What is the meaning of "good"? The Relativity of Good and Evil

Needless to say, it is rather difficult to answer the question: "What is the meaning of the term" good "? - but we will try. This task is difficult because in the notion of being good and evil are absolute, and when it comes to individual societies and cultures, everyone here has their own ideas about bad and good.

Definition of good

There is no point here to talk about specific religious ideas, it is more productive to formulate a general principle of distinguishing between good and evil. We offer the reader the following option: it is good to call that which serves life, and evil what it opposes.

For example, why should we help our neighbors? Because it makes their fate easier. Mercy, compassion is good, because it gives hope to another person, signals to him that he is not alone. Of course, the foundation of our understanding of good and evil is Christian faith, since Western culture is built on this basis, and Russia is still more West than the East, especially now. Even those who never opened the Bible in their lives know what is good and what is bad. And at the bottom of this intuitive knowledge lie the truths of the Old and New Testaments (more, of course, the latter). While it is not very clear, what is the meaning of the term "good"? But do not worry, everything will fall into place when we move on to the section of relativity of morality.

The definition of evil

According to the agreement, evil will be considered something that is repugnant to life and serves death and destruction. By the way, that the reader does not think that we here smartly invent a bicycle, say: a similar classification was used by Erich Fromm (if someone does not know what a scientist looks like, see the photo). The philosopher distinguished "necrophilous" and "productive" character. The essence of the first is in total destruction of oneself and the world, and the second - in love to all living things. Now our conscience is clear, so we continue.

So, from this point of view, torturing a cat or a dog is bad, because the suffering of animals causes them pain.

If a person is really good, he can not offend the lesser brothers. In general, it is much easier to destroy than to create. To harm a cat or a child is easier than raising a son, daughter or pet.

The problem of surgery and euthanasia

Now, when it is more or less known, what meaning is invested in the notion of "good" and "evil", one can go on to how things really are, that is, to the relativity of the bad and the good.

In most religions, suicide is a grave sin precisely because a person decides when to leave, thereby helping death directly and reaching the apogee of self-destruction. But modern ideas are already somewhat different. In them it is difficult to distinguish between good and evil. For example, a surgeon sometimes causes unprecedented suffering to a person, but only then to make the patient's life easier in the future. On the one hand, the doctor does evil, but in the long run it is transformed into good.

Or, for example, the problem of euthanasia. Death is the ultimate evil, it would seem. But life is sometimes more painful. Now we will not overtake fear. But sometimes a person continues to live only as a biological body, and this state involves fantastic pains, and the big question is whether to consider it a life. Ethical philosophers express themselves unequivocally: euthanasia is evil. They just proceed from the fact that any form of life is sacred, as for ordinary Western people (in Russia euthanasia is prohibited), they sometimes prefer premature death of a long painful life. There is a contradiction between theory and practice. Thus, the question of what meaning is invested in the notion of "good" remains open. Therefore, everyone is free to solve the moral problem at his own discretion.