how do you define good and bad

Good vs Bad, Good vs Evil, Ethical vs Unethical, there many ways to phrase it. There has been much talk recently in chat and a few posts in threads on the topic so I thought it might make a very good discussion thread.

It's a surprisingly complex topic with few agreeing on what exactly is good and what is bad. Also if someone does what is deemed bad, do you see them as a bad person?

I will give my views later, but they too are complex. I will say this much now...what is defined good and bad varies hugely over time and in different cultures. So what are your views?

My views on this are also very complex. I will do my best to put them into words accurately and I hope that it makes some kind of sense to others.

Our conscience is only a small part of what determines whether we perform actions that are seen as good or bad by others. One's culture, time, and past and current living environments all greatly influence someone's actions. Our physiological makeup also influences our actions. Depending on what all of these variables are, some "bad" actions may seem right somehow to a person with a good conscience. The same variables can also influence whether we see certain actions by others as "good" or "bad".

I don't really see a reason for waiting with your input on this, but i am curious.

To me i SEE there is no good or bad. Also it does not relate to time or place. That would be nothing more than the societal ethics. Or if you want, just the way of growing up. If you look at mankind as a child, it too needs to grow up. Is it wrong for a kid to swallow a fly? Is it wrong for a kid to kill an animal? The biggest issue with "good" and "bad" is that it depends on the intent.

If a kid gave someone a hug, do you think he/she did it, because he/she knew it was good? No, just because he/she felt like doing it. Similar to the "bad" things. "bad" is bad. We look down on those who do "bad" things. We try to show them the error in their ways. More so than we show the correctness in their good ways. So if we start this discussion, the thing that is most bad of all, is looking down upon the bad. In my own opinion of course and i will explain.

Doing "bad" things is a sure fire way to get attention. So anyone who feels or just doesn't get (enough) attention is almost always drawn to behaving badly. Being good does not get you this attention. Same as a cry for help, as society calls it. It's never done in a "good" way, but always done in a "bad" way.

To end my reply to this, i don't see how it can be complex. It's very simple.

Also, sometimes we view a situation as "bad" to us, because it hurts us in some way and makes us sad, but if we look back on it, we are so grateful for all the lessons we learned because of it that we wouldn't want to skip it even if we could.

Maybe our mind just can't really see what's "good" and "bad" in the long run. Sometimes we judge other people for doing bad things, while we might have done the same in their situation. It's all very subjective. Our society is filled with secret messages of hate and intolerance, maybe not as open as before, but it's still there. And then we are surprised when an individual rises to express those hateful tendencies, and we distance ourselves from that person, instead of wondering how tolerant and loving we are in our life.

I try to be more neutral, and ask myself what I can learn from a certain situation or interaction. I try not to judge everything as "good" or "bad". But I also want to embody love and light, and I don't think I should be "neutral" in the face of real evil and injustice.

So I understand why it is complex.

Another set of labels to define differences..and our own seeing and feeling....is always in that defining..

I don't believe in evil. It's like I'm blocked from it. I can't say a person is evil, so can I say there is "bad"? No. And then I can't say there is good. Well. I can say it's all good and ofcourse that is delusional, it's not all good. But we all have good in us and as long as we hide from it we not only enslave ourselves but also everyone around us. It's like with the global rich and elite. The reason they do all the bad things they do, is because they don't reflect on the moral implication of what they are doing. They assume that the ability to exploit or control is good in itself because the ability is there. The use justifies the means. But would they make the moral decision.. they would see. Like this rich guy in a movie I watched, he was assaulted by left-wing kids who vandalized his apartment, kidnapped actually, and started noticing he in his wealth had forgotten about people. Eventually he did have the kids thrown in jail, but the encounter made him get back in touch with the good sides in himself.

So it's like the saying "Evil is not the ones who committ evil, true evil is the ones that watch and do nothing" so we have a responsibility to care and love. But we can't love everyone. Gaah, so tricky! But I don't agree with
[quote=Tezorian]a kid hugs because he feels like doing it[/quote]
Really, I think just because he "feels like doing it" it does not mean he is not good.. good is not taken away because there is a reward.. good in itself is rewarding.. evil is trapping.. tears are freeing, so generally:

If we need to "justify" an action it is wrong
If the action is liberating and good, it does not need justification.. then it is good.

My views are similar to Anarkandi's.

Some thoughts; we learn, but we learn both from doing the right thing and making mistakes. If we do the wrong thing, we still may learn from it; it does not make it not a mistake.

Intent does matter; if the intent is destruction, hurt, or gaining at the expense of another, or not caring if an action harms another; to me, that is wrong. I find justification is most used in such situations to avoid feeling guilty.

