No Such Thing As Good/Bad

[AndyC]

@AK
On Relativism: Whatever keeps the community functioning must continue, otherwise, the group may not survive, it exists within the connection and in the cohesion of cooperative practices and behaviors. Just because these practices and behaviors maintain the group, does not make them 'logical', but it is a moral obligation to maintain order via these activities for it helps the group survive. Morality is simple, but with bias, traditions skewing what is more logical, it can become very complicated. Morality exists.

An interesting idea is an intentional immorality, by which the source of the evil 'act' must be investigated.

On Circle of Empathy: Utilitarian ideals tackle what is empathy, but before I tackle that I'd like to recognize something else. That is, that we live to survive, and Jennywocky put it nicely, empathy is the extension of the ego. This is the issue in our morality, it is based on personal survival, and its basis is not deontological but utilitarian. What maintains a group is the significant presence of one's own survival and it's importance, morality is fundamentally a coming together of selfish viewpoints and empathy what bonds the individuals, extending the ego to avoid the disastrous effects of the arrogance in their blood.

Now, we can get complicated and introduce rational thought, but I'll wait.

And uh, Morality exists.

 

[Hadoblado]

Merged some posts.

 

[Cognisant]

Things that are relative and things that are subjective are still real.

Goodness exists as an absolute measure, and to think otherwise is to fall into nihilism in which nothing means anything, and at that point we may as well not be nihilists, because not being a nihilist is consistent with both nihilism and non-nihilism.

If you think you can say there is no absolute good but still prefer one state of being over another, then you are being contradictory. If you think goodness is complex, that is irrelevant.

Without an absolute measure, subjectivity is purely arbitrary, whereas relativity is just a modification on the absolute anyway.

Basically, I fail to comprehend your point in a comprehensible manner.

I suggest reading "The Crucible" and "To Kill a Mocking Bird".

Or google "Islam a special kind of stupid" or whatever inconsequential thing Christians are getting worked up over this week like the Starbucks cups that were satanic because they were red, at Christmas time.

Heuristic solutions are snap decisions, rules of thumb, lazy thinking, going down dark alleys late at night is a "bad" idea because you might get mugged but realistically the chances of being mugged (in a civilized country) are really quite low, I've been down dark alleys late at night hundreds of times and nobody's ever mugged me. Now the problem comes when someone sees me walking down a dark alley late at night and assumes I must be a mugger because I'm down a dark alley and the only people who are down dark alleys by choice are muggers because everyone knows if you go down a dark alley you'll get mugged.

Does that seem stupid? Yeah, because it is.
And that particular brand of stupidity is why I never want to go to the US, there's a lot of religious people there with guns and their (psychological) triggers are very unpredictable.

I'm not saying there can be no morality at all in an absolute sense, that would be silly, indeed one might think that's a strawman argument.

Actions that are beneficial are beneficial because they're beneficial, seems fairly self evident and we can use the "good" as a catch-all term for things that are beneficial, productive, courteous, kind, generous, etc. But what is this absolute good you speak of? I can't argue the concepts of good and evil don't exist because we're talking about them but are you saying these concepts are somehow things in of themselves? Are you implying that you posses the concept of absolute irrefutable objective goodness?

Try arguing that with an Islamic extremist that thinks what's "good" is cutting of your head for the divine glory of Allah.

Subjectivity is purely arbitrary, that's what makes it different to objectivity, that's why all these religious people are fucking crazy, they believe in nonsense like absolute good and evil when they can't even define what those moral absolutes are. Can you?

 

[AndyC]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcuxB7MQxek

nice, get ready for the upcoming videos

 

[Black Rose]

Try arguing that with an Islamic extremist that thinks what's "good" is cutting of your head for the divine glory of Allah.

Subjectivity is purely arbitrary, that's what makes it different to objectivity, that's why all these religious people are fucking crazy, they believe in nonsense like absolute good and evil when they can't even define what those moral absolutes are. Can you?

ab·so·lute
ˈabsəˌlo͞ot,ˌabsəˈlo͞ot/Submit

noun
1.
PHILOSOPHY
a value or principle that is regarded as universally valid or that may be viewed without relation to other things.
"good and evil are presented as absolutes"

I agree with cog that cutting off people's heads is not a universal good even if some people think it is. If someone can give an example of a universal good that is truly universal then goodness is absolute.

