More on Good and Evil.
I had originally planned to expand my rant on good and evil from a few days ago to cover some more things that I've been thinking about. Of course, a couple of people have responded to the original rant, so now I have to include my reactions to those responses here as well. So this will be a little different than I had originally intended.
For starters, inkbrush76 states that he does not believe in objective morality. The thing is, though, that I never said that Good and Evil were objective. They are very subjective things. In fact, I said as much in the original rant, when I stated "there are a lot of grey areas involved in this issue." Aside from the question of "what sort of cost/benefit ratio allows a person to act in his own interest instead of someone else's?"
If we return to the Star Trek example, we see a pretty clear cut case of this: Spock sacrifices his own life to save the lives of the other 400 people on the ship. One life vs. four hundred lives: no contest. He does the good thing. Kirk, on the other hand, is being kind of selfish, by not sacrificing his own life for those of his men (not saying that he's necessarily evil, as he's hoping to save all those lives without sacrificing anybody -- a viewpoint that is not only common but expected in our culture, so it's not surprising that it doesn't occur to him that by ordering one man to his death [or sacrificing his own life], he can save the other 399. In contrast, Kahn is actively seeking the death of at least one other man for his own sense of pride. This truly IS evil).
But other examples are not so easy to determine. What about the man who's dying of a tumor that he could have removed if he had the money for the surgery? But he's a poor man, with no insurance, can't afford the operation on his own, has no relatives or friends with that kind of money, no bank will loan him the cash, welfare doesn't cover it... so on and so on. The man simply does not have the ability to acquire the surgery. Is the cost to himself (his life) greater than the right of others to keep their money? Is he morally justified in stealing the cash? Can he steal the money from a bank, where it's insured, to save his own life if that's his only option? One life versus a sizeable sum of money. How do you know which is greater? Does the need of the one outweigh the need of the other? What about if it's not for a surgery, but because the guy owes thousands of dollars to an illegal gambling ring? He has less to fall back on in this case, because the government doesn't see him as having a legitimate need. And how does the fact that it could be interpreted as evil that he got himself into such an immoral debt in the first place affect things?
And more to the point, what about this "Golden Rule" that people always talk about? "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." That doesn't always work out either. I mean, sure, basic things such as "I don't steal from other people because I don't want other people to steal from me." But what about things like, "I don't want people I don't know to talk to me?" Which, by the way, is very much my opinion on matters. I am so anti-social that if I don't already know you, I DON'T WANT TO. If I'm in an elevator with someone, it makes me extremely uncomfortable when that person tries to engage me in chit-chat. I don't know you, I don't WANT to know you, so leave me alone. But if we all followed that, society would fall apart. We can't expect everyone to be able to follow this idea equally, because everyone is different.
This is perhaps not the best example, but it seems more realistic than "I don't mind people stealing from me, so it's ok for me to steal from others" (don't laugh; that's actually a fairly accurate description of the Rom culture).
Anyway, my point is, this is not intended as an objective morality, but as a subjective one.
Then, sirmacncheese talks about how laws are the paramaters that maintain balance within a tribe. In my opinion, laws are there to allow a uniform way of dealing with what is generally considered to be evil. Stealing, we've determined, is pretty much an evil thing, unless there are mitigating circumstances, which is rare enough to not worry about. Thus, we have laws against stealing, which not only prohibit it, but provide specific forms of punishment allowed for those who violate the law.
Government cannot work without these laws. If the courts were able to decide on their own what was a crime and what the punishment would be, then people would be unfairly prosecuted on a daily basis. Not only would some people get away with murder (no pun intended), but others would be given an unjustly heavy sentence for a minor infraction. This is the purpose of laws.
We must remember two things in regards to the law, however. The first is that it is made by men, who are weak, corrupt, and selfish beings. It is possible to create laws that are unfair. For example, I believe that intellectual property laws, as they currently exist in this country, are wrong. Thomas Jefferson, who helped to write the original copyright laws, stated that their intent is to encourage the spread of ideas. To this extent, these laws forbid copying (in the sense of a person not getting paid for his ideas) for a time, then moving the ideas (ideas, in this sense, refers to written works such as drawings, paintings, books or newspaper articles, though it applies just as well to modern technology such as photographs and recordings of music) into the public domain so that everyone can benefit from the ideas. I think that this is a good setup, so that the person who creates the idea gets some compensation, but the idea is not controlled as being owned (how can you own an idea anyway?). This benefits society, and the greater good (in the sense of more people). However, over the years, the laws have been changed so that it takes longer for the idea to move into the public domain, and the "owner" of the idea can apply for extensions so often and so easily that, effectively speaking, ideas no longer move into the public domain at all. This does not benefit society; rather it benefits companies. The needs of the few are being given precedence over the needs of the many.
