A Universal Ethic

[Sasaki Kojiro]

1. Acts which are welcomed benefits are good.
2. Acts which coercively harm others are evil.
3. All other acts are neutral.


This seems true to me and I wonder if the backroom agrees. But I'm confused about some definition. Does this represent a moral absolute? Does it show a flaw in Moral and Cultural relativism?

[seireikhaan]

No.

Main problem is with number 2. Ex- While walking around campus, I hear whispers that a person is planning to set off a small bomb one of the dorm rooms, which would very likely kill and/or injure many people. Wishing to stop this, I went to the person's dorm, barged my way in, pulled a weapon of some kind on them, and injured them, before sending them to the police. I was coercive, and I harmed them. However, I disagree that I was being evil.

[Caius]

ITs not possible, as IF someone is planning to do something "evil", and I stop that person, I will be doing a good action, but bad at the same time, like khaan said.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

No.

Main problem is with number 2. Ex- While walking around campus, I hear whispers that a person is planning to set off a small bomb one of the dorm rooms, which would very likely kill and/or injure many people. Wishing to stop this, I went to the person's dorm, barged my way in, pulled a weapon of some kind on them, and injured them, before sending them to the police. I was coercive, and I harmed them. However, I disagree that I was being evil.

According to the proposed ethic, the action of injuring the man would be evil and the action of saving the others would be good.

It is a good example though. It's hard to describe injuring a mass murderer as evil.

edit: although actually you are only taking one action--so perhaps if the action benefits more people than harms it is good. You could also describe mass murderer's as "not people" I suppose. Or perhaps it isn't coercion if it is invited. eh

edit2:nah, I think it's hooey. The act letting your neighbor starve to death isn't coercively harmful but it's certainly not neutral. So is there any universal ethic?

edit3: some more thing. Got this on the mind for some reason. This is another version:

1. An act is good if and only if it benefits others.

2. An act is evil if and only if it coercively harms others by

initiating a direct, actual invasion.

3. All other acts are neutral.

4. If an act includes good and evil elements, the good does not

cancel out the evil.




In other words makaikhaan, although it would be silly to describe the overall effect of your action as evil, can you make an argument for your action (taken on it's own) of injuring the man with a weapon being "good" or "neutral"? If someone in their lifetime had saved a billion lives but had also slapped someone in the face randomly, then the person is a "good person" (given what we think of as a good person) but the act of slapping someone was not a good or neutral act.

[Marshal Murat]

What if an action is good for all at the moment, but bad in the long-run. Populist policy decisions, for example. Pandering to the mob and benefiting them, but ruining the system in the process?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

What if an action is good for all at the moment, but bad in the long-run. Populist policy decisions, for example. Pandering to the mob and benefiting them, but ruining the system in the process?

Then it would have both good and evil elements. Which shows the problem with the ethic proposed--although I think it's defensible as an absolute statement it has limited usefulness in many situations. Probably needs more rules for "inaction" although that might be semantics.

What's good?
What's bad?
What's neutral?

1. An act is good if and only if it benefits others.
2. An act is evil if and only if it coercively harms others by initiating a direct, actual invasion.
3. All other acts are neutral.
4. If an act includes good and evil elements, the good does not cancel out the evil.

[Caius]

What's good?
What's bad?
What's neutral?

[KukriKhan]

So is there any universal ethic?

In my opinion, yes:

Breathe.

We all do it from the 2nd month in the womb; that is: take in our immediate environment. Mix it with our own chemicals, fluids, thoughts and feelings - then expel those back into our immediate environment. Then do it again. And again. And yet again. About 5 times a minute, for about 80 years.

Our breathing-in 'immediate environment' came to us from who knows where, and our 'contribution' (our exhalation) goes to the same place: who knows where? Someplace good, we hope. Someplace bad, we hope not. But someplace, for certain.

So, stop what you are doing, and

breathe.

And enjoy.



-edit-

so, anything that helps breathing (surviving, I guess) = good.