 

[Jennywocky]

Or google "Islam a special kind of stupid" or whatever inconsequential thing Christians are getting worked up over this week like the Starbucks cups that were satanic because they were red, at Christmas time.

Well, after all, Jesus was born on December 25, ya know...

Actions that are beneficial are beneficial because they're beneficial, seems fairly self evident and we can use the "good" as a catch-all term for things that are beneficial, productive, courteous, kind, generous, etc.

Using the term "fairly self-evident" in a thread about how good and evil do not exist as actualities seems a bit like wanting to have your cake and eating it too. Because basically what seems good for someone could be something someone else thinks is NOT good. Our notions of "good" and "evil" were one particular system meant to enable this.

In my one role-playing campaign, there is a city where the major rule of the city is that it's illegal to hinder another's experience of self-gratification. If someone thinks it's good and wants to do it, then you can't interfere. Which sounds fine and dandy until what they think is good is something that is bad for you. At this point, how ideal intersects reality is that you have to be badass enough to protect your own rights and essentially not get caught by the local police. As long as there are no witnesses, and you can make sure you're the last one left standing, inhabitants won't mess with you. You can claim you were indulging in your OWN experience (of survival) and thus you were still following the law.

If that's not a system we want to involve ourselves in, other things have to guide. I explore empathy a bit in my last post -- basically if your goal is to "protect yourself" but your ego boundaries are large enough to include others, then you will protect others because they are part of you versus separate and Other. (Hey, Cloud Atlas, and humanitarianism!)

Try arguing that with an Islamic extremist that thinks what's "good" is cutting of your head for the divine glory of Allah.

Subjectivity is purely arbitrary, that's what makes it different to objectivity, that's why all these religious people are fucking crazy, they believe in nonsense like absolute good and evil when they can't even define what those moral absolutes are. Can you?

See above. For the Muslim extremist, it IS a good thing in the eternal balance of the cosmos which might transcend your normal belief in "right to survive" even if you are of another faith tradition. Can we call that evil, and if not, then what? Anyway, some kind of system has to rule once a diverse pool of humanity is trying to survive in the same basic space.

 

[Black Rose]

See above. For the Muslim extremist, it IS a good thing in the eternal balance of the cosmos which might transcend your normal belief in "right to survive" even if you are of another faith tradition. Can we call that evil, and if not, then what? Anyway, some kind of system has to rule once a diverse pool of humanity is trying to survive in the same basic space.

Just because interference would make things worse does not justify the stupidity of such beliefs. If I took a syringe needle and injected myself with Arby's sauce this would not give me super powers. And if it did it would be a placebo affect the same way 1960's advertisements said invisible cream would allow you to hide from cops and steal money. Morality is not Truth as in the reality that exists if we do not align ourselves with it can lead to witch burnings of 6 years olds because it helps the cosmic balance (sarcasm). Alignment with truth and empathy is better than delusions where you inject yourself with Arby's sauce to gain superpowers. People need to be shown the light but false light is always prevalent.

 

[Black Rose]

I agree with cog that cutting off people's heads is not a universal good even if some people think it is. If someone can give an example of a universal good that is truly universal then goodness is absolute.

If truth is a universal good because it helps people then yes goodness is absolution.

 

[RaBind]

Ethics is borne out of Logic. I think it's also the same case with Intuition. Both of these emulate logic but do so at a very rapid pace using dirty hacks instead of meticulous reasoning. These dirty hacks are why our first thoughts and ideas about something new can be contradictory to what we find through applying cold hard logic. The notion of good and evil is noting more than variables programmed into us by evolution to increase the chance of reproduction.

But as I said, Ethics is borne out of Logic. It may be a cheap emulation of the costlier but more powerful ability of reason and logic, but it shouldn't be totally discarded because it does work most of the time. The notions of good, evil and ethics are not always right but they are mostly correct.

Killing a person may be wrong 95% of the time but it's justified 5% of the time. Your intuition and Ethics are just gonna round that up to never wanting to murder anyone, but you can override it using logic and reason.

