RE: Being vs. Believing
May 21, 2015 at 8:20 am
(This post was last modified: May 21, 2015 at 8:21 am by Ben Davis.)
Hi wallym,
Can you define 'good'? Also, can you project that definition to the individualistic level required to make sense of your premise? It seems to me that you need to identify how people know what 'good' is and then why they want to demonstrate behaviours aligned with that definition.
I'm not so sure. That people provide self-justifications for their actions is a given. The reasons why a justification is 'justified' needs exploration. As a social species, we've evolved to experience 'discomfort' when in isolation consequently an individual belief in justification also needs to stand up to external scrutiny else we suffer. From that perspective, 'belief that we're good' might not be 'good' thus you have the possibility of a self-refuting premise. It really depends on how 'good' is defined.
(April 26, 2015 at 8:52 am)wallym Wrote: The general rule of thumb is that people inherently want(know) to be good. What if instead what society/evolution has ingrained in us, is that we want to believe we are good.
Can you define 'good'? Also, can you project that definition to the individualistic level required to make sense of your premise? It seems to me that you need to identify how people know what 'good' is and then why they want to demonstrate behaviours aligned with that definition.
Quote:It seems to me like human behavior makes a ton more sense based on the 2nd idea?
I'm not so sure. That people provide self-justifications for their actions is a given. The reasons why a justification is 'justified' needs exploration. As a social species, we've evolved to experience 'discomfort' when in isolation consequently an individual belief in justification also needs to stand up to external scrutiny else we suffer. From that perspective, 'belief that we're good' might not be 'good' thus you have the possibility of a self-refuting premise. It really depends on how 'good' is defined.
Sum ergo sum
