Where Do We Draw the Line Between Good and Evil?

[mikelus]

whats good and what's evil? what are the border lines of the two if any?

 

[hamlet69]

a good time to do evil

i think this depends on what your view point is "like most things" , one person says "i'm doing good for the world by commint this act", but the act is evil to the person it is happening too.

i think this question can only be answered by the moral's of the person doing this evil or this good,

but then again "WHY" if there is a god does evil exist , an answer would be to show what good is.

thats about as far as i can go can anyone else go on?

 

[cassiopeiae]

Good and evil are only two opposite extremes of the same thing. The only boundaries lie in one's perception.

 

[physicskid]

It depends on whether your action
brings any positve or negative outcome
to yourself and the others.

 

[Another God]

Good/Evil = Ethics = Value Theory Forum.

 

[physicskid]

There's one thing I would like to say.
Without good, we would not know what is bad,
and vice versa.

 

[Bernardo]

There must be a God

In order for evil or good to exsist there must be a God. I'll explain...

If all we have is ourselves to determine what is evil then can it really exsist? Let's say 50 years ago it was considered evil to eat pie. Anyone who did so was evil. Now time passes and pie is no longer evil - it's perfectly fine for you. If something can loose it's evilness - was it ever really evil?

God exsists separate from creation and His standards of evil do not change with time. What was evil - is still evil. What shifts to see evil as not being evil is simply identifing itself as agreeing with the evil and therefore evil itself.

The argument is the same for the good side of the coin.

So what do you think? Can there be evil or good without God. If so how?

 

[selfAdjoint]

This is certainly a popular position, dating from Nietzsche I suppose. Camus expressed it vividly. But I wonder.

I have been toying with the idea that morality is an emergent property of community. As such it cannot be "seen" by logic, a feature of the individual mind, any more than temperature can be "seen" by the colliding particles in a gas.

The idea becomes non trivial when we think of interacting with our own communities, and the fact that we may belong to more than one communitiy (church, state,class) with different moralities, and then that we as individuals and through us, our communities, can perceive and react to other communities.

I think I can get from this idea to the fact that we have come to believe that genocide is evil. Why it wasn't perceived before, and how it is reasonable for us in one community to care about the fate of others in an alien community.

 

[THANOS]

Good and Evil is a more complex form of the animal's sense of pain and pleasure. Thus we humans needed good and evil to stop our wild and violent disputes over simple things like territory and food. So good and evil as changed along with our ever changing society. Good and evil was created by us and still grows with us. So it makes sense to think that once it was evil to eat pie or chocolate.

It's just a simple mental invention created by us and used by most of us to make life easier like any other inventions purposes. To create something to make life easier.

 

[Another God]

my last exam is tomorrow. After that I will finally get my butt into gear and write my little excerpt (it will be like 3000 words probably) on what ethics are, and how good/bad are created. (from my point of view anyway. I mean, this paper will be my theory, entirely open to debate)

 

[Bernardo]

"I take what I desire, for I am THANOS"

I'm not taking a shot at anyone here Thanos, this is a thread on good and evil and I could not help but notice your signature and it got me thinking.

I believe something as well - evil does not start with "e" but with "I", while Good ends with "U".

 

[Another God]

yeah, like "I will kill you" and "I hate you" and so forth

 

[one_raven]

Originally posted by Bernardo
In order for evil or good to exsist there must be a God.

This viewpoint assumes that Good and Evil exist as absolutes.

If all we have is ourselves to determine what is evil then can it really exsist?

No.
That is the point.
Good and Evil do not exist within the confines of the context you are referring to "exist" in.
First of all, they are not two separate qualities, they are at either ends of a single scale.

Cause and effect:
Every event is a cause.
One of the many effects of that cause could be an emotional reaction within the observer(s) of said event.
Each of the other effects also has the potential to cause an emotional reaction in the observer(s).
Due to individuality of the observers and their past experiences that shaped who each of them are, their perspectives (therefore their emotional reactions) will widely vary.

