Good and Evil, Right and Wrong

[Bozo Erectus]

Prompted by the discussion in the Athiest thread. Do you see a difference? Do these words mean the same thing to you? IMO, good and evil fall under Morality, and right and wrong under Ethics. Morality springs from religion, and Ethics from philosophy.

 

[farting bob]

For me, neither comes from religion. I have never been religous, my parents have never been religous, and i have only once been inside a church (for a wedding). And yet i have what i think is a good concept of right and wrong, good and evil.
IMO, the words are simular and often right = good and wrong = evil, but i would say good and evil for me are what your personnel views on something are. whether you see it as good, or evil may differ from someone elses view.
Right and wrong however, are more based on what society thinks, and there is less variation on what people would class as 'right' or 'wrong'.

 

[Hitro]

As you can imagine from that thread I disagree.

I do however agree that right and good as well as wrong and evil are not the same. "Good and evil" is indeed a religious concept, they are "set in stone" so to speak. "Right and wrong" are a matter of perspective and thus subject to the Pope's dreaded "dictatorship of relativism".

Where I disagree is your conclusion about morals and ethics. It's not as simple as using "morals" as the religious word for "ethics". Morals are an inherent thing based on feelings while ethics are the result of thinking. That's the definition. Otherwise we could just drop one word.

Thus they aren't interchangeable just as the other words aren't. But for different reasons, on different levels, so to speak.

 

[Cheetah]

I think they are much the same.

What is right is ultimately good, and what is wrong is ultimately evil.

And again, all realistic actions are found somewhere along the line between good and evil. Everything is a part good, and a part evil.

However, the definition of good and evil is a whole other thing. That is something that can be dictated by religion or ones own beliefes.


The poll:
I selected "These words basically mean the same thing, its just semantics", but I was also very inclined to select "Bozo your poll options always make me reach for a bottle of aspirins".

 

[frekk]

IMO, good and evil fall under Morality, and right and wrong under Ethics. Morality springs from religion, and Ethics from philosophy.

There's no need to go by opinion - that's what we have dictionaries for.

Some people use these terms in that way, but others use them by their dictionary definitions. In the latter case, morality and ethics are synonyms. Going by etymology (which may perhaps resolve the issue even more clearly than a dictionary can), "moral" comes from the Latin "moralis" meaning "custom". Ethics comes from the Greek "ethos" meaning "character".

I would say that the difference, then, between the two is that morals are mandatory social standards of right and wrong, whereas ethics tend to be voluntary standards of right and wrong existing in addition to the minimal, mandatory moral code of society.

This is seen in common usage frequently. For instance, a person who is unethical has typically broken a vow or other non-mandatory standard, but a person who is immoral is failing to observe social norms which do not depend on his agreement to them. Unethical is commonly used to describe someone failing to observe voluntary standards of right and wrong (for instance, an unscrupulous businessman) whereas immoral is used to describe someone failing to observe standards that are perceived to be mandatory standards of right and wrong.

 

[SeleucusNicator]

All are ultimately subjective words with no absolute meaning or definition.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Good and evil, right and wrong are ways humans judge action. Such terms enable us to praise and condemn, include and exclude as we see fit. These categories are used to group people so the leaders who decide who is in which group can further a personal or group agenda. Hitler is labeled as evil not because he was, but because it furthers other causes and political maneuvering.

Acts are never done in isolation and the context of an action provides the seed for other actions that could be of a different nature. For example, cruel teasing lays the ground work for comforting kindness that otherwise might not happen. From that friendship might grow. The cruelty has fertilized friendship. Out of a senseless drunk driving accident, MADD was born and has been a powerful good force in the US. It works the other way too. A doctor stops at an auto accident and tries to help a person who later dies; the doctor gets sued. The world is ful of pain and suffering; whatever one can do to lessen it, lightens the burden for all.

As people we can choose to whether to act more kindly or less kindly. When we act out of kindness the world improves a little bit. If we choose to be mean and bitter in our actions, the world is made a little less nice. The rest doesn't matter a damn.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Still formulating my thoughts here, bear with me... Our civilization was born and raised and reached its young adulthood long before the advent of moral relativism. It sprang into being within a fully formed civilization that was built around religion and black and white concepts of good and evil. Moral relativism has blown up the first and second floors of the house, and built two new floors, but the basement of the house remains good and evil and morality, and the foundation stones, religion. I think this is why there seems to be so much disagreement.

Frekk, if we didnt go by opinion, and only based our beliefs on what we find in books, no new books would ever be written.

 

[Moss]

Well, I guess I'd just go to say that there is no such thing as purely evil or purely good. One can be evil and do the (right) or good thing...and one can be good and do the wrong thing.

I guess I would say Good and Evil is more a sense of the whole, where as right and wrong describe more of a specific action. One can do the right thing for another person with an evil intent, but one can do the wrong thing for another person with good intent.

