Talk:Good and evil/Archive 1

Archive 1

Review of major prior versions

In dealing with the missing sections it was obvious that many important considerations and perspectives (most shamefully, all non-Western views and any attempt to really put economic vs. ecological vs. ethical values in context of goodness and value theory as fundamental choices) had been omitted. Some material survived in garbled form. If any other expert reviews this material, they would be well advised to check prior versions for any subjects that have been omitted due to bad writing, bias/prejudice or stupidity (many people will delete sections they personally don't understand even in very technical articles). While everyone may have their own idea about which versions deserve this kind of attention and dredging, here is a short list that helps show what's been omitted over time:

• [1], [2], [3], [4] yes its disputed so what, [5], [6] yes disputed and has writing problems so what

Intrinsic vs objective vs subjective

I think there is some confusion in the article on how these terms are used. To me, and according to several authors I've read, it works like this:

Intrinsic

the goodness resides entirely in the object.

Subjective

the goodness resides entirely in the observer.

Objective

the goodness is determined by how certain attributes of the object meet the certain needs of the observer.

Anyone care to comment? It would be important to clean it up, if we are going to split the article into different theories of value. -- Dullfig 23:09, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is important, but it can and should be done within this article. What would be useful is to characterize the views of the various thinkers quoted in terms of how they say value or goodness arising from intrinsic, subjective/personal, objective/shared concerns. And please do not claim that things that are "objective" are not "shared" as all language and any theory an objective system uses must be shared to work at all.

Objective goodness can reside in how certain attributes of the object meet the needs of third parties, not "the observer." I can judge it to be good that today is a warm day, not because that meets my needs (I would just as soon have gone skating today if it had been a bit colder), but out of my sympathy for people who are having trouble paying their heating bills this winter. In such a case, your definition of Objective as above might be made to work by some stretching, but is at best very awkward. --Christofurio 17:09, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

You're joking, right? No one goes outside and says to himself "I'm sure glad that today is such a nice day and poor people don't need to turn on their heaters". No one. Dullfig 21:44, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't matter whether as a psychological fact anyone has ever said or thought this. For the purpose of my illustration, it suffices that this is an internally coherent judgment. What is being judged, when such a thing is (hypothetically) said? What kind of value? intrinsic, objective, or something else? --Christofurio 14:45, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what point you are trying to make. Are you saying that the judgment of "nice weather" is a subjective call, or an objective call? My position is that there are certain "truths" about nature that cannot be denied. For example, it doesn't matter if I keep insisting that I prefer the temperature to be 500 degrees. If I subject myself to 500 degrees, I'm going to die. I don't subscribe to the theory that value is entirely subjective. For example, a hammer that was heavy only when you needed to nail something, and then became light so you didn't have to carry around all that weight, would be pretty valuable. But not possible within our reality. So the value of things, to my understanding, lies somewhere between intrinsic and subjective. But I digress :-) Dullfig 17:17, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

My point is not so cosmic. I simply consider your three-fold categorization of value, and the definitions you have provided, to be inadequate. The value when recognize what we acknowledge that third parties may be aided by something we are observing seems to be outside all your boxes, yet there is no reason to declare it non-existent by fiat. You either need a fourth box or better definitions. That's my point. --Christofurio 01:56, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Article on Value has been split

There are now separate articles for Value, such as Value (ethics), Value (economics), and a disambig page for Value. I think that sections of this article should be merged into the appropriate articles on values. -- Dullfig 22:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Which would require leaving a core set of distinctions that tell you the difference? This is not a good idea, it just encourages people to believe that market values and individual values vary, when there is less evidence of that all the time. Moral purchasing and fair trade for instance prove that people will express their individual moral values when they have information enough to do that, and in those cases economic "values" (necessarily collectively assessed) are subordinated to ethical ones. See also ethical decision for an attempt to model what any such decision really "is".

Think about it from the user's perspective. Value is value. If they are making some non-marketplace decision it is value (economics)) and if they are making another decision it's value (ethics)? Bullshit. You can't possibly pick one or the other to link to from any article, so disambig is appropriate but direct links to either, aren't. MAKE THE USER DECIDE WHETHER THEY HAVE AN ETHICAL, ECONOMIC, OR INTEGRATED VIEW OF THESE.

Here's a way to deal with the scope:

Value (ethics) is ONLY about the views in which economic choices don't matter and goods bought in the marketplace don't carry any ethical values with them to the consumer - it's clear up front that this is the only perspective of that article

Value (economics) is ONLY about the views in which supply and demand count but means of categorization and quantification aren't assumed to have any ethical problems or perspectives - it's clear up front that this is the only perspective of that article

goodness and value theory is the default, in which these must be integrated, and people take full responsibility for commodification, colonization, pollution, deforestation, extinction, child labour, slavery or anything else that's done to provide them with "goods". It's clear up front that the difficult integration of all these issues is a problem in philosophy/ontology and not just economics.

Another way is to have value (economics) be a narrow statement. It would be better to say [[value (quantitative)] and value (qualitative) rather than economics/ethics.

NPOV in conclusion

Hi there, guys. I wrote much of the original article on goodness. I love the additions, which make the article more encyclopedic. The stuff about Eastern ethics and pluralism is especially lovely.

Now for comments... I detect departures from NPOV at the conclusion.

Valuing diversity is itself a parochial value, currently in fashion only in some academic circles of the U.S. and parts of Western Europe. The article will fare better if it ceases to value diversity, but instead explains it as another value system. Of course, it must then explain the other side, that homogeneous societies generate less social upset and are more comfortable for many people, and this has been the common historical experience of humanity, which motivated almost all official intolerance. There might even be logical inconsistency in the experiential grounds of "valuing diversity." To wit, diversifiers may find homogenists "totalitarian," which is a value-laden scare-word if I ever saw one, and seems to indicate (*ahem*) intolerance. That part might be worth changing.

The fact that philosophers (a notoriously foolish set of people!) haven't defined goodness yet, is not evidence that it "doesn't exist." Remember, practical people know goodness when they see it and many careful Ethicists are sure that there is some definable central idea, which is why there have been so many approximations. Also, some of the approximations, with all their warts, have been valuable. (like Economics and Utilitarianism) Even in eastern systems, there appears to be some concept of "merit."

When I put on the spectacles of my Methodist upbringing, that section reads rather like a ringing endorsement of empirical relativism. That might be worth changing, too. --Ray Van De Walker

Diversity may not be an intrinsic, or straight ethical good, but it is not simply a 'fashion'. It is usually a practical good- for example, in my household, we have a diversity of computers- some Macs, some Unices (mine) and some Windows. As a result of this diversity, we rarely have any security problems. This applies to ecosystems as well, and many other situations. --maru 01:03, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Intrinsic goodness (?)

[quote]We all know very well that we have to pursue some instrumentally good things in order to get the intrinsically good things. For example, most people pursue money as merely an [B]intrinsically[/B] good thing, so that they can afford what they call "the finer things in life," and those things, like concerts, vacations, and of course a happy family, are supposed to be good in themselves, or intrinsically good. But it's ultimately, in any case, the things we believe to be intrinsically good that we want. So up at the top of the hierarchy of goods that we aim at, there are the intrinsic goods. And the question is: What are they? Which things are intrinsically good?

Pragmatism and Intrinsic goodness

This is my first wiki post. I don't expect the bracketed commands to work, but they still serve their purpose.

I think the boldfaced "intrinsically" was intended to be "instrumentally." Being new here, I am unwilling to go change it myself, but if I'm right that this is an error, then somebody else can.

