Good and evil

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by arauca, Feb 15, 2012.

  1. arauca Banned Banned

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    What is good and what is evil . How did we learn what is good and what is evil ?
     
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  3. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Ever read the laws that are on record? They contain many things which tells you what you can and can't do and what repercussions you will receive if you disobey them. Your parents are also a good way to determine what you can and can't do as well.
     
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  5. arauca Banned Banned

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    In other word you are saying some one else have told us what is good or evil and the consequences.
     
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  7. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Everything we learn in life usually comes from others that we read, talk to or watch. I use good and bad myself not evil but that's up to you to use whatever you want. Laws are written by others that we follow and ethics are also made up by others as well. The good thing about man made laws is that they can be changed over time to fit the needs of the citizens that they are administered to.
     
  8. hansda Valued Senior Member

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    I think by heart , everybody is good . Goodness or badness is just a phenomenon of our mind .
     
  9. Twelve Registered Senior Member

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    We don't need to learn what is good and what is evil. That's a natural way of behaving, instinctive, and has not been learned.

    Not everyone is good indeed. Some common people follow their own natural evil inclinations.
     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2012
  10. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    Much of good and evil are subjective and determined by the society in which one lives. There are lots of examples where evil in on society is good in another.

    There are basic tennet that define good and evil that almost every society has. The basic tenets are based on the golden rule. Society is about people living together so it comes down to, "I won't do something to you that I don't want you to do to me". Steal, murder, assault, you know, all the biggies. Superstition then is added to the mix and it starts to get a little weird, which is where societies diverge.
     
  11. Shamon Registered Member

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    Hi to all

    what is good and what is evil.Any person well known about it if the good deeds results positive and wrong deeds always goes into hell.
     
  12. Amag Registered Member

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    I personally think of good as a scale where the benfits for anyone of an action that you knew the results of outweighs that of any bad consequences. There are, of course, exceptions, as with any rule. A whole new dimension is added if you ask what benefits and negative consequences are. The scale is the general measure, although the balance is weighted differently per person. We percieve good and bad the same way we perceive euphonance and dissonance - knowing the objective of what it is that is trying to be accomplished, it is instinctive. You set your own rules.
     
  13. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    That works for me, and it matches Origin's, since we will choose what is best for ourselves, and it's not hard to realize that what is bad for us can be bad for someone else. These are both rational decisions, and I like to think we are rational!

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    I also like cosmictraveler's mention that we learn from rules. This brought to mind the Code of Hammurabi, which predicts the Ten Commandments. It's quite an amazing feat, with 282 laws, down to quite a bit of detail. And of course, the famous phrase "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" is obviously borrowed from it.

    Just to add a little tidbit of trivia, I lifted a small section of the lengthy epilogue, in which Hammurabi is bragging about what a good job he has done, and all the favor he had with the gods:

    So for all his bluster, he clearly shows an intent to help future generations maintain an orderly division between good and evil. He definitely took his job seriously.
     
  14. Emil Valued Senior Member

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    It is a justified question.
    I think that depends on both the society and what we learn, as well by our superego.The first is imposed while the second is a conviction.
    It is interesting to analyze at what age we are able to make distinction between good and evil. Why a child does not know how to do this differentiation.
    It is only education or a development of our consciousness?
     
  15. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    The distinction between good and evil has to do with the social consequences of behavior, if we extrapolated a particular behavior to all. For example, if everyone had the choice to kill or murder, it would not take long before any culture breaks down. That will be defined as evil, since the consequence of all doing this same behavior are very negative.

    Good is the opposite and defines behavior which if all did would it, would help to build up culture. If everyone looked out for each other, this is good. The group criteria is actually objective, since you could run an experiment to see what caused decline or incline.

    Where the subjectivity of good and evil comes it is when good and evil is defined in terms of an individual choice regardless of the impact on the group. For example, it may be subjectively good for me to steal everyone's wallet. This will allow me to have more money for many things with minimal effort. This is good at a narrow minded subjective level. To test this objectively, you would use the objective criteria of the group to see this behavior, if extrapolated to all, would break down the group. The answer is yes.

    It may be subjectively good for me to eat some of the seed potato, since who would miss it. But if the entire group decided to eat the seed potato, it would be all gone and the next year we all starve. This may be subjectively good of me but objective evil.

    Ethics are different in that these do not necessarily maximize the group, but are geared more toward the individual. Ethical choices are made possible based on the productivity surplus of the group.

