Comments on: There is No Good and Evil, Just Smart and Dumb (Part 1 of 2)

By: The 9 Epiphanies That Shifted My Perspective Forever « Ange's Web-log

The 9 Epiphanies That Shifted My Perspective Forever « Ange's Web-log — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 02:21:46 +0000

[...] are unskillful and destructive, and almost all destructive behavior is unconscious. So there is no good and evil, only smart and dumb (or wise and foolish.) Understanding this completely shook my long-held [...]

By: john

john — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 01:47:20 +0000

so this is moral relativism expounded. Its very convenient to bring up the abuses of religion, but how do moral relativists explain Nazis? Nice to know they’re simply mistaken. Lets assume for the moment that those who commit obvious, universally immoral acts such as genocide, murder, robbery, etc are simply poor mistaken misled souls. Their unwillingness to seek the truth or examine their actions degrades their future attitudes and actions to what could be reasonably be termed ‘evil’. Should not such persons be held responsible for their actions? Could the Nazis have committed genocide if the “good men” at the time actively stopped it? To think that our moral judgement of the murder of 6 million Jews and others as wrong and evil is just an opinion that a few people have at a particular time is ridiculous. I cant imagine a history of the human race where genocide is not universally condemned. At least by real humans.

By: TomM

TomM — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 01:25:00 +0000

For a systematic analysis of moral relativism go here: http://www.peterkreeft.com/audio/05_relativism.htm
There is both audio and a transcript that counters your assertions. As noted above your thoughts on the Inquisition and the Crusades appear to be stereotypical and not based on facts. The Inquisition was a corrective to the secular authorities who were using accusations of heresy to silence opponents or pacify supporters. The Church instituted the Inquisition to bring due process to accusations of heresy. There were abuses during the Inquisition but many innocents were spared unjust secular punishments. The Crusades, too had its atrocities, but it was primarily a defensive effort against Islam which had conquered nations surrounding the Mediterranean that had been Christian for centuries. When Constantinople was threatened the emperor of Byzantium called upon Christians in the West to come to their aid. They did.

By: John

John — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 20:05:32 +0000

Just found the website, I’m having a great time exploring it! My own thoughts on evil are that it doesn’t exist, per se, but is defined by the society labelling it. What we call evil is simply the flouting of the prevailing moral order to varying degrees. Outside observers of a particular society might consider certain actions evil, but most members of the society in question will consider them normal, for example slavery, or the Aztec practice of human sacrifice as viewed by our contemporary society.

Love the site
JM

By: Bob the Chef

Bob the Chef — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 17:52:31 +0000

Your ideas about the Middle Ages are a bit ill-informed and stereotypical, as is your disproportionate emphasis on the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades. Your view of a lovey-dovey world is seriously at odds with reality and human nature, the latter of which you seem to emphasize. “Live in this world, but be not of this world” is a means of allowing a person to refer to his inner knowledge of what is best in a given situation, and acting it out in the external world. This means that we must refrain from taking part in the popular yet evil things people are doing, but it doesn’t mean we cannot take part at all. Society isn’t this monolith that we must subordinate ourselves to to engage in. That is a patent fiction. In reality, we live among other people like us, no more no less, and we can act rightly towards them in light of the greater situation they’re in (for this reason, compassion is not always the most charitable action, which is why we must approach each situation as particular instead of erroneously universalizing one thing as always good).

Now, the idea of sin as having this doom and gloom and “you’re bad eggs, damaged goods” ring to it, I really have little idea where it comes from. I suspect sin was co-opted by the modern State to create a subservient and dependent mass. It wouldn’t surprise me if its origins rest in 18th/19th century Prussia, with Hegel playing some part in it, as that is also the origin of compulsory public education, the crown jewel in the inculcating machinery of the State and a major instrument of control and oppression (and usually the media which exercises significant control over the State, as opposed to the official press of explicitly totalitarian regimes). Whereas rulers in older societies might have used armies and noblesse oblige to maintain order, modern governments function through smoke and mirrors, through tricks and media voodoo, to subordinate men to the wills of the few. So it’s not inconceivable that sin was co-opted quite recently. Just consider that in the Middle Ages, prostitution was tolerated by the Church as a practical means of addressing the problem of lust and reducing the incidence of premarital sex with future partners. Prostitution wasn’t criminalized until the rise of the modern state, a state that was often at odds with the Roman Church, a Church which always understood that human err, that they sin, that it has always been this way and always will until the end of time, and that the proper approach for sin is to address it as it really does. Unfortunately, not all of the clergy is immune to the influence of the State, which is where we might encounter strange amalgamations of Church and State. I believe it was Fulton Sheen who said that many hate the Church for what they think she is, but few hate her for what she actually is.

