Good Vs. Evil

[Lark]

What is your attitude to Good and Evil? Do you want to serve one or the other in your life? Why?

 

[Aleksei]

Good and evil don't matter. Punishing all the unworthy, ruling the world and dancing the macarena matter.

 

[Lark]

Good and evil don't matter. Punishing all the unworthy, ruling the world and dancing the macarena matter.

Sounds like the Evil opinion is in!

 

[Aleksei]

Yeah, you're probably right. Evil is cool. Like bowties.

 

[Nicodemus]

Good is what I want. So I serve the good as best as I can.

 

[Aleksei]

You can have a good society ruled by an evil overlord...

 

[Frank]

Overall for the "good" , but I do have a wicked side.

 

[Mr. Sherlock Holmes]

I tend to like good, you know, because of the general lack of suffering, anger and hatred.

 

[Savage Idealist]

Oh please, the concepts of good and evil are preposterous and archaic, I'm beyond such things.

 

[Mr. Sherlock Holmes]

“People aren’t either wicked or noble. They’re like chef’s salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.”

 

[Lark]

Weak.

 

[Blank]

“People aren’t either wicked or noble. They’re like chef’s salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.”

Nice. Where's that quote from?

 

[Randomnity]

I don't think they exist in an organized, defined sense, but I do think there are some obvious, (relatively) objectively "good" and "bad" things - at least relative to our species' viewpoint.

i.e. being mean to people: bad
dumping toxic waste into the rivers: bad
volunteering at the soup kitchen: good
adopting orphans: good

and so on.

(and obviously, a whooooole lot of grey zone where thigns are defined as good or bad by various people, or mixed, or neither)

 

[Moiety]

I like to think, that apart from a few mean jokes (which I did more in the past than I do now) I've never consciously hurt anyone. I have a knack for tough love, but I basically care to good to other people.

I think you could say I do dislike evil a lot, and I do telemarket against anger and dishonesty. And I think good has merit has more than just a believe (something "you just know"). Good is also the logical choice.

 

[Jonny]

Good with attitude.

 

[Stanton Moore]

I wonder what Lark thinks about good an evil...

 

[Blank]

I don't think they exist in an organized, defined sense, but I do think there are some obvious, (relatively) objectively "good" and "bad" things - at least relative to our species' viewpoint.

i.e. being mean to people: bad
dumping toxic waste into the rivers: bad
volunteering at the soup kitchen: good
adopting orphans: good

and so on.

(and obviously, a whooooole lot of grey zone where thigns are defined as good or bad by various people, or mixed, or neither)

Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and rain on your parade and say that I don't think there are objectively good or bad things.

For instance, a tiger needs to eat. In order for a tiger to eat, it generally needs to kill, which is [bad]. If it doesn't kill, then it steals, which is [bad]. But the killing or stealing is inevitable--it's in the tiger's nature to kill or steal, so is the tiger [bad]? But the tiger can't act against its own nature, so it's doomed from the start. There is no redeeming a tiger. Also: A tiger is the product of nature, so should we extrapolate and assume that nature is therefore [bad] for creating a [bad] creature, like a tiger?

I would take the position, that based upon what is observable in nature, that there is no such thing as morality or good or evil, and that actions have no inherent trait for goodness or badness. I'll take it a step further and say that for an objective good/morality to exist, each standard of good/bad should be universal and stretch across the board no matter the situation. So, for example: Adopting an orphan is automatically good? What if you're a meth-head who's just going to wind up harming or scarring the child? If the adoption is no longer a "good" thing, then I assert that adopting orphans is not an objectively good act.


If you were to observe someone just being punched in the face without prior context, what could you surmise? Is it automatically a bad act because it's violent? Well, what if the person who's punching the other in the face was doing it to protect the life of another? What if it was self defense? It shouldn't matter if something is objectively good or bad. Our positions/biases shouldn't influence whether we think something is good or bad. It's either always good, always bad, or neither good/bad.

