Definitions of Moral Good and Moral Bad
So I've been searching online for definitions of Moral Good and Moral Bad, but they often just refer to circulatory definitions like intrinsic goodness. I've come up with a working definition of Moral Good and Moral Bad, but unfortunately, there are still some chinks left to be worked out, and would like some feedback on how to amend them. I'd also like some topics that could be covered regarding Morality because I'm trying to write a short book and am running low on ideas regarding content.
Here's my Moral System which I'm terming as Qualitative Morality for now: it focuses on maximizing the quality of life of consciously living beings.
Morality is the distinction between Good and Bad:
Good is anything that raises an individual's quality of life;
Bad is anything that lowers an individual's quality of life.
Moral Good is Good unto others;
Moral Bad is Bad unto others.
-Do note that Moral Good and Moral Bad are qualified forms of Good and Bad.
Some food for thought:
Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor, was he a morally good person or a morally bad person?
According to my moral system, he was both morally good and morally bad as he raised the quality of life of individuals other than himself by giving money to the poor thereby raising their means to meet their needs and lowered the quality of life of individuals other than himself by stealing from the rich thereby lowering their means to meet their needs. However one could argue that he did more moral good than moral bad based on the law of diminishing returns regarding money.
Here's where it gets a bit problematic: Is it morally bad to jail someone?
According to my moral system, it would have to be since it lowers someone's quality of life by stripping away a portion of their autonomy. Imprisoning someone against their will may indeed morally bad, but if it's done for extraneous reasons such as preventing that person from harming another then it can also simultaneously be morally good or even morally best given the circumstances as it may be worse to let that person go free.
Another example to think about: Person A goes out of his way to help out a homeless person (Person B) by taking care of him. A second homeless person (Person C) arrives and so Person A starts dividing the utilities he has to start helping both of them - this ends up lowering the amount of help he can provide Person B. If Person C accepts the help of Person A, is that a morally bad action as it lowers the quality of life of Person B?
So there are indeed some flaws, but if we could create a moral system based on the quality of life of its participants we can succeed in 1) Creating Non-Arbitrary Definitions of Moral Good and Moral Bad which would allow us to start discovering in more detail what Moral Good and Moral Bad are by determining the factors that dictate a person's quality of life, 2) Answer questions regarding the objectivity and subjectivity of Morality to start developing a universally agreeable form of Morality (My current stance is that we must have objective needs as well as subjective needs as we are the union between an objective world, thus having similarities across human beings, and a subjective experience, thus simultaneously being different from each other).
Here's my Moral System which I'm terming as Qualitative Morality for now: it focuses on maximizing the quality of life of consciously living beings.
Morality is the distinction between Good and Bad:
Good is anything that raises an individual's quality of life;
Bad is anything that lowers an individual's quality of life.
Moral Good is Good unto others;
Moral Bad is Bad unto others.
-Do note that Moral Good and Moral Bad are qualified forms of Good and Bad.
Some food for thought:
Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor, was he a morally good person or a morally bad person?
According to my moral system, he was both morally good and morally bad as he raised the quality of life of individuals other than himself by giving money to the poor thereby raising their means to meet their needs and lowered the quality of life of individuals other than himself by stealing from the rich thereby lowering their means to meet their needs. However one could argue that he did more moral good than moral bad based on the law of diminishing returns regarding money.
Here's where it gets a bit problematic: Is it morally bad to jail someone?
According to my moral system, it would have to be since it lowers someone's quality of life by stripping away a portion of their autonomy. Imprisoning someone against their will may indeed morally bad, but if it's done for extraneous reasons such as preventing that person from harming another then it can also simultaneously be morally good or even morally best given the circumstances as it may be worse to let that person go free.
Another example to think about: Person A goes out of his way to help out a homeless person (Person B) by taking care of him. A second homeless person (Person C) arrives and so Person A starts dividing the utilities he has to start helping both of them - this ends up lowering the amount of help he can provide Person B. If Person C accepts the help of Person A, is that a morally bad action as it lowers the quality of life of Person B?
So there are indeed some flaws, but if we could create a moral system based on the quality of life of its participants we can succeed in 1) Creating Non-Arbitrary Definitions of Moral Good and Moral Bad which would allow us to start discovering in more detail what Moral Good and Moral Bad are by determining the factors that dictate a person's quality of life, 2) Answer questions regarding the objectivity and subjectivity of Morality to start developing a universally agreeable form of Morality (My current stance is that we must have objective needs as well as subjective needs as we are the union between an objective world, thus having similarities across human beings, and a subjective experience, thus simultaneously being different from each other).