Where one's reaction to the original cause-event falls on that scale is nothing more than that individual's personal perspective of their surroundings and what role that cause-event and each of its effects to plays in their surroundings.

The simple fact that the Bible says "Thou shall not kill" is not proof that killing is a universal Evil.
It is a simple everyday fact of nature in the animal kingdom.
Is a Lion Evil for eating a Zebra?
Of course not.
The fact that indescriminate killing is widely (almost universally) seen as a detriment to a productive society does not make it a universal Evil.
The Bible also says that you shouldn't have pre-marital sex, on my personal scale, pre-marital sex is right at the very end of the good side.

In order for Good and Evil to exist as absolutes (as opposed to abstract notions) they would have to be universally defined, which is simply not possible.

 

[mikelus]

I believe something as well - evil does not start with "e" but with "I", while Good ends with "U". [/B][/QUOTE]

Please explain beter thanks

 

[one_raven]

Originally posted by mikelus
I believe something as well - evil does not start with "e" but with "I", while Good ends with "U".

Please explain beter thanks

I am pretty sure he meant...

Selfish = thoughts/intentions begin with "I" = Evil
Selfless = thoughts/intentions begin with "You" = Good

 

[THANOS]

Nothing selfless about helping someone. Every action one does ultimately does for oneself. Whether one does it for money or does it because it the right thing to do. You are doing it because in some sense it's for yourself. Money is more direct and to the point when actions are done to make it. But doing it because you know it's the right thing to do, but it doesn't help you with things that you are aware of, it still serves it's purpose by satisfying your mind by the regrets you'll get later for not helping. So call me selfish for helping or for not because in some sense we all are. It's all based on our values and some value mind over body, so when faced with a "selfless" act we tend to sway towards the minds want instead of the body (materialistic) wants.

 

[stressedout]

Good and evil are not ideas that can really be defined. What's good in one culture may be evil in another culture. Good and evil are primarily based on society and the way they deem actions and thoughts as being good or being evil. It is not one general idea, but rather ideas based on your perception of the world you live in. The border line between good and evil exists but is not clear. Good and evil tend to overlap each other so no real distinction can be made. Evil spelled backwards is the word live. We, as human beings have both good and evil inside of us. To live is to be both good and evil, whatever they may be.

Originally posted by THANOS
Nothing selfless about helping someone.

I have heard this before. It may be true, perhaps it is in our subconscious and we may or may not realize that in helping someone else we are in effect helping ourselves as well.

 

[Iacchus32]

Good is only good so long as it remains in context with truth. Whereas evil would have you believe just about anything to maintain what it wants.

Life is the "good" of which "truth" is the context which binds it together.

 

[Bernardo]

That's good I like it,

but I see a loop hole, what happens if your truth tells you that your boss is an idiot. Does that make keying his car or shooting his dog OK?

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by Bernardo
That's good I like it,

but I see a loop hole, what happens if your truth tells you that your boss is an idiot. Does that make keying his car or shooting his dog OK?

Sounds to me like your boss is an egotistical maniac and would have you believe just about anything in order to get what he wants. I would have as little to do with him as possible, unless risk the possibility of becoming the very thing that I hate.

We all get angry, which suggests we all have the capacity to do evil, but it's what we do with this anger which, is typically brought on by some injustice -- initially -- that determines whether we ultimately do good or bad. Perhaps the worst thing we could do is let it build up and fester, as resentment, in which case we may never get rid of it.

 

[Bernardo]

No my boss in not referred to in the post - I was just asking in a very round about way - what is this truth you see that good rests on?

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by Bernardo
No my boss in not referred to in the post - I was just asking in a very round about way - what is this truth you see that good rests on?

When we speak of the truth, we speak of the original design or intent. Therefore when we slander the truth, or lie, we hijack the good (take it out of context) and use it to serve some "ulterior motive."

 

[THANOS]

If you can't handle the truth i'll just tell you half of it.

We are good people.

there that's half of it.

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by THANOS
If you can't handle the truth i'll just tell you half of it.