 

[Randomnity]

Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and rain on your parade and say that I don't think there are objectively good or bad things.

For instance, a tiger needs to eat. In order for a tiger to eat, it generally needs to kill, which is [bad]. If it doesn't kill, then it steals, which is [bad]. But the killing or stealing is inevitable--it's in the tiger's nature to kill or steal, so is the tiger [bad]? But the tiger can't act against its own nature, so it's doomed from the start. There is no redeeming a tiger. Also: A tiger is the product of nature, so should we extrapolate and assume that nature is therefore [bad] for creating a [bad] creature, like a tiger?

I said relative to our species-specific viewpoint. By that viewpoint, a tiger killing and stealing is perfectly fine. By that viewpoint, us killing animals for food is perfectly fine (no, I'm not a vegetarian).

I would take the position, that based upon what is observable in nature, that there is no such thing as morality or good or evil, and that actions have no inherent trait for goodness or badness. I'll take it a step further and say that for an objective good/morality to exist, each standard of good/bad should be universal and stretch across the board no matter the situation. So, for example: Adopting an orphan is automatically good? What if you're a meth-head who's just going to wind up harming or scarring the child? If the adoption is no longer a "good" thing, then I assert that adopting orphans is not an objectively good act.

Yes, obviously you have to be flexible with the words and go with the "sense" of the situation rather than the letter. My examples were simplistic of course, and I would never call myself qualified to actually make an exhaustive list of good and bad things. But, after knowing a situation completely, I think you can say some actions are "good" or "bad" in the context of our species, and the vast majority of sane humans would agree - at least until you learn conflicting information. The vast majority of actions, of course, are going to be a bit of both or conficted.

If you were to observe someone just being punched in the face without prior context, what could you surmise? Is it automatically a bad act because it's violent? Well, what if the person who's punching the other in the face was doing it to protect the life of another? What if it was self defense? It shouldn't matter if something is objectively good or bad. Our positions/biases shouldn't influence whether we think something is good or bad. It's either always good, always bad, or neither good/bad.

I think the situational aspect is very important, and limiting yourself to firmly defined rules is a recipe for misunderstanding. Our justice system has to do that in many ways, for better or (usually) worse.

My use of objective wasn't the greatest. I mostly just meant that there are situations where the vast majority of people would agree that it's a "good" or "bad" thing.

 

[Totenkindly]

I'm with Random and Blank in terms of contextual truth.
A specific detail might be good OR bad depending on how the situation is framed.

That being said, like Random suggests, there are general things that culturally might generally be considered wrong and have deletrious impact on the society, so there are regulations against them. Obviously not everyone in the culture agrees, since arguments continue all the time over what laws should be enacted, changed, and repealed, but there are some broad rules that many cultures typically views as wrong and/or having negative impact on the culture.

I usually run into a lot more people who follow Good or end up following an unbalanced/misguided Good, rather than people who downright are happy to serve Evil... and in a sense, that is still "Good" for them, it's just Evil to everyone else.

 

[Blank]

Well, I think my argument against an objective idea of good or evil stems from what I would perceive an objective good or evil to be. (Note that this is a subjective view on an a proposed, not guaranteed, objective idea.)

For me, in order for there to be an "objective good," there would need to be a universal good--something that no matter how one looks at it, it will always be perceived as being good, [and it governs all things.*] I have not encountered what I consider to be a universal good, and I hold the opinion that what may appear to be a good thing can probably be a bad thing if looked at in a different light.



*I suppose this is debatable, and if there is an "objective good/evil" that is only used in the case of humans, so be it; however, in the case of the tiger, I look at it this way:
All animals must consume to survive. => Tigers and humans are animals => Therefore, tigers and humans must consume to survive.
I don't see much of a difference between a tiger and a human since both are animals, so that's kind of where the idea that an objective good would have to govern all things comes from.