[Serious] The Good

[Belacqua]

(This conversation started in the Shoutbox, but I thought it deserved a bigger scope.)

There are different concepts of what the Good is. Some people hold that Good and Evil are both real. Others say that only Good is real and Evil is its privation. 

This may vary even within a religion. I think it would be interesting to look at and compare different ideas, especially in reference to different thinkers. For example, if Avicenna and Averroes differ. Or different views within Christianity. 

There are ancient concepts which I'm not very clear on -- for example, the idea that being is in some way identical with the good. 

I'm looking forward to different views. 

For starters, here's a link I gave in the Shoutbox to the Catholic Encyclopedia's article:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06636b.htm

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Good and Evil are only 'real' in the sense that they are human reactions to various experiences and situations.  The notion that they exist as substantive, independent standards is ludicrous on the face of it.  If that were the case, then Good would be the same for everyone.

Boru

[Belacqua]

Good and Evil are only 'real' in the sense that they are human reactions to various experiences and situations.  The notion that they exist as substantive, independent standards is ludicrous on the face of it.  

Can you make an argument to persuade people of this? "On the face of it" may not be obvious to everyone. 

If that were the case, then Good would be the same for everyone.

Maybe the Good is the same for everyone. Not in a day-by-day sense, but overall.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Can you make an argument to persuade people of this?

Yes.

"On the face of it" may not be obvious to everyone. 

True.

Maybe the Good is the same for everyone. Not in a day-by-day sense, but overall.

Can you make an argument to persuade people of this?

Boru

[Angrboda]

I think it was Augustine who initially argued that evil is the privation of good, largely on the basis of God's inherent morality. I'm not sure it has any foundation outside of theism that can be defended. I know that Neo has argued that evil is simply privation of what is otherwise the function of a thing in its completeness. However, in order to draw that conclusion outside of theism one would need a conception of function which is not essentially teleological, i.e. function for some specific goal or end, and I rather doubt that can be achieved. That would seem to leave a non-theist without any defense of the concept of evil as the privation of good. As far as the theist goes, in reading Augustine, it occurs to me that God might create evil that is not the privation of good if he had a sufficiently compelling moral reason for doing so (or a practical one; possible worlds comes to mind). So, that would ultimately make evil itself a good thing, but not in the way that Augustine and theists intend, and thus probably results in a necessary equivocation if one tries to assert that evil, despite being created, is actually good.

[Belacqua]

However, in order to draw that conclusion outside of theism one would need a conception of function which is not essentially teleological, i.e. function for some specific goal or end, and I rather doubt that can be achieved.

I think that an Aristotelian "final cause" concept is probably useful to this discussion, and not as mystical as some people seem to believe. 

You probably know, Aristotelian teleology is just: what the thing is for. If you're talking about lungs, their Final Cause is to get the oxygen into the blood, etc. A scientist might want to avoid talking about the "purpose" of things, but it would be silly to teach an anatomy class about lungs and not say what they're there for. 

This is from the Encyclopedia I linked to:

The privation of any of its powers or due perfections is an evil for it, as, for instance, blindness, the loss of the power of sight, is an evil for an animal. Hence evil is not something positive and does not exist in itself; as the axiom expresses it, malum in bono fundatur (evil has its base in good).

The full flourishing of an animal is almost certain to be more likely with sight than without it. Any normally-sighted animal deprived of sight will not have developed to its Final Cause. (The final cause of a baby animal is just a healthy adult animal, nothing mystical.) So in the sense given above, evil is just that which deprives a creature of its full potential flourishing. Murder is evil because it ends decisively the victim's potentiality. 

So we could develop complicated arguments (more like movie plots) about how it might actually be good in the long run to lose your sight or whatever -- maybe you were a jerk before and becoming handicapped made you more empathetic -- but in the philosophical sense good is what helps a being toward its Final Cause and evil is what stops that. 

So it may be that teleology is available to non-believers.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The Thompson's gazelle is good, the cheetah is evil.