We are good people.

there that's half of it.

Why would we need the reassurance, if it weren't a lie?

Actually, I don't think people are capable of doing good, except to the extent that they can get their big fat egos out of the way, and only then can they allow the good to pass by "unharmed."

It's funny because I can see the evil in myself, even as I speak.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I am reading Hannah Arendt's old book On Revolution. I am up to chapter three, and it's a wonderful read, dense with intertwining ideas on every page.

Here's her take on Scocrates and Macchieveli on hypocrites.

Socrates has a problem with the idea that somebnody might commit a crime in secret "unknown to men or gods". This is because the gods of ancient Greece could not see into the human heart.

Socrates solves this problem by inventing the conscience. He says there is inside each of us a self that has purposes and does things, and also a self that observes what the first self does and judges it. So no crime can go unkown, at least the conscience of the perpretator sees it. Thus Socrates, according to Arendt.

Come now to Macchieveli. He is a Christian (yes he is!), and for him God sees into the human heart. The conscience is God's agent in this. So M. says, consider a hypocrite in public life - what we would call a politician. He is not really virtuous as he pretends to be. Is that bad? No, says M. for to pretend to be virtuous he has to visibly do good deeds, and they are a positive good for the community. Whereas his true nature, whatever it is, will not go unpunished, since God sees it. So, Macchieveli, according to Arendt.

She does all of this in the course of discussing Robespierre "the incorruptible" leader of the French Revolution who, after "stripping the mask off of French society" (the nobiity) and showing its corruption, became suspicious of everyone in his circle that they were secretly not what they pretended to be, friends of the Revolution, but really hypocrites planning to undermine it. So he had them all executed, in the famous Terror.

 

[THANOS]

If you can't handle the truth i'll just tell you half of it.

We are evil people.

there that's half of it.

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by selfAdjoint
She does all of this in the course of discussing Robespierre "the incorruptible" leader of the French Revolution who, after "stripping the mask off of French society" (the nobiity) and showing its corruption, became suspicious of everyone in his circle that they were secretly not what they pretended to be, friends of the Revolution, but really hypocrites planning to undermine it. So he had them all executed, in the famous Terror.

And what a bloody awful mess the French Revolution was! Something no doubt got misconstrued somewhere!

 

[selfAdjoint]

Basically she says the reason the French revolution went the way it did, compared to the American one, is the discovery of les malheureuses, the wretched of the earth. Once their interests and demands were brought into the question, once Rousseau's sentimental identification of the poor with the pure in heart, then the logic of necessity took over and the players were unable to manage the streaming tide. The people could not be seen as individuals, only as a mass. This was an entirely new thing in human history.

In America, on the other hand, the only malheureuses were the slaves, who were next to invisible to the founding fathers. So they could see the lower classes of white workers as individuals and did not find anything wrong with their essentially classical Greek and Roman models for government.

This, she said, is the reason the American Revolution did not become a model for the future, while the French one did. The American one took place in circustances that rendered it a very special case. No impoverished masses, bowed down by centuries of unjust oppression.

 

[Bernardo]

He is not really virtuous as he pretends to be. Is that bad? No, says M. for to pretend to be virtuous he has to visibly do good deeds, and they are a positive good for the community. Whereas his true nature, whatever it is, will not go unpunished, since God sees it. So, Macchieveli, according to Arendt.

I do have a bit of a problem with this idea. It is true that very selfish people can do works of good if only for the praise.

These good works will equal anything a truly good person would do. The difference in the heart will become obvious with time. I think this is the reason was have so many scandles in politics. People try so hard to live the visible good public life - they need to display honesty somewhere, and their private lives always tell the tale.

The truly good person is good when no one is watching. I believe this is the only sustainable good - true internal good.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Oh I agree, and perhaps Hannah Arendt would agree, although she might be skeptical that it could be sustained. But it's like geniuses and masters of the arts. If the world had to wait for saints in order to work, it would be a desert. As the founders of the US were perfectly clear, politics is made of real people, who have real faults.

