Ethics

Of course, it's a huge discussion, but I'm sure we can manage if we keep it relatively general...

I'd like to ask - What is good and what is evil?

I think it's a fair question because, unless you are religious (which most of us are not), it is entirely subjective ... or is it?

What do you think?

If you are religious don't feel left out, of course objective morality is up for discussion, I just fear it may descend into a debate on the existence of God, for which there is already a thread.

Good vs Evil

Its just the balance of things ... light against dark, ying against yang, north/south, left/right etc etc

Without good, there is no evil ... evil needs to exist or else good itself wouldn't exist ...

Essentially you are saying that a scale exists with Good at one end and Evil at the other (because if they were absolute they would also be independent?).

'Without the darkness of night we could not see the stars shine.' (May not be the exact quote)

Fair enough, it's a common idea, but it doesn't reveal much about what Good and Evil actually are.


It leads me to ask -

What dictates how Good or Evil an action is (if we consider the action itself to be Good or Evil)?

Let's take the scale idea and apply the value -10 to the evil end and +10 to the good; There must also be a medium state, neither good nor
evil, at 0.

Evil|-----|-----|Good

If we then ask people to place an action on the scale where they think it belongs there will be differences (why?).

This indicates that either some people are wrong (how do we know who?) or that morality is subjective - opinion.
For example, if I place something at -7 and you think it should be at -3 have you, I or we both failed to comprehend the situation/scale properly, or do we have the personal right to decide (making us both correct)?

Doesn't this lack of universality make morality irrelevant?

Quote :

Fair enough, it's a common idea, but it doesn't reveal much about what Good and Evil actually are.

Quote :

What dictates how Good or Evil an action is (if we consider the action itself to be Good or Evil)?

Good and evil are a thought, a mind state - the difference between people ... one mans good can be another mans evil.

If I do an 'evil' act (believing I am doing right) ... it only becomes evil when somebody else, with a different outake on life/the world TELLS me it was wrong/evil. Actually, they don't even have to tell me ... the minute they believe that what I did was wrong, they themselves bring evil into existence?

Quote :

There must also be a medium state, neither good nor evil, at 0.

I don't believe there can be, it would be a nothingness ... a world without consciousness or awareness which makes us stand out against other animals. There has to be a something to counter the other thing or else there is nothing.

Like you say, we only know its day because of the night. Without the night, the day wouldn't exist.

Same for religion, without the devil there is no need for a god ... as there would be no temptation to do 'evil'. So, 'god' and the 'devil' are actually the same force/belief ... thats for a different topic though probably.

Quote :

Doesn't this lack of universality make morality irrelevant?

Pretty much ...


Edit - This is all just my 'opinion' (consciousness) ofcourse LOL

Well that didn't last very long... lol

Just a few thoughts -

'Without the darkness of night we could not see the stars shine.'
As a metahpor for the necessity of evil for the appreciation of good is a load of crap really, if you think about it...
The closest and therefore brightest star 'shines' during the day - more to the point, it gives us day; So, by continuing the analogy we see that optimal good is one that removes evil?

'Without the night, the day wouldn't exist.'
Wouldn't the day (good) just be constant?

'I don't believe there can be'
On the scale there has to be and using the day and night analogy there are points at which the two meet. Even a (24hour) clock shows 00:00 before a new day...

Hark at you two this morning....................you both been eating your brainy food?


It's difficult to work this one out, various countries have various laws on what is good and what is evil. In our country (UK) we believe it is wrong to have sexual relations with a child under the age of 16 but in many other countries girls as young as 9 are married off? While we find that ethically and morally wrong they simply don't.

For us it is perfectly ethical to eat a cow or a pig as sustenance but other countries find this repulsive and sacrilegious, as we do about eating cats and dogs?

We are against barbaric forms of death penalties, some countries don't think twice about stoning a person to death or starving them.

These are probably small good vs evil ethics but prove that we all think differently worldwide.


We'd all here agree that murder and rape are evil and would put these on the -10 scale, not everyone would, people with psychological issues would probably be further up the scale.

Quote :

Wouldn't the day (good) just be constant?

How?

How would the day/good be a constant? It wouldn't be anything, it surely needs something to counteract it to make it exist.

It's obvious that the day would 'exist' physically but the day as we percieve it to be wouldn't. It would just be ...

It's only our thought and senses that bring the reality of the day into being ...

"If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to ..." Blah, blah

Quote :

We'd all here agree that murder and rape are evil and would put these
on the -10 scale, not everyone would, people with psychological issues
would probably be further up the scale.

Yeah, but ...

We only agree that these things are wrong because of the society the human race has grown into and the sense of mind that we have evolved?

A lion killing and eating a zebra isn't evil and a dog humping another random dog in the street (without so much of a chat up line) isn't evil?

The advance of our minds could have easily gone in another direction, a 'alter-world' if you will in which the people who DIDN'T rape and kill where the 'evil' ones and the outcasts of society.


So ... the idea of 'pure evil' and 'true good' can't exist. It only exists in thought ... maybe if we all thought the exact same (which would actually make thought not exist) would evil and good really exist. But then it wouldn't exist because there would be no thoughts to believe it exists.



Yeah, I'm pretty sure that makes sense ... to me anyway

.tUrniP wrote:

Essentially you are saying that a scale exists with Good at one end and Evil at the other (because if they were absolute they would also be independent?).

'Without the darkness of night we could not see the stars shine.' (May not be the exact quote)

Fair enough, it's a common idea, but it doesn't reveal much about what Good and Evil actually are.


It leads me to ask -

What dictates how Good or Evil an action is (if we consider the action itself to be Good or Evil)?

Let's take the scale idea and apply the value -10 to the evil end and +10 to the good; There must also be a medium state, neither good nor
evil, at 0.

Evil|-----|-----|Good

If we then ask people to place an action on the scale where they think it belongs there will be differences (why?).

This indicates that either some people are wrong (how do we know who?) or that morality is subjective - opinion.
For example, if I place something at -7 and you think it should be at -3 have you, I or we both failed to comprehend the situation/scale properly, or do we have the personal right to decide (making us both correct)?

Doesn't this lack of universality make morality irrelevant?

i don't give a shit about the vagaries of the mind speak.
you or some dick from another country or life fucks with my family and me then bollocks
to your philosophising
your gonna suffer.
i don't give a flying fuck .
you can all shout this shit while in a civilised society
but as we have seen
that society
from Islam is still
stone-age so
it aint civilised and not worth discussion
unless its on the toilet
where you talk about shit like that,