Why Good must inevitably lose.
The struggle between Good and Evil is a cliche, with almost every facet of human activity being representations of this ultimate battle. Art, literature, science, everything, is measured on the scales of morality. So, the obvious question is ''Who wins? Good or Evil?
Consider the world of truth and lies. Let's take the truth
1. Trump is president in 2017.
In relation to this truth I can think of 3 lies:
2. Jane is the president in 2017
3. Sarah is the president in 2017
4. Vick is the president in 2017
So, assuming life is random, there's a 1/4 chance of truth and 3/4 chance of falsehood. However, life isn't random - we have a moral compass. The point is that our morality is imperfect i.e. our moral compass is defective? How does a defective instrument compare to a random one? Obviously, a defective instrument is worse - the probability of error increases.
So, it's more likely that someone will tell you a lie than the truth. Evil wins. Good loses.
The same reasoning will perfectly apply to all domains of morality - (love, hate), (truth, lies), (kindness, meanness), (selfless, selfish), etc.
In a nutshell, the number of ways one can be good are fewer than the number of ways one can be bad. To add, our moral compasses are incomplete and flawed.
Therefore, it must be that Evil will, inevitably, win and Good lose.
Your comments.
Consider the world of truth and lies. Let's take the truth
1. Trump is president in 2017.
In relation to this truth I can think of 3 lies:
2. Jane is the president in 2017
3. Sarah is the president in 2017
4. Vick is the president in 2017
So, assuming life is random, there's a 1/4 chance of truth and 3/4 chance of falsehood. However, life isn't random - we have a moral compass. The point is that our morality is imperfect i.e. our moral compass is defective? How does a defective instrument compare to a random one? Obviously, a defective instrument is worse - the probability of error increases.
So, it's more likely that someone will tell you a lie than the truth. Evil wins. Good loses.
The same reasoning will perfectly apply to all domains of morality - (love, hate), (truth, lies), (kindness, meanness), (selfless, selfish), etc.
In a nutshell, the number of ways one can be good are fewer than the number of ways one can be bad. To add, our moral compasses are incomplete and flawed.
Therefore, it must be that Evil will, inevitably, win and Good lose.
Your comments.
Comments (52)
Trump it's merely a manifestation of middle America anger toward a government that is controlled by and serves the ultra-rich and itself - a mantra of both Sanders and Trump. It is an experiment in throwing chaos into D.C. and we will all learn what we learn from this experiment. Politics is highly unpredicable (as the last election demonstrated) but it is probable that the ultra-rich will stay in control.
It is good that the USD value of my bank account is currently real (or effective) in terms of what I can buy, despite the fact that the processes that conserve (and erode) it's purchasing power may be violent and exploitative from a certain point of view. What if the value of my bank account depended upon a bunch of insane and globally immoral expectations?
I will conserve myself at the expense of others. We will cooperatively conserve ourselves at the expense of others.
Lying is a means to achieve certain ends, just as pursuing delusion (fantasy) and conspicuous consumption is a means to anesthetize and distract ourselves from the angst and absurdity of life.
Quoting TheMadFool
This is just arbitrary nonsense.
Quoting TheMadFool
Evidence, please. Let's see the figures on possible ways to be good or bad.
People usually act in their own self interest (which they define as good), and only a few attempt to shoot themselves in the foot (which is bad). Therefore good occurs more often than bad. You don't like that? IT's no worse than your argument.
We don't know what you think is good and bad, which is an additional problem with your claim. Please list everything that is good, and bad in your opinion. What about the magnitude of acts? How many acts are largely consequential and how many are minutely consequential? Whose perspective are we using--the early bird feeding it's young or the worm?
There are just too many ways to be bad and only few ways to be good. Even, if one were to act randomly, the chances of doing evil exceed the chances of doing good. So, given our moral guidance system is imperfect and flawed, it follows that evil will eventually gain the upper hand!?
Quoting Bitter Crank
You disagree with math, you'll have to show why.
