Wynn Blog Entry #2: Good and Bad, relative?

The relativity of "Good" and "Bad"

Good and bad are often considered as universal ideas, that there is a universal good and a universal bad. For instance, we know that killing is bad because we see and hear about news of killers being the target of society's scorn. We know that helping others is viewed as good as it is beneficial to both parties. This is further referenced in the typical stories of good versus evil where the hero seeks to rid the world of evil. To the hero, and those that the hero helps, their plight is considered “good” in the sense that it is beneficial to them. However stop and think about the position of the bad guy who believes the hero’s antics to be “bad”, due to their goal being unbeneficial to him, and the continuation of his scheme to be “good”. Now the concepts of good and bad have swapped places with the bad guy thinking the heroes’ acts are bad while his own machinations are good.

What is described as good and bad changes on the situation and there is often no action that is universally good or bad.

In this blog post I want people to think about how the concepts of good and bad can be defined, as well as contemplate the nature of these ideas.

Definitions

Good:

Google Definitions:

adjective

1.

to be desired or approved of.

"it's good that he's back to his old self"

noun

1.

that which is morally right; righteousness.

"a mysterious balance of good and evil"

           

2.

benefit or advantage to someone or something.

"he convinces his father to use his genius for the good of mankind"

Dictionary.com definition:

Adjective

1.

morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious: a good man.

2.

satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree: a good teacher; goodhealth.

3.

of high quality; excellent.

4.

right; proper; fit: It is good that you are here. His credentials are good.

5.

well-behaved: a good child.

noun

42.

profit or advantage; worth; benefit: What good will that do? We shall work for the common good.

43.

excellence or merit; kindness: to do good.

44.

moral righteousness; virtue: to be a power for good.

For the sake of simplicity, this post will take the meaning of bad to be the opposite of the definitions of good.

The first Google definition of good as a noun describes the word as being tied to morals. This is also backed up by Dictionary’s definitions.

The Universality of these Ideas.

Good and bad do not have universal definitions as they are not universal terms. What is meant by this? Something deemed "good" by a first party may be deemed as "bad" by a third party. In order for something to be universal, it needs to be true in every case. It appears, then, that subjectiveness and universality are mutually exclusive concepts.

Consider the situation of a hungry lion hunting a rabbit. What is right and what is wrong in this context?

One outcome has the lion catching the rabbit and fulfilling his desire for a meal. To the lion, this is good as it is filling a basic requirement for living. Although for the rabbit it is undeniably bad since he is now dead.  On the other hand, we have the resolution where the rabbit escapes with his life. This is good for the rabbit, as he lives on, but bad for the hungry lion, who has just spent his energy attempting to catch food and failing.

Without involving any repercussions from these examples, there is no universal good or bad here as what is good for one party is bad for the other.

It is also important to differentiate good and bad against right and wrong. To some sense of the terms, right and wrong can be considered more universal than good and bad since something that is right might have negative repercussions. In other words the “right” thing to do may be bad for someone else. It almost denotes a form of hierarchy in these concepts, with good and bad being lesser, or smaller, than the concepts of right and wrong.

A plane is about to crash into a town and you can stop it by shooting the plane before it hits the ground. What do you do?

Take the grim scenario of an out of control plane holding many passengers falling towards a town. If the plane is allowed to fall into the city then the passengers and staff of the plane will surely perish, along with some of the residents in the town. Assume the only possible way to prevent this is to shoot down the plane. It will save the inhabitants of the town on the ground but will definitely kill the people in the plane.

There are two philosophies people have undertaken about this:

One, you shoot down the plane to prevent as many casualties even though you know you will be causing the death of the people on the plane.

In this case the people on the plane are going to die either way (bad for the passengers and crew) but the townsfolk survive (good for the townsfolk)

Two, you let the plane fall and collapse into the town causing a very large number of casualties.

This time the people on the plane die (bad for them) and the people in the town suffer huge casualties (also bad for them)

These two choices are based off of human opinions of what is right and what is wrong. One who chooses the former option (Person A) would think:

“There are going to be deaths anyway so I’ll try to save as many people as I can.”

While someone who decides on the latter option (Person B) may think:

“I will never commit an act that will kill an innocent person. Shooting down that plane will mean that I killed those people on that plane myself.”

This example is given to show the differing opinions on right and wrong, and to also display a situation where good and bad is relative to your situation. The philosophies of Persons A and B are to show that right and wrong is also relative.

There are people who base their decisions on what is good or bad for their own mentality.

Author:
Clayton de Groot (Wynn)