 

[Bernardo]

If the world had to wait for saints in order to work, it would be a desert.

Very sad, but very true.

I'm not sure who said this but, "the only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing."

and this happens far too much.

Here's a question - Is being 'politically correct' an excuse for moral weakness? I think it is.

 

[THANOS]

Ahh... but a truly good pretender will do good when no one watches incase of prying eyes.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Originally posted by Bernardo
If the world had to wait for saints in order to work, it would be a desert.

Very sad, but very true.

I'm not sure who said this but, "the only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing."

and this happens far too much.

Here's a question - Is being 'politically correct' an excuse for moral weakness? I think it is.

I think it is an excuse for laxness, at least. If you feel so strongly about a social issue, why don't you roll up your sleeves and Do something about it? Instead of setting up silly rules and enjoying your priviledged position.

Getting back to Hannah Arendt again (one you start with her, you can't get away!) she carefully differentiates COMPASSION, PITY, and SOLIDARITY (her book was written before the Polish revolt). Compassion is indeed a passion; you see the injustice and can't help feeling it. It is essentially static, compassion for X today is the same as compassion for X tomorrow.

Pity is a sentiment. It is boundless, and malleable; we can meke it do what we want. And here's Hannah: it is PLEASANT! it is self satisfying, and therefore the pitier has a vested interest in maintaining the state which aroused pity. (when I read that I said to myself How cynical! How true!). PC belongs to the category of pity.

Solidarity is the only one of these which is both positive and effective. It doesn't go around making invidious distinctions, it unites people of different classes, sexes, nations, whatever. It is the real road to successful social change. Solidarity was those white kids getting beat up and murdered in Dixie for the sake of black votes.

 

[Bernardo]

selfAdjoint,

well said.

 

[mikelus]

defining evilness

any type of response or action that hurts you or others deals with a sense of evilness. Causing either physical or mental pain for you or others.

 

[Njorl]

"Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now."
-Bob Dylan, My Back Pages



Njorl

 

[seeker03]

returning to the question at hand, ill take a stab at responding. evil is the lack of virtue, not its opposite. one can't be perfectly evil in a comprehendable way, only pure good. it is similar to light. darkness is but a measurement we invented involving the absence of light. light is infinite in maximum amount: there can be an uncountable amount of photons streaming in. however, darkness is just the absence of photons, so you can't measure darkness.
in short, evil is lack of good. this might help a bit. I'm sorry if i sound a bit too sure on this, but i think that this is correct in the context of the first post.

 

[Bernardo]

evil is the lack of virtue, not its opposite. one can't be perfectly evil in a comprehendable way, only pure good.

Have you ever read C.S. Lewis? He has very similar views on the topic.

I agree totally.

 

[mikelus]

is evilness the protection of pain? If we realize our selfs through restrictions of love, it forms control and patterns over ourselfs or others. These are external convictions caused by Unfillfilled desires based on the protection of pain and who you are.

 

[ken]

Hi

This is my 1st go on this forum, I hope it gets to the right place.

C.S. Lewis had a few things to say about the origins of good and evil,
it runs something like this though I can't do his original work full justice in such a short space.

All human societies have a concept of morality, good and evil.
with the exception of a very few individuals, this is a basic componant of being human. However it is not like something you would expect from evolution because you would expect evolution to equip for survival and therefore end up with a morality that favours the individuals welfare. OK you might say the individuals survival depends on the groups survival and you would be right but the same is true of a wolf pack. In a pack, the highest ranking individuals get everything, the lower ones especially pups get whatever is left if anything at all. When that happens in human society, it defiles our sense or morality. Also if this was a survival mechanism, we would obey it implicitly, it would drive our actions. We find instead that our actions are at odds with our morality. We believe we ought to do something but do not do it.

If morality came from ourselves, we would just please ourselves and do what we thought we ought to do. Morality then seems to come from somewhere outside ourselves.

The basic concepts of morality are common to all societies. I don't mean the details of application, just the basic concepts like:

Its good to: share, love, be considerate, thoughtful etc.