Quoting Bitter Crank
This is central to my argument:
1. There are more ways of doing bad than doing good. For instance, lies outnumber truths (see my OP). Similarly, bad deeds outnumber good deeds. One way of seeing the truth of this is to understand that humans are purposeful. Purpose may be varied e.g. purpose of satisfying hunger, lust, love, etc. BUT, in love, only ONE object will satisfy the emotion and likewise for other desires. This means there are, literally, countless ways to make somebody unhappy than there are to make him/her happy.
2. Our moral guidance system is imperfect
So,
3.It naturally follows that evil will win.
1.Trump is president.
2.Trump is president.
3.Trump is president.
4.Trump is president.
5. Szemi is president.
Here, four different people say the truth, and one person says a lie.
Therefore the truth is four times more likely to be heard than a lie.
Therefore good is inevitably going to triumph over evil.
-----------------
Same argument, different spin.
OP's argument is a fallacy, because it uses statistical evidence not found. It is using statistical evidence that has not been established.
I thought I did? In the future, I'll be more explicit.
There's only one truth to 2 + 2, which is 4 but an infinite number of wrong answers. Each situation allows only limited number of truths but many falsehoods.
Your example is mere repetition of the same truth so doesn't work.
As it goes with natural selection, there are very few ways of being alive than there are ways of being dead.
The same maybe true of being good (ie. there are fewer ways of being good than bad) but what is good is relative to the needs and wants of those who benefit from goodness. Again, what is good? Says who?
Are planets with life on them better than planets with no life on them?
Is it good that we exist at all?
Is it good that I don't have malaria (do you care)? Parasites will eat.
This is just like Borges library of unintelligible books (a library of all possible random combinations of letters in an arbitrary format). There are more books in that library than there are atoms in the entire universe (this is mindblowing). Such quantities make finding intelligible books vanishingly small. Good books are intelligible books but they might as well not exist the way the library is organized (randomly).
This part is right and interesting. It's entropy. There are more possible ways for your car not to work than for it to work.
Not obvious that this applies to morality though. You can divide moralities broadly into two "styles": those that forbid certain things (don't kill, don't steal) and those that specify a standard (be this way) any deviation from which is forbidden. Wouldn't be a big surprise for deviation to be rare for a type 1 morality, but it's basically inevitable for a type 2.
I think there is a confusion of categories. The opposite of truth is untruth or falsehood. The opposite of lie or dishonesty is honesty. One can be untruthful, and yet not lie. Truth and untruth belong in epistemology. Honesty and dishonesty or lies belong in morality.
I agree with your argument that it is more probable to uncover untruth than truth. This is why the onus of proof is on he who makes the claim. But I disagree with your argument that it is more probable to have dishonesty (lies) than honesty. These are acts of the will and we are in full control of it at all times. I can never be mistaken about my intentions. Now, will the moral good win over the moral evil? I think that is entirely up to the individual.
I was thinking of that. You, more or less, agree with me.
Quoting Samuel Lacrampe
But you can't deny our moral system is imperfect, which means it's more likely you err. That translates to evil.
Except for the part where I didn't.
Good point. But I can show that our moral compass is perfect, by the nature of morality and honest intentions.
We can err in the sense of a rational mistake, but logically, the mistake is either honest or dishonest. A dishonest mistake is immoral, but an honest mistake is not. As stated previously, honesty is a matter of intentions, and I can never be mistaken about my own intentions. As such, we can never err in the sense of morality. Example: I invent a cure for diabetes and share it with the world for free. We later find out that this cure has the side effect of giving cancer. Clearly, I made a rational mistake. But I did not know that at the time I shared the cure; and had I known that, I would not have shared it. Thus it was an honest mistake, thus it was not an immoral act.
That's what I mean when I say moral theory is imperfect. There are many moral theories and they don't agree with each other to the extent required to counter my argument.
