Good and Evil

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19 Feb 2008, 12:57 pm

Good means "what one ought to do to me", and evil means "what one ought not to do", and morality itself is the "ought".

I'd say that spjeanne's first statement is correct, if we focus on the flaws of others we tend to forget our own.

I don't agree with the notion of balance when it comes to these things. If balance is desirable, then balance is good, and therefore we ought to do the things we ought not to do, which doesn't make sense.

As for whether or not good and evil are merely terms to describe one's values, well, honestly I cannot prove good or evil exist. I can say that good and evil do refer to things above a personal value into some supreme dictate for the universe, as people do not care what ice cream you like but they will care about notions of right and wrong.

I am not sure I agree with the notion of a yin and a yang reflecting good and evil. I guess it does if we take them abstractly because in order to have something you ought to do you must therefore have something you ought not to do as ought is meaningless without ought not. The issue pops up that there is seems no reason for it to be necessary that people not to do what they ought, or an elimination of abstract good if they do what they ought not. So, I guess it really depends on what level we look at morality.

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19 Feb 2008, 1:25 pm

SilverProteus wrote:

Good and Evil can best be described by:

In my opinion. One doesn't exist without the other.

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spdjeanne
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19 Feb 2008, 4:45 pm

richardbenson wrote:

nominalist seems to know what hes talking about dude

I wasn't agreeing or disagreeing with nominalist. I was just commenting on the appropriateness of his name considering his position on good and evil.

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19 Feb 2008, 4:52 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

I agree that it doesn't make sense to say one ought to do that which one ought not to do in order to create balance.

I think good and evil refer to the nature of the relationships between things/people rather than things/people themselves. That being said, my original statement is difficult to understand except unless you agree that people essentially are a conglomeration of relationships. I'm becoming more and more convinced that the relationships between things/people are more real than the things/people themselves, but that is a whole different topic.

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19 Feb 2008, 4:56 pm

SilverProteus wrote:

Good and Evil can best be described by:

In my opinion. One doesn't exist without the other.

I so agree. We're all good and evil, and evil leads to good, good leads to evil.

Makes your head spin

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Awesomelyglorious
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19 Feb 2008, 5:09 pm

spdjeanne wrote:

I think good and evil refer to the nature of the relationships between things/people rather than things/people themselves.

Well, I think that good and evil relates to relationships as well. Ought and ought not relate to actions and because one cannot act towards nothing it must be a relational concept.

Quote:

That being said, my original statement is difficult to understand except unless you agree that people essentially are a conglomeration of relationships. I'm becoming more and more convinced that the relationships between things/people are more real than the things/people themselves, but that is a whole different topic.

I guess that really depends on our definitions, however, I could agree with a variant of that so long as we include abstractions as things to relate to. I imagine that this issue really boils down to definitions.

iamnotaparakeet
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19 Feb 2008, 5:19 pm

Traditionally the definitions have been:

Ethics: what ought to be

Morality: what is

Consider this example:

How to pet a hamster

Ethics: with your hand

Morality: with a blender.

Awesomelyglorious
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19 Feb 2008, 5:22 pm

I really don't know your distinction iamnotaparakeet. Many people would say that putting a hamster in a blender is immoral and call it unethical too.

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19 Feb 2008, 7:03 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

I really don't know your distinction iamnotaparakeet. Many people would say that putting a hamster in a blender is immoral and call it unethical too.

Ok. It is the technical distinction between prescription and description. Ethics prescribes the way things should be or the rules to be followed. Morality is what is "normal" within a population group describing how things are actually done. These are the definitions from my Christian Ethics textbook anyway. My secular dictionaries seem to have different definitions though.

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19 Feb 2008, 8:06 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Traditionally the definitions have been:

Ethics: what ought to be

Morality: what is

Consider this example:

How to pet a hamster

Ethics: with your hand

Morality: with a blender.

I don't think these definitions are all that traditional. In fact, they seem more technical as if the words were being primed for a specific context not common usage. I think you've already said as much later on. Regardless of that, I think that the "definitions" Awesomelyglorious and I were kicking around were about what constitutes a thing or person that it could be in relation to something else. He was saying that such a definition would have to include abstractions. The reason relationships matter is that they are the context in which good and evil even make sense.

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19 Feb 2008, 8:18 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Ok, I think I can understand what you are saying. I think I disagree with the textbook terminology.

Awesomelyglorious
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19 Feb 2008, 8:21 pm

spdjeanne wrote:

He was saying that such a definition would have to include abstractions.

I think so in order to relate things to ideology, delusions, religious ideas, etc. The mental relations would have to be maintained as we aren't just directly the result of the people we are around, but also the people we read and how we independently synthesize the ideas we hear.

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