Its bad to be selfish, lazy, steal etc.

This suggests, morality comes from a single origin otherwise, the basic concepts would differ according to the individual invention of separate originators.

Morality is concept, thought, not attributes you can ascribe to the inanimate but something that has something like a mind.
Lets call it an entity.

It would seem then, this mind/entity invented morality and has put it in humans as possibly the only mechanism be which humans can recognise the existence of such an entity. If this entity invented morality surely, only this entity can have final right of judgment on this morality.

Regards,
Ken

 

[one_raven]

Originally posted by ken
This is my 1st go on this forum, I hope it gets to the right place.

Welcome and yes, it did.

Originally posted by ken
All human societies have a concept of morality, good and evil.

Agreed.

Originally posted by ken
with the exception of a very few individuals, this is a basic componant of being human.

How can anyone know that?
What makes a component of being human rather than simply being an animal?
Or a mammal, at least?
The complexity of the various social systems in the animal kingdom are continuously surprising researchers, not to mention the complexity of animal behavior and apparent thought processes.

Originally posted by ken
However it is not like something you would expect from evolution because you would expect evolution to equip for survival and therefore end up with a morality that favours the individuals welfare. OK you might say the individuals survival depends on the groups survival and you would be right but the same is true of a wolf pack.

Yes, I would say that.
And I agree, the same IS true of a wolfpack, which causes me to believe that we are not quite as distinct as some others believe.

Originally posted by ken
In a pack, the highest ranking individuals get everything, the lower ones especially pups get whatever is left if anything at all. When that happens in human society, it defiles our sense or morality.

That is simply false.
Wolves feed their young by regurgitating food much the same way that birds do.
Wolf pups are among the best cared for young in the animal kingdom.
More human children go hungry than wolf pups.

Originally posted by ken
Also if this was a survival mechanism, we would obey it implicitly, it would drive our actions. We find instead that our actions are at odds with our morality. We believe we ought to do something but do not do it.

If you believe that, you would have to conceed that humans have NO survival instincts whatsoever.

We jump out of airplanes and off bridges for the thrill.
We fast for religious beliefs.
We commit suicide.
We commit murder.
We take substances that are poison to our bodies because of the feeling of euphoria it gives.

We purposely place ourselves in the way of danger for a multitude of "reasons" because we have the ability to reason.
This is the double edged sword of rational and analytical thought.
We have the power to override survival instincts if we think we want to.

Originally posted by ken
If morality came from ourselves, we would just please ourselves and do what we thought we ought to do. Morality then seems to come from somewhere outside ourselves.

We do.
That is the point.
We do what we think we ought to do.
What I think I ought to do, however, may not (in all likelihood will not) be the same as you think.

Originally posted by ken
The basic concepts of morality are common to all societies. I don't mean the details of application, just the basic concepts like:

Its good to: share, love, be considerate, thoughtful etc.

Its bad to be selfish, lazy, steal etc.

Would the typical modern Westerner think it is moral to sacrifice virgins to Gods?
Would the typical American think it is moral for a young woman to be gang raped by a council of elders for kissing a man she wasn't married to?
Would a Buddhist think it is moral to perform product testing on animals?
Does the Amerivan legal code allow for public canings of youth?
These are more than just minor detals of application.
I could go on and on.

Even within our own culture.
There are far more than the derranged few that believe that stealing is not wrong in many circumstances.
Many people see the rewards in selfish inconsiderate thinking and actions and base their morals on that.
It is wholly subjective.

Originally posted by ken
Morality is concept, thought, not attributes you can ascribe to the inanimate but something that has something like a mind.
Lets call it an entity.

Agreed.

Originally posted by ken
It would seem then, this mind/entity invented morality and has put it in humans as possibly the only mechanism be which humans can recognise the existence of such an entity. If this entity invented morality surely, only this entity can have final right of judgment on this morality.

I agree, in a sense.
The entity that created this sense of morality is the only one capable and worthy of judging it.
The enitity that created it, however, is the individual.
Therefore, the only one that can truly judge your morals is you.