Comments (60)
Very utilitarian in flavor. Even the moral conundrums in your moral theory resemble those of utilitarianism. I suggest you don't waste time reinventing the wheel of utilitarianism and the problems that tag along with it.
Truth be told, you're asking the wrong person. My suggestion is that you read up on morality from a good source like :point: The Definition Of Morality (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The definition you formulate can be your own, your quality of life meaning is promising as it, if I catch your drift, attempts to incorporate aspects of morality that go beyond the rather obvious hedonic dimension of what good and bad are. However, quality of life needs to be fleshed out, details need to be made explicit and so on.
Why ought one seek a better quality of life?
Perhaps one ought seek a lower quality of life, say in order to increase such virtues as stamina and resilience.
This criticism is an example of Moore's open question argument, which is generally taken to show that for any proposed definition of moral good and moral bad, it is possible to ask if that definition is itself good or bad.
The upshot is that the good is not definable, and hence that your enterprise is bound to fail.
The salient bit of that post is
Quoting Banno
Sure.
But foremost in the demerits is that it is wrong.
The good is not definable. It is a simple term, it is not analysable.
I'd simply flip this, saying that it is good to raise the quality of someone's life, and bad to reduce it. Much of what you have said still follows, but you avoid the open question.
The important difference I see between what you have written here and what is more commonly found on these fora is that you talk of raising any individuals quality of life, whereas so many here talk only of raising their individual quality of life, and pretending that this is what is good.
It is true that good as such is undefinable. But humans use that word, and I believe with a common understanding what it means. Then when you describe what moral actions or decisions are, in relationship to good, then you are transfering the undefinability of good to the definition of moral. The undefinability is transfered, but the limitation of the definition of moral is not hurt by that. We just have a new concept (not that it's new, but in its evolving definition it is preceded by the concept "good"), and though it is based on an undefinable quality, it still clearly delineates its meaning, with a workable, useful, and to me, true definition.
I base my argument, of course, that undefinability does not mean meaninglessness. Good, the word, is meaningful; its defintion is impossible, but that does not take away from its quality of being meaningful.
Then why the tomes of theories and discussions about the good and the bad?
For millennia, have all those moral philosophers been laboring with an erroneous understanding of good and bad?
And if yes, whence that error?
Try this sketch of my aretaic-negative consequentialism on for size:
Thoughts? Objections?
Good is not a noun. It is an adjective. So it can be meaningful only in conjunction of its modifying a noun.
Good sex is good for the individual's quality of life. So is good food, good company, good sleep, good health, good will, good night.
Are there many other words in the English language you feel obliged to define?
This approach to good & bad, morality in general, is promising for it seems to focus, rightly so, on the basics - the desired quality of life would include things like good health (physical and mental), a balanced diet, decent education, satisfactory finances, time and money for wholesome recreation, to name a few. I can see how Maslow's hierarchy of needs is part of your picture of morality. After all, if people's needs are satisfied, they can find time to pursue other activities such as the arts, music, philosophy, science, and so on which will go towards making them models of human flourishing.
You're right. Well done.
It's both, like a physician's diagnosis of a patient's health which then implies a prescribed treatment and what the patient should do to complement – sustain the effectiveness of – treatment.
As for "virtue" and "vice", from my studies of, say, Confucius and Aristotle, these broad concepts, or categories, denote habits of character (i.e. agency) which positively feedback (strengthen via virtuous (win-win) cycles) and negatively feedback (weaken via vicious (win-lose —> lose-lose) cycles), respectively.
So... for you philosophy is only about setting out definitions?
That's not right.
Basically I'm saying Moore's second premise could always end up false if we find the correct definition of what is good as it would cease being an open question since the answer on whether something is good could always be derived from the meaning of the word good.
Let's just imagine that what all unambiguous cases of moral goodness have in common is happiness promotion. That is, all clearest cases of morally good states of affairs are states of affairs in which happiness seems to be at a maximum; and all the clearest cases of morally good acts are ones that seem to promote happiness.
Well, even in the unlikely event that that is true, that would not furnish us with a definition of moral goodness. For the goodness itself is what all those cases have in common, but it would be to confuse the 'is' of prediction with the 'is' of identity to conclude that therefore we now know what 'morally good' means. (And this is what Moore's 'naturalistic fallacy' seems to involve - confusing the 'is' of prediction with the 'is' of identity).