Not all. Only those consequences that are reasonably foreseeable, because it gives ground to suspect dishonest intentions. If a man dives in front of my moving vehicle and gets killed, then my act of driving is one of the causes of his death, but I am not guilty because I could not have foreseen it, thus there is no ground to suspect dishonest intentions on my part.
Back to my cure example. I agree with your manslaughter idea, but it does not contradict my point because my moral theory can explain it. If I fail to foresee the side effects when these were reasonably foreseeable, then yes, I am guilty, because I chose not to take the best possible course of action; and this translates to not-fully-honest intentions. On the other hand, if I fail to foresee the side effects when these were not reasonably foreseeable, then I am not guilty, because I took the best possible course of action; and this does not translate to dishonest intentions.
To sum up, I claim that my moral theory is compatible with the legal justice system, and that both are based on intentions, not on acts. The act may be the trigger, but the intention is the decisive factor.
One problem I see with basing morality on intentions is it's inacessible. We eventually fall back on evaluating actions off of consequences, which are visible and, sometimes, measurable.
We can ignore intentions but not consequences. For instance, x intends to harm y and pushes y. In the process a bullet misses y. In this case, y should be thankful to x, despite x's intent. Even legally, y has no basis for a case against x.
However, if x intends good for y, but in the process harms y, then y is clearly justified, legally, to charge x for any loss or injury.
Anyway, what I want to say is that basing morality on intent is flawed (as shown above). That means we're susceptible to error and, subsequently, evil.
Attempted murder is more punishable than accidental homicide, although you are right that if there is no evidence, then x cannot legally be charged. In truth however, x is guilty of having harmful intentions.
Quoting TheMadFool
It still depends if the harm was reasonably foreseeable or not. Say x plants a tree in y's yard as a gift. One day, y crashes his car into it and gets injured. Objectively, x is one of the causes of y's injury; but legally and morally, x is not guilty. I will concede that professional liability seems to fit what you describe. But even then, a professional is liable only to things he has (or should have) knowledge about.
According to the Bible, God judges the heart of men; and 'heart' in that sense means intentions. Unfortunately, as you said, this info is inaccessible to us (except for our own intentions), and so our justice system must rely on acts and other facts to determine intentions based on probable or reasonable cause.
Yes, I think that's a great foundation for morality - intentions because the consequences of our actions are shaped by so many variables we can't control but we have absolute power over our intentions (determnists may disagree). However, in practical terms, such a moral theory is bound to fail because intentions are inacessible to direct examination.
The point, in favor of my argument, is the very fact that you propose intentions for a moral theory. Consequences are beyond our control, thus making it highly likely that our best intentions can go awry - the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Let's differentiate between moral good/evil and physical good/evil. The moral good is about intentions, and the physical good is about events. If your OP "Why Good must inevitably lose" refers to the true moral good, then it is entirely in our power, since the moral good is based on intentions and we have absolute power over our intentions (though we have zero power over the moral good of others). If it refers to the physical good, then you are possibly right. I am personally optimistic that if we are somewhat rational, our good intents will result in good events most of the time, but I could be wrong.
Quoting TheMadFool
I have heard this before, but it is false relative to the christian definition of hell. Hell is not a physical place but a state of relationship between the individual and moral goodness or God (for moral goodness is part of the essence of God). That state of relationship is due to the heart or intentions of the individual; and a good heart leads to heaven, not hell. Therefore hell would not result from good intentions. Maybe by 'hell', the author means 'physical evil', although I dispute this as well, for this hell is still more likely to result from evil intentions than from good intentions.
This is a suspicious claim, unless your saying it is necessary or good to believe it. What is the implication of having absolute power over intention as opposed to conditional power or partial control over our intentions. It's like saying we have absolute power over our will (?).
Yes, power of intentions or power of will is the same thing. If one is forced to do something without their consent, it is called "against their will"; and it is a self-contradiction to say "Their will is changed against their will".
You are conflating again.
