What Would You Make of This?

[Eris]

Oh, was Martian equating "good" with "moral?" Hm. In that case, I responded off topic, as I don't equate the two. Yes, eating a sandwich is unrelated to morality.

I think the reason we have universally agreed that it's "good" to help others and "bad" to harm them is because our universal goal is to survive on the same planet together. The conclusion thus becomes that moral behavior is "good." But I wasn't talking about the conclusion; I was talking about the logical process which leads to that conclusion, and what we really mean when we say that something is "good." It's apparent to me that relating that word to intentions is insufficient when you break it down, and leads to an incomplete conclusion.

[SteveS]

Hey laetus, I just wanted to pull out a few thoughts:

Doing good is that which helps others, doing bad is what hurts others

I'm not sure I agree with this completely.  I'd rather say that doing good is not infringing upon the rights of others, doing bad is infringing upon the rights of others.

Whether these actions lead to the benefit or detriment of others in other ways is not necessarily a moral concern, I think.

ethics is about how we interact with others in a society

I agree with this.  How we interact is not necessarily why we interact (following commonly agreed rules granting each other rights & responsibilities, rather than working for each other's benefit or detriment).

Put all this together, and I think the below is a sort of blended concept:

Then one ought to want to perform good, or at least neutral, actions because how you get along with others has a strong impact on your survival and quality of life.

I see sort of two pieces here: if we all agree to interact ethically, I think this does lead to a better quality of life.

If we take actions to benefit each other, this may indeed also function the same way --- we may be stronger working for each other than apart.  But in this case, I'd say that choosing to work for each other's benefit is more "wise" than "moral" or "ethical".

Suppose two people are stranded on an island and they need to find a way to open coconuts to survive.  They don't interfere with each other, but neither do they cooperate.  They both perish having completed, individually, the two different halves of a technique to open the coconuts.  Had they worked together, they would have both survived.  I would judge their actions more as "stupid" than "unethical".

[Martian]

Firstly, I would like to point out how over used the word 'good' is. Take a look at all the variety of definitions there are and the different contexts it can be used in. (definitions of 'good') I merely presented my thoughts on what the definitions should be. Though, I must admit that I'm still learning about ethics and have not said my final word.

I don't believe it's the atheist way to try to define something so abstract into a solid form.

I'm not sure what 'solid form' means. I believe a definition that goes along the lines that I have provided is still an abstraction because I didn't say any specific action was right or wrong. Rather, I was trying to get a meaningful definition out of the words in the way they are most commonly used in this context.

It's apparent to me that relating that word to intentions is insufficient when you break it down, and leads to an incomplete conclusion.

In most cases, one would consider an evil person someone who wants to harm people and a good person as someone who wants to help people. Note, this is within the context of a society. A man who never encounters another person cannot be good or evil because he has no one to want to harm or help.

Generally, we can only tell if a person is evil or good by the nature of the actions they take. In a crime where one was quick to harm others, we would consider that person evil. It's sort of a way to describe the danger level a person is at. 'Good' is merely something nice that is done for other people, though totally unnecessary. I didn't intend it to mean that helping people was compulsory. It's just nice.

I suppose you could come up with an argument for why one should not be evil. I would have to think more about this.

[Loffler]

These "professor versus student" stories are in dense circulation among Christians. They appeal to their desire to be the underdog, as well as their disdain for higher education. Few fantasies bring a Christian more pleasure than the revenge fantasy of outsmarting an academic, an experience which routinely eludes them in real life.