How Often Are You "Good"? 💛
What does it mean to be Good?
Goodness, beauty, truth, etc. are interchangeable in my opinion. All alternative ways of looking at the same thing.
Let me elaborate a little...
To be good is to fulfil the ends of that thing. A great knife is one that cuts well. A great person is one who uses reason accurately and uses things fittingly. He uses things to further fulfil himself and others.
Beauty is a quality of how close one thing is to its true form. Something that expresses a form well and accurately is "beautiful." Something that shows us the true form of suffering can be beautiful.
Our Existence
I think anyone can argue that existence is "good." Something that exists is infinitely closer to it's truest form compared to something which does not exist. So a person who is alcoholic and beats his wife still exists is closer to being the best fulfilment of a person compared to one which does not exist yet.
Of course, he is clearly alcoholic and is not using alcohol to boost himself and he is beating his wife, which is clearly an abuse of her, additionally as devastating to his relationship with her, indirectly harming society, which contradicts the man's social nature, etcetera.
Ultimately, the best "good" would be the highest form of existence, truth, goodness, and the most perfect "form." That, according to Thomas Aquinas, is God. Of course, you do not have to settle for this. However, it will seem to follow nicely and makes sense.
Of course, all of this is very Aristotelian which I see is pretty unpopular today.
The Subjective Argument
Maybe whoever added the words "good" and "evil" to the dictionary was a liar with a subjective view of what's good and what's evil. There aren't any objective definitions for the words "good" or "evil". Both these words have confused man ever since he believed there had been good and evil things and thoughts.
I guess it is one of those blurry areas you have with duality.
It tends to get difficult when you define one and the other
Interesting,
there is not so much "GOOD and BAD", those are formed from differing perspectives, picking the corn to eat is "good" for the eater,,, "bad" for the corn.
What there is is alignment with TRUTH and nonalignment with TRUTH. That being said I will link a post I made not to long ago that should shed more light on the points you are making:
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@i-am-mark/2xsrj3-the-3-questions-everyone-must-answer-in-order-to-live-a-complete-life
I have upvoted and followed you, if you enjoy the nature of my posts and my inputs to the discussion please take a second and follow me as well.
PURA VIDA
Interesting elaboration on Aristotelian ethics there! I think the good is called eudaimonia what do you think? :)
The subjective argument I don't agree on. There is a difference between 'bad' and 'evil'. Bad is simply the negation of good as in 'a bad knife doesn't cut wel'l. A bad person is just a person that is not good at living (regardless of your conception of the good life). Evil on the other hand is indeed an invention (by the slaves that invented Christianity) to describe a way of life that is not compatible with the Christian doctrine. A good strong Roman in the Aristotelian sense becomes therefore evil in the eyes of the early christians.
Maybe 'good' can't be defined objectively, but that doesn't mean it's all relative right? Aristotelian ethics aren't very specific, but I think its principles are universially valid.
Very intriguing thoughts.
Lovely said. However, natural is not always the best or prettiest.
I believe that existence is "good" as long as it brings us more enjoyment than suffering.
You could also say that someone who is non-existing is at 0 to being the best fulfillment of a person while the abusive alcoholic is below 0. As I wrote this, I realized that maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the one that is non-existing is actually in the infinite minus. o.O