Hi folks!
It came up on another place, so I thought it's better to ask here, because I don1t have the time now to check a lot of books.
So as the title says is it? I'm fairly sure there are non-evil undead and characters in novels and Pharasma isn't evil either. I'm not even sure about all the haunts out there. I'm vaguely remembering some good necromancer archetype, but that could be 3.5, or something else, I'm not sure.
So what's the state of necromancy/negative energy plane/necromancers/undead on Golarion? Are they objectively evil things?
The Necromancy School itself isn't evil.
Many spells in the Necromancy School are (Evil) subtyped however.
Hallowed Necromancer is the good one for wizard.
The only thing evil is undead. Everything else is really like fire; it isn't moral it just is.
Unfortunately, necromancy as a school is a bit funky. I believe cure spells are conjuration, but inflict spells are necromancy. Hideous laughter is enchantment, but cause fear is necromancy. So they kind've just put all the nasty stuff in there.
The Negative Energy Plane doesn't have an alignment descriptor noted for it, just that it's negative-dominant. It's dangerous and you probably don't want to go there, but it's not inherently evil.
Necromancy spells themselves aren't necessarily evil, only the ones with the evil descriptor. Animate dead is considered an evil spell, but control undead isn't. So a necromancer could theoretically just control previously animated undead without animating any new ones and not be evil, though they'd probably get frowned at by most good-aligned people for doing that. (Now I've got a necromancer character idea. "What? They're already here! Are you suggesting we slay my friend Mr. Spookybones in cold blood? Look, he's not hurting anyone...anymore. I talked him out of all that.")
Most undead are evil, but there are some exceptions among intelligent undead (ghosts, mostly).