/philosophy/ - Philosophy

>>639
How does one define Good and Evil?

Do good men not not do bad things for a Greater Good?
Are evils committed in the facade of good intentions?

The things the Red Pill has shown are a bit confusing still. But one thing becomes clear when they start to take away your civil liberties in the name of the "Greater Good" it is anything but good.

Well, according to ayer, if you cannot support your statement with evidence, it is akin to speaking gibberish.

So saying "killing is evil" is akin to saying "killing? Bad!"

Before we can ask
what is evil? What is good?
We must first ask
is there evil? Is there good?

>>645
If we can conceptualize them they must exist under a form or another. Maybe good/evil are not so clear but since we can intuitively identify them they must exist, even if only in our minds.

but okay let's say (for the sake of the discussion) that Good/Evil do not exist… What is it that you call Good? What is it that you call Evil?

>>647
I personally believe that good and evil are concepts that arise from social necessity.
>I have some sheep
>you have a woman
>I don't want you to steal my sheep, and you don't want me to sleep with your woman
Ergo theft and adultery are viewed as evil.

If you separated an infant from society at birth, and had it mature in such conditions that it believes that it is the only being of it's kind, I'm willing to bet that good and evil aren't concepts it would have upon reaching adulthood. It's a scientific fact that we aren't born with a sense of empathy, though I'm not sure if that's a brain function we develop, or if it's something we're socialized into.

Well the US did drop a very Fat Man on Japan. Killed Millions but also ended a war.
It could be seen as Evil but maybe a Necessary Evil.

>>650
Ok I do agree pretty much with this but if "good" and "evil" are social constructs they must follow norms, couldn't morale principles still be drawn out of norms? For instance, I assume the norm doesn't agree with paedophilia on a morale ground, the normal behaviour is to assume having sex with child is "evil", so can we not identify this behaviour as normally evil?

>>654
The failure of post-modernism shows the halfway nature of Nietzsche's philosophies. Value does not come from void and vacuum. By throwing out the baby with the bath water and rejecting truth because some are peddling false truths you force humanity into the same patterns of nepotism and mob behavior you were trying to escape from, just look at how destructive critical theory has been to the feminist movement.

Instead of being indignant children we must evolve as we always have. We must analyze these preconceptions in order to find the truth (reflections of the ultimate reality) among the materialistic corruptions that led them astray.

>>657
*guilt (stupid spell checking)

>>657
And why would there not be freewill? How can you either prove or disprove it? isn't the statement
>Freewill is an illusion
a work of faith in itself? Faith that everything is determined?

And even if freewill didn't exist, how does it prevent Good or Evil (or both) from existing? Maybe there is a great scheme for everything but can't Godd/Evil be it or part of it?

>>659
And why does everything being predetermined get rid of free will? Even if you're destined to make a decision one way, wouldn't it be because you are just destined to use your free will to make the decision that way?

I guess I just never got the whole "no free will" thing

>>659
>>664

We can only do as our natures and the situation we are in dictates..

There for there is no magical mystical other bit that can choice…

we are machines acting out a program…

Would you declare your toster evil for burning the toast?

My point here is we need to act as if free will exists.. punishment can be vital to the social order by that must be a logical choice…

The emphasis must be on understanding and preventing…

Religion declares things evil as some nebulous elemental force and that evil doers are monsters… and monsters don't need to be understood only killed like the animals they are…


We are brilliant fantastic accidental machines and there is nothing wrong with that… we dont have free will and there is nothing wrong with that either…

So its time we stop behaving as if there exist some kind of mystical force called free will that means we can declare people monsters instead of debugging and figuring out why the machinery didn't work as expected…

>>681
Please do elaborate on your sophistry.

>>647
In that case it is entirely subjective. Everyone will have a different answer. You'd have to be able to ask every single subjective perspective in order to get a definite answer ans since I don't think it's possible to get a wave's perspective or gravity's perspective on how good or evil something is we'll never have the objective answer. So, it's limited to human's perspective on good and evil which then varies from person to person and culture to culture.

>>668
still doesn't prove free will is an illusion. You just refute it because you don't like the idea of being responsible for your actions.

>>695
Most of science is based on the principle that if you have complete information on the state of a closed system, you can determine its state at any other point in time.

This would mean that any change in energy, say deciding which option you choose for the prisoner's dilemma, is predictable based on the previous states of the system. This would mean that there is only one decision you could have made determined, ultimately, by the initial state of the universe. It is like playing with loaded dice, you are free to throw them as many times as you want, but the physical properties of the device means that there is only one result that can possibly arise. In this way there is no choices, and ultimately no individuals, just the flow of time and the interaction of particles

>>697
>This would mean that there is only one decision you could have made determined
>This would mean that there is only one decision
>This would mean
>Freewill is an illusion and that's a fact because I assume it is.
Because you FEEL it's logical doesn't mean it is. The fact here is; there is no way to know. You can dislike the idea of free will (and being responsible for your actions) but you cannot prove or disprove it. So you can project systems assuming the predetermination of things but unless you are capable of providing a 100% success system this remains an opinion based of your faith that:
A) Everything is determined
B) therefore free will doesn't exist

I dare you to prove one or another. And before you turn the question on its head; I wasn't the one stating a "universal truth" like
>Free will is an illusion
or as they say
>You can talk the talk… but can you walk the walk^

>>647
>If we can conceptualize them they must exist under a form or another
I really dislike this way of thinking. The fact that there is even the question of what good or bad is demonstrates the lack of such a conceptualisation, and merely speaks of the presence and percieved importance of the dichotomy or two words. Worse still
>we can intuitively identify them
If we could do that, the question would be easy to answer through behavioral research and observations - after discarding all people declared to not be representative of said "intuition", of course.