To say there is no wrong is extreme; to have a rigid system of what is bad and what is good is also extreme. I am not in favor of an eye for an eye kind of approach; I see no need to punish as every act comes with a price and it is always paid; often in unexpected ways.

In the end, each situation and act is related to full context and is situational. It must be evaluated that way.

If intention is there in ways to only hurt or harm..it only shows the depth of anothers pain...if you ask the mugger why he beat the little old lady and stole her money, what pain he endured in his life..I wonder what he might say? We can view the situation at hand as holding intent that requires consequences because society deems it as wrong/evil.....or we can look deeper and help him see his own pain...that often he cannot see..or feel....both in that space..can be viewed compassionately....without labels..but sadly our own systems in society cannot view it this way nor are they always willing to work at that level.......and while the world is lived in duality, it remains this way...

Alethia wrote:If intention is there in ways to only hurt or harm..it only shows the depth of anothers pain...if you ask the mugger why he beat the little old lady and stole her money, what pain he endured in his life..I wonder what he might say? We can view the situation at hand as holding intent that requires consequences because society deems it as wrong/evil.....or we can look deeper and help him see his own pain...that often he cannot see..or feel....both in that space..can be viewed compassionately....without labels..but sadly our own systems in society cannot view it this way nor are they always willing to work at that level.......and while the world is lived in duality, it remains this way...

An act of wrongdoing does not define a person as bad. Indeed, looking at the underlying reasons why someone may do something and look at healing that is a wise approach that will yeild far greater benefits than simple punishment.

Yes, sadly our societies really are not ready to view it in this way as of yet.

But looking at the underlying cause of someone doing harm does not change the act itself. It is harmful, and some acts just shatter others. Things like rape, murder, abuse, genocide, scorched earth....where does one draw the line? I can't not label those as neutral and say there is no bad.

From a book I read in the '90's by Ron Smothermon -

'There is no good or bad, but there are always consequences.'

I agreed with this when I read it at an intuitive level which for me means it was just a feeling of certainty.

Now I agree with it at the intellectual level which means I can formulate arguments in debates about why good/bad are mental constructs, merely. As such they then serve other agenda, such as social control, which is more than just a mental construct.

In addition the intuitional level has cohered into thoughts from initial feelings. In short, this has/is occurring for me through reading Tom Campbell's 'My Big TOE'. This is because in his model, he unifies metaphysics with physics and philosophy. In order to accomplish that one has to 'bump up' a level of abstraction - and hope the understanding follows along ;-)

There is definitely good and bad. Defining good and bad will depend on your own moral code, but our Western society seems to have *mostly* agreed on those moral standards...the edges of the standards may be gray areas, but things like murder and rape are pretty obvious. Period. Personally I would define "bad" as someone with no conscience or remorse over their bad actions...

My version is good and evil and human constructions and there's an individual version and a group version to define it.

There are trends that people tend to agree on, but all the fine details that can vary from person to person or group to group do vary.

However, I believe both exist beyond just concepts shared by people.
There are good people, there are bad people and then there's lots of shades of gray. There can be "bad" in "going to mcdonalds is bad for you"
and then there's bad as in "wow that was pretty messed up thing that person just did."
I think "people I don't like and don't want to be around because they are jerks" gets confused with "bad=evil." To me, these are two different things.

There's no absolutes and no perfection involved, period.
I think most people are good in general, sometimes mislead or cruel but I'd describe them as good and just trying to live their lives. Good people can make horrible mistakes and let down others, be ignorant, say stuff they don't mean, whatever.
Good people may do bad things once in a while, and actions can be ambiguous sometimes according to perspective and context.
Context makes the difference when trying to find the person's motivation.
Ex: violence in self defense vs violence for the sake of hurting another person.

People are complicated, you have to try really damn hard to be counted as evil, (to me at least), but some manage it unfortunately.

There's the people who are malicious on purpose, know it, like it and still make the choice to do harm to other people.
I didn't used to believe in real evil. I thought it was an over simplification for sure, until I ran into a few people who proved me otherwise to me over the internet while moderating.
I can't say it was 100% their fault they ended up that way, but they chose it in the end and were a menace to others---and proud of it.

They wanted to be evil, did it on purpose, and succeeded enough to where they were a threat to the safety of other people. The most bizarre part was, others who were otherwise average users loved them for it and kept trying to make them out as some kind of hip rebel. I don't think any of the ones blowing smoke up their butts truly grasped the gravity of the situation or really knew the kind of stuff their "friends" were into.