Truth=good
False=bad
The last quoted sentence does make sense in a way because the physical underpinning of whatever is willed at any moment changes. Desires change based on changing circumstance, which may well be against our previous will. There are also competing desires within a person. If you control your will well then it is less likely to change against your will. There are competing wills within a person.
Whatever I will is not what I will because my will arises against me, tortures me. My will makes me suffer as much as it helps to attenuate that suffering.
Going to work everyday is done against my will, but I will myself to work anyway. My present willingness is often changed against my immediately past willingness by ever shifting desires and environmental circumstance.
Unless willing is synonymous with action and less to do what we think we want or intend for a future state.
If this doesn't make sense just ignore me.
No.
Lies/falsehood = Bad
Truth = Good
That's exactly what I'm saying.
There are more lies than truth.
For instance, take the statement below:
A) 2 + 2 = 4
Statement A is true but there are an infinite number of false answers for 2 + 2.
So, it follows that, given our morals aren't perfect, we're more likely to utter a lie than the truth
Good and bad are normative concepts of valuation , true and false as you have presented them, are analytic concepts, which are true or false based solely on their form.
I see.
But truth is an aspect of Good and falsehood that of Bad.
I think it is important to clarify what will is, and what it is not. Will is synonymous with intentions; it is not synonymous with desires. Will comes from within, from inside, and one is always in full control of it. Desires come from without, from outside, and one is not necessarily in control of that.
Remember those cartoons where the protagonist has a moral choice to make, and then pops a good angel on one side and a bad angel on the other, and the protagonist listens to both sides and makes the choice? This symbol represents the three parts of the soul, first introduced by Plato I think. (1) the protagonist, (2) the good angel, and (3) the bad angel represent in that order (1) the will, (2) the reason/conscience, and (3) the desires/appetite of the soul. Frequently we make moral choices such as (2) helping the needy, or (3) relaxing and watching TV; and that choice is decided by (1) the will.
Given that will is about the deliberation (thinking) in concert with desire, those desires figure in to purposeful (and automatic) striving and partially determine what choices one makes, one therefore cannot be in full control of will. Willing deals with motivating factors of which we are not in full control of and at times wish we could be free of. If we are not fully in control of our desires (if we can't inhibit or delay an impulse) then we can't fully be in control of our will.
The instinctual impulse to act in a lock and key fashion developed in evolutionary history long before the module of the neo cortex which functions to inhibit or delay behavior on the basis of reason and preferred future states. The functional power of a neo cortex varies greatly on the basis of a multitude of environmental and inheritable factors by which it develops.
I think you're presenting a prescriptive view. We ought to view (treat) will or intention as something we are fully responsible for(?).
Why do you say the number of truth statements is limited?
Given the time, one could make an infinite number of true statements (as well as false statements),
Trump is the president.
The president is white.
The president has hair.
The president has blonde hair.
The president is taller than 5'
The president is taller than 5'1"
etc etc
In my opinion truth can be either qualitative (color, shape, emotion, beauty, etc.) or quantitative. Under both types there are categories (red, round, happy, sad, ugly, 1, 100, etc.).
Of each category there can be only one truth. Take your example of Trump. Under the category ''president'' only Trump makes for truth at present. Under the category ''race'' only white makes for truth, so on and so forth.
However, under each category described above, a larger number of falsehoods exist. For instance in the category ''present president'', Jane, John, etc. are all false.
I agree that our desires, which we are not necessarily in control of, can influence our actions, and even our decision making. That said, while these can remove our ability to act, they cannot remove our intentions to act. E.g. If I had an addiction so strong that I cannot control myself and I don't have the ability get rid of it, I can still have the intention to get rid of it.
As you said, "Willing deals with motivating factors of which we are not in full control of and at times wish we could be free of". This 'wishing' is tied in with our intentions. I.e, we would not be wishing to be free of these factors if we did not intend to be free of these factors. Thus these factors cannot influence our intentions.