I would also like to add that it is a very Platonic, even Buddhist notion, that sin-proper is merely the product of ignorance. True enough, ignorance is to a large degree the breeding ground of sin, but here is where the Catholic understanding (and possibly Aristotelean understanding) of sin differs, which is that even having the knowledge (I don’t discuss understanding here, which I see as paramount), we are bound to sin. The reason for this hinged on the problem of evil which is a mystery, to me at least.

By: JACK

JACK — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 06:37:52 +0000

These are fun ideas to play with, I also appreciated the delivery very much. The arguments you present, however, seem to be more a matter of language than philosophy which surprised me but I found it intriguing nonetheless.

I once heard something along the lines of: when you ask yourself if something is right or wrong (good or bad) you must first ask yourself “would the world be a better place if everyone did this”?

It is a good measuring stick for right and wrong and although some might say that making a decision based on these two questions would be a product of intelligence as opposed to decency (or “good”ness) that is a linguistic debate…

By: Henway

Henway — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 01:55:20 +0000

I’ve talked to several Buddhists about this topic and I get the sense that Buddhism is less about wanting to make ppl feel guilty (there’s no doctrine, per se), but rather want to present an intelligent view of the universe that will enable you live more positively. Religion, however just focuses too much on making you have guilt if you don’t do X, Y, and Z
Henway´s last [type] ..My Colon Cleanse Experience

By: Sheri Rink

Sheri Rink — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:57:35 +0000

Hey David, This was my morning read today. I wrestled with the question of right/wrong, good/evil a number of years ago and this is what I found probably the same as you just different language. R/W, G/E in a moral context was not hard to see through and let go of. I lived in Germany for a number of years and watched my nephew at the age of 5 get drunk on beer (parents did not feed him it, they just did not intervene) and it was really quite funny (sorry, it was) and I realize what we label as R/W is culturally defined (mostly). I did not even have trouble with the more stark ideas such as that of the middle eastern men routinely engaging in homosexual relationships with their adolescent boys.
The one that caught me up and kept me stewing for months were the murderes and tortureres of kids (Bernardo/Holmoka type). I finally was able to withdraw my emotion enough to see what the universe had to say and it spun around R/W and G/E as set by the universe. So there is “flow” and “no flow” as the rules of the universe govern: ie the body needs food and water to flourish, lungs need O2, gravity, etc. So when the body dies is it wrong? No of course not. Are airplanes wrong because they defy gravity? No of course not.
So within the context of human behaviour is there flow/no flow. I think so. A very benign example is me yelling at my kids. Yelling is not wrong per say, what determines if my yelling has flow is the origin? Istthe origin one of fear, control…..then it would be a no flow yell (so to speak). Is it a yell because I am tired and my head is pounding and they did not listen the first 900 times to be quiet…..that would be a flow yell. Flow vs. no flow is also not dependent on the reaction of my kids.
So I sat for a long time and tried to be okay with the idea that someone could take my kid and hurt them is very ugly ways (a sick practise perhaps but necessary for me at the time)
What I found was that I would not be okay with it. I sat with it long enough to watch the emotion go and I was still not okay with it. It was/is a no flow behaviour. And I do think this is a universal “law” not a Sheri law because I did wrestle this for a long time and got to the point where I could “see”.
So two things I learned from this:
1. My only job is to get out of the way of the universe and to make my self open and avaiable to its’ laws…..to flow with what is presented me. This could never be, and never has been “wrong” or “evil”
2. If someone ever did touch my daughter in the above gruesome description, I am pretty sure it would be indicated that I use my registered hand gun to rectfy the situation to which I have no emotional attachment, just doing what is on my screen at the time.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:58:52 +0000

I didn’t read all the comments (there are a lot of them), so I don’t know if this has been said already. I fundamentally agree with your point that there is no intrinsic good or evil, and that it’s subjective. What I hope to add with this comment is what I have gleaned from my readings of ayn Rand, which is a little more rigorous explanation of things than just ‘no objective morality.’ at the outset, all values are subjective. This parallels what you have said. The elaboration is that, once you have established a value, things stop being arbitrary. There is a best way to achieve your values, whatever they are, and probably a lot of ways of doing it that are just about as effective. I will say this two more ways. One, ‘why’ is subjective, ‘what’ and ‘how’ are objective. Two, morality is relative and personal, causality is absolute and impersonal. And, of course, the ‘best’ way of doing something is a personal matter, but no amount of opinion or feeling will change how things actually work.

Personally, although I am fairly close to being a sociopath, a couple values that I accept as ‘good enough to work with,’ are personal and communal success and happiness, economy of effort and elegance of action, and personal strength and honesty.

By: Spirit and Soul - Christianity - Page 4 - City-Data Forum

Spirit and Soul - Christianity - Page 4 - City-Data Forum — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:01:45 +0000

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