What is good and evil, or do they even exist? (improving, ethical)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This question is essentially "Is there such a thing as moral truth?" Philosophers disagree on this, and there are admittedly difficult questions to answer on both sides. IMO, ethical statements aren't actually propositions at all, therefore they are neither true nor false. Rather, I think ethical statements are merely expressions. For example, if someone asked you if you wanted vanilla ice cream, you might say "Eww, vanilla!" Is "Eww, vanilla!" true or false? It is of course neither because it is not a proposition. I think moral claims are essentially doing the same thing, only they deal with topics we have much stronger sentiments about. When I say "Torture is wrong," what I am really saying is nothing more than "Boo, Torture!" Evolution has equipped us with very strong sentiments about morality because moral behavior was critical to the survival of our ancestors. This has given us very strong intuitions about morality, which is why reducing it to nothing more than a set of expressions that are merely different in degree but not in kind to our sentiments about ice cream flavor just seems wrong to us. I think our intuitions are misguided, however.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't act as though there is such a thing as moral truth, however. It may take away some sort of Kantian categorical imperative, but we can still construct hypothetical imperatives such as "If you want a world with more pleasure and less suffering, you shouldn't do X." For anyone who does in fact want a world with more pleasure and less suffering, that is a motivating statement. At a minimum, this posits morality as at least a set of desire or preference fulfillment objectives, and I think most people have a strong enough desire to produce a certain type of world that we can at least have useful moral discussion.
Edit to clarify: When someone says "Vanilla is good," what are they actually saying? Are they making the sort of claim that can be true or false? IMO, no. They aren't suggesting that there is some truth about the goodness of vanilla. They are instead merely expressing their sentiments regarding vanilla. It isn't clear to me why ethical "propositions" like "Torture is wrong" must be any different.
I believe an evil person is completely incapable of empathy, devoid of feeling for anyone/anything beyond their own base needs, combined with a harmful predatory nature towards people/animals/environment, without ability to control their harmful behaviors.
I had a close family member like this, a violent pedophile with dead eyes. I've had many conversations with him, he is intellectually brilliant, but without empathy. He was extremely dangerous because he could convince anyone of anything, even the criminal judge. I have always pondered whether it was mental illness or evil - still on the fence on that one. But I lean toward evil, because humans should have a conscience and be evolved beyond predatory animals.
They exist, in the sense that they are value judgments. But they are not constant; they vary from person to person, from one culture to another, and over time. In some judgments there is near-universal agreement (ie: raping children is bad), while in others there is much disagreement (ie: capital punishment is sometimes warranted). It gets even more complicated when the situation isn't black and white, and real-world situations usually are not.
People like to believe that good and evil exist. It makes them feel that the world can be properly categorized. And it helps explain away unpleasant things. And it makes them feel like the 'answer' is out there, if they can only find it. But desire and reality are two different things.
The world isn't the simple, easily-explained thing-in-a-box that many ache for it to be.
What is good for me is good. What is good for my friends is good. What is bad for me is bad. What is bad for my enemies is good.
And so on.
But, generally, there are universal truths. Do not take life. Do not steal. Etc. You already know all of them.
This question is essentially "Is there such a thing as moral truth?" Philosophers disagree on this, and there are admittedly difficult questions to answer on both sides. IMO, ethical statements aren't actually propositions at all, therefore they are neither true nor false. Rather, I think ethical statements are merely expressions. For example, if someone asked you if you wanted vanilla ice cream, you might say "Eww, vanilla!" Is "Eww, vanilla!" true or false? It is of course neither because it is not a proposition. I think moral claims are essentially doing the same thing, only they deal with topics we have much stronger sentiments about. When I say "Torture is wrong," what I am really saying is nothing more than "Boo, Torture!" Evolution has equipped us with very strong sentiments about morality because moral behavior was critical to the survival of our ancestors. This has given us very strong intuitions about morality, which is why reducing it to nothing more than a set of expressions that are merely different in degree but not in kind to our sentiments about ice cream flavor just seems wrong to us. I think our intuitions are misguided, however.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't act as though there is such a thing as moral truth, however. It may take away some sort of Kantian categorical imperative, but we can still construct hypothetical imperatives such as "If you want a world with more pleasure and less suffering, you shouldn't do X." For anyone who does in fact want a world with more pleasure and less suffering, that is a motivating statement. At a minimum, this posits morality as at least a set of desire or preference fulfillment objectives, and I think most people have a strong enough desire to produce a certain type of world that we can at least have useful moral discussion.