You replied to my answer by saying that my answer was the repetition of the same thing.
That may be true.
On the other hand, the same thing is true of your example.
Your example, which was "2+2=696845" and an infinite number of other wrong answers, is a repetition of the same falsehood.
If you say that your falsehood is different each time, I reply that my counter example is different each time.
In QUALITATIVE form, my example is the same as yours. You provided an infinite number of false answers, and I provided an infinite number of good answers.
In essence, a decision must be made which is more powerfully indicative.
You say your example is more powerfully indicative.
I say our oppostionary examples are equally indicative.
1. Obama is the current president
2. Bush is the current president
1 and 2 are both lies but they're about different people. So, they're different lies.
Similarly,
3. Everest is the tallest mountain
4. Pacific is the largest ocean
3 and 4 are both truths but they're different because they're about different things.
Your example:
5. Person A claims Trump is the current president.
6. Person B claims Trump is the current president.
5 and 6 are NOT different truths because they both claim the same thing about the same person. Who claims is irrelevant to truth. Truth is based on how the world is and not on who claims it.
As you very aptly pointed out, this statement is is evil if you superimpose a morality on it, namely, "lying is bad".
However, morality is a "moving target". It is not a fixed entity and not fixed quality. Some may argue, that morality is completely arbitrary.
I shan't argue that. I will accept that lying is bad.
But I shall expand this acceptance of standards by saying that what is bad for one party, may not be bad for another party. Lying is a superimposed morality, that is, it is dictated by society, by authority. Lying is not an innately moral evil. If lying was an innate moral command, nobody would lie. We lie, because the mechanism of the lying process assumes that advantage is gained, and the lie shall go undiscovered.
We all lie. Why do we lie? Many reasons for it, and I shan't go into that. My point is that all interpersonal evil, morally judged or not, is evil for one party, and good for the other. Be it senseless Sadism that makes one lie, or a conniving attempt for undue advantage, or stupidity, all lies favour one party, and work toward the detriment of the other party.
I reject therefore the notion that all lies are always evil for all concerned. First of all, I reject that lying (not telling the truth on purpose) is immoral. It is immoral in some interpersonal sense of judgement, but in and by itself lying is not immoral, and many examples are extant to prove that exceptions to "all lies are evil" exist. Second of all, if a lie is evil, then it is necessarily good for some other party, at the same time. Lies can't be all bad (evl) for all parties at any given time.
This can be shown to be similarly true for the value couplets of (love, hate), (truth, lies), (kindness, meanness), (selfless, selfish), etc.
Therefore good will not be defeated by evil via acting immorally.
Now, you may talk about fair play, ethical expectations, and telling the truth. But to be fair, you must admit that telling the truth hurts the teller once in a while. You say telling lies hurts someone (the teller or the hearer of the lie). One is ethical, the other, is un-. So if they both hurt someone, and favour someone else, then I don't see how you can declare that lying causes more hurt than telling the truth.
The Mad Fool, You forgot to allow for the flipsidedness of evil. If it is good for one, it is bad for the other; if it is bad for one, it is good for the other; it can be good for both. You did not address this reasoning.
Instead, you declared that reversing good and evil increases bad (evil) across the board. That is not a solid argument, as good reverses to bad, and bad reverses to good; and you originally declared that there is more bad than good. If you are right, then reversing good to bad and vice versa (in relativistic morality, as you called it) increases the good. I don't see a line of reasoning in your argument in this last quote that refutes that.
I think the mad fool made the "given" that lying is bad, or evil, and saying the truth is good.
That is a condition, to which we must stick if we are to follow through with the arguments.
I think that there are potentially more lies than true statements, but they are not all uttered. For instance, there are about seven quatrillion names for the POTUS, but only one is right. But nobody says that the POTUS is Hank Smithy or Jane Rubinstein, or Ivan Gorcsev. No, everyone says "Prez Trump".
So there are more utterances of the truth than utterances of lies, while admitting that there are potentially more lies that could be generated than true statements.