An answer: Intrinsically good are the natural parts of healthy natural life in a healthy natural living environment. A human being is by nature a pack animal and a part of an even bigger environment whose health is essential to our own well being. That's why we naturally (i.e. as a consequence of the natural selection or of creation) love the parts of our healthy natural way of life and our healthy natural living environment. khtervola, Finland

Comment on merge

This is a first attempt to combine the pages on 'value theory', and 'goodness', both of which have been left untouched for the present. Please comment here. --TonyClarke

This is a very big improvement over the original value theory page. Bravo. Makes for good discussion material. I would like to maybe see the discussion of subjectivism extended, as I should think that there is more out there, what with Existentialism (though I have not studied value theory myself). The article brings back the nefarious SS officer from the other value theory article. Clearly to discuss this stuff is to walk a dark path, but I think simply writing concentration camps off as "evil" is insufficient.

Perhaps it might be said that the arbitrary designation of undesirables in a society is bad for ultimately selfish reasons, because it can come back and get you later if you become undesirable. But maybe that is not within the sphere of the topic. But maybe the concept of selfishness needs to be addressed anyway, and racism is perhaps a social equivalent to selfishness or self-centredness. I mean, individuals have to decide what is good for them. Nazis presumably were not all sadists (or they would represent a freak occurrence of some kind of mental illness prevalence), but subscribed to a demented concept of humanity and believed that they were acting in its benefit -- in fact that they were following cultural supremicist dogmas as a way to channel their own sense of self worth and belief in their own goodness.

I suppose I think that psychology and individual desires are inescapably tied into our definition of goodness -- that we start with a sense of our own goodness or lack thereof, based naively on socially accepted values. It is the role of philosophy to attempt to remove the naivete and look at the a priori drive to find goodness and its definition. If we generalize the tendency of individuals to accept socially defined definitions of goodness, then perhaps this points to a more important belief in the goodness of social cohesion and acceptance -- for self-preservation reasons.

I don't want to reduce the search for a definition of goodness to sociobiology, but certainly if we can observe people attempting to adapt themselves socially as a primary goal, then we would not want to ignore this information. If we can see this in ourselves, so it becomes more in line with what I gather philosophy wants to do in determining the truth of something from personal experience and first hand knowledge.

I think what this boils down to is that by including the story about the SS Officer, the article invites a psychological or other natural science viewpoint, as it hints at trying to create an objective reason to censure Nazism (Naziism?). So, either this has to be accounted for, or the story should simply be removed and an alternative approach to subjectivism provided in its place. --Brent Gulanowski 02:16, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

After reading the rest of the article, a few other questions come up. Most significantly, this page is fully based on Western philosophy. Moreover, and probably related, it is infused with the assumption that (and we study goodness because) we can change the world and somehow increase the quantity of goodness. I would think that there might be some alternatives to consider. Perhaps goodness is a paradox, or the only way to comprehend it is through consideration of paradoxes or koans. Perhaps everything is good, and analyzing relative goodness is like analyzing relative wetness of different kinds of water.

More practically, I have this idea for an inverse approach -- we are not actually seeking good, but are resolutely avoiding bad, that is, things which make us uncomfortable. Now, everything makes us uncomfortable in some sense (even if its only boredom from sameness), meaning life is an endless chaotic motion of trying to find the least discomfort. Some things are clearly painful, or distressing, and we seem to have an instinctive tendency to avoid them. Others require thought to understand and avoid (like consequences of complex actions). I think it is easy to couch many ethical approaches in terms of a kind of instinctive response. For example, the ethical treatment of animals results from empathy with the animals and the discomfort we experience when we see animals in pain. This suggests that protecting animals is an extension of protecting ourselves. But not all humans have the ability to feel empathy, and empathy can be subjugated by other things, including faulty logic (such as racism or other expedient theories of superiority of groups or classes). --Brent Gulanowski 02:34, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the positive comments. I have sharply changed the reference to concentration camps: you are right, we can't be seen to be making a case, or laying the grounds for a case, against any identifiable group, historical or otherwise.

There was a lot in the rest of your comments, which I will need to think about! --TonyClarke 09:49, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I've put in a general disclaimer that the main focus is on Western thinking. I have also put in references to Taosism, Confucianism, and existentialism. People who know more than me about these things (not difficult!) please add or amend. --TonyClarke 16:14, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Your latest changes add a lot of power and significance to this article. Thanks for your efforts. The latest bit about Sartre is especially meaningful. It hightlights the fact that if you could create a workable theory of valuation, which could be called a process to come to moral decisions, that such a theory would be both attractive and frightening. Of course, law and other codes of living try to do that, and often fail in real application. But hopefully thinking about it can improve laws and codes of ethics. --Brent Gulanowski 16:12, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think you're right Brent that a working theory of valuation would be rather frightening: imagine solving all of mankind's moral dilemmas at a stroke! The notion of totalitarianism begins to creep in...

The impossibly broad ideas of moral cognition and utopia come to mind. You are asking for the resolution of all theories of ethics and economics that Amartya Sen sought (read his Ethics and Economics on how the two fields compete to explain human choices. Basically, values individualism leads to economics, and values collectivism to ethics and the social frame of politics... this strongly influenced human development theory.

The unsatisfactory nature of that totalitarianism, ane the obvious problems with values pluralism, makes me personally incline to what I tried to hint at in the last paragraph... maybe we should be looking not to define good in advance through hypothetical deduction, but we should be trying to reach a more limited and empirical understanding through inductive generalisation.

Michel Foucault had this idea of "a specific intellectual"... who would do only that, as a service...

That is, perhaps we should be trying to generalise from existing observed valuations what are the common ingredients and trends in valuing and in goodness, and then reaching a tentative, therefore non-prescriptive, understanding. --TonyClarke 16:29, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Comments on Goodness and value theory

I am a bit surprised by this article. My first impression is that it is mixing two different topics: The Theory of Good/Goodness and The General Theory of Value. I was expecting a more broad definition of value and a more broad value theory.

According to the article Theory of Value ask “What sorts of things are good?” or “What does good mean?” In my humble opinion the basic questions of the Theory of Value should rather be “What sorts of things are valuable?” or “What does value mean?” Why are you so sure to that value is the same as good/goodness?

There are many different sorts of value e.g. ethical values, esthetical values, economical values and so long.

I try to give some examples that might clarify what I mean:

• 1) Let’s say Mr. Dorian Gray is a very good looking person. His aesthetical value is very high. Does that also mean Mr. Dorian Gray is a good person? Most probably the answer is no.

• 2) Let’s imagine now we could clone Mr. Dorian Gray. There is only one clone of Dorian and I am ready to pay the highest price ~ 1 billion $. Does this fact say anything about the goodness of the new Dorian Gray or about its aesthetical value? Most probably the answer is also no. However the fact I am ready to pay the highest price offered determines its economical value ~ it is most probably 1 billion $.

I think it would be wrong to say that questions about value are equal to questions about good/goodness. Please correct me if I am wrong. As I am now making research in value theory and its possible impacts on economics I would be also very pleased if you could advice me to some expert debate, mailing list or serious contacts.

Thanks in advance, Patrick B. ( pbs@centrum.sk )

--PBS

Hi Patrick,

I think you make a good point. I suppose the article uses the words "goodness" and "value" as if they have the same meaning, but as you rightly say they could have different meaning. You have given some examples, and "value" has a whole different meaning in economics.

I think that is just how the article started out, and nobody ever saw the ambiguity.

What do you think would be a good solution? One that strikes me is that we rename this page, with some rewriting, eliminating "value" and then another page is started to deal with the various meanings of "value". Let us know what you think. --TonyClarke 08:42, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hi everyone: May I humbly submit for your consideration a definition of "good".

