Good And Bad Analysis

What is Good and Bad?

An ECG tells us information about our heartbeat using a graph. It has crests and troughs as to prove that we are alive. A straight line in an ECG means that you are dead. Same is the case with Good and Bad. Heraclitus and St Augustine said that good and bad are complete opposites of each other thereby resulting in universal harmony [1]. Suppose no bad things occur to us we don’t know what is suffering thereby lose the essence of life.

So, what is Good and what is Bad? This question has been reckoning philosophers since the ages. Whenever a philosopher thinks that he had solved the question it again re-emerges with new dimensions.

In order to arrive at a satisfactory answer we need to answer the following questions

Can an act be stated good or bad based on the intention with which it was performed? This one seems to reasonably fair. Any act that we perform has some intention behind it. Mere intention can’t make an act good or bad. Consider a person who is donating money to the poor[2]. It is a good act. But the intention with which he does that is vanity. Even though the poor are getting helped this is not a good act as his intention is not good and is not concerned to help others. We must avoid the most common thinking that morality of an action is determined the intention .But something that is essentially evil with a good intention can’t be called a good. If we take the case of a family which proceeded for abortion for a good cause is an unforgivable mistake and is a bad deed[2]. So good and bad can’t be concluded by intention alone. I disagree with the statement of Peter

They taught us that justice, kindness, mercy and truth are good traits. They also taught us that violence, avarice and falsehood are bad traits. So we humans are following the traits that god told us to follow. Assuming that god exists. Suppose that god had told us to follow violence and injustice. What might have happened in the early days when people were not fully aware of what is good and bad. So we would be following injustice and violence as we were instructed to do so. These people did not care to ponder that pronouncing some acts as good and others as bad has no rationale. But the nature of man is in such a way that he loves truth, justice and hates falsehood and injustice. So the origin of good and evil is not from divine guidance. According to Aristotle a famous philosopher, knowledge of good and evil and its criteria are imbued in man and he can differentiate between the two if he desires so[1]. So it is upto the person to decide what is right or wrong. I agree with Aristotle’s point of view. In fact God has left the choice to us to decide what is good and what is