My point here is that the laws have been written by men to benefit those men. Our own folly has crept through into the legal system itself.
The second thing that we must remember is that laws are not necessarily the best judge of good or evil. I will ignore for now the obvious example of anti-Jewish laws passed in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s (which, by the way, I've tried to find a list of such laws, but have been unable to do so; if anyone knows where I may find such a list, I'd greatly appreciate it), and instead point out a period in our OWN history where we have a set of evil laws: they were called the Jim Crow laws, and they were specifically designed to oppress a group of people. For a time less than a century ago, there were laws that stated that blacks were prohibited from going to the good schools, where the whites attended, or that they were able to sit at the good seats in buses or restaurants, and so on. These laws were passed by the government and enforced by the police!
Examples such as this are what lead me to state that, while yes, many laws are just and necessary, it is important to remember that what is lawful is NOT the same as what is good, and what is unlawful is NOT the same as what is evil. We should know the laws and follow them, UNLESS we determine the laws to be unjust, in which case, it is our DUTY to break those laws, and if possible, change them. This subtle distinction, that sometimes it is necessary to violate the law because the law is unjust, is lost on most people.
I read an interesting allegory: Most of us know the story of Jesus saying "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." I read two other versions of this story. Same scenario: a crowd accuses a woman of adultery, and is preparing to stone her to death, when a man seen as a moral leader stops them and says, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." In one version, the man leans over to the woman he has saved and says, "Tell the magistrate who saved his mistress, and he will know that I am his faithful servant." In the second version, the man picks up a stone and smashes the woman's head in himself, then says, "But if we only allow perfect people to enforce the laws, then the laws will become meaningless, and our society would collapse."
The point of this allegory (which, by the way, I found in Orson Scott Card's book Speaker for the Dead) is as such:
The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis, and when they veer too far, they die. Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. That is to say, the law is important and necessary, but we must never forget that the law cannot be the goal in itself: it must serve as a means unto the end of Good, but is not the definition of good in itself.
And whether you believe in Good or Evil, you must admit that they still exist. Someone stealing is committing evil, someone who does not steal is considered good. At least in that area. The point of my last rant was to change the way we think about the words good and evil, which is to say that normally, they are seen as purview of religion, but I do not think that they should be. I think that without any religious influence at all, man can still do good and evil, still be good and evil, and we need to recognise it as such. We have come up with different names for good and evil as determined without the influence of a religion, calling them things like "ethical" and "unethical," but in the end, they are still the same thing.
That was my point. And hopefully, I'll get to expand upon that more at a later date.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
For starters, inkbrush76 states that he does not believe in objective morality. The thing is, though, that I never said that Good and Evil were objective. They are very subjective things. In fact, I said as much in the original rant, when I stated "there are a lot of grey areas involved in this issue." Aside from the question of "what sort of cost/benefit ratio allows a person to act in his own interest instead of someone else's?"
If we return to the Star Trek example, we see a pretty clear cut case of this: Spock sacrifices his own life to save the lives of the other 400 people on the ship. One life vs. four hundred lives: no contest. He does the good thing. Kirk, on the other hand, is being kind of selfish, by not sacrificing his own life for those of his men (not saying that he's necessarily evil, as he's hoping to save all those lives without sacrificing anybody -- a viewpoint that is not only common but expected in our culture, so it's not surprising that it doesn't occur to him that by ordering one man to his death [or sacrificing his own life], he can save the other 399. In contrast, Kahn is actively seeking the death of at least one other man for his own sense of pride. This truly IS evil).
But other examples are not so easy to determine. What about the man who's dying of a tumor that he could have removed if he had the money for the surgery? But he's a poor man, with no insurance, can't afford the operation on his own, has no relatives or friends with that kind of money, no bank will loan him the cash, welfare doesn't cover it... so on and so on. The man simply does not have the ability to acquire the surgery. Is the cost to himself (his life) greater than the right of others to keep their money? Is he morally justified in stealing the cash? Can he steal the money from a bank, where it's insured, to save his own life if that's his only option? One life versus a sizeable sum of money. How do you know which is greater? Does the need of the one outweigh the need of the other? What about if it's not for a surgery, but because the guy owes thousands of dollars to an illegal gambling ring? He has less to fall back on in this case, because the government doesn't see him as having a legitimate need. And how does the fact that it could be interpreted as evil that he got himself into such an immoral debt in the first place affect things?
And more to the point, what about this "Golden Rule" that people always talk about? "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." That doesn't always work out either. I mean, sure, basic things such as "I don't steal from other people because I don't want other people to steal from me." But what about things like, "I don't want people I don't know to talk to me?" Which, by the way, is very much my opinion on matters. I am so anti-social that if I don't already know you, I DON'T WANT TO. If I'm in an elevator with someone, it makes me extremely uncomfortable when that person tries to engage me in chit-chat. I don't know you, I don't WANT to know you, so leave me alone. But if we all followed that, society would fall apart. We can't expect everyone to be able to follow this idea equally, because everyone is different.