They were someone's kids, must've had friends or neighbors and yet loved to do evil acts against other people. Not saying they didn't have good aspects somewhere in there, but it's something else altogether to want to hurt others maliciously, even strangers and then going through with it to later gloat about it.
I do reject the notion that someone can be born bad though, but the overall concept of evil and good are taught by groups of people if not society and culture, and thus it's a learned thing over years with decisions made.
I hope that none of you ever run into persons like that, because thankfully they seem to be rare unless you work in a place that deals with issues of human safety on a regular basis.

This post is too long so ethics will be in a later post maybe...

melodiccolor wrote:

Alethia wrote:If intention is there in ways to only hurt or harm..it only shows the depth of anothers pain...if you ask the mugger why he beat the little old lady and stole her money, what pain he endured in his life..I wonder what he might say? We can view the situation at hand as holding intent that requires consequences because society deems it as wrong/evil.....or we can look deeper and help him see his own pain...that often he cannot see..or feel....both in that space..can be viewed compassionately....without labels..but sadly our own systems in society cannot view it this way nor are they always willing to work at that level.......and while the world is lived in duality, it remains this way...

An act of wrongdoing does not define a person as bad. Indeed, looking at the underlying reasons why someone may do something and look at healing that is a wise approach that will yeild far greater benefits than simple punishment.

Yes, sadly our societies really are not ready to view it in this way as of yet.

But looking at the underlying cause of someone doing harm does not change the act itself. It is harmful, and some acts just shatter others. Things like rape, murder, abuse, genocide, scorched earth....where does one draw the line? I can't not label those as neutral and say there is no bad.

Yeah I get what Alethia means, that chances are the people who commit the acts are hurt themselves in someway but I have to go with Mel.
Even if I can see the point of view of some that go to the extreme with hurtful behavior, and even if they don't see their own selves the way I do, I'd say there are just some things that done deliberately and knowingly are just plain evil.
People who are in pain have lots and lots of other options to heal themselves than to intentionally harm others in unspeakable ways.

RBM wrote:From a book I read in the '90's by Ron Smothermon -

'There is no good or bad, but there are always consequences.'

I agreed with this when I read it at an intuitive level which for me means it was just a feeling of certainty.

Now I agree with it at the intellectual level which means I can formulate arguments in debates about why good/bad are mental constructs, merely. As such they then serve other agenda, such as social control, which is more than just a mental construct.

In addition the intuitional level has cohered into thoughts from initial feelings. In short, this has/is occurring for me through reading Tom Campbell's 'My Big TOE'. This is because in his model, he unifies metaphysics with physics and philosophy. In order to accomplish that one has to 'bump up' a level of abstraction - and hope the understanding follows along ;-)

I like what you have shared RBM..

As a deleted scene from the movie Dogma puts it: "Evil is an abstract . . . it's a human construct"

Hmmm...I have to say evil is real...I have known evil people, and usually they turned out to be sociopaths that ended up incarcerated for their behaviour.
Evil is willfully causing pain or hardship to others. That kid in school that tortured cats often moved on to hurting people-and eventually to jail-and I have seen this firsthand more than once, sadly.

Where there is evil, there is judgement.

If there is good and bad, there is right and wrong.
If there is right and wrong, there is acceptance and condemnation.

Good helps
Bad hurts

There are many examples in this thread, like many others on the topic of which I've read that commit a very common fallacy, to confuse an individual doing good/bad things with BEING that judgement state.

Mistaking the map for the territory

Mistaking the map for the territory is a little known but very important form of fallacy where someone may confuse the semantics of a term with what it represents. A similar term is "reification", where abstractions are taken to be a real thing.[1] Such a fallacy is due to the mistaken belief that a symbol or model is actually the same as the reality that it represents or that one's measurements are exactly the same as the thing that one measures. The name is a metaphorical representation of mistaking words and symbols for things that they could mean, rather than what they do mean or those things themselves. It is sometimes referred to as the Sanskrit word "maya", but Alfred Korzybski referred to it as "the illusion of mistaking the map for the territory" and declared the maxim "the map is not the territory"

This fallacy is naturally common as some/most of those in this Reality think it's an objective reality 'out there', but it's not 'out there' but 'in there' (your mind/consciousness) and that is known as a virtual reality.

The reason this fallacy is common is the Larger Consciousness System has evolved to perform in that manner in order to ensure those needing more spiritual growth will evolve into that additional growth through interaction with others in this VR.

Edit:

RBM wrote:From a book I read in the '90's by Ron Smothermon -

'There is no good or bad, but there are always consequences.'

I haven't found a direct quote but I think the actual writing used 'right/wrong'.

