An excellent piece! Your arguments that "The Good" does not line up with anything real are compelling. I wonder if you could flip this argument and say that "The Bad" is equally arbitrary.
The Bad in your examples is linked to pain and suffering. Does this make bad something in itself, or is suffering simply suffering in the same way pleasure is just pleasure? A slippery sloap to nihilism for sure, but one we may have to accept.
btw - I selected your piece for today's #philosophy-review. keep up the good posts! https://steemit.com/philosophy/@aaanderson/the-philosophy-review-nov-29-2016
Hi, thanks!
I'll have to check out your review! I don't think the argument can be flipped, but I could be wrong. I was careful to talk about "harm" instead of suffering. Harm is always measurable but suffering is subjective. Bad is causing harm, and we might experience that as suffering, but suffering also warns us that we are too close to the fire or ate too much chocolate cake.
Harm is less subjective than suffering, but still seems a little slippery. Is harm anything that causes physical or psychological pain? If so, doctors are constantly violating their oath in attempts to promote health.
We could get around harm that leads to overall reduced pain by saying harm is situations that net a positive amount of pain. In that case though, what timeline should we consider?
Maybe harm isn't pain at all, but that seems like the easiest way to measure it.
I would include harm such as theft or invasion of privacy, which do not cause physical pain. It is, to me, the unbalancing of the rest state. I was fine until you came into the room and did thus and such. Poof! Harm was done! As soon as you leave and let me get back to typing this very important post on steemit, harm will be reduced. I will return to my rest state, and it will be good.
I'll cease this harmful posting after a couple more thoughts ;) I think theft and privacy violations are harmful because of the psychological pain and agree they cause a disturbance from the rest state.
However, don't pleasurable and neutral things also disturb the rest state? Perhaps we could lable them as harmful, but that doesn’t mesh with an intuitive definitive of harm.
This is a big topic, I may have to follow up with a post in the near future.
Pleasure is a different thing. Since it can be both bad (too much cake) and good, it is not intrinsically good in and of itself. If good exists, we will have to find it elsewhere.