as a physical state (e.g., the sensation you feel when you have a toothache or broken jaw) and suffering as a mental state in which we wish that our situation were otherwise (e.g., the experience of anxiety or despair). Condition (b) introduces the notion of injustice, so that the prosperity of the wicked, the demise of the virtuous, and the denial of voting rights or employment opportunities to women and blacks would count as evils. The third condition is intended to cover cases of untimely death, that is to say, death not brought about by the ageing process alone. Death of this kind may result in loss of opportunity either in the sense that one is unable to fulfill one’s potential, dreams or goals, or merely in the sense that one is prevented from living out the full term of their natural life. This is partly why we consider it a great evil if an infant were killed after impacting with a train at full speed, even if the infant experienced no pain or suffering in the process. Condition (d) classifies as evil anything that inhibits one from leading a life that is both fulfilling and virtuous – poverty and prostitution would be cases in point. Condition (e) relates evil to immoral choices or acts. And the final condition expresses the idea, prominent in Augustine and Aquinas, that evil is not a substance or entity in its own right, but a privatio boni: the absence or lack of some good power or quality which a thing by its nature ought to possess.
Paralleling the above analysis of evil, the following account of ‘good’ may be offered:

An event may be categorized as good if it involves any of the following:
some improvement (whether it be minor or great) in the physical and/or psychological well-being of a sentient creature;
the just treatment of some sentient creature;
anything that advances the degree of fulfillment and virtue in an individual’s life;
a person doing that which is morally right;
the optimal functioning of some person or thing, so that it does not lack the full measure of being and goodness that ought to belong to it.
Turning to the many varieties of evil, the following have become standard in the literature:


Moral evil. This is evil that results from the misuse of free will on the part of some moral agent in such a way that the agent thereby becomes morally blameworthy for the resultant evil. Moral evil therefore includes specific acts of intentional wrongdoing such as lying and murdering, as well as defects in character such as dishonesty and greed.

Natural evil. In contrast to moral evil, natural evil is evil that results from the operation of natural processes, in which case no human being can be held morally accountable for the resultant evil. Classic examples of natural evil are natural disasters such as cyclones and earthquakes that result in enormous suffering and loss of life, illnesses such as leukemia and Alzheimer’s, and disabilities such as blindness and deafness.

An important qualification, however, must be made at this point. A great deal of what normally passes as natural evil is brought about by human wrongdoing or negligence. For example, lung cancer may be caused by heavy smoking; the loss of life occasioned by some earthquakes may be largely due to irresponsible city planners locating their creations on faults that will ultimately heave and split; and some droughts and floods may have been prevented if not for the careless way we have treated our planet. As it is the misuse of free will that has caused these evils or contributed to their occurrence, it seems best to regard them as moral evils and not natural evils. In the present work, therefore, a natural evil will be defined as an evil resulting solely or chiefly from the operation of the laws of nature. Alternatively, and perhaps more precisely, an evil will be deemed a natural evil only if no non-divine agent can be held morally responsible for its occurrence. Thus, a flood caused by human pollution of the environment will be categorized a natural evil as long as the agents involved could not be held morally responsible for the resultant evil, which would be the case if, for instance, they could not reasonably be expected to have foreseen the consequences of their behavior.

A further category of evil that has recently played an important role in discussions on the problem of evil is horrendous evil. This may be defined, following Marilyn Adams (1999: 26), as evil “the participation in which (that is, the doing or suffering of which) constitutes prima facie reason to doubt whether the participant’s life could (given their inclusion in it) be a great good to him/her on the whole”. As examples of such evil, Adams lists “the rape of a woman and axing off of her arms, psycho-physical torture whose ultimate goal is the disintegration of personality, betrayal of one’s deepest loyalties, child abuse of the sort described by Ivan Karamazov, child pornography, parental incest, slow death by starvation, the explosion of nuclear bombs over populated areas” (p.26).

A horrendous evil, it may be noted, may be either a moral evil (e.g., the Holocaust of 1939-45) or a natural evil (e.g., the Lisbon earthquake of 1755). It is also important to note that it is the notion of a ‘horrendous moral evil’ that comports with the current, everyday use of ‘evil’ by English speakers. When we ordinarily employ the word ‘evil’ today we do not intend to pick out something that is merely bad or very wrong (e.g., a burglary), nor do we intend to refer to the death and destruction brought about by purely natural processes (we do not, for example, think of the 2004 Asian tsunami disaster as something that was ‘evil’). Instead, the word ‘evil’ is reserved in common usage for events and people that have an especially horrific moral quality or character.

Clearly, the problem of evil is at its most difficult when stated in terms of horrendous evil (whether of the moral or natural variety), and as will be seen in Section II below, this is precisely how William Rowe’s statement of the evidential problem of evil is formulated.

Finally, these notions of good and evil indicate that the problem of evil is intimately tied to ethics. One’s underlying ethical theory may have a bearing on one’s approach to the problem of evil in at least two ways.

Firstly, one who accepts either a divine command theory of ethics or non-realism in ethics is in no position to raise the problem of evil, that is, to offer the existence of evil as at least a prima facie good reason for rejecting theism. This is because a divine command theory, in taking morality to be dependent upon the will of God, already assumes the truth of that which is in dispute, viz. the existence of God (see Brown 1967). On the other hand, non-realist ethical theories, such as moral subjectivism and error-theories of ethics, hold that there are no objectively true moral judgments. But then a non-theist who also happens to be a non-realist in ethics cannot help herself to some of the central premises found in evidential arguments from evil (such as ‘If there were a perfectly good God, he would want a world with no horrific evil in it’), as these purport to be objectively true moral judgments (see Nelson 1991). This is not to say, however, that atheologians such as David Hume, Bertrand Russell and J.L. Mackie, each of whom supported non-realism in ethics, were contradicting their own meta-ethics when raising arguments from evil – at least if their aim was only to show up a contradiction in the theist’s set of beliefs.

Secondly, the particular normative ethical theory one adopts (e.g., consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics) may influence the way in which one formulates or responds to an argument from evil. Indeed, some have gone so far as to claim that evidential arguments from evil usually presuppose the truth of consequentialism (see, for example, Reitan 2000). Even if this is not so, it seems that the adoption of a particular theory in normative ethics may render the problem of evil easier or harder, or at least delimit the range of solutions available. (For an excellent account of the difficulties faced by theists in relation to the problem of evil when the ethical framework is restricted to deontology, see McNaughton 1994.)

OK, so it is pretty much agreed that Chaos is inherently evil, but can that inherently evil Chaos be used for Good? (easiest example Radical Inquisitor, are they correct?)

I would say it depends on the person look at eisenhorn, he went pretty radical in his 3rd book but he still keep his sanity mostly intact, but others such as the one inquistor he kill(forget his name was in the 2nd book) lost his sanity(though wiether it was due to him trying to use choas for good or his own means it is never truely said).

in general it cant be used for good due to the persons will power and abilty to resit is to low, but some rare people can manage it

I would say that Alpha Legion (after reading legion) most certainly are not evil at all.