Category: philosophy/religion topics
Today in my philosophy class, we discussed the meaning of good. Many of us seem to believe that there is an established line between good and bad, but I and one other person out of eight in my class disagreed. Good is such a broad term. Think about all the phrases we use containing good: we act good, get good grades, have good friends, doo good works, have good values , eat good, write good; things can smell good, look good, taste good, sound good, feel good, and so many others.
what's good is subjective because whatever a person believes is good is always good because it's good to them. No matter if others think it's bad, it's still good because it's good to that person or people.
Let's take cannibalism for example. In the US, cannibalism is illegal and not a popular practice. We think it's disgusting, unnatural, insert whatever negative feelings you may have toward cannibalism. On the other hand, a person who was raised in a society or family where cannibalism is practiced will believe that it is good and right. Now take cannibalism and replace it with any action we may consider negative: murder, suicide, sexual abuse, thievery, arseny, disfigurement, or whatever. No matter the act, I believe there is always someone who believes an act or a form of that act is right. There is no action that is universally bad. If it is good to anyone at all, it is good, not to all people, but just for that person or people who believe it is good.
So what do you think about the term "good?" Do you still think there is an established separation of good and bad, and that good and bad are defined by the action and not the person? Do you think there is any act that is universally bad?
No raven, I completely agree with you. Though, in the spirit of being disagreeable, (cuz I have an image to keep up dammit), no one writes good, they write well.
Mmmm, human meat. That's good eatin's!
I think there is a consensus on what is good. Even the bad recognise good things, and they do so even though they may not apply those good things to their lives. Honesty is one example. A dishonest person still demands honesty from other people. To most people, honesty is seen as a good quality.
In terms of good actions, there is also consensus on that too. If people saw a young child being kicked around like a football by older men in a park, all if not most would see that as a bad thing. Even somebody who was doing something bad like having an affair, swearing at a shopkeeper because of the prices of products, would be appalled. So this child is being kicked around, and people are witnessing it. They think about what they should do. Options include walking away, trying to stop the older men kicking the child, and calling the police. They all think about what they should do, because they know that the good option is doing something to stop the kicking of the child. If they do nothing, they will likely say it was because they feared the consequences of doing something. They will not say, I did nothing because I thought it was right that those men should kick the child to death.
Goodness is not easy to define in words, because it is applicable to all situations. All situations are different, so what is good in one situation may not be good in another. For example, if a person is trapped in a burning house, breaking a window to free the person would be a good thing, but it would not be good of me to leave my flat right now and throw a brick through the window of the pilock who woke me up in the early hours of this morning with his old music.
Your last paragraph totally destroyed your other argument. If the same action can be both good and bad, then good and bad are both arbitrary.
You say that if you see someone kicking a child in a park, you would say it is bad, and I would agree with you. However, lets change kicking a child to ripping a girl's heart out, or a man being burned alive in a huge iron pot. If you saw those things in the park, I assume you'd also think they were bad, and again I would agree. However, you wouldn't if you were an aztec or a roman.
The aztecs thought that ripping out the hearts of virginal girls was a way to appease the gods. The romans thought torture was entertaining, they never thought of it as wrong.
Now lets say you see three men beating up another one. You would probably assume that was bad. However, what you don't know is that the one they're beating up is trying maniacally to kill one of them with a knife, and he is defending himself with the help of his friends. Is it bad that they're beating him up now? No, now it is justified defense.
Its the exact same act, but it is both good, and bad. If anything could be both good and bad, then we can come to the logical conclusion that good and bad are nonsensical concepts which have evolved into our culture, and which we have never had the need to question.
for something to be absolute, it must be unchanging. Oxygen, for example, is always oxygen. No matter how you look at it, where you put it, or what you do to it, it is always oxygen. If you change it, it stops being oxygen.
water, for another example, is always water. Boil it, stir it, put salt in it, make soup out of it, its still water, nothing has changed. Add another molicule of oxygen to it, and it isn't water anymore, its hydrogen peroxide.
Good does not behave the same, and thus it cannot be absolute. If something is not absolute, it is arbitrary. If an idea is completely dependent upon the circumstances, then it does not exist as an actual idea, it is merely a system or belief that we have been taught.
If good were truly good, then we would know it from the time we were born. We can breathe when we're born, but we don't know its wrong to hit people. We can see when we're born, but we don't know that its wrong to take things that don't belong to us. Good and bad are not in grained in our genetic make up, they are taught, and are totally arbitrary when they are taught.
You don't have to know something when your born to know it is true.
Most of the time, we breathe and our hearts beat , but this happen subconsciously. We are not thinking about it happening, but it is happening.
Goodness is a concept which applies to what we do consciously. We are aware of the good and bad things we do. We have decided to do them. Most of the time we don't consciously decide to breathe.
There are some things which were once considered good that are now considered bad, but people were less informed than they are now for several reasons, and norms were followed rather than debated. Of course, there is still a lot of following, and much of it leads to followers doing bad things they wouldn't have done had they been more independently minded. Many bullies follow lead bullies rather than thinking and acting independently.