We call something good when it is "all there" under its concept, that is, when we believe it has everything that we suppose items of that sort to have. We have a vision of something in our mind then we come upon an example of it that looks like 'it has it all.' We will then call that example: "good." It is goodness of its kind; we must be careful to specify the concept under which the item falls. A good wreck is a bad car. A good slum is a bad home. But if we call a slum good, it means we judge it to have all the qualities a slum should have. A thing is "valuable," or has value, if it has some of the descriptional features; and it is good if it has all of them. Thus value and goodness are here defined, axiologically, as quantifiers of qualities, in analogy to the logical quantifiers: some and all.

There are two kinds of qualities: attributes and properties. The former are names of properties, and are mental; primary properties themselves, such as hardness, yellowness, are perceived by the five senses. Goodness is thus as second-order property, a property of properties. To state this in the form of Logic: x is a member of the class C. C's have alpha, beta, gamma, etc.... This x has alpha, beta, gamma, etc.... Therefore, this x is good. These three statements are matters of fact, albeit relative to the judge. Thus value controversies can now be objectively settled by determining with some degree of precision what the evaluator, rather, or prizer believes are the attributes of a concept, C; what properties he perceives this x to have; and whether agreement and concensus can be reached as to whether this x has them. It may be that we will eventually say: "Okay, you call it a lanai, and I'll call it a porch. Now we need no longer argue." Or "You say it is good wedding music; I say it's bad funeral music. Controversy settled." To gain agreement we either change the name used to designate the case, or item, in question; we measure the properties (using scientific instruments, if necessary); or we examine the judge to see if he/she has certain specific types of value-blindness (just as individuals -- when it comes to vision -- can be astigmatic, myopic, or have color-blindness, or -- when it comes to music -- some of us may be tone-deaf and others can play by ear).

The definitions of value and of good offered here are due to Robert S. Hartman, an acknowledged genius in the field of value theory. To see futher details, and to read three of his original papers, see Articles 2, 6, and 7 at: [Research Topics] --simplebrain 18:26, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This is a damn good article ;)--35.10.47.197 02:39, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

thoughts on removing the circularity

Hi, i would be interested in contributing to this page, but I want to at least state where I'm coming from before just going in and editing away.

I think the circularity and subjectiveness of definitions of "good" is overstated in the article, without any opposing point of view. There are definitions of "good" that are not at all circular and are objective, in my opinion. That is not to say that the definition of "good" is 100% straightforward or simple, but I don't see why it is so circular.

I recently edited the "happiness" page, where I was likewise surprised that there had been a lack of any "mechanistic", non-circular explanation of what happiness is (I added the physical aspects and mechanistic view sections). While I understand the difficulty in defining internal perceptions (and addressed that in detail in the article), still, the concept of happiness -- when considered to be synonomous with pleasure, joy, and satisfaction -- is really fairly simple to distinguish from its polar opposite of unhappiness (a.k.a. pain, dispair, frustration).

In a nutshell, happiness is reinforcement, where our goals have been satisfied. This is true whether these are short term "built in" goals (drink liquid to avoid dehydration) or long term goals (have a family, comfortable home, lots of property, etc). The ultra simple way of saying it is, it is our brain's learning / motivation system telling itself "keep doing whatever you did".

Once happiness is defined non-circularly, I believe you can remove the circularity in the "good" definition. The main complications with good is determining *who* is made happy, and such. For instance, Mother Theresa was "good", by causing other people to be happy (or maybe "causing them to suffer less" -- same thing). But "good" is also used when referring to happiness of oneself, even short term physical pleasure (i.e. "scratching that itch feels good" or "this tastes good").

The "do unto others" mantra describes a non-selfish, "good" clearly related to (other peoples) happiness.

In any case, my point is that the concept of good is tied very tightly to the concept of happiness, and with happiness defined in an objective, completely non-circular way, I think you (or I) could start to reduce the areas of the goodness article where it simply surrenders and claims the word is effectively "unknowable" or "undefinable".

Any thoughts?

-rob Robbrown

Here's a thought. I, for one, don't value pleasure more highly than I value, say, wisdom. If I could make the choice to live a pleasant but idiotic life, dependent upon the care of others, in contrast to a wise and well-informed life that would entail a good deal of suffering, I would likely choose the latter over the former. So if happiness simply means "pleasure," I would reject it under that name, too, as part of the same choice. This kind of example proves that a non-circular understanding of the good is trickier than you suggest. --Christofurio 00:32, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Another thought. It isn't clear to me that causing pleasure and causing a lessening of pain are, as you explicitly assume, the "same thing." We tend to think of pleasure and pain as on the same scale, like the positive and the negative numbers, but that might be naive. Increasing a masochist's pleasure entails increasing his/her pain, doesn't it? Likewise, perhaps I am willing to suffer the pain of the hangover tomorrow in order to enjoy the pleasures of boozing it up tonight. Decreasing my pain would come at the expense of the proposed increase of my pleasure. They aren't the same goal, and they are at least at times conflicting goals, then. --Christofurio 20:13, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

A third thought. My preceding comments shouldn't be taken to imply a belief in a circular or subjective conception of the good. What I think wrong-headed, though, is your insistence on a monistic conception of the good, and your confusion of monism with cognitivism in ethics. --Christofurio 15:16, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

A fourth thought. Consider the movie "The Matrix." What if I could voluntarily agree to be strapped into a machine, as people 'really' are according to that movie, and passively fed experiences that make it appear as if I'm living an active life? What if I made a deal that ensured that my intra-matrix experiences would be pleasant ones? And I could take the red pill, causing me to forget I had ever made that choice and to believe the machine-ed life to be real? Wouldn't such a choice still be craven? The desire to live an authentic life, even if one suffers for it, doesn't seem inherently irrational. --Christofurio 14:22, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Merging with ethics

Shouldn't this page merged with ethics? --Andries 20:52, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No. The ethics page is big enough, and there are plenty of other pages on specific ethical topics to create a precedent. --Seth Mahoney 21:33, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Goodness and value theory

I agree that this pages deals rather with the ethics section of the value theory. Indeed there are more value types. This article "Goodness and value theory" could be a subcategory of a more general article about the "value theory". (Furthermore articles “Economics and value theory”, “Aesthetics and value theory” could be written.)

I think we should first discuss the notion of value and value types. After this two are improved we can start a discussion about a more general article "value theory".

Patrick B.

--PBS 00:04, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

What's going on here?

With the disputes and all? --Sam [Spade] 10:44, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

I was wondering that myself, but for now have just been changing the formatting of the dispute notice and making it a msg. --VV 10:51, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Creating a general Value Theory article

May I strongly agree with Patrick B.'s suggestion, above, to create both an Economics and value theory article and an overall value theory article? I came to Goodness after redirection from Value_theory, where I expected to find an article dealing with values in economics. I find that redirect deeply objectionable. --Adhib 17:30, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I concur.

I'd like to see things like opportunity cost, labor theory of value, the impacts of novelty and familiarity, and the impacts of scarcity and abundance addressed systematically in the article. These are both of economic and philosophical interest.