    For example, if all in the group are doing objective good and therefore the group expands and is prosperous, we will have the extra resources needed to be ethical. If we all work together and have excess seed potato, it may be ethical now to have a french fry party. Now eating seed potato is now not exactly evil, since we can afford to be ethical. We can afford this subjective whim without a large negative impact on the group. It may even bring subjective fun that binds the group. The ancient may initially give all their food to the gods. But as the stockpiles reach a surplus, they can afford to be ethical and have a celebration. The excess in the god's stockpile will remain in storage until the hunger causes risk to the group, makes it now good to dip into the storage.

    Say we were in a very poor ancient culture where people are at the borderline of hunger and want. Since we have so little surplus, it may not be ethical to use a lot of resources for the sick. If we use as much as is needed, then even more people will die due to loss of resources. But if the culture is very prosperous we have the excess resource to be very ethical and spends millions even on one individual. This might be evil in the very poor culture, since the group may have an even bigger problem if it is too subjective.

    Often in culture the leadership has the power to squander for themselves and their cronies. If the group is breaking down due to division and debt, this is no longer ethical but starts to become evil. The group is at risk. It could have ethical at one time when the prosperity and unity of the group could absorb it. It defined a way to keep the culture evolving. But when it starts to result in the decline of the group then ethics become evil again. This is why there is an ebb and flow in terms of defining ethics or subjective good and evil.
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2012
  16. elte Valued Senior Member

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    I have been looking at a Website about that.

    http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/good.html

    I'd say good is linked to love and involves not wanting to hurt another person. Evil has a tie-in with hate and involves the bad attitude of competing against other people, when the competitor wants to deprive someone of something.
     
  17. Emil Valued Senior Member

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    Animals (here I include the humans) they have, among many others, the survival instinct of the individual and the survival instinct of the community (species).
    If due to objective conditions, insufficient food for example, the options are: or die all, or a few individuals will survive.
    Which is the good option and which is the evil option?
    How differ the human behavior from the animal behavior?
     
  18. EndLightEnd This too shall pass. Registered Senior Member

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    There is no correct answer. One mans good is another's evil (Im thinking religious extremism). Each person decides for themselves. However I would say actions which benefits others at cost to yourself are good acts, and actions which benefit yourself at the expense of others are bad acts.
     
  19. Diode-Man Awesome User Title Registered Senior Member

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    Good and evil resides in the heart of every human. No one is pure good or pure evil.

    Good is in God, Evil is in Satan! (duh!)

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  20. Unconcept Registered Senior Member

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    In a blunt way, you know the good way is to treat people like you'd like to be treated because you know generally their appearance and structure is similar to yours. Just like you know many physical things in the world from simple observation that they look similar.
     
  21. whatif Registered Member

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    You're trying to define a subective subject in a science forum. Can you see the problem with that? The elephant in the room is; "Why do we experience a world of both good and evil?" No one has cracked that problem until now. There's an amazing scientific explanation in an Amazon eBOOK i've just read. Just search by the author's name, S. W. Norton. The book is full of scientific insights that could cause a rethink of everything from biology to astronomy.
     
  22. Saturnine Pariah Hell is other people Valued Senior Member

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    Right and Wrong can be subjective and can change based on single person's perspective and upbringing...it's all about the culture, time, place and general concessus by the population at large, however if your question if more of introspective personal view of right and wrong then the varitations are as complex as they are diverse in number. Your version of right and wrong could be vastly different or identicall to anyone out of 7 billion different views of it. What trully matters thought is how you feel or think or it, no one can change that( unless they chemically or physically brainwash you then i'm pretty sure your safe...for now anyways)

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  23. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    What was the book? The only book I'm seeing under that name is "Father of Jesus: Living on Earth (Dave's Message)." That looks to be a, shall we say, "not entirely objective" work.

    What's the short summary of the argument?

    Is the explanation robust enough to explain why a whole society (for example the Romans) might find it entertaining to see a human being torn apart by a tiger or lion starved for days on end to make it ravenous? And, of course, they did *not* consider that to be a sign of anything bad (because the person was a criminal or a Christian). Or why Spartans would throw newborn babies with even minor imperfections off cliffs? Or why they would, as a right of passage, require young men to sneak out at night to stealthily murder a helot (slave), and see that as a social good?

    Obviously ancient societies had very different views on that was "good" and what was "evil" (to the point where it could be said to be inappropriate to use the word "evil" in relation to certain other ethical systems, virtue versus vice might seem to be a better comparison).

    While that book above (if that is the right one) likely deals with the Judeo-Christian view of good and evil, it seems from its title to be unlikely to describe the concepts from the broader view that all societies throughout history would have agreed upon. So a little more information would be appreciated.
     

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