It's just the same as why our bodies have adapted to thinking some smells are disgusting, to the point of being able to physically make someone sick. Where evolution is concerned this reaction is a dirty trick to be able to quickly process what to avoid.

Just because it may be wrong doesn't mean it's useless though, in fact it's very useful in almost all cases.

 

[Sandglass]

It seems like the arguments in this thread are from people bringing different foundations to the discussion. If a common basis is not used, there will be no agreement.

Looking through a typical person's lens where something that benefits humans is morally good, Animekitty's arguments sound solid.

Stepping outside of that and saying humans do not have value IN TERMS OF THE UNIVERSE is where Cog's points are correct (which is what the original post in this thread was about). Humans can still matter to each other but not to the universe.


If someone has trouble thinking in Cog terms, here is what it comes down to:
Humans are a species that has evolved in such a way that it promotes itself. If morals and ethics aid in the evolution of the species, natural selection will lead to us adopting them. If you think about common morals which people share, this checks out - people help others in need, don't harm each other, treat family members better than strangers, etc. Everything here helps a common species survive. It would be an incredible coincidence if these morals lined up with 'universal' morals and is much more likely that we have trouble seeing the world outside of human terms.

 

[Haim]

Good and bad are like word(are words), a way our brain divide the world.For example the word dog, humans have some shared idea of what dog is, that is in order for us to communicate.
The fault of "good and evil" is when it is not used just to perceive and divide ideas, this is when you take your limited or plain delusional idea of realty(not realty) and think it is realty for every case , not the mention you try to make sure it is realty. But the realty, the realty outside the human brain, is it all just data, just things, and there are action done by humans, good is just a word to describe the actions which you think that benefit you or society(or living creatures or stones or whatever your stupid idea is)
I think it is childish way of thinking, it is the same as acting by prejudgment, a simple and ignorant shallow thinking on a very complex data.

 

[WhyNotIGuess]

I too believe that concepts such as good or bad are something merely subjective, hence why whenever someone talks about good or bad things, no matter how big or small, I just can't take it too seriously, I don't mean to be a jerk about it though.

The real thing is, we see things as good or bad depending on how productive or counter productive they are. The bigger you go on the scale of things, the more blurred the line becomes, the more personal it gets, the more well defined it becomes, much like looking at a grain of salt with a magnifying (did I write that right oh god) glass. Look at that one, look at another grain, they will all be different, some may seem more alike, some may seem entirely different, much is the same with good or bad.

You could say not eating food is counter productive, hence it is bad for you.
Then again, not eating food for just a bit might just let your body flush out ill meaning little things from your body, depending on how fucked up your diet is (mine is... I won't even get started. It's bad, just bad).

You could say bombing a certain place to eliminate some "counter productive" people, such as "terrorists" (whom YOU judge as such, whereas others consider them heroes) could be a productive thing to do, as it could possibly have a beneficial impact on things.

You could say that bombing a certain place is bound to have civilian, innocent casualties, which depending on the size and kind of bomb, setting aside concerns with environment and all, could literally strike down a nation. Which could possibly have a negative mediatic impact, which could get you in trouble with other places.

I don't really know where I'm going with this so I'll just cut it short. No such thing as good or bad as a grand definition, it is just what the specific community you're a part of considers to be productive or counter productive to the good of the single individual an that of the mass.

Everything is a matter of perspective, very few things are objective. Like how horrible broccoli are, that's pure objectivity right there.

EDIT: ZE GRAMMAR KORREKTION which I continuously (did I write that right? I'm too lazy to check) fail at.

 

[AndyC]

I think people are largely missing the point. Morality is not subjective, morals are.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I think people are largely missing the point. Morality is not subjective, morals are.

^^

You cannot dismiss the recurring presence of morality on the basis that it varies between persons, societies or time periods. It remains to exist as something natural to humans.

 

[Haim]

I think people are largely missing the point. Morality is not subjective, morals are.

both are subjective.
"a particular system of values and principles of conduct, especially one held by a specified person or society."
There is no system which is exactly the same for every person and that can apply to more than just a few simple situations.

or the second definition
"the extent to which an action is right or wrongleft."