Also, another gripe: these concerns about 'defining' the good seem like a lot of nonsense to me. All meanings are circular until you appeal to experience. This is not problematic, it is a natural feature of semantics and psychology. Lucidish

Editing for accuracy of definitions

Hi everyone,

May I humbly suggest that the debate about NPOV concerning this page is misguided, and would be automatically resolved if the greater problem of accuracy in definitions were solved? The article defines incorrectly many key ethical terms and theories. It also provides an incomplete list of the various theories of moral value, and an incomplete view of the debate among them, even for the purposes of a general summary. (The article can be linked to other articles on the theory of value in other domains, such as esthetics and economics.) The summary of ethical theories must be complete and the definition or statement of each theory must be accurate. If that is done, then there will be no issue of neutrality in point of view. It is the obligation of an encyclopedia entry not to resolve the debate among competing theories, but simply to state all candidates, and to do so accurately. We have not achieved this goal yet. I should add that every section needs editing for grammar and/or style. The section titled "Academic use vs. everyday life" in particular is full of grammatical mistakes and stylistic infractions, not to mention errors of content. Normally I would be inclined to offer the suggested corrections, but there is an even bigger problem with that section as it currently reads: the content of the entry has nothing to do with the title of the section, so I don't think it can be salvaged. The section should be redone from the ground up. The first issue in rewriting it should be to clarify the purpose of the section, and then to stick with it. Secondly, it should be written clearly and concisely. Here is the section as it stands now:

"Virtue plays an important part in everyday life; everyone has their own set of beliefs on what is "good", and what is not. This article however, focusses on the philosophical and academic approach. Although people do all have there own set of beliefs and morals on what is "good", people do try to inflict there own views on others. This is called emotivism, im sure theres another actual word for it but its late, and i cant remember it... i believe its prescriptionism, but im not sure. Anyways, you pass your morals onto other people and persuade them to think as you do. Usually it is something everyone does, and as you grow older it works less and less because you are less easily influenced. When you are younger an adult telling you that smoking is bad, is as good as the word coming from "God", but as you grow older, other peoples opinions seem to mean less. It also depends on the ranking the person you are talking. If you are talking to the president, his opinions seem far more important, compared with someone like a child or a local bin man saying it."

As it stands now this article does not meet the standards of completeness and accuracy. The issue of neutrality will be taken care of when that is done.

Thanks for your attention, Mauro Nobre chebene @ hotmail.com

I agree about the "Academic use vs. everyday life" section, so I've made an attempt at replacing it with something more relevant. --Anonymous

Smokin' window fallacy?

"Cigarettes are a 'good' in the economic sense. Their production can bring economic growth for tobacco growers and doctors who treat lung cancer."

Oh really? It looks more like a broken window fallacy to me. --Damian Yerrick 00:25, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, because 'good' in the economic sense entails nothing by necessity about 'good' in the ethical sense. Lucidish

Economically, growing tobacco is the same as growing wheat: growing a crop adds value to the vacant land. Producing cigarettes adds value to the tobacco. Doctors treating lung cancer doesn't improve the economy, however; Smoking cigarettes causes an amount of damage that is difficult to quantify. One would not have to get treated for lung cancer if one's lungs were not damaged; thus, if one's lungs were not damaged, one would have healthy lungs and money to spend on something else. I am not in a position to judge whether or not there is a net loss or gain, but the part of the second sentence after the word "and" is definitely not evidence of economic growth. Ultimately a difficult decision over all, complicated by the fact that most people consider cigarettes a demerit good.

"Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions."

The following is a quote from this article:

"Emotivism has problems as an explanation of goodness. For example, people's emotions vary according to situation, person or circumstance. But goodness is usually conceived as constant across all situations. Torture, for example, does not become good because it is approved. Public disapproval does not always mean that an action is wrong. Therefore emotions are an inconsistent and inaccurate guide to goodness."

This supposes a deontological view of moral questions. It views it as an absolute. People's emotions do vary depending on the situation, but the feeling pattern of our species is limited to the (rather wide) range of emotions and capabilities known collectively as 'human nature.' But how else do we judge anything except from those emotions? "Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions" as David Hume said. We generally reason our way into feeling good, or so we can feel good later (later in this life or theoretically in a next life)or so that others will feel better (one's children for instance).

• "But goodness is usually conceived as constant across all situations." By whom? This is a generalization. What a priest thinks it right is not the same as what a gangster thinks is right. People that agree with the priest think it's constant that they're right and those that agree with the gangster think it's constant that they're right. Really, goodness is largely a subjective quality. Luckily, most homo sapiens have about the same idea of what is good, but that doesn't mean that it's constant.

• "Torture, for example, does not become good because it is approved." When does it become good (if ever)? This sentence seems to imply that it never is good. But according to non-reductionist human nature value theory something is right because it is in line with one's emotions (which are largely species-specific.) If people agree that torture is ethical, then, it is. "We are the sum of our feelings," as Robert J. McShea said, "[and] There is no conceivable good for us but the maximum satisfaction of our strongest and most enduring feelings."

• "Therefore emotions are an inconsistent and inaccurate guide to goodness." Not if feelings are our only guide to goodness. Even though they are tricky, as there is always much grey area in applied ethics, but just because their inconsistent doesn't mean it's wrong to act on them. Feelings aren't right and wrong, they are non-rational, and we cannot think feelings anyway, we cannot feel thoughts and we cannot think feelings. To say that emotions are an inadequate guide to goodness removes the only guide to goodness we have.

Whether the paragraph is right or wrong, it doesn't seem POV. It's not an encyclopedia's job to state an opinion about the validity of a philosophy, which that certainly is. --Maprovonsha172

Well, I've left this post here for weeks and no one has bothered either to edit the article to make it more POV-appropriate, or to respond, so I'm going to go ahead and place an NPOV template on the article. --Maprovonsha172 00:00, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

I deleted the POV and so I removed the NPOV template, assuming everyone would be in agreement about removing the POV, as no one responded to these calls for it's removal. --Maprovonsha172 20:07, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I approve, since the original paragraph basically said it was wrong (or problematic, at least) to conceive of goodness in variable terms, and since it didn't have a "some critics say" disclaimer. I'm sorry it took you so long to get a response. --Elembis 03:21, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Some of the critiques are worth noting, but yeah, I was a bit confused about the essay-style POV stuff that was going on in those sections. But at the time, when I was sorting stuff out, I didn't really feel like going through an overhaul. Thanks. Lucidish

new edits

If anyone's wondering about the new anonymous edits, it's me. If anyone would like to chat about them, I'm here. :) Lucidish 03:33, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Survivability Neglected?

I am very curious about something that has been bothering me for a while. In all the articles that I have looked at so far on philosophy on wikipedia, almost none of them mention the thing which I have always assumed to be the basis of all philosophy and that is that the "right" thing to do is that which maximizes the survival potential of one's self, one's offspring, and one's species. Any philosophy which is not based on this essential aspect is doomed to eventually be supplanted by one which is. Is this omission particular to wikipedia, or has such an essential fact actually been overlooked by so many philosophers? --David Battle 05:06, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Those are three very different survival rules you've elucidated there, David. The survival of "one's self, one's offspring, and one's species." Hmmm. Suppose I believed that if I did X, then the human race would survive until, say, 5,000 AD, but that if I failed to do X, then the species might die out a little earlier ... say, 4,500 AD. These dates are deliberately distant, and could easily be made more so of course. Now, do I have a duty to do X? Even if in doing so I reduce the likelihood that my own children will have a long and happy life?

I'm also puzzled by the jump from the survival of genes (which all of those three rules involve, in one way or another) to the survival of memes. "Any philosophy which is not based on [survivability] is doomed to eventually be supplanted by one which is...." I'm not sure about that. Its tautologically true that any philosophy which can't survive will die out, but it doesn't follow that being (consciously) based on survival is required to create survivability. The notion that "it is glorious to die as a martyr to a holy cause" for example, seems to be a very survivable meme, even though its obviously not based on survivability -- either its own, or that of the people who believe it. --Christofurio 20:28, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Nietzsche

This article needs a Nietzsche sub-section.

