kosta wrote [at #507]: "Without looking up a dictionary definition, I would say that to [me] it means something which is implicitly or explicitly beneficial. Evil, on the other hand, is that which is implicitly or explicitly injurious.
Beneficial/injurious to whom? And why? Who gets to decide what is beneficial or injurious if there is no common, agreed standard of judgment?
And if the standard of judgment is to be your "Good = beneficial and Evil = injurious," you instantly fall into a quagmire of moral relativism. For "one man's good is another man's evil." [E.g., the "might (physical power) = right (to oppress weaker others)" argument of Plato's Gorgias.] Who/what can adjudicate competing claims of this type? Do the weaker others have a right not to be tyrannized, or do they not?
You use the language of "implicitly or explicitly." But what can be implicit or explicit about something that hasn't even been identified yet?
I asked you the two questions, which IMHO you still have not answered. You speak of "beneficial" or "injurious" as if they were mere abstractions; that is, without evidencing any awareness of (1) to whom something is beneficial or injurious or (2) recognition that there is a standard by which to judge such matters that is completely independent of human preferences. If people were free to simply make up their own standards, on the fly as it were, that would be tantamount to having no standard at all.
Of course, although I'm almost totally sure you and I disagree about this, (2) recognizes the existence of universal moral law. The world is the way it is because it is structured by universal laws, physical and moral.
It seems you want to move beyond the moral law, to exist "beyond good and evil."
At least it seems you don't take the moral law very seriously....
Why is that?
People do. And they do have an agreed standard to which they agree, usually based on their narrowly defined interests.
And if the standard of judgment is to be your "Good = beneficial and Evil = injurious," you instantly fall into a quagmire of moral relativism.
I never said morality was anything but relative. By being a product of a man-made society it can only be relative. Without a society there is no morality.
[E.g., the "might (physical power) = right (to oppress weaker others)" argument of Plato's Gorgias.] Who/what can adjudicate competing claims of this type? Do the weaker others have a right not to be tyrannized, or do they not?
Might is right in reality. We just dress it up in fancy terms to make it look benevolent. You can bring Platon and his imaginary cosmic entities inot this, but I have news for you: they don't exist, except as ideas. There is no such "thing" as Morality floating up in the air.
You use the language of "implicitly or explicitly." But what can be implicit or explicit about something that hasn't even been identified yet?
What? You asked what "good" means to me? The answer is: that which to me appears or is perceived, implicitly or explicitly as benefinical. is that not a direct and complete answer to your question? Or is it just not to your taste?
I asked you the two questions, which IMHO you still have not answered.
Because I didn't answer them to your satisfaction? I know I answered them. You asked for my opinion. I gave it to you.
You speak of "beneficial" or "injurious" as if they were mere abstractions; that is, without evidencing any awareness of (1) to whom something is beneficial or injurious or (2) recognition that there is a standard by which to judge such matters that is completely independent of human preferences
Obviously to whom it applies is to the person answering the question. And what standard are you talkling about? Where is that standard except in human heads?
Well, they do make up their standards, and when a group of people agree that this is their standard as well, then it becomes the common standard.
At some point in our history, the common standard was that the country should be divided along racial lines, equal but separate. Then someone decided to change that standard, and convinced others that this was the way to go. That wasn't so long ago.
Likewise, when the Founders were writing their magnum opus, slavery was the standard, which they actually opposed but were unable to abolish because there was no sufficient political will for that to happen. Another example that the society dictates what is morally upright.
Of course, although I'm almost totally sure you and I disagree about this, (2)[?] recognizes the existence of universal moral law
Yeah, we do disagree on that because there is no evidence of any "universal moral law" in the world; nor is it possible to prove that it "universal moral law" actually "exists" as some imaginary hypostatic entity somewhere in the Platonic cosmos.
At least it seems you don't take the moral law very seriously....
I do. It effects how I live, and what others ca do to me. I am very much aware that the tolerance introduced by the Founders did not take into account that the American society of their day will be radically altered in not such a distant future.
But the changes introduced into the society since then have created a situation where we are facing the real possibility of some communities in the United States eventually introducing sharia law, or that Christians get arrested for advocating Christian books in public (happened already in Muslim-predominant city in the US).
Or that millions of illegal aliens get rewarded for their illegal activity with a citizenship of the country whose laws they loathe; or that any anchor baby dropped on US territory automatically get American citizenship, etc. Isn't this in line with the Founding Father's ideals? sadly I think it is.
All this is a product of the unrestrained rights and freedoms introduced by the Founding Fathers and their liberal philosophy that served their purpose at that time, except that now they seem to work exactly in the opposite direction they were intended to work back then.
I think the Founding Fathers, in their desire to rid the Colonies of what they perceived as morally wrong (tyranny of their supposedly God-appointed King) opened a flood gate that accomplished by a slow process two and a quarter centuries later what took the French Revolution only a few years to achieve.
But, ironically, today it is France that is forbidding burkas and deporting illegally settled Gypsies, while we can't even imagine banning burkas, nor actually enforcing the illegal immigration laws, but rather find it "morally upright" to offer amnesty to those who are illegally here and prefer those who hate America (whether they call themselves Christians, such as Rev. Jeremiah Right, or Muslims) to built their monument of victory on the 911 Ground Zero. Where does this self-destruct phenomenon come from and how does it differ from what the French anarchy achieved except that we do it by the "rule of law?" LOL!