For example, if good and evil arise from social necessity as put forward by >>650, then they are synonyms for "socially necessary" and "socially detrimental" which would not only raise the question of how social necessity is determined (is the will to live?) but also where the line is drawn and where compromises are accepted (deceit is something hardly no society could completely live without. Does that make it good or evil?).

Good and bad strike me as assessments of approval or disapproval with essentially no justification, but with implied objectivity. The last part is obviously contestable, and as such makes the validity of their usage questionable. Even if we percieve meaning in them, we'd be better served to use unloaded terms, like "functionality" or whatever, but then accept when that includes things we might not want to positively assess (like deception, for instance).

>>746
I, mean you can accept free will all you want. Just know that you are either throwing out pretty much all of science or accepting the existence of a God.

>>793
Baseless claim.
I neither accept nor refute the existence of God.
I do not refute science either.

You chose to match science with determinism and God with free will. Catholics and Protestants been having this debate in the past (and as of yet - unless someone forgot to inform me of something). So it is not related to the belief in god.

Scientist have also been having this philosophical problem for a while. Standing individually on one side or the other of this debate.

I accept the assumption of freewill, you accept the assumption of determinism, I don't see how these are different from one another. We both base our analysis on faith-driven speculations.

Now how does this affects the good/evil notion. If everything is determined, why could evil not still exist? Also, if everything is determined why would you not have free will anyways?

>>760
>The fact that there is even the question of what good or bad is demonstrates the lack of such a conceptualisation
Hence the question : What is Good/Evil?

Also the term "intuitively identify" was badly chosen. Let's you can intuitively perceive their presence, in the sense that everyone consider some things good and evil, everyone can say
>Ah! This is evil!
whether it's true or not they perceive evil (or good)

>>822
>Hence the question : What is Good/Evil?
Thus we cannot intuitively indentify them, as I believe your claim was. You might say that we must have some kind of understanding of the terms because otherwise the terms would not exist, but that is a contestable argument. To me the terms are assertions of a value-judgement blown out of proportions in the seeming attempt to detach the claim of its subjectivity. But this tells us nothing about what is good or what is bad. All we can do, based on the existence of the words, is observe the instances of their usage. But there is much contest about this, and unless we dismiss some claims/definitions outright there is no consensus to start with, let alone an intuitive one.

But I see that you meant an intuitive usage of the terms, that we leap towards one or the other when experiencing certain things. I'm not entirely sure whether the sentiment predates the terminology, though. At most, I concede good and evil being synonymous to "right" and "wrong" which in turn mean little more than "in accordance with my values" or "in disagreement with my values". We can then go further and ask how values are decided upon, and so on. All of this, though not necessarily fruitful, has the advantage of dropping the unhelpful and poorly defined words of "good" and "evil".

>>639
>What is Good?
Subjective.

>What is Evil?
Subjective.

>Is there one that creates the other?
Maybe, depends. In other words it's subjective. Although I suppose even in a world with only subjective good is couldn't exist without subjective evil.

>Is there one that dominates the other?
Did you guess that this is subjective?

The good and evil we see purported in the world today, we can know, is of human creation. Now what we don't know if there is absolute good and evil.

If you were to ask about that specifically I could only tell you 'I dunno.'

>>650
Genetic.
Otherwise sociopaths wouldn't exist outside of abusive families and the whole matter of altruism would be universally viewed as a two-way deal rather than a concept in itself. Also other animals display altruism and empathy, such as dogs, elephants and dolphins. Do bull elephants display altruism? They are loners, so if they do that would be a good case for genetic.
However, we do have the ability to choose who we empathise with: There are gooks that boil dogs, for example. If this child views everyone with the same contempt, he will be equivalent of a sociopath (towards humans) without actually being one. He may, for example, empathise with certain wildlife or even objects.

>>639

You must get beyond the idea of good and evil.

There are only actions leading to consequences.

Morality is justified because it is needed to establish the values of your mind and to live them for your own sake. The proper context for morality is the course of your life since values are for the living. To live without understanding what will elevate you and what will destroy you... what could be more impractical?

>>656
This is an excellent response and one that the fools in this thread who know nothing about Nietzsche didn't deserve.

>>1035
I don't know about 'deserved' but posts like that are precicely helpful to those who know little of Nietzsche.

>>913
The question then becomes; what "elevates" and what "destroys" us? And do these things coincide with what we call "good" or "evil"? Because I doubt they do, making the terms either laden with meaning they shouldn't carry, subjective, or an expression of anthropological necessities. The first makes them wrong, the second and third make them useless.

>>639
Good is fairness
Evil is unfairness.
The concept exists only as a result of the human sense of ownership, they are both created by that.
Evil dominates good, simply because the purely causal nature of our world facilitates the successful use of evil tactics.

>good
Is whatever god tells us it's good, and bad things can make greater good.
>bad
Is whatever the devil does, or god tells it's bad, also things that you do for no reason or that benefits only you.
>3
god
>4
evil dominates good, but with enough practice you can become moral perfection.