Spinoza on Good and Bad

<Commenting on the phrase in Goodness and value theory—As a related issue, theories of goodness inquire into what sorts of things are good, and what the word "good" really means in the abstract.>

From G. H. R. Parkinson's Benedict de Spinoza "The Ethics - Parts I, II, III, IV, V " and "On the Improvement of the Understanding"; ISBN: 0460873474; 1993; p. 280note136:

In 3P9n, Spinoza has said that 'we deem a thing good because we endeavour, will, seek or desire it'. This may suggest that objectively good, and therefore that the term 'good' has no place in a rigorous account of human nature, of the kind that Spinoza wishes to provide. In the Preface to Part IV this may seem to be emphasised, when Spinoza says (4Prf:27) that 'good' and 'bad' are relative terms—the same thing can be good for one person and bad for another. However, Spinoza continues by saying that he has a use for the term 'good', if it is taken to mean that which we know to be a means to the attainment of that exemplar, that ideal pattern of human nature, that we have set before ourselves. In the present definition (E IV Def. 1) the emphasis is again on knowledge, in that Spinoza says that he proposes to call 'good' that which we know to be useful to us {The preservation of ourselves and our species. {A man, when rational and judging correctly, calls a thing good if it increases his ability to perpetuate himself—bad if otherwise.

{When a little fish is eaten by a bigger fish, does not the little fish "think" that's bad and does not the bigger fish "think" that's good (because each one seeks to preserve itself)?" We say that is Nature, the food chain; if the cycle stops, all life stops. However, we are like that little fish—or, like that big fish; abused or abuser. Good and bad are subjective terms; things just 'are'—the chain of causes. Talk of good and evil is, objectively, meaningless.

When Adam and Eve started to think in terms of "good and bad", i.e. subjectively; instead of "true and false", i.e. objectively; they self-thrust themselves from the Garden of Eden, i.e. they were subject to loss of Peace-of-Mind.}

Yesselman 18:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Revise/Cleanup or Remove (Do Not Split)

This article has no place on Wikipedia. It contains a lot of good information but is overly ambitious. Here are suggestions: 1) The information on specific philosophers belongs on pages devoted to those philosophers. 2) Some of the article could be merged into the articles on ethics, value theory, and axiology. 3) The rest should be split into other articles dealing with economics, etc., etc. 4) There should be no links to articles such as "the meaning of life" as there are now. It's just ridiculous. 5) More specific references could be made to the leading advocates of various positions and their works. I'm sorry I don't give more specific suggestions but there's just so much that needs cleaning up here that I don't know where to start. This whole article is clearly not Wikipedia quality and should be broken up or removed entirely. -- Unattributed

I agree. For sure this article should be cleaned up before there's any talk about splitting it. One incoherent, messy article is better than 2 (or more) incoherent, messy articles. Ewlyahoocom 14:09, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not exactly so pessimistic as to regard the article as unfixable. I prefer to revise and cleanup; we shouldn't be afraid of articles with wide scope, so long as it is well-defined. But yeah, there are severe problems with this article, and it needs a lot more care. Lucidish 21:46, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

This article definitely mixes up too many issues that are more easily discussed individually. Someone really just needs to break this apart and then kill it. KSchutte 19:01, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

That is certainly one option. Another is to explain and focus upon how the valuable (both moral and non-moral) corresponds to the good, and scrap the rest of the accretions or ship them off to new articles. Lucidish 23:49, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup programme

I will shortly be cleaning up this page. Hopefully if anyone finds my edits objectionable we can talk about it here. My plan is to remove/redistribute stub sections, the fairly uncharitable generalizing term "non-Western theories" section, and reorganize and copyedit the sections. "Objects of the good" section should, too, be redistributed as examples of the broader theories. The scheme should look something like this:

1. Meta-ethical, descriptive, and normative fields
2. Meta-ethical conceptions of value
   1. Issues with meaning
   2. Issues with the nature of value
3. Normative goods (moral values)
   1. Welfarist theories
      1. Objective welfare theories
      2. Subjective welfare theories
      3. Mid-range welfare theories
   2. Perfectionism
4. Descriptive goods (non-moral values)

Lucidish 23:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

A shadow article is being written at User:Lucidish/Goodness, which people are welcome to review. One of the features of this shadow-wiki is that the criticisms sections have been deleted due to lack of references. When I'm done, I will replace the current article with the shadow one. 02:31, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Changed mind. New setup:

• 1 Significance
• 2 Descriptive, meta-ethical, and normative fields
• 3 Fundamental distinctions
  • 3.1 Good vs. value
  • 3.2 Moral and non-moral goods
  • 3.3 Intrinsic and instrumental goods
    • 3.3.1 Pragmatism and contributory goodness
  • 3.4 Kant: hypothetical and categorical goods
  • 3.5 Optimizing and satisficing
• 4 Foundations for the good
• 5 Objects of value
• 6 See also
• 7 References

Lucidish 00:08, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I did the deed

There's been a lot of pruning here. It needed to be done, because there were simply a ton of redundancies, the purpose of the article was vague, and a lot of necessary material was simply not there. If I've cut out anything you think was extremely valuable, I'm sorry, I may have overlooked something and been too happy with my pruning shears. But I tried to keep relevant stuff in here.Lucidish 19:51, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Splits and merges

It seems really weird to me that this information is in an article called Goodness and value theory while there is almost no valuable information in Value theory. It seems to me that much of this information should go over there (the information that is actually relevant to value theory rather than being some tangent about other ethical issues) and whatever doesn't have a place over there should be deleted or moved somewhere where it is relevant. I can understand separating Value from Value theory, just as I can understand the split of atom from atomic theory, and circuit from circuit theory, but I do not understand why we would have two different articles on value theory, one of which utterly lacks philosophy and the other of which garbles it with other ethical debates. KSchutte 22:48, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Much of the current problems with the content of the article involves protracted debate over environmental ethics and transhumanism. I think once this stuff has been sliced up, a more hopeful pattern will emerge. See my draft for some idea of how this might look. Lucidish 23:54, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Is prostitution Immoral?

Brothels, etc?

144.132.1.37 08:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

That question is more of a concern for ethics, not value or goodness theory (though talking about the one will inevitably involve the other). Lucidish 19:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I have made some edits

The problem with articles on topics as general as this are that everyone wants to dominate these with their particular formulative and operative methodology, rather than simply explaining what the term means in the various contexts. Ive tried to do that, and Ive tried to do so in a way which makes the spectrum of concepts plain: Basic logic, to reason, to philosophy, to ethics, to religion, all have a place in this article, and their terms all have a very continuous relationship between them, as I hope Ive demonstrated. Regards to all those interested in improving this article. -Ste|vertigo 17:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC) PS: It should be moved to good and evil by the way. The move to add "value" and "theory" to this only represented a shift away from ethics to logic, and this is incorrect for a number of reasons I can explain for you —at the very least because it represents a POV dominance of the article from an abstractalist-existentialist interpretation. Regards, -SV

It was a terrible idea to shift this over to "goodness and evil". The point was to talk about moral and non-moral goods and values, not to speak exclusively about the moral dimension, as we're now presently entitled to do. This means that the article needs to be wholly rewritten. Lucidish _{{ Ben S. Nelson }} 00:16, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Lack of Entropy = Goodness???

