The scientific version of good and bad

[Fidel_Castronaut]

So yes, aren't basic motivations for our actions irrational by definition? Otherwise, they would be logically derived from others and hence not basic.

You might still have to show that all our actions are enforced by an internal reward system. Maybe most of them. There may be automatic unconscious actions which are not.

A difficult task considering that often humans and their behaviour contradict even an entrenched personal reward system (however defined).

Theory of OP can be defined in terms of utility also, personal or larger axiological gains, which is not scientific in terms of good or bad, but perhaps in terms of the type of chemical process involved in one's brain. I think the terms 'good' and 'bad' are too woolly and allow for too much interpretation either way to be inherently scientific, and are by default impossible to 'test' scientifically unless a methodology is forwarded.