 

[frekk]

Frekk, if we didnt go by opinion, and only based our beliefs on what we find in books, no new books would ever be written.

Quite the opposite. If we all used language according to what we felt words should mean, people would frequently misunderstand each other - since we would all be guessing as to each other's meanings. Dictionaries serve as necessary arbiters of definitions, and do their job quite well as social institutions.

Our civilization was born and raised and reached its young adulthood long before the advent of moral relativism. It sprang into being within a fully formed civilization that was built around religion and black and white concepts of good and evil.

I would hardly describe the middle ages as having black and white concepts of good and evil. What were the black and white guidelines behind taking a human life, for instance? You speak of it as if it were an age without moral controversy ... this is not at all true.

 

[Princeps]

I don't pratically care about the subject. But oh, I do love clicking poll options!

 

[GenMarshall]

I see Good and evil spring from religion, and right and wrong from philosophy. Though I see Theology as a combination of both philosophy and religion.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Still formulating my thoughts here, bear with me... Our civilization was born and raised and reached its young adulthood long before the advent of moral relativism. It sprang into being within a fully formed civilization that was built around religion and black and white concepts of good and evil. Moral relativism has blown up the first and second floors of the house, and built two new floors, but the basement of the house remains good and evil and morality, and the foundation stones, religion. I think this is why there seems to be so much disagreement.

people have always acted with "moral relativism". We are nice to those we like and mean to those we don't. As group living expanded into towns and then cities, "the group" through its leaders (religious and political) made more general pronouncements of right/wrong and good/evil to further the greater good of their hold on power in the guise of the greater good of the community. Religion was one vehicle to do this. Religious absolutes have always been doctrines of convenience and were/are broken regularly as needed. Even today, christians have created work arounds to the 10 commandments to allow acceptable ways to break them.

 

[frekk]

Religious absolutes have always been doctrines of convenience and were/are broken regularly as needed. Even today, christians have created work arounds to the 10 commandments to allow acceptable ways to break them.

Bingo. Classical medieval example is usury, which was a sin until the Jews got too rich, or slavery, which was not a sin until pagan Vikings started enslaving Christians.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Bird, I agree up to a point. Yes, we've always found ways around religious commandments. For instance theres 'Thou shalt not kill' yet capital punishment has been with us since day one, and we use moral and religious arguments to justify it. But are the concepts of good and evil merely human inventions, or are they absolutes recieved from god? If we believe that good and evil ultimately spring from the mind of god and not our own, then our failure to adhere to these absolute principles says more about us as human being and less about the concepts themselves. If on the other hand we believe that these are strictly human ideas that have nothing to do with god, does that mean that god is amoral? Without a god, we would have right and wrong, but we wouldnt have good and evil.

 

[stormbind]

Aspirins risk causing stomach pains. Can't I have Paracetamol instead?

Once again, I have taken an alien perspective.

Good and Evil are idealistic, and most importantly, subjective. Evil might be an appropriate term for those who seek or volunteer to do wrong.

Right and Wrong are observations, and thus objective. People do wrong all the time, though whether they intend to is frequently unclear.

The same relationship exists between Good and Right.

 

[Maniacal]

Evil and good, right and wrong, are all in the mind.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Bird, I agree up to a point. Yes, we've always found ways around religious commandments. For instance theres 'Thou shalt not kill' yet capital punishment has been with us since day one, and we use moral and religious arguments to justify it. But are the concepts of good and evil merely human inventions, or are they absolutes recieved from god? If we believe that good and evil ultimately spring from the mind of god and not our own, then our failure to adhere to these absolute principles says more about us as human being and less about the concepts themselves. If on the other hand we believe that these are strictly human ideas that have nothing to do with god, does that mean that god is amoral? Without a god, we would have right and wrong, but we wouldnt have good and evil.

If there is not god, then the problems all go away, everything is relative andof human origin. If there is a god, then you are raising questins about the nature of god. Is he active in world affairs? How does he communicate with humans? How do we know what we perceive as his input is really his input? God's morality is tied to purpose. Does the world have a purpose? And if so then actions that work contrary to that purpose would be bad or evil. Without such a defined purpose you cannot assign values to actions. God's role in furthering that purpose would determine his morality or lack of it.

 

[SeleucusNicator]

Also, in re all those saying that morality does not have to spring from religion:

If you accept absolute morality, that some things are morally good and some things morally bad, then you are accepting the existance of something that we have to take on faith and faith alone. After all, there is no objective codex of right and wrong that we all have access to.

If you reject god, but then accept absolute morality, then you're pretty much believing in something very much like a god, in the way it can neither be proven nor disproven and must be taken on faith.

 

[King Alexander]

I'd like to answer from my stance(belonging to Intellectuals, as FredLC already explained in another thread), but, right now, I'm just tired of explaining again and again how can exist people not in need to believe in a God, how can they distinguish wrong and right, good and evil, as well as what these terms mean to my group.

Sorry BE, I'll get to reply better later.