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What is good?

Anarchon

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Many of you believe that government is good; or that it's necessary to protect what is good; or that it is required for some greater good of society. But, what does good mean to you? If we are going to debate these subjects, it's important to know what each other means.

To you...what is good precisely? What is evil? What differentiates right from wrong? For the more critical thinkers, what exactly is your moral philosophy?
 
Many of you believe that government is good; or that it's necessary to protect what is good; or that it is required for some greater good of society. But, what does good mean to you? If we are going to debate these subjects, it's important to know what each other means.

To you...what is good precisely? What is evil? What differentiates right from wrong? For the more critical thinkers, what exactly is your moral philosophy?

Good is relative. For me a good TG dinner would be homemade Lasagna. But, for the traditionalists that would be bad.
 
Good is relative. For me a good TG dinner would be homemade Lasagna. But, for the traditionalists that would be bad.

my wife makes homemade lasagna for thanksgiving. check out the the thanksgiving thread. i mentioned it earlier.

nothin wrong with some good ol lasagna for thanksgivin!
 
Bad is that which is harmful, good is that which prevents or alleviates harm. Government is "good" because good government prevents and alleviates harm.
 
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."

-Genghis Khan, later attributed to Conan the Barbarian, in response to the question: what is best in life?
 
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Many of you believe that government is good; or that it's necessary to protect what is good; or that it is required for some greater good of society. But, what does good mean to you? If we are going to debate these subjects, it's important to know what each other means.

To you...what is good precisely? What is evil? What differentiates right from wrong? For the more critical thinkers, what exactly is your moral philosophy?

I base my morality on the Bible. But if you want something more natural, then I base my morality on whatever benefits mankind the most.
 
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."

-Genghis Khan, later attributed to Conan the Barbarian, in response to the question: what is best in life?


LOL, I was going to post that-it was useful on Wednesday Morning after the election in 2016
 
Many of you believe that government is good; or that it's necessary to protect what is good; or that it is required for some greater good of society. But, what does good mean to you? If we are going to debate these subjects, it's important to know what each other means.

To you...what is good precisely? What is evil? What differentiates right from wrong? For the more critical thinkers, what exactly is your moral philosophy?

You define government as evil and not-government as good, therefore your discussion of this subject is worthless.
 
Good, evil, right, and wrong. I remember many years ago when I saw all of those things as clearly distinct and different things. Back when I viewed legal things as good and illegal things as bad.

I have spent way too much time in the gray area to pretend to be a good judge of such things. I have settled for a simple philosophy on how to live my life: Have fun and don’t be a dick.
 
Many of you believe that government is good; or that it's necessary to protect what is good; or that it is required for some greater good of society. But, what does good mean to you? If we are going to debate these subjects, it's important to know what each other means.

To you...what is good precisely? What is evil? What differentiates right from wrong? For the more critical thinkers, what exactly is your moral philosophy?


I don't think a "moral philosophy" is the right objective. The better objective is what is the consensus on such a subject or subjects. The common ground between competing groups and schools of thought is the best entry point for solutions and policy ideas.
 
You define government as evil and not-government as good, therefore your discussion of this subject is worthless.

While honored that you pay attention, I prefer to speak for myself. Since you bring it up, my moral philosophy is the Non-Aggression Principle. That is, for interactions to be moral, they must be consensual. Some find that the NAP has connotations to the Golden Rule, another popular philosophy.
 
While honored that you pay attention, I prefer to speak for myself. Since you bring it up, my moral philosophy is the Non-Aggression Principle. That is, for interactions to be moral, they must be consensual. Some find that the NAP has connotations to the Golden Rule, another popular philosophy.

How do you deal with people that violate the non-aggression principle without also violating it?
 
Many of you believe that government is good; or that it's necessary to protect what is good; or that it is required for some greater good of society. But, what does good mean to you? If we are going to debate these subjects, it's important to know what each other means.