But these lies are hardly ever generated, so good prevails.
1. There are more ways of being evil than good. The surest proof of the above statement, in agreement to your theory that something can be both good and bad, is the old adage ''you can't make everyone happy''.
2. Current moral theory is imperfect. God-based morality, Consequentialism, Deontic theory, are all flawed.
Given 1 and 2 are true, it is necessary that suffering will multiply and happiness will diminish. It's like a ship, with food in short supply and only a broken compass to aid you in the voyage. The ship and the people on it are doomed.
I don't even have to accept your new wording, but I do. It does not change the situation: There are fewer lies than truths uttered. Period. The amount of ways to lie, as per Szardosszemagad's reasoning, is staggering; but nobody utters them.
So you minced some words, but it does not change the position you are in.
Your alleged proof, "You can't make everyone happy" may or may not be true; but it is certainly not untrue that you can make many people happy, and leave only a very few unhappy. In fact, in Western societies, the living conditions that people only could enjoy as kings and princes, are now suprassed in quality even by paupers.
2. is also true, when viewed from your point of view. Moralilty is not flawed; moral theory is. You mixed the two terms or concepts up. The theory to explain morality is in shambles. But basic, innate, human morality is as straight as it was from time immemorial.
However, there is a moral theory that seems to have gotten the truth; it's based on evolutionary theory. Morality has been shaped by evolutionary forces, to aid survival of the individual and of the group. Once you can accept that, moral theory is clear as the azure sky in the deepest summer.
However, I accept that you can't accept my explanation of moral theory via evolutionary theory. I blame the intellectual shackles of dogmatic religionism for your inability to accept that, I am not blaming you personally or think less of you because of a possible inability.
So it's not moral theory that drives moralilty. Most everyone, other than us on the forums and very few people out there who deal with philosophy, are unaware of moral theory. Yet they by-and-large do not act immorally. If moral theory was the driving force of morality, then there would be mayhem on the streets (and in the buildings.) But there is no mayhem. So morality stands, it is working, we ("we" meaning those who can't accept evolution-based moral theory), however, don't know why or how it's working, because our moral theories are flawed.
Still, the flaw in your reasoning remains. Morality is given; it is not changing. It is the moral theory that can't put its thumb on innate, human ethics.
It seems fairly straightforward to me that humans take whatever action they deem to produce a greater good for themselves and the people of importance to them, even if it is an evil action (idk if that counts as a moral theory).
No longer do we live in small villages, where it is part of the culture to inherently fear the end of the whole rather than the individual. Morality might have changed a little since the evolutionary times, so it might be a little easier to do harm unto others. We see in animals its beneficial as a species to have cooperative traits but perhaps the cultural effect on our egos and then our egos effect on itself, might have more responsibility than an evolutionary standpoint.
Quoting TheMadFool
Agreed; (might be irrelevant) following this assumption, we then must be confronted by the fact that every action we take in our lives is an inherently evil enterprise. What then, is the moral, virtuous young man to do? Do the world and the people around him Good by ending his butterfly effect. Or live under a moral bending of one's ethics simply doing the least harm as is available, due to what? Cowardice? And, if not cowardice, I'd love to hear what.
Quoting TheMadFool
I think its incorrect to assume there is a unanimous "current moral theory". Or idk, what is it?
Ultimately or personally?
A virtuous man, to me, should hold morality as the highest goal. So, predictably, such a man will continue along the path of goodness, however ill defined it may be, to the end. What this end is depends on the people around him. Jesus didn't survive his company but the Buddha was well respected and lived to be 80.
Quoting Frank Barroso
Cowardice? One could say that religious morals depend a lot on the fear factor. Hell is a sure way to make people behave. That's the stick. But we do have a carrot too - heaven. Irregligious morality has tried, very hard I think, to rid its foundations of fear - one should be good for goodness is an end in itself, not out of fear.
Ultimately.