Edit to clarify: When someone says "Vanilla is good," what are they actually saying? Are they making the sort of claim that can be true or false? IMO, no. They aren't suggesting that there is some truth about the goodness of vanilla. They are instead merely expressing their sentiments regarding vanilla. It isn't clear to me why ethical "propositions" like "Torture is wrong" must be any different.
Most likely this.
TL;DR
Good and Evil doesn't objectively exist, but it doesn't mean we're without a human moral code. That code is used to further and hopefully expand our species. Unfortunately even though most of us ascribe to a certain moral code it turns out we aren't really good at following it.
Subjectively for most good and evil are different things...for the most part. However they also can blur lines as well. Or be all things at once.
IMO labeling things as solely good and evil shows me an incapability to accept the complexity of life.
Is there a difference between good and evil or is it completely subjective?
I take a binary view of the universe, in that everything has varying degrees of good and evil, but there is always a most ideal, which would be the path that results in the most good. Good would be that which improves all feeling life the most, in my opinion. By "improve" I mean results in more positive emotions of better quality and fewer negative emotions.
I think I can prove this with the following two statements:
*There is no way to distinguish right from wrong except through determining which results in more positive or negative emotions.
*Other feeling organisms experience emotions too.
Then we just consider affects of our behaviors on the group's cumulative emotional score to determine whether or not the behavior is morally sound. Note that all life has the same value. Humans, I think, in particular, would be a wise type of life to invest resources in. This is because when many animals succeed, they inevitably breed until starvation or disease lowers their population, or they prey upon or push aside other organisms. Humans have the imagination to escape from that cycle. In fact, if we ever leave this world and head into space we'll probably all become vegans, given the difficulty of raising livestock when you lack a world and all its resources to do it on.
If there were a species even less likely to cause harm to the group than humans, they would be an even wiser species to invest resources in. It is therefore in humanity's interest to modify our behaviors to cause little harm to the group. Other relatively complex organisms that breed slowly and feed upon simple organisms or plants would also be wise to invest resources in. Examples of such organisms would be elephants, whales, and gorillas.
I think humans have more value than other Earth organisms for other reasons too though...but stating those reasons would involve wandering off on a tangent.
Anyway, what I think is:
*Anything that feels has value. All positive emotions of this life are good. All negative emotions of it are bad. Note that side affects of positive emotions can be very bad, and side affects of negative emotions or the behaviors that produce them can be very good at times.
*Improving the positive emotions and reducing the negative emotions of feeling life forms is of interest to us for the same reasons improving our own positive emotions and reducing our own negative emotions is of interest to us: that pain hurts and pleasure feels good.
*Though positive emotions always have positive value, the positive emotions of certain organisms routinely have more or less positive value than the positive emotions of organisms. This usually has to do with what the various organisms will do with whatever positive emotions they receive. Joy in the mind of an organism with a five second memory will be less advantageous than joy in the mind of a more complex organism such as an elephant. Also, resources spent to assist our fellow organisms is better invested in some organisms than others. I'd recommend investing in the most complex organisms capable of wreaking the least amount of having and achieving the most gain from investments such as humans, gorillas, elephants, and whales. Also, domesticated pets can be a good place to invest resources in.
Also, we'd have to anticipate the affects of our actions on our descendants and future life. They're part of the group too, despite them not having been born yet.