This is perhaps not the best example, but it seems more realistic than "I don't mind people stealing from me, so it's ok for me to steal from others" (don't laugh; that's actually a fairly accurate description of the Rom culture).
Anyway, my point is, this is not intended as an objective morality, but as a subjective one.
Then, sirmacncheese talks about how laws are the paramaters that maintain balance within a tribe. In my opinion, laws are there to allow a uniform way of dealing with what is generally considered to be evil. Stealing, we've determined, is pretty much an evil thing, unless there are mitigating circumstances, which is rare enough to not worry about. Thus, we have laws against stealing, which not only prohibit it, but provide specific forms of punishment allowed for those who violate the law.
Government cannot work without these laws. If the courts were able to decide on their own what was a crime and what the punishment would be, then people would be unfairly prosecuted on a daily basis. Not only would some people get away with murder (no pun intended), but others would be given an unjustly heavy sentence for a minor infraction. This is the purpose of laws.
We must remember two things in regards to the law, however. The first is that it is made by men, who are weak, corrupt, and selfish beings. It is possible to create laws that are unfair. For example, I believe that intellectual property laws, as they currently exist in this country, are wrong. Thomas Jefferson, who helped to write the original copyright laws, stated that their intent is to encourage the spread of ideas. To this extent, these laws forbid copying (in the sense of a person not getting paid for his ideas) for a time, then moving the ideas (ideas, in this sense, refers to written works such as drawings, paintings, books or newspaper articles, though it applies just as well to modern technology such as photographs and recordings of music) into the public domain so that everyone can benefit from the ideas. I think that this is a good setup, so that the person who creates the idea gets some compensation, but the idea is not controlled as being owned (how can you own an idea anyway?). This benefits society, and the greater good (in the sense of more people). However, over the years, the laws have been changed so that it takes longer for the idea to move into the public domain, and the "owner" of the idea can apply for extensions so often and so easily that, effectively speaking, ideas no longer move into the public domain at all. This does not benefit society; rather it benefits companies. The needs of the few are being given precedence over the needs of the many.
My point here is that the laws have been written by men to benefit those men. Our own folly has crept through into the legal system itself.
The second thing that we must remember is that laws are not necessarily the best judge of good or evil. I will ignore for now the obvious example of anti-Jewish laws passed in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s (which, by the way, I've tried to find a list of such laws, but have been unable to do so; if anyone knows where I may find such a list, I'd greatly appreciate it), and instead point out a period in our OWN history where we have a set of evil laws: they were called the Jim Crow laws, and they were specifically designed to oppress a group of people. For a time less than a century ago, there were laws that stated that blacks were prohibited from going to the good schools, where the whites attended, or that they were able to sit at the good seats in buses or restaurants, and so on. These laws were passed by the government and enforced by the police!
Examples such as this are what lead me to state that, while yes, many laws are just and necessary, it is important to remember that what is lawful is NOT the same as what is good, and what is unlawful is NOT the same as what is evil. We should know the laws and follow them, UNLESS we determine the laws to be unjust, in which case, it is our DUTY to break those laws, and if possible, change them. This subtle distinction, that sometimes it is necessary to violate the law because the law is unjust, is lost on most people.
I read an interesting allegory: Most of us know the story of Jesus saying "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." I read two other versions of this story. Same scenario: a crowd accuses a woman of adultery, and is preparing to stone her to death, when a man seen as a moral leader stops them and says, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." In one version, the man leans over to the woman he has saved and says, "Tell the magistrate who saved his mistress, and he will know that I am his faithful servant." In the second version, the man picks up a stone and smashes the woman's head in himself, then says, "But if we only allow perfect people to enforce the laws, then the laws will become meaningless, and our society would collapse."
The point of this allegory (which, by the way, I found in Orson Scott Card's book Speaker for the Dead) is as such:
The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis, and when they veer too far, they die. Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. That is to say, the law is important and necessary, but we must never forget that the law cannot be the goal in itself: it must serve as a means unto the end of Good, but is not the definition of good in itself.
And whether you believe in Good or Evil, you must admit that they still exist. Someone stealing is committing evil, someone who does not steal is considered good. At least in that area. The point of my last rant was to change the way we think about the words good and evil, which is to say that normally, they are seen as purview of religion, but I do not think that they should be. I think that without any religious influence at all, man can still do good and evil, still be good and evil, and we need to recognise it as such. We have come up with different names for good and evil as determined without the influence of a religion, calling them things like "ethical" and "unethical," but in the end, they are still the same thing.
That was my point. And hopefully, I'll get to expand upon that more at a later date.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.