To you...what is good precisely? What is evil? What differentiates right from wrong? For the more critical thinkers, what exactly is your moral philosophy?

Sometimes it is better to have fuzzy definitions of such things and sort out each question in a more practicle manner and not be too legalistic about it all.
 
Bad is that which is harmful, good is that which prevents or alleviates harm. Government is "good" because good government prevents and alleviates harm.

Gubermint has killed more people than all wars combined. Government is a bloated pig out for number one.
 
I base my morality on the Bible. But if you want something more natural, then I base my morality on whatever benefits mankind the most.

I expect you'll be going apostate soon, considering that high rates of atheism is positively correlated with the best healthcare, the best education systems, and the lowest crime rates in the world. If you want to see a real hellhole, you're going to have to go somewhere with a 100% rate of religiosity.
 
While honored that you pay attention, I prefer to speak for myself. Since you bring it up, my moral philosophy is the Non-Aggression Principle. That is, for interactions to be moral, they must be consensual. Some find that the NAP has connotations to the Golden Rule, another popular philosophy.

Your proposed implementation of that philosophy leads to far more aggression existing, therefore I don't really have reason to listen to what you claim to want.
 
Gubermint has killed more people than all wars combined. Government is a bloated pig out for number one.

That's not a refutation to what I said. I specified that good government is good, so it stands to reason bad government is bad.
 
I expect you'll be going apostate soon, considering that high rates of atheism is positively correlated with the best healthcare, the best education systems, and the lowest crime rates in the world. If you want to see a real hellhole, you're going to have to go somewhere with a 100% rate of religiosity.

That's some pretty **** reasoning. Correlation ain't causation.
 
Your proposed implementation of that philosophy leads to far more aggression existing, therefore I don't really have reason to listen to what you claim to want.

I understand if you don't have an answer to the initial question in the OP. Ironically, not many people have put much thought into what their moral philosophy is. You aren't alone.
 
How do you deal with people that violate the non-aggression principle without also violating it?

I defend myself.

Aggression is defined as the initiation of force. Using force to defend oneself from someone that is aggressive is not aggressive. They initiate force, you use force in defense.
 
That's some pretty **** reasoning. Correlation ain't causation.

That doesn't mean that correlation is never causation. Considering how long of a history that religion has with trying to suppress science and the rights of nonbelievers, it seems perfectly logical to assume that the heavily atheist populations of nations like Denmark or Japan factor into their successes as educated, peaceful societies.

We can see the exact same pattern at play in the states, too. With the singular exception of Utah, deeply religious states are far worse off in education, and ironically enough, they're also far worse at practicing the family values they preach than their degenerate liberal neighbors. The author of my source ascribes the issue to conservatism rather than religiosity, given how much conservatives love to kick the legs out from under public education, but a great many countries with strong conservative leans are perfectly willing to invest in education. Japan, for example, is a very economically conservative country with isolationist (arguably xenophobic) policy, all hallmarks of what we consider conservatism. Their education system isn't under constant criticism for saying the earth is more than five thousand years old, or that humans evolved from monkeys. Even in European countries with strong conservative parties like England/UKIP and Sweden/Sweden-Democrats, there are no proposals to outright disband federal agencies tasked with monitoring education quality, no plans to defund universities they don't like, no goals to provide tax funding to private Christian schools that deny established science. Hell, the xenophobes in UKIP want to provide free STEM education to students that promise to work in the UK for at least five years. You would never see such a reasonable idea from an American conservative. At some point, you just have to ask yourself: why are Americans so uniquely anti-intellectual, out of all of the most advanced nations? The only obvious difference is that we have far more religious zealots than any of our peers.

It's not hard to defend the claim that religion is anathema to societal advancement when it spent centuries trying to stifle science, and when it is even a direct obstacle to fighting modern diseases in modern times.

Atheism doesn't cause more progress - it just removes the most vile obstacle to it, and the correlation between anti-intellectualism and religion all but proves causation on religion's part.
 
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