In physics and statistical thermodynamics, the property of goodness or order is often referred to as a state of low entropy

I'm pretty sure that no physicist would claim that lack of entropy constitutes "goodness" in any meaningful sense. --Elimisteve

Information theory and entropy generally speak of what is referred to as 'order' or lack of order, but 'chaos' tends to have a specific definiton meaning that small differences in initial conditions can generate much greater changes in a system later on. I think it is reasonable to say that 'goodness' is not a property that is defined in physics, and since physics is supposed to be a system that simulates the real world, that goodness is not anything that is truly real. Most physicists would probably question wheather 'goodness' has any realy meaning under the laws of physics, but I think that most physicists who have any real understanding of statistical thermodynanics would probably come to the conclusion that the thermodynamic properties of something has far greater intrinsic worth than any loosely defined term such as 'goodness'. Most would start questioning what 'goodness' actually means, but probably a wide number of them would agree that 'goodness' is an inexact laymans term for the thermodynamic properties of a phenomenon, which would be a far better and more exact measure of intrinsic value than an inexact term such as 'goodness'. Overall I do not think that you have talked to too many information theorists or statistical thermodynamicists on the subject. -x

Evil but no Good?

I am fascinated that there is an article about evil but a disambiguation page about good, and that goodness is only explored in terms of being in a dualistic context with evil. Is "good" impossible to explain and reference on its own in the way that evil is? More to the point, while this is an article about "goodness and evil," evil is mentioned six times in the 5,500-word article. Why is this article simply not about "good"? Any strong feelings about this either way? JDoorjam Talk 09:42, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Simple: copy over the evil article, global search and replace the words "bad" and "evil" for "good" and "good" :-) Dullfig 22:37, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, we should change that around alittle. -Yancyfry jr

Illustrations

It seems as if it'd be more symmetrical if there was a picture to illustrate "bad." Although the article overall seems to be about "good," so it's sort of uneven overall...

name of the entry

Why is this article named "goodNESS and evil" instead of the shorter, simpler, more balanced, and more frequently use phrase, "good and evil". Nietzsche, to take just one example, titled his book, Beyond Good and Evil, and I think this is the standard phrase. --Jcbutler 16:32, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Who knows? The page has been shunted around for unclear reasons since eternity. At least it's easily fixable. { Ben S. Nelson } _Lucidish 16:43, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Lucidish. Someone should fix this for goodness sakes. ;) --Jcbutler 16:48, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Satan

Suggest references to Satan need to be sorted out. "Satan" in Jewish tradition is just "Adversary," and does not mean "Evil"; is not even the same being as the one in the Garden of Eden. The confusion comes later (temporally) and is not really grounded in biblical scholarship I'm aware of. Gorbag42 (talk) 21:49, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Beyond Gods Love

Biblical definition of Gods Love.

The complete seperation of good and evil (pain and plesure) into hevean and hell. Above the earth Good. Below the eath Evil.

Beyond Gods Love.

The complete distruction of pain and asursion of plesure.

Or

The complete distruction of plesure and asursion of pain.

Or

The complete distruction of both pain and plesure.

--Gjeremy (talk) 03:35, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Pain and plesure

I believe that this article could be improved by improving the rest of wikipedia so this article will be under stood in context.

In this article there is no mention of pain and pleasure in refrence to an ancient Greek Philosophy of Good and Evil. Neither is the Christian doctrine mentiond in the article FreeWill. I was told that a Wikipedia artical was not the place to voice my own opinion and I should only write in an article discussion page if I believed I could improve that article. Plus I would have to back it up with lots of references.

Finding refrences is not my gift.

In the article Love I gave an argument in my own words useing the terms of pain and plesure. Love is a philosophy article so I thought other philosophers would recognize this ancient Greek Philosophy of Good and Evil and improve the article. Sadly my comments were removed from the discussion page.

Please be kind and discuss what Ive said with more than one Wikipedia gate keeper before deleting it. The fate of a Wikipedia article should not be in the hands of a single gate keeper. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gjeremy (talk • contribs) 16:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

--Gjeremy (talk) 16:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I am researching as fast as I can. If what I have writen is wrong I will change in. Please be patiant with me.

--Gjeremy (talk) 17:01, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Introduction

As it is today, the introduction to this article is the most absolute PoV I've ever seen, with some bits of pure nonsense (like the part on entropy!!). Would someone please remove it? Velho 02:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

The part on entropy is not nonsense at all. Your ignorance of the subject is quite amusing.

I've taken it out, once again. However, user 192.220.139.* is a repeat offender here and constantly and consistently pushes this bit of unsourced material back in. Nothing short of semi-protection can solve this problem. { Ben S. Nelson } _Lucidish 23:27, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and Lucidish consistantly pushes it out. I repeat. Your ignorance of statistical thermodynamics does not necessesarily mean that it is not directly applicable to the subject. It is a short sentence in an extremely long article, with no links whatsoever to the subject of entropy or statistical thermodynamics anywhere else. This is a fundamental failure when it comes to this article that can be easily rectified with a few short sentences and links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.220.139.* (talk • contribs)

Maybe it is applicable. Maybe it's even true. This doesn't excuse the inclusion of a bold unsourced comment which has no prime facie validity. The fact there are "no links whatsoever" is exactly the reason why it is junked. Wikipedia is about verification, not truth. If the failure is "fundamental", then surely you can cite a respectable source for it. { Ben S. Nelson } _Lucidish 02:34, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

If your view can be swayed seems to be questionable, and I am not constantly at the computer to try to undo your constant deletions. Entropy (order and disorder). I will try to dig up some of the books I have read on the subject in the past at the library. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.220.139.207 (talk • contribs)

Until that time, the material is not appropriate here. { Ben S. Nelson } _Lucidish 22:08, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Uhh, the Origin of the Concept section says that the notions of good and evil emerged in Greece around 400 B.C. The Bible, which has been around for thousands of years B.C. clearly acknowledges good and evil (See Genesis 2). Genesis was written by Moses based on stories passed father-to-son, meaning that the story of the fall of man has very early roots. (I'm sorry, but I don't know how to sign my comment.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.47.144.120 (talk) 01:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

What happened to Evil?

This article is significantly imbalanced towards the "good" side of the issue. It does not include any significant discussion of the concept of "evil" aside from an inadequate and superficial discussion in the introduction. Large portions of this article (such as the sections "Virtue theories," "Agent-external theories," and "Objective theories of wellbeing") discuss "good" in a matter irrelevant to the discussion of "evil" as presented in the introduction -- two thirds of the article discusses Welfarist theories and variations, which have no concept of evil that the article mentions.-24.27.61.4 17:41, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, evil is not included. I think the evil article should be merged with this article. Though this article could also possibly be named Good and bad (already redirects) and somehow linked to Virtue and vice/Virtues and vices, Light and dark (etc.?).--Brz7 14:30, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Merging evil seems a bad idea - the resulting page would be unwieldy and 'evil' deserves its own page. Anarchia 20:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi! Well, then Good also deserves an own page (which would contain almost all of the content of this article). More specifically both good and evil could redirect to good and evil with on top of the page links to Good (disambiguation) and Evil (disambiguation). Best regards, --Brz7 21:27, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