Moore, of course, thought that moral goodness is indefinable. But I do not think that's correct. Moral goodness is that which would render our rational intuitions that this or that is morally good, 'veridical'. That is, moral goodness can be defined as the veridicality condition of our rational intuitions of moral goodness.
If the solution to the problems of good and bad is as simple as you outlined earlier:
Quoting Banno
then one has to wonder what all those moral philosophers have been doing for millennia.
Amazing insight! :up: :clap: Indeed, the definition of good and bad itself can be said to be good or bad (in a moral sense). That means the definition can't be just anything that fancies us, au contraire the definition needs to be justified morally i.e. the definition is actually a proposition. For instance, if I say good is maximizing happiness, I need to provide reasons for saying/thinking that and not just reasons, moral reasons. Since I can't use the "definition" on itself - that would be a circulus in probando [remember we need to justify the "definitions"], I'll need a completely independent and unrelated fully operational [s]death star[/s] :joke: moral theory in order to justify a "definition" of good and bad but, the catch is, that's impossible for I'd need definitions of good and bad for that theory too...an infinite regress is what we have on our hands.
This gums up the works for moral theorists.
I want to bounce this off you. It's my suspicion that either "good" doesn't mean anything i.e. it's meaningless or "good" is just another word for, taking a utilitarian standpoint, happiness. The difference then between good and happiness is the same as that between couches and sofas to wit, none at all. Is this, in your opinion, a case of "bewitchment by language"? After all, an entire branch of philosophy - ethics - has been established on the words "good" and "bad" and if these are nothing more than synonyms for happiness and sorrow respectively, ethics is akin to launching a ship on a mirage. I maybe wrong about this and would like some help in clearing up my confusion.
I'd like some clarification as well, because people have tried to define "good" and "happiness". Some even come up with supposedly objective, universal standards of those. Clearly, those people don't think that the good is undefinable and unanalyzable as Banno does.
Both camps can't be right.
Premise 1 & Premise 2 referred throughout according to : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-question_argument#:~:text=That%20is%2C%20Moore's%20argument%20attempts,is%20good%3F%22%20is%20meaningless.
Actually I just read through his argument again, he probably has a point. Alas, a description of what makes something good is probably just as good as defining good.
On the contrary, my ethical concept does address "changes to the status quo" but implicitly in this formulation
[quote=180 Proof]Moral Right indicates judgments, conduct or relationships for preventing or reducing harm and/or injustice (i.e. misery)[/quote]
This provides an ethical motivation for politics (e.g. mass struggle, human solidarity, ... as well as 'just governance') which is the arena for, as you say, Yun, "changes to the status quo" (assuming you mean normative, or everyday, injustices). And also I bring up "evil" which inherently demands – calls for – resistance like (e.g.) plague, famine, predation, etc.
Quoting TheMadFool
Nonsense. Definitions of "moral good & bad" are evaluated for how adaptive they are for 'prosocially coexisting'. There's nothing "meta" or circular going on. In other words, a morality language game works adequately for the form-of-life (e.g. social commons) within which it's embedded or it does not work adequately thereby requiring further development (i.e. playing that language game differently, so to speak).
That said, Fool, assuming my objection is without warrant, tell me where I go wrong – e.g. trip over Moore's "indefinability" canard – defining "moral good and bad"
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/518912
which I follow-up on a bit here
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/519090
Try using it next time someone tells us what it good and what is right. Or on 180.
Well, there's an interesting question for them.
I'm having second thoughts about what I said earlier. Allow me to explain.
Suppose I define good as maximizing happiness. as utilitarians do. Call this definition of good, U. Is U itself good? Does U maximize happiness just as it demands thoughts, words, and deeds do exactly that? Either it does or it doesn't. If it does, well and good, case closed and there's nothing to discuss - the definition itself is good. If it doesn't, then what we have on our hands is a paradox - an immoral/bad definition that determines what moral/good is. That would be like asking a man what it's like to be a woman? The man wouldn't have the slightest clue.
So, ok, U has to be good. One way for that to happen is if U itself does what it demands viz. maximizing happiness. Does U maximize happiness? Does it fulfill the criterion of goodness that it sets? How would we answer this question. We would have to check the hedonic effects of a moral theory based on the definition, good is maximizing happiness i.e. the impact utilitarianism has had in societies that adopt it as their moral theory. I have no idea how we might get down to doing that. Any ideas?
