Define What Is Good

[GodOfOrder]

Today, I heard a friend say to me that if everything was good, the world would be out of balance. Yet this obviously would be bad. So it seems if something was to be "good" it would have to be absolute.

I suppose the notion that even too much of a good thing is bad is what they meant, but at this point, I think the thing is no longer "good".

For my part, I subscribe to the notion that what is good is what is fitting, such that nothing insofar as it exists is good or bad, but only insofar as it relates to its system.

Even something like a cancer cell can be considered good or bad in a particular context. It may be bad for the body it inhabits, but cancer regulates the population of a species and keeps the ecosystem healthy.

And on this scale of systems within systems, what would be defined as good in one smaller system, could also be potentially bad in the larger system, or vice versa.

So what defines good, and is there such a thing as an absolute universal good?

 

[addictedartist]

Are you implying too much of a bad thing is good? An equally valid query is how much is too much?

 

[joal0503]

i really have no idea if this applies, as im sort of confused to what you are trying to get at...

Tao te Ching – The Nature of Polarity by Alan Watts

AT THE VERY ROOTS of Chinese thinking and feeling there lies the principle of polarity, which is not to be confused with the ideas of opposition or conflict. In the metaphors of other cultures, light is at war with darkness, life with death, good with evil, and the positive with the negative, and thus an idealism to cultivate the former and be rid of the latter flourishes throughout much of the world.

To the traditional way of Chinese thinking this is as incomprehensible as an electric, current without both positive and negative poles, for polarity is the principle that + and north and south, are different aspects of one and the same system, and that the disappearance of either one of them would be the disappearance of the system.

People who have been brought up in the aura of Christian and Hebrew aspirations find this frustrating, because it seems to deny any possibility of progress, an ideal which flows from their linear (as distinct from cyclic) view of time and history. Indeed, the whole enterprise of Western technology is "to make the world a better place" - to have pleasure without pain, wealth without poverty, and health without sickness. But, as is now becoming obvious, our violent efforts to achieve this ideal with such weapons as DDT, penicillin, nuclear energy, automotive transportation, computers, industrial farming, damming, and compelling everyone, by law, to be superficially "good and healthy" are creating more problems than they solve. We have been interfering with a complex system of relationships which we do not understand, and the more we study its details, the more it eludes -us by revealing still more details to study.

the rest

http://divinetao.com/dt_alanWatts.htm

 

[GodOfOrder]

@addictedartist

Not at all. Consider a thing good or bad within the system it operates. Now consider this within a greater system.

A deer eats a lot of food, and reproduces in good health. These deer have no predator to kill them. That is good for the individual deer, but soon they overrun the ecosystem, like a cancer.

So insofar as the system of an individual deer is concerned, this is good, but not insofar as the greater system is concerned.

So what makes a thing good, and can anything be universally good?

And of course, the answer could very well be moderation is all that is good. Rather Platonist it seems. So yes, how much is too much is an excellent question.

 

[ShameFace]

If there were no "bad" things, then we would have no context to know if something was "good".

Some people say there is really no such thing as "bad" pizza or "bad" sex, but we do know that there are degrees of just how good these two examples can be. And thus, the one that may still be pretty good, but is not thee best would become the 'bad" version of these examples, would it not?

I'm generally a depressed person who doesnt get excited by much in life, but when I do, I often wonder if its that much sweeter for me than people who are more generally upbeat and positive in their day to day lives.
A cold glass of water is not nearly as refreshing to someone who's gone a couple of hours without one, as it is for someone who has been thirsty for days

 

[GodOfOrder]

If there were no "bad" things, then we would have no context to know if something was "good".

Some people say there is really no such thing as "bad" pizza or "bad" sex, but we do know that there are degrees of just how good these two examples can be. And thus, the one that may still be pretty good, but is not thee best would become the 'bad" version of these examples, would it not?

I'm generally a depressed person who doesnt get excited by much in life, but when I do, I often wonder if its that much sweeter for me than people who are more generally upbeat and positive in their day to day lives.
A cold glass of water is not nearly as refreshing to someone who's gone a couple of hours without one, as it is for someone who has been thirsty for days

While this is certainly true, it is not what I mean. In terms of the value of any component to a system, compared to that same component in relation to another system.

I do not mean subjective value judgements from one perspective to another, but rather whether or not any individual thing is good when relating to the functionality of a system.

 

[Vrecknidj]

To say that "X is good for Y" is a different thing than to say "X is good."

Probably, however, there is a big problem with the word "good." Sometimes it means one thing, sometimes it means another.

 

[Chad]

Good is what ever isn't bad.

Good is perfect order.

Bad is anything that isn't perfect.

This make Good a very hard quality to obtain.

 

[BigApplePi]

Good Defined Try

Consider a thing good or bad within the system it operates. Now consider this within a greater system.

A deer eats a lot of food, and reproduces in good health. These deer have no predator to kill them. That is good for the individual deer, but soon they overrun the ecosystem, like a cancer.

So insofar as the system of an individual deer is concerned, this is good, but not insofar as the greater system is concerned.

So what makes a thing good, and can anything be universally good?

You've just about answered your own question. Good exists within a defined context, making it relative to that context.

"I define good and bad as what is constructive and builds as opposed to what tears down and destroys. Very useful."
http://intpforum.com/showthread.php?p=341994&highlight=constructive#post341994

You've asked for a universal good. Since everything good is bad for something else we might have to shoot for the highest good. Try God. God is the highest good because He sets us up for everything we have. Since there is bad stuff within that setup, we have to accept that. As an alternative, how about the lowest good? Try the strings of string theory or if you don't like that, then atoms. Everything we have builds up from atoms, energy and motion. That's good since it always builds. Later on, bad emerges, but that arises out of other emerging good.

Moral: Don't let things go bad when you can get the goods.

 

[Etheri]

So what defines good, and is there such a thing as an absolute universal good?

Good can only be defined once you have set a goal. Whether you set a goal for a system or a goal for a person, or a group of people to achieve is irrelevant.
Without defining a goal we strive towards, good and bad are undefined.

I personally believe that there is no 'greater goal', no set ideology we strive towards. For these reasons, I do not believe in absolute universal good / bad. Everything is grey. People who believe in deities or absolute universal goals of any kind can -sometimes- define strict universal good and bad, but whether they are right or wrong is still subject to what you believe, thus subjective.

You've just about answered your own question. Good exists within a defined context, making it relative to that context.

This is true.

Tl dr, there is no good, there is no bad, there's only choices and opinions. Choose wisely.

 

[Nezaros]

Good and bad are entirely subjective qualities.

 

[BigApplePi]

Define Good Approach

There are two ways to approach defining "good."

One is how INTP's would like it defined, meaning Ti. INTP's will define it in the best and most useful way. Hurray for INTPs! The other is to look at how OTHERS define it. That is Te and INTPs, including myself, have to put up with that.

I only say this to distinguish and avoid confusing the two.

 

[Bonbonnom]

Good is the opposite of evil. That is the definition of good. Good and Evil have 2 set and unchanging definitions where no matter what you think may be right, if you were raised thinking killing was right, it still is evil, regardless. If everything was good the world would be in perfect balance. If everything was right, then the world would be off balance. The difference isn't the easiest thing to explain but it's simply this.

Good and Evil are two opposites that have a finite definition that is unchangeable and usually in direct relation to religious context. Right and wrong are the humanistic versions of good and evil. they are the human constructs. Good and Evil are the theistic constructs.