Kötülük

Kötülük is a Turkish noun meaning "evil," "badness," or "harm," formed from the adjective kötü ("bad") with the nominalizing suffix -lük. As a concept, kötülük appears in linguistic, ethical, religious, and social contexts in Turkish-speaking communities and more broadly in discussions of morality and suffering.

In ethical and philosophical discourse, kötülük is treated in familiar analytical categories: moral evil (deliberate harmful actions by agents), natural evil (pain and suffering resulting from natural processes such as disasters or disease), and metaphysical or existential evils (conditions like finitude or suffering intrinsic to life). Debates about the nature and origin of kötülük intersect with questions of responsibility, intention, and the possibility of moral knowledge.

Religious and theological treatments of kötülük in Islam, Christianity, and folk belief traditions range from attributing it to human free will or test and trial, to seeing it as the consequence of spiritual deficit, cosmic imbalance, or demonic influence. Theodicies and pastoral responses aim to reconcile the existence of kötülük with beliefs about divine goodness.

In psychology and sociology, kötülük is examined as behavior shaped by cognitive processes, socialization, power structures, and situational pressures. Studies emphasize factors such as dehumanization, obedience, and systemic injustice as contributors to harmful actions.

In everyday language, expressions with kötülük convey wrongdoing, malevolence, or harm and are used in moral judgment, legal contexts, and cultural critique. The term remains central to ongoing ethical reflection about harm, justice, and human responsibility.