 

[selfAdjoint]

It looks to me that neither of you have ever read "The Selfish Gene" or learned about evolutionary altruism. Crudely,we will die for our family because our kids, and even their cousins, carry on our genetic heritage, and it's only the genes that get maximized by evolution, not the individuals. This explains the "sociology" of bee hives and ant hills, which your simple wolf pack analogy doesn't.

But I agree that now that we have minds we can misuse them to the detriment of our bodies.

 

[Bernardo]

This explains the "sociology" of bee hives and ant hills, which your simple wolf pack analogy doesn't.

We need to leave animals out of this. They do serve a purpose to the medical community - but for any sociological issue sorry.

There in no animal in all of nature that accurately reflects the complexity of human society or intelligence. Monkeys don’t go to school, ants don't pray and rabbits do not get married.

To use an animal as a model is to aim for the lowest level of morality available, we are human. We have the capacity for evil no animal could imagine - our responsibility is to morality because we hold the Earth in the grip of it.

 

[selfAdjoint]

So let's go around and collect the moral codes and try to reduce them to a common standard. And what do we get?

It's wrong to kill people, except when it isn't.

You mustn'nt marry your sister, unless it's OK.

Don't steal from others, unless you have permission.

And so on. All the big basic ideas have exceptions, and the exceptions vary from culture to culture.

 

[ken]

Hi One_Raven


Well you certainly made many comments about my post but I found I can't address them all in one post so I'll break up my replies.
This has the potential to get really big and complex to the extent
we may forget the original train of logic (or otherwise).

May I suggest C.S. lewis book "Mear Christianity". It is not a long read and only the opening chapters deal with this issue. That would save us many long posts. The book was written from a series of radio talks in the 40s so it is somewhat dated but accounting for this I think it is very well thought out and much of the logic still valid.


How can anyone know that?
What makes a component of being human rather than simply being an animal?
Or a mammal, at least?
The complexity of the various social systems in the animal kingdom are continuously surprising researchers, not to mention the complexity of animal behavior and apparent thought processes.

Reply:
Well I am restricting my argument to people because we are people and as such are privy to inside info on what it is to be human. We can't know how it is for other animals, what they think of feel.
I thought that a given.

In my post, I made reference to evolution which implies transforming into another species over generations. Perhaps natural selection would be a better term because that implies the survival of individuals.



quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by ken
In a pack, the highest ranking individuals get everything, the lower ones especially pups get whatever is left if anything at all. When that happens in human society, it defiles our sense or morality.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


That is simply false.
Wolves feed their young by regurgitating food much the same way that birds do.
Wolf pups are among the best cared for young in the animal kingdom.
More human children go hungry than wolf pups.

Reply:
Well what you say of the pack is true in normal conditions. We are however looking at natural selection which implies conditions that overwhelm the pack beyond its ability to accommodate the survival of all individuals. The packs best chance of survival lies with the best hunters and fighters of breading age, not low ranking individuals. This is an analogy I added to try to explain a point in more concrete terms. It's accuracy is not important to the argument.
The point at issue is that what is best for survival does not agree with peoples morality. I do not mean the morality that is reasoned but that which we feel and affects us on an emotional and spiritual level. Many parents will sacrifice themselves for their childrens survival even if the children are not likely to survive long after while the parent almost certainly would have survived and could have produce more offspring. Even if parents do choose their survival over the children, they are plagued by guilt. In many cases this destroys the relationships that could lead to procreation.

In short morality opposes survival logic. It is not what you would expect natural selection should produce even by passing learned values.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by ken
Also if this was a survival mechanism, we would obey it implicitly, it would drive our actions. We find instead that our actions are at odds with our morality. We believe we ought to do something but do not do it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


If you believe that, you would have to conceed that humans have NO survival instincts whatsoever.

We jump out of airplanes and off bridges for the thrill.
We fast for religious beliefs.
We commit suicide.
We commit murder.
We take substances that are poison to our bodies because of the feeling of euphoria it gives.

