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RE: Response to @baerdric: There Can Be No Good

in #philosophy8 years ago (edited)

I appreciate the challenge. It makes me think and refine my ideas

I think your use of "the neutral state" is off the mark. I used "the rest state" which is still a little off, "base state" might be good. Perhaps the best term for what I want is "zero". Harm can be reduced to zero, leaving what we call good. Your sentence "His suggestion is that Harm is something that can be added to any system and it increases bad and reduces good." is only wrong in that I do not say you can reduce good. Good is just what we call a low level of harm.

Your example of using harm to prevent greater harm shows that harm is a real thing that can be used. I cannot find a good thing like that which can be actively used.

I think to refute my premise, you must show that there is a force of good which can be added to any situation (making it "more good"), and whose removal automatically leaves bad in its wake. Like the impossible Flashdark, which shines a ray of darkness into a sunny room, you need a thing that is as real as harm, which you can walk into a room and do to someone, which adds to the good, and without which they automatically revert to a natural base state of Bad.

I expect people to say that "Love" is that thing, that you can walk into a room and love someone, and if you didn't do that, they would be automatically in a state of bad. I kind of hope someone brings that up, because, of course, I have already prepared an answer for that.

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Fortunately I am not trying to refute your premise ;) Rather, I am attempting to show that bad is as illusory as good. I see your perspective that harm is measurable in the sense of you can correlate some level of pain and/or suffering whether or not there is a long term net of increased harm.

I would say, what is the difference in harm as a measure of pain/disturbance that increases and decreases (more or less bad) VS benefit as a measure of pleasure/satisfaction that increases and decreases (more or less good).

For example: I could give someone a hug which brings an increase in feelings of contentedness and joy that has nothing to do with fending off harm (here's your love example!). I could say kind words to a stranger to increase their enjoyment of their day. I could mentor someone in a field I have mastered for no other reason than to increase their actualization.

Again, this is not to say Good is more real than Bad. rather, they are equally slippery concepts that exist in a practical sense for our day to day lives but do not correlate to anything concretely real.

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