How to Think About Good and Evil
INTRODUCTION
1) Name and describe the Four Uses of the Term Good and Evil 1. We speak of goods
as having value. 2.Politics we speak of a good society or a good government.
3.Character of a man, we speak of a man leading a good life. 4 Human acts as right and
wrong.
.a) Which one is used in Ethics, Which is the broader metaphysical sense of good and
evil 3 is used for Ethics, and 4. is used in a metaphysical sense.
2) In reference to Moral Good and Evil, the main question is: when we say something is
good, when we
call something bad, is that judgment we make an expression of knowledge on our part
or just
our personal opinon.
3) Name, briefly explain and give examples of each answer to this main question. Hamlet
and Montaigne give “There’s noting good or evil it’s just thinking so” Objectivity and
Subjectivity.
4) What do we mean when we call anything good? …..Anything we call good we regard
as desirable. The
good is the desirable; the desirable is the good. The good is the object of our desires.
5) Anything we seek, we seek because it is good and there is nothing else in the world
we
would seek except good. So one could almost say as a matter of fact that all men do
seek the good This is something that Socrates said many, many centuries ago. He said,
“No
man ever seeks or craves for or pursues that which he deems harmful or injurious
to himself, but rather he only seeks that which he regards as to his advantage or
benefit.”
APPARENTLY GOOD AND REALLY GOOD
6) Suppose you say that something is only apparently good or is an apparent good if it
is that
which people suppose is to their advantage or benefit, something which they in fact do
desire. And let’s
call something really good, not just apparently good, if it is something which is in fact to
their
benefit or advantage and something which they should desire even if they do not.
7) Do we call something good because we desire to do or do we desire something
because it is
good? Now it makes all the difference in the world whether you say we merely call it
good because we
desire it – that puts the emphasis on the desire first – or if you say we desire it because it
is good. And
as you answer the question one way or the other you really are taking sides on this
fundamental issue
about the objectivity or subjectivity of good and evil.
8) There is the side which says the good is simply that which we in fact desire. It is that
which pleases us
because it satisfies our desires. And that being the case, the good is entirely relative to
our desires.
That is good for you which satisfies your desires, that is good for me which satisfies my
desires, and
there’s no distinction at all between the real and the apparent good. This is the position
which is often called hedonism the position which identifies the present, that which
satisfies desire, with the good. Whatever pleases me is good, whatever pleases
you is good. Whatever pleases me may, of course, be something different from that
which
pleases you.
9) The opposite side, the side which maintains the objectivity of good and evil, insists
upon the
distinction that I began to suggest to you between the real and the apparent
good. And it uses this distinction in the following way: it says that the real good is the
objective good.
The real good is something I have knowledge about. The apparent good is something I
merely
form my own personal opinion about. And moreover this distinction between the real
and the
apparent good goes as follows: it says that the apparent good, the good which is merely
an expression
of my personal judgment or opinion, is the object of my conscious desire. What I
consciously desire
from moment to moment is that which appears to me to be good, whereas the real
good which I can
know to be good, and which is good even when I do not consciously desire it, is
something which is the
object of my natural desire as opposed to my conscious desire.
10)What is this distinction between conscious and natural desire? Well, my conscious
desires are the
particular cravings I may have in mind at any moment. I may want a fountain pen of a
certain kind, I
may want a large automobile, these are conscious desires. Natural desires are the
cravings, shall I
say, the tendencies , the appetites that are built into my human nature.
11) According to the view I’ve just been describing, the real good is what a man
naturally
does desire and consciously should desire. And therefore one can measure his
conscious desires as themselves either good or evil according as they conform or do
not
conform with his natural desires or in other words, with the things he should
consciously
desire.
WHAT IS THE HIGHEST GOOD?
12)When one considers the summum bonum or the ultimate goal or end of human life,
one must begin to
consider goods as means and ends. Some things we seek not for
themselves, but as conditions of getting something else – they are means. I think most
people recognize that money is not an end but a means.
13)So the question arises, what is that which is good ultimately in itself, that which we
seek for its own
sake and not for the sake of anything else, whereas all of the things we seek for the sake
