Anonilate
Chieftain
Right, but I'm saying it's not "Greater Good and Lesser Evil" it's just "I'm good and you're evil"
What is evil?
- Thread starter PlutonianEmpire
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Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
I'm not saying that either.
It is "I'm good and you're evil", like you said. With that logic, good and evil exists; what the majority thinks is good, that's good, simply through votes. It's that simple.
Humans don't determine or understand "greater good". We can't reach or understand that. But what is good for ourselves, we can acknowledge that, simply by fulfilling our own needs; that's good. Therefore, when pleasing many people at the cost of the few, it's a sacrifice for the good with humans.
Shaihulud
Deity
Its a sad story, but imo the girl is not evil, just psychotic. People like that should be put away from the rest of society forever since they seems to be incapable of being cured.
Anonilate
Chieftain
Wrong. Humans can know greater good. It justusually requires work and most people are too lazy to do it.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Heh. How? You know what 'greater good' is, right? Greater good is indirectly a spiritual term, and will always remain so. Greater good is, per concept, something that above material and essential value, is good (Therefore, the phrase "greater" is included). How can people figure out greater good if it's not determined by ourselves, bound to our material and essence? You can, of course, raise humans unto some sort of pedestial and tell me that we can reach a kind of a spiritual level in ourselves, seeing beyond the materials in front of us. The thing is, we can't, for the simple reason of us living in a world of material concepts. Philosophy and religion might be good that way, in order to preserve ourselves as sacred and attempt to reach something beyond; but fact remains that the "greater good" we recieve through those tools only give us answers that we've made up ourselves. That isn't greater. That's something we made up ourselves. And in that case, my previous analogy is still true.
Therefore, "greater good" might exist or not, but we can't reach it. We can try, but it's not within our grasp. We can just as well try justifying ourselves; which is actually what you promote through attempting to grasp a greater good through hard work. It's still us that make it up.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Bwah, terms. My point still stands.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Nope. The "greater" part pretty much indicates that the greater good, as I said before, is greater than material; it's the moral good; somthing that is good in itself. As such, above materials, it's impossible to reach for materials. It's that simple. Sure, greater good could quite possibly exist, we can merely never understand what it is.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Did you even read that post? I'll repeat myself.
"Greater good" - the assignment of the word greater to the word good in that expression pretty clearly states it's beyond, larger, bigger, huger, more. Good is bound to our world, subjective, whatever. The "greater good" probablydoes exist independently of anyone's beliefs, since it's not bound to our world, it's greater than our world, it's beyond, larger, bigger, huger, more. Therefore, it is also unattainable for humans and we shouldn't act upon "greater good", since we have no idea what it is, and never will have. Then, we'll act on subjective good.
As long as you can't seperate the idea of good into those two definitions just because they're the same word, then I'm sorry, I can't help you.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Anonilate
Chieftain
Look if you're gonna define "good" in spiritual terms, then it doesn't exist. The point is what is "evil" and to define Evil and Good, religion doesn't only play a part, it's a completely human made construct, just like good and evil, there is no "GREAT GOOD" It's just good and evil, but if you mean Greater Good as in something that would pay off for the most people in the future THAT exists. Something that you believe is 'Beyond this material world' and other abstract ideas that might as well not exist are beyond the scope of this argument, and the point can be made any way against them.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
What does that mean, though (re: serial killers). If someone is truly evil, wouldn't that mean that every single action they undertake is evil as a result? If an evil person butters a toast - is that event by consequence evil?
IMO people's actions can be evil - but a person cannot be. I suppose you can take all the actions that person undertook, over the span of their life, and say: "On average, yep, this person is pretty evil".
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Sorry, I won't respond to that since your first line stated:
In which you showed you didn't get my point.
If you had said:
Then I could counterargue your nonvalid point whilst if you said:
I would nod and leave this thread.
As long as you don't get what I'm saying, I'm not gonna repeat myself. Your logic is still based upon the thought that a greater good is defined by humans, who aren't great in that way at all. Therefore, the point stands fuzzy.
EDIT: Also, you might understand my worldview is very nonspiritual.
GoodGame
Red, White, & Blue, baby!
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2004
- Messages
- 13,725
intent/meditation, but also tempered by naivete/youth/experience. I think a case of a wise person, of sound mind, to have a pre-mediated act of evil is quite a bit closer to the pole of 'pure evil' than a separate case that lacks in some regard (e.g. done out of passion/ignorance/youth).
Kind of a weird question to ask for what the shades of gray are with respect to polar opposites.
I bet if Fifty is here, he'd know at technical philosophical term for this kind of philosophical inquiry.Anonilate
Chieftain
You're basically asking if someone with mental disease should be considered "pure evil" no. Because they don't have a fully functioning mind in the sense of thinking about their actions and what is wrong and right. There is no philosophical term for it, as far as I'm aware. I am a philosophy major, fyi.
If there isn't then you cannot possibly have a political theory.
Sure you can! It's just not very transmisable.
Akka
Moody old mage.
That's YOUR opinion. Clearly not everyone agree.
Great! That means you have no basis to tell us that taxation is wrong.
Akka
Moody old mage.
It is both, opinions and true/false statements aren't mutually exclusives.