We purposely place ourselves in the way of danger for a multitude of "reasons" because we have the ability to reason.
This is the double edged sword of rational and analytical thought.
We have the power to override survival instincts if we think we want to.

Reply:
No I do not conceed we have no survival instinct. I find life a continual battle between what I feel is right, what I desire and what will prosper me, my family and society. One time I turned down a job I wanted because though I felt my family needed the income, I knew my friends need was greater and so chose his welfare over mine but the desire for my families welfare is very strong indeed. What I am saying is if there was only survival instinct, there would not be such conflict and guilt over doing what is logically best, instead we find there is something else that tells us the needs of others ought to be weighed equally, sometimes even to the detriment of the group.
This can not be explained by survival instinct nor logical thought.
It is something else again.



quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by ken
If morality came from ourselves, we would just please ourselves and do what we thought we ought to do. Morality then seems to come from somewhere outside ourselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


We do.
That is the point.
We do what we think we ought to do.
What I think I ought to do, however, may not (in all likelihood will not) be the same as you think.

Reply:
Not in my experience, its the thousand and one little things every day, I like to tease and joke but each tease carries a barb. I know that I should encourage and build up others but what do I do, I sting the ones I love with little barbs for my amusement, maybe to show I'm cleaver. Really think, is what you do the best or simple self serving. Can you get through even one selfless day only doing good to others with no reward to yourself, maybe even looking foolish or stupid for the sake of anothers? Sometime I do what I know is good, other times I do the opposite If it were not so, there would be no guilt or at least only guilt from having to choose between conflicting priorities. That should be easily dealt with by reason. Instead people get torn up by it, paralysed by it and suffer mental and physical illness from guilt. We all know we have done wrong.

 

[ken]

Rest of reply:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by ken
The basic concepts of morality are common to all societies. I don't mean the details of application, just the basic concepts like:

Its good to: share, love, be considerate, thoughtful etc.

Its bad to be selfish, lazy, steal etc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Would the typical modern Westerner think it is moral to sacrifice virgins to Gods?
Would the typical American think it is moral for a young woman to be gang raped by a council of elders for kissing a man she wasn't married to?
Would a Buddhist think it is moral to perform product testing on animals?
Does the Amerivan legal code allow for public canings of youth?
These are more than just minor detals of application.
I could go on and on.

Even within our own culture.
There are far more than the derranged few that believe that stealing is not wrong in many circumstances.
Many people see the rewards in selfish inconsiderate thinking and actions and base their morals on that.
It is wholly subjective.

Reply:
I am not talking about the application and practice of moral codes, of course these vary culturally. I am talking about the values upon which each cultures moral code is built. Values like generosity, selflessness, patience. These are the constants across all human cultures. These every person understands regardless of how they are applied. I remember hearing of a tribal group who laughed and laughed thinking Judas the hero of the gospel. In their culture cunning and trickery were highly valued, it is how a person bettered their position in society so for them, Judas was the winner. When it was explained the descipled saw Jesus as the awaited mesiah, they understood immediatly Judas betrayal of his God and his people and were very angry. Though these peoples moral system was very different, they still had no trouble understanding the same basic values we all do. For them you could betray your neighbour but never your tribe. Only the extent of and method of application is different.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by ken
It would seem then, this mind/entity invented morality and has put it in humans as possibly the only mechanism be which humans can recognise the existence of such an entity. If this entity invented morality surely, only this entity can have final right of judgment on this morality.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I agree, in a sense.
The entity that created this sense of morality is the only one capable and worthy of judging it.
The enitity that created it, however, is the individual.
Therefore, the only one that can truly judge your morals is you.


Reply:
Well I think that conclusion is valid only in the condition where the entity is truly the soul inventer of it.

If however morality is an invention of society (interaction between individuals), to claim yourself as the inventer is to ignore the input of your society and the many generations of social development that have gone before. What you have learned from your society and by interaction with others would have to be the greater part than any truly original thought of anyone individual simply by weight of experience. Therefore your society would have the greater part of ownership of the moral code and by the same logic have greater right to moral judgment.