[Acrobat]

Good and Evil are only 'real' in the sense that they are human reactions to various experiences and situations.  The notion that they exist as substantive, independent standards is ludicrous on the face of it.  If that were the case, then Good would be the same for everyone.

Boru

Truth and Falsity are only 'real' in the sense that they are human reactions to various experiences and situations.  The notion that they exist as substantive, independent standards is ludicrous on the face of it.  If that were the case, then Truth would be the same for everyone.

Acro

---

(This conversation started in the Shoutbox, but I thought it deserved a bigger scope.)

There are different concepts of what the Good is. Some people hold that Good and Evil are both real. Others say that only Good is real and Evil is its privation. 

This may vary even within a religion. I think it would be interesting to look at and compare different ideas, especially in reference to different thinkers. For example, if Avicenna and Averroes differ. Or different views within Christianity. 

There are ancient concepts which I'm not very clear on -- for example, the idea that being is in some way identical with the good. 

I'm looking forward to different views. 

For starters, here's a link I gave in the Shoutbox to the Catholic Encyclopedia's article:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06636b.htm

I agree with the privation view:

“ to say that evil is a privation of the good is to say that evil is a failure—an absence of something where it ought to be. McCabe asserts: “Good and evil are logically related not like north and south but like north and not-north. Evil is not a positive alternative label to Good; it just means the absence of the Good label.”

[Angrboda]

However, in order to draw that conclusion outside of theism one would need a conception of function which is not essentially teleological, i.e. function for some specific goal or end, and I rather doubt that can be achieved.

I think that an Aristotelian "final cause" concept is probably useful to this discussion, and not as mystical as some people seem to believe. 

You probably know, Aristotelian teleology is just: what the thing is for. If you're talking about lungs, their Final Cause is to get the oxygen into the blood, etc. A scientist might want to avoid talking about the "purpose" of things, but it would be silly to teach an anatomy class about lungs and not say what they're there for. 

This is from the Encyclopedia I linked to:

The privation of any of its powers or due perfections is an evil for it, as, for instance, blindness, the loss of the power of sight, is an evil for an animal. Hence evil is not something positive and does not exist in itself; as the axiom expresses it, malum in bono fundatur (evil has its base in good).

The full flourishing of an animal is almost certain to be more likely with sight than without it. Any normally-sighted animal deprived of sight will not have developed to its Final Cause. (The final cause of a baby animal is just a healthy adult animal, nothing mystical.) So in the sense given above, evil is just that which deprives a creature of its full potential flourishing. Murder is evil because it ends decisively the victim's potentiality. 

So we could develop complicated arguments (more like movie plots) about how it might actually be good in the long run to lose your sight or whatever -- maybe you were a jerk before and becoming handicapped made you more empathetic -- but in the philosophical sense good is what helps a being toward its Final Cause and evil is what stops that. 

So it may be that teleology is available to non-believers.

One doesn't have to go far to realize counter-examples. Ultimately what you've argued for is a definition of the good that rests on a subjective foundation, namely that which some subjectivity or another considers the goal or the good of a thing. There are no objective final causes. It's fundamental that "the good" as it's normally conceived is not subjective but objective, otherwise what you have is mere preference rather than a transcendent truth. So, no, you haven't solved the problem at all. You haven't even come close. Evil as privation of good remains out of reach for the non-theist.

And the Catholic Encyclopedia? Really? You're not likely to find anything not deeply rooted in theism there.

My two points stand. Function and privation of it is inherently teleological and therefore a subjective thing. And God could have reasons for creating evil, so the idea that evil is the privation of good is not a necessary consequence of God's nature, and so it's out of reach of the theist as well. I see no defensible objective foundation for the good in either world.

[The Grand Nudger]

Instrumental goods like the ones being proposed, good-fors..... are...... ofc, available to non believers.  Pencils are good-for writing. Lungs are good-for breathing.

If we're looking for something more than this, some teleological good, or a natural teleological good in some intrinsic rather than extrinsic sense - a purpose rather than a use...than the "final cause" of lungs and baby animals is not actually an adult animal or "full flourishing". Just another baby animal.