From: utzoo!decvax!duke!unc!tim
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: Re: Morality simplified [somewhat serious]
Article-I.D.: unc.4893
Posted: Mon Apr  4 17:28:59 1983
Received: Tue Apr  5 03:34:26 1983
References: sdccsu3.457


Simplified is right! Do you really think that finding a definition
for `good' and `evil' even begins to encapsulate morality?

What are `good' and `evil', that is, not what acts are `good' and
`evil', but what are they themselves? Are they physical phenomena,
or at least physically detectable? Are they psychological? Why is
their perception not as uniform as the perception of other phenomena;
that is, why do people have such different sets of exciting stimuli
for the definition of a phenomenon as `good' or `evil'? Do `good' and
`evil' somehow transcend the physical and the psychological? If so,
what is their source? If a single being created both, then how can
this same being be said to have a vested interest in one and an
adversary relationship in the other, given that the creation of both
was deliberate and done with foreknowledge of the results?

Aren't `good' and `evil' nothing but a flimsily-veiled carrot-and-stick
psychological device used be rulers of men to control their behavior?
If not, then why do they seem so much like one?

If you are going to examine morality, start honestly. The ultimate
goal is a procedure for determining in advance what actions you should
or should not perform. Don't start with abstract nonsense like `good'
and `evil'. Start with people and yourself, and your interactions
with them, and theirs with you, and the most desirable environment
for those interactions.

Tim Maroney