RBM wrote:There are many examples in this thread, like many others on the topic of which I've read that commit a very common fallacy, to confuse an individual doing good/bad things with BEING that judgement state.

Mistaking the map for the territory

Mistaking the map for the territory is a little known but very important form of fallacy where someone may confuse the semantics of a term with what it represents. A similar term is "reification", where abstractions are taken to be a real thing.[1] Such a fallacy is due to the mistaken belief that a symbol or model is actually the same as the reality that it represents or that one's measurements are exactly the same as the thing that one measures. The name is a metaphorical representation of mistaking words and symbols for things that they could mean, rather than what they do mean or those things themselves. It is sometimes referred to as the Sanskrit word "maya", but Alfred Korzybski referred to it as "the illusion of mistaking the map for the territory" and declared the maxim "the map is not the territory"

This fallacy is naturally common as some/most of those in this Reality think it's an objective reality 'out there', but it's not 'out there' but 'in there' (your mind/consciousness) and that is known as a virtual reality.

The reason this fallacy is common is the Larger Consciousness System has evolved to perform in that manner in order to ensure those needing more spiritual growth will evolve into that additional growth through interaction with others in this VR.

Edit:

RBM wrote:From a book I read in the '90's by Ron Smothermon -

'There is no good or bad, but there are always consequences.'

I haven't found a direct quote but I think the actual writing used 'right/wrong'.

I'm not sure many in this thread have made the mistake of confusing

an individual doing good/bad things with BEING that judgement state.

Some see if a person has a pattern of committing such acts as defining that person; I am not so sure that is always incorrect either. This is not to say that person can't change and no longer be that way for free will is always a part of the whole.

Yes there are always consequences to acts, but when those are paid predominately by those who were impacted rather than the one committing them, something is badly out of balance.


There are consequences for all we do, all we decide, and there are also benefits.

mtngrl123 wrote:Good helps
Bad hurts

If something hurts, it helps too. It makes you aware of something you weren't aware of or tried to ignore.
Good may not hurt, but it can help ignore the pain and as such prevent you from dealing with an issue.

Good = bad = is.

I used to know two different guys that were involved with a large motorcycle gang...one was an "enforcer" that had killed someone, gone to jail and done his time, and was now older, wiser and a pretty decent step-dad to his kids. He used to be bad, but he chose to become good. The other killed his mother with a hammer as a youth, carried a gun and transported drugs for a gang, was violent to his wife, and tried to choke me over a rumor that I *may* have said something about him. He was bad, and is bad as far as I am concerned. I don't think he has enough of a conscience to ever want to change.
There are bad people out there.

tezorian wrote:

If something hurts, it helps too. It makes you aware of something you weren't aware of or tried to ignore.
Good may not hurt, but it can help ignore the pain and as such prevent you from dealing with an issue.

Good = bad = is.

So, we should all be harming ourselves and others if things are too good for us or them?

To clarify,

MC wrote:There are consequences for all we do, all we decide, and there are also benefits.

A benefit is an advantaged consequence.

My use of consequence (non-qualified) was to indicate specific incorporation of both advantaged and disadvantaged benefits, in common.

Some see if a person has a pattern of committing such acts as defining that person; I am not so sure that is always incorrect either.

The fallacy is not contingent of numbers of times of use such as once, always or sometimes.

tezorian wrote:

mtngrl123 wrote:Good helps
Bad hurts

If something hurts, it helps too. It makes you aware of something you weren't aware of or tried to ignore.
Good may not hurt, but it can help ignore the pain and as such prevent you from dealing with an issue.

Good = bad = is.

I think of "hurts" as in your action is good if it helps another person, and it is bad if it hurts another person.

Still not that simple though, sometimes our actions (such as being gay) hurts others in itself. Because others have misconceptions and are ignorant. But you can still argue that your action mainly helps them, in the end it makes them become more open-minded even if you trigger some hurt. You can then deviate from two forms of hurt. Hurt which damages another person is bad, but since being gay isn't aimed at making someone become hurt, just being who you are, it shouldn't be acknowledged as a bad form of hurt.

anarkandi wrote:

tezorian wrote:

mtngrl123 wrote:Good helps
Bad hurts

If something hurts, it helps too. It makes you aware of something you weren't aware of or tried to ignore.
Good may not hurt, but it can help ignore the pain and as such prevent you from dealing with an issue.

Good = bad = is.

I think of "hurts" as in your action is good if it helps another person, and it is bad if it hurts another person.

Still not that simple though, sometimes our actions (such as being gay) hurts others in itself. Because others have misconceptions and are ignorant. But you can still argue that your action mainly helps them, in the end it makes them become more open-minded even if you trigger some hurt. You can then deviate from two forms of hurt. Hurt which damages another person is bad, but since being gay isn't aimed at making someone become hurt, just being who you are, it shouldn't be acknowledged as a bad form of hurt.