There is a serious problem with the title of this page, a problem that is reflected in the introductory paragraphs. The term 'good' refers to values not actions. The term 'evil' tends to be used to refer to actions rather than values. Much of the material in the article fluctuates between being a discussion of value and ethics. There is obviously some relationshoip between value theory and ethics, but even this is not presented well in this article. How would people feel about moving the article to 'Good and bad'? Anarchia 20:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd say that Good needs its own article. I heartily support a page move to Good. Wrad 18:20, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it best to have the two extreme value categories in the same article. Anarchia 04:27, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Right now, though, this article is almost completely about good. I still think we should change the title and create a new article that addresses them both. I guess you could call it a split. It's just silly to have an article about evil, but no article about good. Wrad 04:52, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I know I am being a philosopher here, and this may mean it is most sensible to ignore me, but 'good' and 'evil' are about different things!!!! A situation can be good or bad, even if noone does anything. For something to be evil, it has to have been done by someone. An eruption that kills hundreds is 'bad', it is not 'evil'. Someone who gives me a bunch of flowers has done something 'right'. That right action might bring about a 'good' state of affairs (me being happy (always a very good thing!)), but, it is not the action that is 'good'. 'Good' and 'bad' refer to values. 'Right' and 'wrong' refer to actions. 'Evil' is kind of like 'right' and 'wrong'. The problem with paying any attention at all to this is that people seem to use these words almost interchangably in life! Anarchia 05:10, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so we need to do some serious reorganizing. What do you propose? I think the problem is much bigger than just article title-ing myself. Wrad 05:18, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to second the notion that this article should only be titled "Good" and should only concern philosophical concepts of the "Good." Calling it "good and evil" implies that the two concepts have a close relationship, or that they depend on one another, when this is not necessarily true for most philosophers. There is already a good article about "Evil," so why can't we make this one simply "Good"? I think most any scholar looking at it as it is would shake his/her head. I'd be willing to work on it, but I don't want to step past my limits since I have little experience as an editor.Aesacus (talk) 22:32, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

References

Several whole paragraphs on this page are not referenced and it seems alot of this work is largely baseed on the author's on research that has not been verified Darklionface 13:17, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I move that paragraphs without references be deleted.Darklionface 04:50, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I got here through the "random article" link. Have briefly read through the article. There are sources listed at the end, however this is insufficient. Each statement in the text must be directly sourced to one (or more) of those listed at the end of the page. There is no need to delete the unref'd paragraphs, however perhaps the original author would like to fix these problems. For now I have tagged with unref'd and cleanup. Nouse4aname 09:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

High level tidy up

At the current revision this article needs work. However, that is not my concern.

What can't be seen on this page is the namespace and redirect issues. We have material at Evil and material here (that appears to have been at good, but was probably moved to this namespace).

As mentioned above, I think Good and Evil are ideas that are studied in and of themselves, obviously in philosophical ethics. Under the topic Good, one would not be surprised to read about Welfare. Under the topic Evil, one would not be surprised to read about Criminal law. Though Welfare and Criminal law would not suit themselves to the complementary articles.

Naturally, both a Good article and the Evil article would refer to one another somewhat. However, detailed consideration of the relationship between good and evil might actually be better at a page with the current title, and provide a sub-topic of Ethics.

I propose someone (or ones) with time and motivation create a Good article regarding the pursuit of virtue, value systems and so on, while transforming this page to refer specifically to discussion of the relationship between Good and Evil. Alastair Haines (talk) 15:24, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

One good and several evils

Does it make sense to say that good and evil form a dualistic spectrum, if there is typically one course of action, one state of the world considered good and very many different kinds of things considered evil? Wouldn't it be more exact to say that good is the preferred course of action (for a good reason) and the evils something that ought to be avoided (for a good reson). InsectIntelligence (talk) 10:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Altruism

I am just curious as to why there is no mention of altruism as one of the characteristics of good. 71.123.102.144 (talk) 21:45, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Zoroastrianism

As I understand it, good/evil as a dualistic relationship originated in Zoroastrianism a good 5 centuries before it shows up in Western philosophy. Maybe someone who knows about Zoroastrianism should add that in the origins section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.173.90.73 (talk) 23:58, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Research issues

There is numerous issues with this article. I attempted to add sources however much of the article seems to contain statements concluded from a list of sources but without any specific source for the statement. Each statement has to have a source. This article needs a major rewrite.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Empireheart (talk • contribs) 13:30, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Lead image

I'm wondering how useful the lead image is as an illustration of "good," given that there's a distinction between good and innocence (the same image is, more appropriately, the lead in that article). May I suggest George Frederic Watts's good samaritan, or Rembrandt's? Chick Bowen 01:53, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Note that the lead image has been changed a couple of times since I wrote this, so my comment no longer applies. Chick Bowen 03:19, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Rename

This article should be renamed to Goodness, because there's already article about Evil.--Mladifilozof (talk) 19:10, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Thomas Hobbes' definition

Does anyone else think that the definition of good and evil given in Leviathan deserves a spot on this page? From Leviathan (book)#Part I: Of Man:

"But whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good; and the object of his hate and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable. For these words of good, evil, and contemptible are ever used with relation to the person that useth them: there being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common rule of good and evil to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kostmo (talk • contribs) 06:57, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes. The article should give an overview of the historical evolution of the term in the West, as well as in other cultures. At present, more recent philosophical views of lesser importance are overemphasised in the article. It would be interesting to compare Hobbes' use of "appetite" here with that of Aristotle, or at least present a brief link between the two, if that can be done without trespassing into original research. Narssarssuaq (talk) 12:28, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

AfD: Manichaean paranoia

Please partake in the discussion whether Manichaean paranoia should be deleted or not on this page (WP:AfD/Manichaean paranoia (2nd nomination)! ... said: Rursus (bork²) 13:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Automate archiving?

Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MiszaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 30 days and keep ten threads.--Oneiros (talk) 14:26, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done--Oneiros (talk) 22:30, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

On the Genealogy of morals

Why isn't Fredrick Nietzsche work not mentioned here? His book was one third dealing with the good/evil problem and one of his most influential works. It at-least deserves a paragraph —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.196.212.89 (talk) 21:38, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

The Good/Evil Paradox

On the one hand there is the ancient belief that...

• Good will always ultimately triumph over evil,

And on the other hand is the apparent fact that...

• Evil has the power to do both evil actions and good actions.

So if one is "evil" and can do as one pleases, while one who is "good" is limited to doing only good actions, doesn't this mean that evil is, by definition, more powerful than good? How can good ever triumph over evil if evil is more powerful than good?

• And shouldn't this "power paradox" be included in the article on "Good and Evil"?  ^{.`</sup>^) Paine<sup>diss`cuss} (^^`.  05:35, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

How would one characterize the conflict between the lion and the lamb? It's good for the lion to devour the lamb... yet evil at the same time.Thus Spake Good (talk) 11:12, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

"It is often claimed that aboriginal peoples never lost this sort of view - anthropological linguistics studies links between their languages and the ecosystems in which they lived and which gave rise to their knowledge distinctions. Very often, environmental cognition and moral cognition were not distinguished in these languages - offenses to nature were like those to other people, and Animism reinforced this by giving nature "personality" via myth. Anthropological theories of value explore these questions."

Might it not be interesting to know who makes these claims? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.173.148.158 (talk) 17:45, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Origing of Good and evil.