Regarding the scenario in which a man is being beaten up by three people after trying to stab one of them, obviously people can only act on the information they have, but personally, I would conclude that both sides were being bad, because the two men who aren't being targeted should be trying to defend their friend, and considering that there are two of them, they should be able to do that without beating the man up. You seem to be describing retaliation - not defence.
Senior, you stated in a previous post that what is good in one situation may be bad in another. At the time a person or people is following another's behavior, even if the behavior is bad, they may think that their behavior was good and right at the time they went through with it.
Concerning honesty, I think people value dishonesty just as much or more so. I say that because isn't it true that all of us want to cover our asses or that of another? If we do, have, did, or had something we don't want others to know about, some of us lie. In the legal system, lying is sometimes the best practice. People are also dishonest while dating. They put on this whole show to lure a person in, then if they start living together, they stop putting on the show. People also find it beneficial to lie on job applications and at interviews too. And for my last examples, all I have to say is: look at politicians. It holds true that dishonesty will sometimes carry a person further than honesty would. I think you say everyone values honesty because it something engrained in some of us from childhood, but if you examine the world around you, you will find that lying is a common practice. Parents lie to their children and vice versa; people lie to their government and vice versa, and many people lie to themselves.
There is no universal concensus on good or bad. Do you not think that bad people think they're doing the right thing when they commit what you or I may consider bad. Just look at abusers. They often feel justified in their abuse, and thus think it is right.
I need only point out one thing. When hitler killed six million people, he thought he was doing the right thing. That's all you need to think about.
I feel that if you can successfully justify your bad IE, killing someone to help save the lives of others or too steal food to insure the survival of your family, it can be classified as good.
I don't agree because those justifications are vague.
Let's take stealing to support an impoverished family for example. What if a father of three didn't just steal food to feed his family, but stole excessive amounts of clothing, bedding, utensils, and other items to support his family. Not only is he stealing excessive amounts of such items, but he's taking them from families who are also impoverished. Do you think this is good?
Next, let's take killing someone to save the lives of others. Say I go on a rampage murdering everyone in charge of, working for, or assisting in the construction of nuclear power plants. I believe such power plants are extremely dangerous and can bring harm to thousands of people. Would you consider this good?
obviously taking something to the extreme as you have pointed out will nullify the justification.
What i was implying was only doing the bad IE, killing a mass murderer to avoid more deaths, or to steal food enough to feed your family.
If you can successfully justify those acts, I don't think those acts can be considered bad, but now I feel like I have to specify, only committing acts to the extent that you are justifying.
But don't you think successful justification is dependent on the person? And Who is in charge of defining which justifications are successful and within reason or are not? The boundaries of reason vary from person to person, do they not?
So if one community feels child marriages are successfully justified, is it not good then? I'm going to assume you don't think it is right. But I will argue that it is because it is right for those people. It comes back around to saying that what is good and bad are personal and not circumstantial.
It is to validate the wrong doer to the person themselves.
if I know killing is bad, but I am going to kill, I have to validate my actions to myself before continuing on
Anyone can justify their actions in their own minds. As someone previously pointed out, abusers, rapists and murderers usually have a reason for committing their crimes. Terrorists feel 100% justified in what they do, yet most of the rest of the world believes their actions are bad. Regarding suicide, that's another great example, as the suicidal person draws conclusions based on what is going on not only internally but around them, thus justifying their actions. They are at peace when they die because they feel they've made the right decision.
If criminals have remorse later on, they are only showing remorse because the majority value system has caught up to them. If they honestly believed something was bad at the time, they wouldn't have went through with it. Perhaps their perceptions of good and bad have changed while they're imprisoned, or the popular opinion is finally making an impression on them.
In response to post 7, people are dishonest for their own benefit, but what I meant was that they value honesty in others. The same people don't like being lied to.
Yes people follow the actions of others, but they don't necessarily do so to be good.
Post 11, I think what you describe is doing something bad for what a person considers to be a good reason. The act is bad, but as far as the culprit is concerned, the reason is good. The action and reason should be separated.
Separating the act from the reason only makes the goodness of the act more arbitrary. Your reasons are what make it good or bad in your opinion. Ripping out a virgins heart is good when you do it to appease gods, not so good when you do it to eat with some lima beans and a nice white wine. (note:, I do not support virgin killing to appease gods, or eating them)
If you take the reason away, all you have is an act. If I tell you, "a man was shot in the head", you think he was murdeered, because you match bad and shot in the head. Now if I told you, "suicide bomber was killed by a round to the head before he was able to detinate his bomb in a group of pre-schoolers", suddenly its not so bad anymore. Its the same act, but totally different reactions, because you had an assumed bad reason in the first, and a good reason in the second. Of course, the bomber doesn't think its good, he has a hard time seeing how him getting shot in the head is good. He thinks him blowing up the little children is good.
An idea so arbitrary, thus, does not exist in solid fact.
a lot of time, it is worse if your actions were not justified to yourself than justifying your actions to others.