I guess I might as well think that good and evil exist...on the condition that nothing is merely evil because it's evil or good because it's good. Rather, it's good because it feels good to something and it's evil because it doesn't.
So...why shouldn't everyone strive to be perfect people who devote their lives to creating a utopian commune? Part of it is because in addition to being part of a group there is always an ancient part of us that says "You're alone, except for those you have emotional attachments too" and part of us knows it's right. We're both members of a group and individuals, I don't think there is a way to convince people to assist the group beyond a certain point, because of that primal part of us that knows better. Some people are just motivated by it more than others, I think, for whatever reason...but even to that primal part of us the urge for positive emotion and drive to avoid negative emotion is there, and so right and wrong, what might as well be called good and evil, is associated with emotion.
Maybe we shouldn't label positive and negative emotions good and evil, because good and evil tend to be associated with merely being "evil" because it is evil or "good" because it is good. Unpleasant and pleasant sensations come pretty close to that though. Why does it hurt? It hurts because it hurts. Why is that bad? It's bad because it hurts and it hurts because it hurts.
I take the position that good and evil are effects, making them hard to discuss. I believe all actual goods and actual evils are derivative of truth and falsity as their cause, respectively. Hence, WG is correct to state that this is a question of whether moral truth exists.
I take the position that good and evil are effects, making them hard to discuss. I believe all actual goods and actual evils are derivative of truth and falsity as their cause, respectively. Hence, WG is correct to state that this is a question of whether moral truth exists.
My view is Morality and Ethics must be grounded on absolute moral truths which are abstracted from the highest possible human reason. This absolute moral truths will be the permanent* fixed goal posts to guide the practice of Ethics in the practical world.
The question is how do we ground and justify these absolute moral truths, what is absolute goodness?
*within philosophy there is no such thing as 100% absolute truth.
as such whilst the absolute moral truths are fixed and permanent, they are not absolutely absolute.
These fixed goal posts will remain permanent until they are shift by a very rare earthquake that could happen once in 10,000 years.
I don't want to discuss good and evil philosophically, but I can discuss evil people. I've known a couple of them. One of them was quite obvious. The other I knew for about 7 years before realizing he was evil. I'd always seen signs of problems, but the possibility that he was actually evil wasn't in my mind at the time.
Evil is not as it's imagined. It doesn't have horns, a pointed tail, and a pitchfork. It doesn't go around wantonly causing harm. Actually, it can, but if it does it will easily be seen. The worst evil is insidious; it's hard to identify. Evil can be friendly, and kind, and loving.
The person I knew who was obviously evil was very intelligent. He was smarter than most people and knew it, and had no problem with tricking them into doing what he wanted. He believed in getting the right result, in spite of the people. I believe that doing the right thing because you know why it's right is more important than simply reaching the correct conclusion about what's right. This evil person believed that having others do his will was what mattered. Even if his will is what's best, to me it's still evil. I believe in enlightenment, not in blind compliance.
The other person, whom I knew for years and only later came to see as evil, was very subtle. He had problems, but always seemed to be determined to do better. It turned out that his determination to do better was only a way to feel better about later doing bad. All the signs were there, but he was the first truly evil person I'd ever known, and I didn't know how to identify it. He taught me that evil does not do harm regardless of how it affects itself, but does its own good regardless of how it affects others. Evil can help people and treat them with love and respect if the end is beneficial. It will just as quickly turn against you once that is the beneficial course. You see it in the thought patterns. Evil is not immoral, it is amoral. A- is a prefix meaning "without." Amorality is not the doing of wrong, but is the lack of concern for right and wrong. Amorality can be as moral as anything else, as long as the situation permits, and will change without regard once that change is more beneficial.
On the other hand, the wisest person I've ever known explained to me that a good person isn't one who does good things, but is one who does bad things and regrets them. A bad person does those same bad things without regret or concern. I think the conclusion is that good wants to do better, even though it sometimes fails, while evil really doesn't care about being good or bad, but just wants to be effective and successful.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
