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BART: re: Your def of good, my def of good......

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Posted by Maverick on January 31, 2001 at 10:29:56:

Bart,

I think your definition--if I understood it correctly, no offense but you need to be more precise in your phrasing--is accurate to a degree. Howver, I believe when defining terms like "good" and "evil" you need to be much more specific.

Here's my view:

There is a objective, universal defintion of good and evil, respectively. In other words, what is "good" or "evil" is INDEPENDENT of an individual's SUBJECTIOVE opinion. Sometimes they may march--other times they won't. As you stated, I made this clearwith my example re: the mental patient. In a past post you equated good with desirous. I equated it with beneficial. YOu then said that i couldn't use beneficial becasue it mean tthe same thing as good. We went over this once before in our discussion of reason and intelligence. Different words--no matter how similar in meaning--have different connotations and implications when used in different contexts. Thjat's why we have so many different words. The term "good" is much more general than either "desirous" or "beneficial". The latter two may be used interchageably with "good" on a regular basis but not necessarily with each other. What is beneficial is always desiorous, but what is desirous is not ALWAYS benficial(a person may desire a cigarette, but a cigarette is not beneficial to that person. Different shades of meaning occur in different contexts. As such I may very well use beneficial as my definition of what is good. Since I define good as beneficial, then I must now define beneficial:

That which produces a positive, healthy result(in the long run) or that which does NOT produce a negative harmful result(in the long run). The menatal patient may have positive reaction to being released but in the long run--as I shopwed in my Mr. Jones example--a more positive healty outcome occurs in the long run if he is hospitilized.

Kant, the German Philosopher of some reknown, had some good ideas and some messed up ideas. One of his really good ideas was the creation of the categorical imperative: When deciding whether or not to take an action, base your decsion on the premise that your action will become a universal law. The idea is that if something is good then do it becasue it would become universal law but don't do anything bad for same reason.

Persoanlly I believe good in moral conduct can be summed up in that old classic, the GOLden RUle:do unto others as you'd have done to you, or don't do to other what you wouldn't want done to you.

To summarize, "good" in any particualr situation is that which has the most positive, healthy, benefical effect in the long run.

Maverick

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: Bart, : I think your definition--if I understood it correctly, no offense but you need to be more precise in your phrasing--is accurate to a degree. Howver, I believe when defining terms like "good" and "evil" you need to be much more specific. : Here's my view: : There is a objective, universal defintion of good and evil, respectively. In other words, what is "good" or "evil" is INDEPENDENT of an individual's SUBJECTIOVE opinion. Sometimes they may march--other times they won't. As you stated, I made this clearwith my example re: the mental patient. In a past post you equated good with desirous. I equated it with beneficial. YOu then said that i couldn't use beneficial becasue it mean tthe same thing as good. We went over this once before in our discussion of reason and intelligence. Different words--no matter how similar in meaning--have different connotations and implications when used in different contexts. Thjat's why we have so many different words. The term "good" is much more general than either "desirous" or "beneficial". The latter two may be used interchageably with "good" on a regular basis but not necessarily with each other. What is beneficial is always desiorous, but what is desirous is not ALWAYS benficial(a person may desire a cigarette, but a cigarette is not beneficial to that person. Different shades of meaning occur in different contexts. As such I may very well use beneficial as my definition of what is good. Since I define good as beneficial, then I must now define beneficial: : That which produces a positive, healthy result(in the long run) or that which does NOT produce a negative harmful result(in the long run). The menatal patient may have positive reaction to being released but in the long run--as I shopwed in my Mr. Jones example--a more positive healty outcome occurs in the long run if he is hospitilized. : Kant, the German Philosopher of some reknown, had some good ideas and some messed up ideas. One of his really good ideas was the creation of the categorical imperative: When deciding whether or not to take an action, base your decsion on the premise that your action will become a universal law. The idea is that if something is good then do it becasue it would become universal law but don't do anything bad for same reason. : Persoanlly I believe good in moral conduct can be summed up in that old classic, the GOLden RUle:do unto others as you'd have done to you, or don't do to other what you wouldn't want done to you. : To summarize, "good" in any particualr situation is that which has the most positive, healthy, benefical effect in the long run. : Maverick

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