I don't think that when someone says "Charity is good" they mean exactly the same thing as "Charity maximises happiness". I don't think that when someone says "Charity maximises happiness" they mean "Charity is good". I think it is clear that "Is maximizing happiness good?" is an open question.
None of which is to say that it is not good to be charitable.
Further, is someone were to insist that "maximising happiness" is exactly what they do mean by "Good", then all that can be done is to point out that their ethics is only about maximising happiness, and has nothing to do with the good.
So yes, it is not a knock-down argument.
But let me ask, what do you think? Does TheMadFool believe that the good is just maximising happiness?
Edit: worth relating this back to the OP:
Quoting Yun Jae Jung
Is the question "Is it good to raise an individual's quality of life?" a question to which you and I could give some thought? Couldn't we have a discussion, weighing the pros and cons, and deciding what to do in each case?
But if Good is exactly anything that raises an individual's quality of life, then "Is it good to raise an individual's quality of life?" would be the very same question as "Is it raising an individual's quality of life to raise their quality of life?" - a mere tautology.
It isn't, so it ain't.
You're the one implying that they're wrong.
What do you mean "nonsense"? To me, it's obvious that the definitions of good and bad - the foundations of any moral theory - must themselves be judged by the same criteria they employ to sort thoughts, words, and deeds into moral and immoral which is the very purpose of building a moral theory.
I mentioned to Banno that if we go down the utilitarian path as per which good is maximizing happiness (and/or minimizing suffering), the definition itself must do the exact same thing which it stipulates our thoughts, words, deeds must do to wit, maximize happiness. If this wasn't the case and the definition either did nothing or did the exact opposite i.e. decreased happiness or increased suffering, it would be a morally bad definition and, more importantly, it would render utilitarianism pointless.
Coming to the issue of the definability of good, let's see whether that can be done or not. Let's stick to utilitarianism according to which good is maximizing happiness. Clearly, this definition of good has been formulated based on some reason(s) i.e. it ain't arbitrary. In my book that means the "definition" of good as maximizing happiness is actually in need of a proposition which requires and is supplied with justifications.
What would such justifications for the [s]definition[/s] proposition, "good HAS TO BE DEFINED AS maximizing happiness" look like? A utilitarian would probably begin by pointing out the many instances of happy consequences that people, for some reason, refer to or label as good. As you can see, there are two things to consider here viz.
1. Good HAS TO BE DEFINED AS maximizing happiness
2. Good is maximizing happiness
1 is what we might call a proposition and 2 is a definition. To get to 2, the definition of good, we need to justify 1, the proposition regarding how good has to be defined.
Returning to the problem at hand which is whether the definition of good js itself good or not [it has to be good]?, one obvious route to an answer is by testing the definition against itself - does it satisfy the condition of maximizing happiness it itself stipulates? It seems I've already mentioned that at the outset but is it acceptable?
It may seem that the obvious choice mentioned above is a reasonable one but, like it or not, luckily or unluckily, it bears the hallmark of a petitio principii, a big no-no which someone as knowledgeable as you should be more than familiar with. Why? The first step is to justify the proposition, 1. good HAS TO BE DEFINED AS maximizing happiness and unless that's accomplished, we can't do anything with the definition 2. good is maximizing happiness. Ergo, testing the definition against itself amounts to skipping a step - it begs the question, SHOULD good be defined as maximizing happiness? That, my friend, take us back to square one - what is GOOD?.
A similar argument may hold for other moral theories.
Well, you're obviously mistaken, my friend. A definition of "moral good & bad" is not either 'morally good or bad' but rather either instrumentally good (useful) or bad (not useful) for "building a moral theory". A good cup of coffee, for instance, is not "morally good" – that's language gone on holiday.
You're missing the point or, more probably, given your vast knowledge, ignoring it. Suppose X is the definition of good and furthermore, suppose X were morally bad. Would this situation not be akin to committing hara kiri? Reminds me of Useless Machines (Marvin Minsky)
Sure, we can come up with things like the golden rule, yet, from there to have them be universal and unconditional doesn't seem right.
It's easier to come up with examples than definitions.
