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?
And this is possible — HOW??? If standards are narrowly defined according to personal interests, then what is there to agree about?
You speak as if you were some kind of "law giver," kosta — evidently you aver statements as if they were already the laws of the universe, without putting up one single shred of evidence to back them.
Case in point: you wrote —
Might is right in reality. We just dress it up in fancy terms to make it look benevolent.Shades of Callicles here! He, the "advocate" of the "might = right" school of thought, confronting Socrates, who will have none of it....
Near the end of Gorgias, that surly cur Callicles threatens Socrates' life. And evidently makes good on it; as we find out in the Apologia.... Evidently the matter in contention is not some idle divertissement, but literally a matter of life and death.... Then and now.
Your answers to my questions so far are neither direct nor complete. It's not a matter of my personal taste; it's a matter of evidence, of logic, of reason.
I don't want your "opinion," Kosta. Doxa is not Logos.
You wrote:
And what standard are you talkling about? Where is that standard except in human heads?If the standard is "in human heads" at all, it is because it first exists in natural reality. If it weren't there already, "human heads" couldn't discover it.