Not all hurt done intentionally is bad either; such as in self defense or having to fire a worker who just can't do the job; having to disiplin a child with a time out or defend a defenseless person or animal. It comes back to intent and if the harm done is greater than was needed. It goes back to context, looking at the whole picture.

anarkandi wrote:.
I think of "hurts" as in your action is good if it helps another person, and it is bad if it hurts another person.

Still not that simple though, sometimes our actions (such as being gay) hurts others in itself. Because others have misconceptions and are ignorant. But you can still argue that your action mainly helps them, in the end it makes them become more open-minded even if you trigger some hurt. You can then deviate from two forms of hurt. Hurt which damages another person is bad, but since being gay isn't aimed at making someone become hurt, just being who you are, it shouldn't be acknowledged as a bad form of hurt.

Unless you hurt someone physically, they choose to be hurt. I think in essence hurt is actually nothing more than refusing to see/feel/hear/accept the truth. The stronger the resistance, the bigger the hurt. Homophobia is a fear, which is also triggered by hurt. Which is the refusal or denial of the truth. It becomes even more clear if someone actually breaks out from the fear and comes out of the closet. He chose that hurt, refused to admit to himself that he was gay. (i use "he" because way more men are homophobic than women).

Hurting is not good nor bad. Especially if you see where it comes from. There is also a universal truth and this one differs from the individual truth. It all depends on one's perception and acceptance, especially the latter. Individual truths are like opinions, there are all true and valid, even when they do not match or can be the complete opposites. As such, there is no good or bad truth, choice, opinion. Everything just is... there... in the moment.

intent....if we are trying to help someone but they must feel some hurt before feeling good...then it is still good

if our intent is to hurt someone..no matter how you slice it is bad. Even if they do not get hurt...it is still bad, because you intended to do harm

The Nature of Man

All evils are caused by insufficient knowledge. So all good is due to sufficient knowledge. This is the principle of optimism. This means that for every evil act, had the evildoer known that his act was evil, and that there was a good option available to him, he would have done good instead of evil. To explain this principle, I'll consider a few hypothetical situations.

The first situation involves a parent giving her baby a bottle of formula. The baby takes a sip and puts the bottle down on his tray. Then the parent tried to coax the baby with cute feeding methods involving airplane sounds. The baby kept turning his head. Then the parent got anxious and tried to force it in his mouth thinking that she's doing it in the best interest of her baby. The baby responded by hitting the bottle, knocking it to the floor. Then the parent used more force and succeeded in getting her baby to drink the formula. Hours later, the baby died. The autopsy showed that the baby was poisoned. The police learned that the formula was tainted -- not just the formula in the baby's bottle, but also the whole batch of formula shipped by the manufacturer.

It’s important to consider who committed evil; the parent, the baby, or both. The baby knew that the formula tasted really bad, so each time that he rejected it, he was doing good. The parent knew that her baby rejected the formula, so each time that she tried to coerce her baby to drink it, she was committing evil.

Now consider a situation identical in all respects but one -- the formula wasn’t tainted, so the baby didn't die. Who acted immorally? Can the answer be different? Logically, the answer cannot be different. Morality does not depend on the actual results, but rather only the expected results. To illustrate this point, consider whether or not it is moral for a father of five young children to choose to spend all his wealth on lottery tickets. Does the moral choice depend on whether or not he wins? No, the moral choice depends on whether or not he’s expected to win.

As I’ve illustrated, every evil act is caused by insufficient knowledge. In the case of the parent who forced her baby to drink the bottle, had she known that coercing people is expected to lead to bad results, and that persuasion doesn't have that fault, she would not have resorted to coercion. In the case of the father who spent his entire life savings on lottery tickets, had he known that his choice is expected to lead to bad results, and that he had a better way to spend the wealth, he would not have committed evil.

At some point in the future, when every human being understands this principle of optimism well, and has sufficient knowledge, all evils will be eradicated.

(from http://ramirustom.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-nature-of-man.html)

rombomb wrote:The Nature of Man

You should read Steven Pinker, a psychologist that concludes that the reason we are evil is because we perceive the consequences of evil to be low, and if the consequences were higher, less evil would be committed.

There is such a thing as deliberate evil, and your point doesn't touch on it, you only touch on one form. And such a day won't come. We will never know "enough" - there will always be more down the rabbit hole. In fact, what we know can trap us - if we hold onto old beliefs and things we may hurt ourselves or restrain ourselves so much we loose out on good opportunities.