Ok, let's come at the issue from a different angle. I mentioned in one of my posts above that "...thoughts, words, and deeds..." are the kind of things that can be good (moral) or bad (immoral). I'm sure you'll find no cause for disagreement on that score. Now, ask yourself, what's a definition, in this case a definition of good? Is it not, at the end of the day, a thought? If it is, and it is, it not only can but has to be good or bad. That's what I'm trying to get across but, oddly, you seem reluctant to buy into what is essentially a very simple idea. By the way you're well-acquainted with this phenomenon. When thoughts, definitions, go bad, we find ourselves in hot water like slavery, racism, religious fanaticism, etc.
They are also the kinds of things that can be "good" (instrumental, or functional, useful) or "bad" (instrumental, or dysfunctional, not useful). A good steak, Fool, isn't "morally good" ... Furthermore, a physician and an auto mechanic give diagnoses: they aren't diagnoses which apply to both human health & automobiles; they are diagnostic methods applied to different, respective, domains & tasks. That's because it all depends on the language game we're playing, Fool, and depends on the forms-of-life within which we play them; mixing them (e.g. category error) creates nonsense such as yours. Besides, 'definitions for moral arguments or systems' are not also moral, any more than a barrel of apples isn't an apple.
Read my my definition & follow-up (scroll down to my links) and show me the err of my ways. This should be pretty easy iif you're right (and quite edifying for me to boot!) :chin:
I followed your link and here's the deal - you define morality as "how adaptive they are for prosocially coexisting" but is this, your, definition of morality itself, and I quote, "...adaptive for prosocially coexisting..."? You will need to demonstrate that if your moral theory is to not fall at the first hurdle. Right? However, that amounts to presupposing your definition is correct but that's precisely what you haven't done. In other words, to prove your definition is itself morally good, you will need to justify why your definition is the right one but, demonstrably, your definition will be either too broad or too narrow or if not that too vague. I suspect it's the last one - too vague - for the simple reason that you've attempted maximum generalization and that usually becomes possible with vague definitions.
He's welcome to demonstrate that "how adaptive they are for prosocially coexisting" doesn't amount to "going with the crowd" or "as the wind blows".
For example, ideas in favor of slavery were very adaptive for prosocially coexisting when living in a society where there was slavery. Were they therefore, morally good?
- - -
, how do you determine the relevant point at which you measure "how adaptive for prosocially coexisting" something is?
We can easily point to a time and place where, for example, ideas in favor of slavery were very adaptive for prosocially coexisting, and another time and place where they were not.
(We can also point to a time and place where ideas contrary to slavery were not adaptive for prosocially coexisting, even though they were elevated to the level of law.)
Good point but I have a feeling that 180 Proof's idea of morality as "adaptive for prosocially existing" is nuanced enough to tackle this objection. I'm not sure though. Thanks.
My bad. I must've failed to maintain that distinction. It's a jungle of concepts out there. To get lost is more the norm than the exception for a novice like myself. That out of the way, let's return to the issue of the definition of morally good. Suppose such a definition exists, call it X. The question then is, is X itself morally good. This line of inquiry is far from obvious and that's why so many have failed to examine it.
How do we, given morally good is defined as X, answer the question, is X itself good? Why does this even matter? one might ask. Well, if the definition X itself weren't morally good that would mean, in moral consequentialist terms, X causes suffering. That's not acceptable, right? After all, if that were the case, the definition would fail to satisfy its own criterion for morally good. That's why I feel the definition of morally good itself must be morally good. Of course there's no reason why a definition of morally good can't fulfill the conditions that decide whether something is morally good but that's a step that can only be taken if we already know what morally good is. In other words, we have to know what morally good is and that's nowhere close to being an open and shut case, right?
I'm beginning to think you're right after all but I still have this nagging doubt about the morally good being definable in a way that's free from controversy. By the way I replied to that post you provided a link for.
Let's go through this together step by step.
X = the definition of good [any definition, yours and classic ones like utilitarianism, Kantian ethics will do]
My contention is that the question, Is X itself good? is as reasonable, as meaningful, as the question, is killing a defenseless person good?
What say you?
How far apart are the points, and how do you determine what a relevant interval is?
It seems we've reached an impasse. Quite unfortunate. Have a good day.
Quoting baker
I don't know what "something" pertains to so I can't answer. The paragraph from which you quote me out of context should suffice in showing what I'm talking about there.
(re: In so far as X definition in X language game satisfies or sustains Y form-of-life in comparison to how Z definition, from Z language game but used in X language game, does not (as well) satisfy or sustain Y form-of-life, X definition is evaluated as more adaptive than Z definition in X language game.)