Are orcs actually evil?

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by mormegil

I hope this isn't just arguing semantics, but if they have no opportunity or freedom to to good how can they have a will of their own. If their only choice is to do evil they are not evil as they cannot control their actions whereas if they have the choice between good and evil and choose evil they are evil, so to speak.

Maybe they can only do evil because they only know evil? They have no experience of ever doing anything good.

And "freedom to do evil" also has choices: to do it, or to do nothing (ie not good and not evil). I'm not really sure where I'm leading with this, but I think it's a valuable point.

Originally Posted by blantyr

Fiction commonly portrayed characters as wearing black hats or white, as pure heroes or vile villains.
...
Modern fiction might often have more complex and shaded characters, with flawed heroes, selfish manipulative damsels and sympathetic villains with believable motivations. In many ways modern fiction might be more realistic and complex than the old 1950s stuff.

If you think that Tolkien's characters are black and white, then you are greatly mistaken. There isn't one that is either. You list three examples of what Tolkien doesn't have, but I can provide examples of such characters (off the top of my head), because he does have them:

flawed heroes=Thorin, Turin
selfish manipulative damsel=Lobelia S-B. I haven't read UT yet, so I'm not sure if Erendis fits under this category
sympathetic villains with believable motivations=Maedhros, Maglor, Caranthir (they aren't exactly villains, but they are during the kinslaying, and they all show their good side at one point or another). Gollum, who battles with his good-Smeagol side.

Look carefully, and you'll see lots of shades of gray in Tolkien's works.

And personally, I prefer "old 1950's stuff", as you put it, to modern fiction.