Why is Zoroastriansm not mentioned at all? The 400 bc date given in this article is beaten by the concept of good and evil in Zoroastrianism where, good ( Ahura Mazda) fights evil (Ahriman) and good eventually prevails. This article needs a lot of work done. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheTruthA (talk • contribs) 15:12, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Expert needed

This article needs the attention of an expert in the field. Narssarssuaq (talk) 05:53, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

DELETED: Anti-goodness theories

Choice of lesser goods theories

Sometimes more thorough attempts will also be made to describe the origin of evil and how it might tend to come into existence as well. Those attempts will sometimes fall under the category of describing as false various forms of goodness. Among some schools of thought, the idea is put forth that all evil comes from the excessive pursuit of goods of lesser value, at the expense of goods of greater value. For instance, greed derives from the pursuit of gain for one's self, generally a good thing, at the expense of others, generally a bad thing. Overeating may result from the exchange of momentary pleasure derived from the eating of food, for the greater good of long-term health. In psychology similar processes might occur in the formation of various types of addictions. No particular thing is thus considered to be intrinsically bad automatically, but rather evil will come from the pursuit of various goods in excess, to the expense or the neglect of other more important ones. Narssarssuaq (talk) 12:30, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Does this article need a severe haircut?Timpo (talk) 15:56, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Like Topsy, this article just grows and grows - Time for the shears perhaps? Much of it seems to be uncited, unverifiable (at least by me) and IMHO, claptrap.This should be about the distinction between positive and negative forces since there is already a clutch of better articles about the forces themselves, such as

• Ethics
• Morality
• Form of the Good, (Plato)
• Evil
• Devil
• Non-physical entity
• Graded absolutism
• Moral absolutism
• Moral universalism
• Moral dilemma
• Moral realism

Any comments - add below this with indents ('edit this section and start line with a colon: I think, although there may perhaps be a more elegant way?) Timpo (talk) 15:56, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

I think part of the problem is a lack of a consensus on the definition of Good and Evil to begin with: You refer to them as 'forces', which would then indeed have already enough said about them individually in separate articles, and then the primary focus should of course be their relationship. Opposing? Benignly interacting? Chaotically interacting, etc. But the article starts with a presumably horizontal model: EVIL<---->GOOD, and defines both somewhat vaguely as both the direction and the location on the linear model. If that is the true definition, then there need be no more Relationship between Good and Evil than there is between Hot and Cold, which are but two different names for the same object; but labeled according to their place on a scale. The rest of the article can then be only about their historical interpretations and observations, as we should expect to see in an article entitled Hot and Cold. Then the whole article could be trimmed and added to the articles about the 'states' of being themselves. Furthermore, the definition could be decidedly Absolute, which would require a longer, more philosophical article whose only references could be historical philosophers and the bias be necessarily that of one particular philosophy. The alternative would be no philosophy at all, and would hardly be an article on Good and Evil as much as Good and Evil Not Actually Being Talked About But Getting Very Close to the Topic While Skirting Anything Anyone Actually Believes. 89.211.104.73 (talk) .C 8:36 AM Sunday, February 24, 2013 (UTC)

Absolute Good vs. Variant Evil

In the first paragraph of the article, Good and Evil are defined as a philosophical imaginary location or direction on a linear spectrum of morality. This, as I shall attempt to prove hereafter, is both an inadequate definition and a fallacious one.

In the article entitled 'Evil', evil is defined as Profound Immorality; an extreme lack of adherence to a moral or ethical code. This second definition would suggest the spectrum is vertical, like temperature or degree of light, a measure not of simple direction or location, but a theoretical value on an indifferent scale; suggesting evil is the absence of or deviation from Good. Good being necessarily both proper and infinite in its theoretical value but not in actual testable value, again a parallel to heat(I have not proved this yet; see Plato's Form of the Good, as well as second paragraph for evidence). Any measure of evil, then, would and must be deviant, changing, and imprecise in its character, being anything that is not Good, while Evil itself in Absolute form could be correctly defined as a direction on a vertical linear scale; the direction which is not Good. But Good may not be described as a direction on the vertical scale or as any value measurable on such a scale. It must be defined only as Absolute, just as Truth is absolute. Either you are Right, and have One Conclusion, that will be congruous to All Right conclusions of the same matter and scale, or you are Wrong, and may have any number of the infinite possible mistakes, as anything that is not the right answer is wrong, and though some conclusions seem to be 'more wrong' than others, all those which are Not Actually Completely True. Anything that is not Good is evil.

Whether or not the standard of Good is Fixed Eternally is a subject for another debate, but it is logically necessary that it be 'fixed' in a specific iota of hypothetically motionless time(or no-time), according to the definition of time(extremely simplified, if anything is happening, time is passing). Therefore, in a state of no-time the nature of good is fixed and necessarily(whether temporarily or no)Absolute. Even if the nature of Good is determined by social mores it must be absolute in any given time frame.

But Good, like Truth, is not, and must not be variant. If the concept of Good were Really and Actually to Change, according to the mores of Society or any other temporal standard, the problem this author has in conflict with the definition of Good is one of pure semantics. It comes to this: If one talks of ethics, or any moral philosophy, in reference to the concept of Good one must either be talking of that which is Ultimately desirable, efficient, superior, excellent, correct, true, et cetera, or talking of another concept. If the latter is the case and one takes the term 'good' and applies it variably, then one must come up with a new term for the Ultimately Ethically Proper, or be hopelessly lost in describing It.

Thus, in the definition of Good and Evil, Good must needs be defined as an Absolute, while Evil must needs be defined as variant. Such that a person may be 'slightly evil' or 'very evil' according to their few or many incongruities with the Absolute Standard of Good, Whatever that may Actually be, but a person cannot be 'slightly good' or 'very good' insomuch as they cannot conform any More to a fixed standard.

The nomenclature, then should be characterized as follows, according to syntactical norms. Good, when talking of Good vs Evil, must be at all times capitalized, to oppose from the layman's term 'good' which could be used to describe a 'good meal' or 'good time at the mall'. Whereas evil should at most times be lowercase, as it denotes usually a variant, inexact value; as does the lowercase good. Evil then, with a capital 'E' should only be used when referring to the Philosophical Direction on a moral or ethical scale. Exempli Gratia: Person A has become more Evil everyday. vs. Person A is evil. This form of distinction shall be used hereafter.

Perhaps it has been proven so far the Necessity of the Existence of Infinite Good. This author has defined Infinite Good, as it relates to its necessary Existence and the philosophy of Ethics. This author has not defined Infinite Good as it defines the Natural World.

Except in religious philosophies of Dualism, where Evil and Good are seen to be Equal and Opposite forces, the concept of Evil should not be a part of the natural world, whereas the concept of Good drives its existence. However, instances of evil should persist prolifically in the natural world, as the natural world continues to either strive for or fall from but regardless not meet the Standard of Good. Herein lies the empirically testable part of my hypothesis: If this hypothesis of Infinite Good and finite evil is correct, we should expect to see in nature an abundance of flaws, deficiencies, inefficiencies where nature does not meet the Standard of Good. The reader may argue that this is in of itself circular; if we see a bad thing we label it bad; if we see a good thing we label it good; if we see evil we label it evil: an awful tautology that has only one solution: The clear and Separate definition of Infinite Good, as perceived by an Infinite Being.

Logically, a being capable of holding in its mind a clear definition of Infinite Good as it defines all of finite matter and time, must be Infinite. This arrives the author at an unexpected conclusion. Either Infinite Good exists, as proven by earlier paragraphs, and therefore an Infinite Being to define it, and hold the form of its standard, or Infinite Good is an illusion, a mirage in a water-less desert, and so therefore is the concept of all things Good a mirage. Either Truth exists or it doesn't. Either these words are the incoherent ramblings of a piece of sentient matter, or they are the incoherent ramblings of a piece of sentient matter that matters.

It is interesting to note that as my hypothesis suggests Reality, wikipedia has so applied it. Evil, being measurable on a scale, and prolifically present and variant, contains an article of the same description.

The article for 'Good' has disappeared altogether, and the link redirects to 'Value Theory', which was initially the investigation of the natural laws of Good and Evil, also known as ethics, which has since evolved to other more empirical pursuits. I also suggest in this forum that the link for 'good' be redirected to Form of the Good, an article on Plato's theory.

89.211.104.73 (talk) .C 8:36 AM Sunday, February 24, 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.211.104.73 (talk) 07:53, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Freud's contribution

There should be a major section on Freud's contribution to the idea of the superego (force of destruction) and id (force of renewal and life). It is the closest thing we have of scientific confirmation of the ancient religious doctrines of the struggle between good and evil.67.168.58.103 (talk) 16:51, 4 September 2014 (UTC)