I love the yin and yang symbol for the way it has the opposites curled up together, with the dot of the opposite side. If I ever decide to have a tattoo I think that it would be this symbol which I would choose, for how it shows good and evil, as well as the opposites.Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2022, 7:09 amPattern-chaser wrote: ↑May 21st, 2022, 11:09 am I just can't get past the realisation that good and evil are simple value-judgements, and nothing more. They aren't 'things'. They aren't even usefully meaningful until you add context, at least by defining the person, place, or thing that is 'good' or 'bad'. It all comes down to the simple question, "Good for who/what?".A battle between good and evil? But good has no hands to place the nerve agent into the water supply of your local children's hospital, and evil has no fingers to press the button, and send nuclear missiles flying toward your home country. Good and evil are not things that are able to fight, or to take any action, of any sort.JackDaydream wrote: ↑May 21st, 2022, 11:56 am I do struggle with the idea of good and evil as being mere value judgements, which is probably what led me to write the thread. Until a few years ago, I did cling onto the idea of there being some kind of cosmic battle between good and evil...
To the extent that good and evil are causes for which humans might fight, there could be a fight between those who fight for good, and those who fight for evil, which is, of course, what is meant. So why do we personalise these simple judgements? Why do we give them apparent personalities, which can struggle with each other for control of your world?
Good and evil are fence-posts, bounding a spectrum that reaches good and evil at its extremes. [This spectrum could well be multidimensional.] All of the practically-useful points on this spectrum are well away from the extremes. Even in this, good and evil are less informative than the yin-yang sign, that shows a tiny bit of black within the white, and a tiny bit of white within the black, as a reminder. The pure extremes are rarely, if ever, seen.
Exactly. And this is so arbitrary-seeming that the very concepts (of good and evil) seem to blur and fade. A particular thing might be judged 'good' for you and your family, but 'evil' for your next-door neighbours. Something else might be 'evil' for the men who play for your team, but 'good' for the children who attend your local nursery. Yet another thing might be 'good' for the (human) people of your country, but 'evil' for the animals, plants, fungi and bacteria of that same country.JackDaydream wrote: ↑May 21st, 2022, 11:56 am Definitely, the issue of certain events or aspects of experience being good or evil involves the question of who is something good for?
Can there really be such things as good and evil when the meanings they carry vary so much, in every way? Something could even be 'good' today, and equally 'evil' tomorrow! What value (to humans or otherwise) does such a perspective bring with it? As this is a pure value judgement, I offer you the meta-question: are 'good' and 'evil' good, or evil?
So you were not preoccupied with arbitrarily assigning 'good' or 'evil' to your plight. You accepted what had happened, and acted so as to minimise any unwanted effects on yourself, while maximising any desirable effects. This is what any intelligent creature would do, surely? And what does it have to do with 'good' and 'evil'? Nothing that I can see.JackDaydream wrote: ↑May 21st, 2022, 11:56 am All events and circumstances can have certain benefits or consequences for different people. Part of my own approach is trying to turn apparently 'bad' fortune into good fortune on an individual level. For example, when I had a broken wrist I tried to make such use of the time in which I could not do much...
People express many different definitions for 'good' and 'evil', and none of them (that I know of) cover all the uses to which 'good' and 'evil' are put (by humans). My dogs have a basic understanding of fairness and justice, but apparently no understanding of, or use for, 'good' and 'evil'. They accept what happens in the world, which they cannot control, and make the best of it. Why are humans not as intelligent as this, I wonder?JackDaydream wrote: ↑May 21st, 2022, 11:56 am The underlying criteria on which I categorise good or evil is the extent of suffering or happiness experienced.
"Good" is not a thing, it's an opinion, normally personal. When I say "it's good", I mean that it is something beneficial to me. Rarely, I might add qualification, to make it clear I'm aiming my judgement at something else: "that's good for the environment".
"Good" and "evil" are used as simple amplifiers in our speech (and writing), like "f*ck" or "bl00dy". They carry no meaning, other than to say that we approve or disapprove of a particular thing.
The point where I probably did see an actual battle between good and evil was when I used to go to student 'Christian Union meetings. Having left home embracing Catholicism, it seemed natural to join the Christian Union and the people were so friendly. However, it did seem as if many of them were seeing others as the enemies in the war between Christ(good) and Satan(evil). At some point, I realised that I didn't fit into that group's philosophy, especially as I was reading Jung and books on Hinduism. Of course, the people were young(mostly 18 to 21), so their ideas may have changed just as mine did, but what I encountered was fundamentalist Christianity and, it began to disturb me more and more. There is a kind of militancy of fighting evil and trying to overcome evil. I actually think that this kind of thinking can be dangerous psychologically. I can remember people suggesting that certain music should be avoided, especially Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven', which played backwards is meant to contain the word, 'Satan is God'. Of course, any use of the word dog is God in reverse.
But, generally, the words good and evil are used in speech and thinking. I know people who speak and believe in being a 'good person'. Often, the idea of good is used to convey the idea of being virtuous, and people speak of having a 'good' conscience. I guess that I am aware of having so many weaknesses, that if I borrow the religious language that I can identify more with the concept of being a 'sinner, or even a 'fallen angel'.