Yeshu

My English class is discussing good and evil. Every time I suggest that good and evil are totally man made creations that have no universal value I get looked at like I'm insane. What do you think? Is goodness a real thing? Does evil exist, and if so can a person be born evil?

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yoman3

Both good and evil are technically subjective. Also technically everything is man made - time and all. Not the actual passing of time, but the concept of it. Everything we do is just something that has no meaning until we put meaning to it. Like, if we pass a person walking their dog on the street, that wouldn't be considered good or evil. If we decided to pet the dog and give it a toy, that would be considered "good" because it would make the dog and probably the owner happy. But if we decided to kick the dog in the stomach that would be considered evil because...well no one likes seeing people kick dogs.

"good" and "evil" are man made creations based on what is socially acceptable. Then again, that is probably just a general good and evil. Like I said good and evil are also subjective, so a fundamentalist Christian's point of view of "evil" could be different than say an uber liberal.

triad 1028

Good and evil are social concepts created by mankind and serve as nothing more than a social set of guidelines for mankind. What is considered "good" is simply whatever provides the greatest benefits for the party involved. And vice versa for evil.

This quote by Jean-Paul Sartre basically sums up my entire view on ethics.

"Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete."

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Merkabah

Doesn't everyone though have an idea of some kind of moral law or fairness? Like a man can argue that there really is no good or bad, but if you steal from him, he'll complain "that's not fair!" If there is no good or evil, then fairness has no meaning.

I think all humans can agree that stealing is wrong. And we can all agree that murdering someone for no reason is wrong. Haven't all civilizations throughout history agreed on some of these most basic moral laws?

If mankind has this moral law, then couldn't you say that following that moral law is good and breaking it is evil? In which case, yes good and evil exists. It is about what is beneficial to "the party invovled" its that we all just kind of know that certain things are just wrong, and certain things are good.

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Yana Usdi

I'm not sure I'd call it good or evil but there are some things we naturally see as right or wrong. It's an evolved trait we, and other animals, need for our survival. If you're a social animal you can't be attacking or otherwise mistreating your own too much so those who did those things tended to be shunned and do less well, those who worked better in those conditions tended to be more successful and reproduce more consistently.

But it never has been a black and white line. We tend to grade things depending on other values as well. It might be one thing to say something is right or wrong when it's family or friends but we don't seem to have the same problems with strangers or those of other religions or political beliefs, even in our own nations. When it comes to other nations it's even worse. You see the same thing in chimps. They'll fight each other for dominance but normally not kill, but other tribes they'll hunt, ambush, and tear apart. A remnant of a tribal past where we needed to compete to survive but these days it seems to do more harm than good.

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Hashishi

It's certainly not entirely genetic as stories of feral children in the Russian wilderness can testify to. Cultures around the world all have significantly varying takes on morality as we know all too well in the age of globalisation. I do believe there is a degree of genetic basis for morality as far as there is a genetic basis inclinating us toward social development, but even that I feel is far more tenuous than most would feel comfortable acknowledging. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Joss Whedon's series and film sequel centering on the crew of a spaceship called Serenity, but assuming you're not he introduces a group of spacefarers called Reavers: people who traveled to the edge of space and who's civilisation devolved into barbarism as they lost touch with humanity. Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, too, beyond the protagnist's plot, portrayed the brutality of man to believable and eviscerating effect. Another example that springs to mind is the brutality committed by Nazi concentration camp guards. It taught the world an important lesson: these people were not born monsters and to write them off as such endangers a vital understanding of human nature. It showed that ordinary, civilised people transplanted into extraordinary scenarios can succumb to the base, primordial instinct to exert power over their fellows to sadistic, compassionless and horrifyingly brutal effect. There lurks a monster in the hearts of all men.

To the OP: I'd suggest researching moral relativism and constructing an argument you can present in class. The Nazi concentration camp guards are a prime example and one I'm keen to point out to those who'd treat the Final Solution with the sort of shallowness and flippancy they do in writing it off as the actions of a few bad eggs.

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Merkabah

Well I suppose you can call it whatever you want.

Broliette

Yana
Your response and avatar reminded me of the story that an old indian man tells his grandson.
In short; we are all born with a good wolf and a bad one inside of us. And the little boy asks which one wins? And the grandfather replies; the one you feed.

Generally speaking here, I believe our choices try to please the "host* as best as possible making it good for us (whether it may really be or not) but I also believe that our perception of how we see the situation combined with our response dictates a feeling of determination that morally speaking is right or wrong; good or evil. Again; how does it benefit you, the host?

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Yana Usdi

Broliette, I know exactly the story you're talking about. It's always been a favorite of mine. The name I use here is Cherokee

Dinosaur Thing: Good Wolf, Bad Wolf

Yana Usdi

I wouldn't disagree with that at all, Hashishi. With animal studies we've found that primates will cooperate and share fairly with other primates that they know but will cheat ones that they don't know, in terms of basic impulses such as we see in animals we have the basis for morality but the rest we built on from there. Maybe a bit more is evolved in us than in them, but I wouldn't think much.

It's somewhat off topic but not too much, a video I saw ages back explored the relationship between cultural influence and development with bonobos and it gets into that aspect some. If we take their conclusions at face value there might not be as much difference between us and some animals as we'd like to imagine.

Susan Savage-Rumbaugh: Apes that write, start fires and play Pac-Man