-edit2-

full disclosure: the above was composed while under the influence of Budweiser. :)

[Caius]

full disclosure: the above was composed while under the influence of Budweiser. :)

Now that explains a lot.

[GoreBag]

No, I do not agree and I dislike the presuppositions that come with the post.

[atheotes]

No... i dont think it can be simplified as such...atleast not without too many adjoinders which would mean it is not simple anymore ... Why do you want to simplify it anyway

[King Jan III Sobieski]

I only took one philosophy course at university. Sorry.

[Incongruous]

Then it would have both good and evil elements. Which shows the problem with the ethic proposed--although I think it's defensible as an absolute statement it has limited usefulness in many situations. Probably needs more rules for "inaction" although that might be semantics.




1. An act is good if and only if it benefits others.
2. An act is evil if and only if it coercively harms others by initiating a direct, actual invasion.
3. All other acts are neutral.
4. If an act includes good and evil elements, the good does not cancel out the evil.

How did you conclued that an act is only good if and only of it benefits others?

I also ask the same of your defenition of evil, I also question the human ability to truly define such things. Good and evil are both located within the same area of reality and sooner or later they are bound to bump into each other.

[Viking]

What is a benefit? Who can receive a benefit; only humans?
What is harm? Who can be harmed?

To follow up on the two sets of questions above:

What counts the most, immediate benefit or later harm?

follow up on the Q. above:

Can an act be 100% beneficial or 100% harmful?

[ICantSpellDawg]

Good and Evil are defined by the God of the Jews and the Catholic Church. Without either of those, nobody's opinions on superlatives matter much to me. in the absence of those all is allowed, irrespective of their arbitrary good/bad value.

Man's Laws can be more stabilizing and less ideological.

[Fragony]

Good and Evil are defined by the God of the Jews and the Catholic Church. Without either of those, nobody's opinions on superlatives matter much to me. in the absence of those all is allowed, irrespective of their arbitrary good/bad value.

Man's Laws can be more stabilizing and less ideological.

But all these ethics appear in just about every religion/spirituality to one extend or another, religious rules are just a social contract I think, the actual values are pretty much universal. We are social creatures so we know how best to live with eachother, doesn't have to be ethical necesarily more based on convenience probably. If you want to narrow that down to a single religion I would love to know why.

[ICantSpellDawg]

But all these ethics appear in just about every religion/spirituality to one extend or another, religious rules are just a social contract I think, the actual values are pretty much universal. We are social creatures so we know how best to live with eachother, doesn't have to be ethical necesarily more based on convenience probably. If you want to narrow that down to a single religion I would love to know why.

Why not? I have no master apart from God as revealed to and interpreted first by the Jews and later by the Catholic Church. Absent those things, there is nothing that I should or shouldn't do. I could create my own morality, or adopt someone else's, but why?

Democratic or humanistic concepts of ethics or morality have no bearing on me aside from their punishment value in the event of a transgression.

All of the morals and ethics of Christianity do not appear in all other religions - that is fallacious. Neither do all other religions carry the same transcendent weight.

The idea of a posthumous and eternal judgment of right and wrong is an excellent bedrock for moral and ethical concepts.

[Fragony]

All of the morals and ethics of Christianity do not appear in all other religions - that is fallacious. Neither do all other religions carry the same transcendent weight.

Well I am pretty sure I can find each and every value in christian religion in other religons, for example transendance, every religion had a way of reaching that state of transendence, doesn't have to be the same way but there is always something to reach, all the time.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Well I am pretty sure I can find each and every value in christian religion in other religons, for example transendance, every religion had a way of reaching that state of transendence, doesn't have to be the same way but there is always something to reach, all the time.

You will find them in pieces, but not in whole. I'm not a lowest common denominator believer.

[Fragony]

You will find them in pieces, but not in whole. I'm not a lowest common denominator believer.

That's ok that is yours not mine, but you will find it in pieces because the world is made out of pieces I think. But they are to be found to a certain extend everywhere, that is why I think these values are universal, no matter your sizes a suit is still made out of cloth and that cloth is universal values, not right or wrong but acceptable and unacceptable, all in the eye of the beholder.