A little bit of science will help to clarify my view.
Entropy, disorder, is always increasing. Order is necessary for any moral system. So, if science is true, disorder is the ultimate end of all things, including moral systems.
If we change the moral theory, the virtuous man can do good?
or
If the current moral theory remains and like before the virtuous man continues down his path, does he actually do any good? Are we still ultimately guided by a broken compass?
Quoting Frank Barroso
Quoting TheMadFool
Even with more ways of being evil than good, you believe he can do good?
Entropy is increasing in the physical world, but that doesn't mean it's increasing in a moral sphere (or system). If so, this, then, doesn't follow:
Quoting TheMadFool
Oops. Mad Fool, you have established, very firmly, in two separate places in this debate, that:
1. Good = Truth
2. Evil = Lie
And yet,
Yes, you can make everyone happy with a lie.
In other words, your adage proves against your favour, as evil can make everyone happy. (As per your definition of evil.)
Dear Frank, Darf and Dust, and AND ALL OTHERS WHO ARE JOINING THE DEBATE IN THIS LATTER STAGE, I am not sure if you had a chance to read all posts in this thread. The idea is that evil is not used in its normative meaning; it is used to denote nothing more and nothing less than a lie. The thread's creator willed it this way, and corrected some of us to keep to this definition.
So the whole debate is a directed type of equivocation.
We must not give in to the lure that we imagine that "evil" means actual bad, vile, will or deed. It means, simply, "lie". The thread's creator built his or her entire opening argument on this condition.
Let's respect this condition, and not be fooled to think that "evil" or "bad" in this thread means anything other than "lie" or "falsehood".
This is not my idea; the thread's creator asked us to observed evil in this capacity only.
IF I am wrong in this assessment, then I ask the Mad Fool to please correct me and to please lay down the foundation of what word means what. We can't keep on arguing on a terrain of semantic quagmire where words change their meanings. I don't mind what rule you lay down, but I ask you, please, to stay consistent after the rule-laying.
To me, you, Mad Fool, have said "good=truth, falshood/lies = bad." Then I took the liberty to understand "evil" as an equivalent to "bad". So far this is the situation in this thread. Please correct me or yourself, and then stay consistent with that correction.
I have to correct myself: It is not I who took the liberty to equate "bad" with "evil". The structure of the argument and latter definitions, both by Mad Fool, the creator of this thread, begged for taking this equivalency as given.
That's my point. There is no single moral theory. Each has its own flaws - the ''broken compass''. Given that, no one can even dream of finding the path to goodness, whatever that means, in this world as it is.
Combine that with evil = disorder/chaos and the inevitable conclusion is the failure of the good. Of course, the existence of chaos is debatable. Nature seems to be arranged in patterns but the chaos = evil equivalence is an ancient one e.g. war, riots, situations where the rule of law breaks down are equated with chaos, and these are evil.
Quoting Noble Dust
Are we not physical and does that not matter for anything we do, including morality? You raise a good point though. Entropy may be exclusively physical. Anyway, I didn't mean it quite so literally. I was merely referring to the numerical advantage evil has over good.
Everything doesn't make a person happy. Every person has a specific, finite set of wants. They try to satisfy them through planning which are, again, finite and specific. Compare that to the multititude of ways in which even the best plans can backfire. Murphy's law: if something can go wrong, it will.
So, evil wins and good loses.
Quoting szemi
Yes, but is that real happiness?
[i]That is not part of the thread. If you like, open a new thread with that theme. But this question of yours is not a retort of merit in this thread.
But if you insist: yes, it's real happiness. Happiness is a feeling, and not a relationship to reality or to truth. Whether happiness is induced artificially or substantially, the happy person has no different experience in one way or the other.[/i]
You have a point. For instance when we watch a tragic movie we feel sad. There doesn't seem to be a requirement of factuality/truth for emotions. A lie and a truth both can elicit emotions of the same quality and degree.
But, what do you make of this: Experience Machine?