Good and Evil

[Pyrrho]

Nestor, you ask a lot of questions there, and it would be very time-consuming to attempt to answer them all.  But I will address one that pertains to the main topic of this thread, and maybe a couple of the others.

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The issue to me is whether "the Good" is something that really exists as a part of this experience that we, as rational animals, understand to be the world.

I don't think there is anything that is discovered by reason out in the world, that can serve as the foundation of ethics, or that is "the Good," like some Platonic Form.  I rather like what Hume had to say about this in Appendix I of his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, though I will only quote a bit of it here:


But though reason, when fully assisted and improved, be sufficient to instruct us in the pernicious or useful tendency of qualities and actions; it is not alone sufficient to produce any moral blame or approbation. Utility is only a tendency to a certain end; and were the end totally indifferent to us, we should feel the same indifference towards the means. It is requisite a sentiment should here display itself, in order to give a preference to the useful above the pernicious tendencies. This sentiment can be no other than a feeling for the happiness of mankind, and a resentment of their misery; since these are the different ends which virtue and vice have a tendency to promote. Here therefore reason instructs us in the several tendencies of actions, and humanity makes a distinction in favour of those which are useful and beneficial.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/341#Hume_0222_585


I. It is easy for a false hypothesis to maintain some appearance of truth, while it keeps wholly in generals, makes use of undefined terms, and employs comparisons, instead of instances. This is particularly remarkable in that philosophy, which ascribes the discernment of all moral distinctions to reason alone, without the concurrence of sentiment. It is impossible that, in any particular instance, this hypothesis can so much as be rendered intelligible, whatever specious figure it may make in general declamations and discourses. Examine the crime of ingratitude, for instance; which has place, wherever we observe good-will, expressed and known, together with good-offices performed, on the one side, and a return of ill-will or indifference, with ill-offices or neglect on the other: anatomize all these circumstances, and examine, by your reason alone, in what consists the demerit or blame. You never will come to any issue or conclusion.

Reason judges either of matter of fact or of relations. Enquire then, first, where is that matter of fact which we here call crime; point it out; determine the time of its existence; describe its essence or nature; explain the sense or faculty to which it discovers itself. It resides in the mind of the person who is ungrateful. He must, therefore, feel it, and be conscious of it. But nothing is there, except the passion of ill-will or absolute indifference. You cannot say that these, of themselves, always, and in all circumstances, are crimes. No, they are only crimes when directed towards persons who have before expressed and displayed good-will towards us. Consequently, we may infer, that the crime of ingratitude is not any particular individual fact; but arises from a complication of circumstances, which, being presented to the [288] spectator, excites the sentiment of blame, by the particular structure and fabric of his mind.

This representation, you say, is false. Crime, indeed, consists not in a particular fact, of whose reality we are assured by reason; but it consists in certain moral relations,discovered by reason, in the same manner as we discover by reason the truths of geometry or algebra. But what are the relations, I ask, of which you here talk? In the case stated above, I see first good-will and good-offices in one person; then ill-will and ill-offices in the other. Between these, there is a relation of contrariety. Does the crime consist in that relation? But suppose a person bore me ill-will or did me ill-offices; and I, in return, were indifferent towards him, or did him good-offices. Here is the same relation of contrariety; and yet my conduct is often highly laudable. Twist and turn this matter as much as you will, you can never rest the morality on relation; but must have recourse to the decisions of sentiment.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/341#Hume_0222_587


If you are going to maintain that something out in the world is discovered that makes things good or bad, you are going to have a very hard time establishing such a claim.  No one has done it thus far in the history of philosophy.


Additionally, what Hume is saying fits in well with modern evolutionary theory, and with the idea that social animals need to get along with each other (or they would not be social).  The feelings or sentiments which form the basis of this are the foundation of ethics.  Ethical behavior has been observed in nonhuman animals, which further supports the idea that morals are not a matter of reasoning, but of feeling.  This also fits with how deeply these feelings are felt, for they are deeply imbedded in what we are.

Are there things that are really better, for their own sake, i.e. because they do exist, as opposed to a world without them?

I don't think so.  If you disagree, I think you will find it a bit difficult to come up with evidence that there is something better for its own sake.  That it might be good for something else is easy enough, but that is an entirely different claim.

Now, I wouldn't want to put human beings on an artificial pedestal and make the claim that we are special because we possess a superb faculty of logical reasoning, but I do think we could start by asking something like the following: Is any experience of life, however brief and whatever quality, better than none at all? Or perhaps, are some types of experiences, as opposed to others, better than none at all? Or is it incorrect to even try to make a value judgment between existence and nonexistence? On the one hand, it seems absurd at face value to say nonexistence can be anything, such as better or worse; and that’s probably valid.

I would think that a good life might be better than no life, but a bad life would be worse than no life.  I certainly would prefer to die than to just have a bad life from now on.

I think you are being too abstract and not coming down to earth, as it were, in your thinking about this.  People often get lost in the clouds, when they keep to abstractions, and do not compare with more concrete things.  Such thinking leads to bad arguments, like the ontological argument for the existence of god, where one imagines one can prove that things exist through pure reason, without actually finding anything in the world.  It is a danger to watch out for, so that one does not build imaginary edifices.

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For me, if this can be grounded in some way (and perhaps it cannot, but I lean more towards the possibility that it can), then duties to the Good naturally follow. Now, I’m not suggesting that this at all touches on what the Good (or the True or the Beautiful) in fact is, but at least it’s a start from which we can reason further. And if the Good as defined as, well, let's just say whatever you please at this point, cannot be grounded, is it any worse off than anything else? Didn’t Aristotle rightly realize that all demonstration must assume first principles, i.e. definitions? Does logic justify itself? Does science? Does truth? Or do we---must we---start from self-evident facts about the world, which are derived from the intellect and the senses (which, of course, are highly prone to error), and work our way from there (basically what Harris says when posed with the question of ontological grounding for his moral theory, that in everything we must pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps), with not only morality but essentially all else that is not indivisible (and have we established indivisibility with... anything?)

When the first principles are at issue, any assumption of them is simply begging the question.  If that is not enough to convince you to rethink things, consider this:  If you assume some set of "first principles" and build your ethical system on that, upon what basis will you be able to select your system over another system, built on a different set of "first principles" that someone else prefers?