 

[JackRaven]

Originally posted by mikelus
whats good and what's evil? what are the border lines of the two if any?

Hi Mikelus, If it helps at all I can tell you that I believe "good and evil" exist only to evoke emotions where as "positive and negative" exist for balance. With this in mind I could go as far as saying that the border lines for "good and evil" when associated to the human race are simply "good=continued existence" and "evil=...

 

[Unkaspam]

Concepts like ethics, good and evil and morality do seem to have an outside source. They are human reflections of a larger system.

The designation of good and evil is the human attempt at re-engineering the efficiency of the physical universe. Although, we have tended to use reverse engineering to arrive where we are today.

Balance is the crux of those systems of chaos and order found in the universe which we mimic here on our depleted ant hill, earth. Whatever maintains balance survives as a system (or anomaly) as long as it supports the survival of the greater whole.

When everything seems out of balance and has been destroyed it is, more often than not, a part of the survival of the greater whole. We are a part of an incomprehensibly infinite balancing act that ensures the survival of a phenomenon we have been fortunate enough to observe and classify as "existence".

 

[Adam]

I do not believe in any entities or forces of good or evil. I believe good and evil is simply what we humans do to each other.

To the Spartans, it was good to toss deformed, small, or otherwise weak babies off a cliff. I can see the value in this. For a society requiring warriors for survival, it's probably a good idea. Today, however, many people might consider it "evil".

Some might consider suicide evil. Yet some animals will do it to protect their young.

Some might consider it evil to go around executing babies. Yet many species do just that, and it is for the best.

One thing I have found is that it is generaly a negative thing among any species to execute one's own offspring. Life is geared against that activity. Personally, I suspect that a good chunk of our drives and such a based in biology/evolution, and that being the case, we might say that the prohibition against killing our own offspring might be considered an absolute moral.

 

[one_raven]

Originally posted by Bernardo
We need to leave animals out of this. They do serve a purpose to the medical community - but for any sociological issue sorry.

First of all, you are an animal.
You are a mammal, just like a wolf, monkey, lion, mouse, etc.
Why the distinction?
What really makes us different, physically?
Opposable thumbs?
Even if that were true it really would not matter. I can come up with a dozen distinct physical features that different animals have right off the top of my head. Our thumbs would be no more significant than these distinctions. (it isn't true, by the way... koalas, opposums and Bornean Oranguntans are a few animals with opposable thumbs)

Secondly, other animals (non-human) are invaluable resources for sociology.
Possibly the most valuable resource we know of.
As far as we can tell, they do not live under the influence of absurd human inventions such as religion, morality, social graces, envy, shame, pride and all the other socially imposed garbage that influence our lives and minds everyday.
Other animals are us without the skewing distortion of ego.
They serve as a sort of control group or the margin that lies between nature and nurture.
We can gauge our actions influeneced by "reason" against what would be "natural" for us to do.

Originally posted by Bernardo
There in no animal in all of nature that accurately reflects the complexity of human society or intelligence. Monkeys don’t go to school, ants don't pray and rabbits do not get married.

These are ridiculous human inventions and are only one part of Sociology/Anthropology.

Originally posted by Bernardo
To use an animal as a model is to aim for the lowest level of morality available, we are human.

I would say that using other animals' behavior as models for morality would be to aim for the purest level of morality and natural truth available.

Originally posted by Bernardo
We have the capacity for evil no animal could imagine - our responsibility is to morality because we hold the Earth in the grip of it.

Without drawing too much attention to the fact that we have no clue what animals could imagine, I can't see how the belief that humans can and do have a capacity for evil far greater than any other animal in nature could possibly be an argument AGAINST using them as "role models".
If you think that humans have the capacity for evil that other animals do not have, then you would be saying that other animals are "good" as opposed to "evil" humans.
Wouldn't mimicing their behavior and using their values and social systems as a moral yardstick then make us "better" than we are?