What is "good"?

[Thales]

I recently listened to a debate between a Protestant minister named Rev. Slick and a well known atheist, Dan Barker. The debate was titled “Can a person be good without God”. As the debate began Mr. Barker quickly attempted to establish a definition for what good means in order to provide his arguments about how a person can be good without God. He was arguing in the affirmative, concerning the topic. His definition of good boiled down to something similar to this; “good is behaviors and actions which do the least harm.” Arguing the negative, Rev. Slick did not accept this definition, repeatedly demanding Mr. Barker to provide proof for the acceptance of this definition.

In a later segment of the debate Mr. Barker prompted Rev. Slick to provide his own definition of good. At this point is when Rev. Slick kind of fell apart, especially when he could not adequately define what the soul is. Anyway, Slick’s answer was that the good is, to act in accordance with the will of God.

At the same time I also began listening to a series by Catholic apologist Raymond De Souza, entitled “Good and Evil: Who Decides?”. In the first episode De Souza defines “good” something like this: “something that is good is something that fulfills its purpose”. An example he gives is of a pen. A pen that is made of gold and well crafted is not necessarily a good pen, it is a beautiful pen, but the pen that writes well and clearly is a good pen because it fulfills the purpose of what a pen should do.
ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/seriessearchprog.asp?seriesID=7080

All of this promted me to investigate this same question. I start this journey with Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics”, and so far it is providing a much fuller understanding, but I wanted to ask everyone here what their thoughts on the question are. Surely, it has been discussed many times over in debates on ethics and morality, but it is such and important question worth revisiting in and of itself.

Some initial questions:
Is good only a quality of something?
How does being good and doing good differ?
Is good only meaningful if there is a non-good or what people would call evil?
Is good simply, that which is desirable?

 

[The_Exodus]

I

Some initial questions:
Is good only a quality of something?
How does being good and doing good differ?
Is good only meaningful if there is a non-good or what people would call evil?
Is good simply, that which is desirable?

Good question. Tough though. Good is a notion like being: very simple in itself, but, the more we try to define it precisely, the less simple it seems to us. It is like the sun to an owl’s eyes, as Aristotle would say.

Good, as understood in the classical Thomistic sense, is a mode or quality of being. Those creatures with intellect and will have the true as the object of the intellect, and the good as the object to which the will has an appetite. Being good would coincide with doing good. The more one does good, the more he becomes good. Good I think can be meaningful in and of itself, since God, before he created, or before any evil existed in created things (which is the only place it can exist), was altogether good and perfect.

 

[JerryS]

Curiously, I saw a debate between Barker and a Christian about 25 years ago. Barker came off as a ranting idiot while the evangelical was reasoned and logical. I remember it well, as I was an atheistic science graduate student at the time, and was disappointed to see such a poor showing by the side I thought had a monopoly on reason and logic.

Good luck answering the questions you posed. The essential problem is that if good is defined by us in some utilitarian or philosophical system, it is not absolute but subject to the whims of human fancy (or power). In the end, it will be defined by those in power.

What is “good” either comes down to authority or utility. If it is based in human authority or utility, then “good” is really just the dominant opinion. What does it mean to do the least harm? There will be no consensus on that. Really, it makes all sorts of assumptions about the values in society around you. How will Mr. Barker react when those in power decide that the least aggregate harm involves killing him because he doesn’t measure up or consumes too many resources.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

What is “good”? In the moral realm, taking a short cut, I would say good is loving God and one another. That’s how Jesus would put it. All the commandments are summed up in those two. If we love God and one another, good blood will naturally and supernaturally flow through our spiritual veins. If we love one another but do not love God, it would be as if we love water but despise the river from which it flows.

 

[AntiTheist]

The essential problem is that if good is defined by us in some utilitarian or philosophical system, it is not absolute but subject to the whims of human fancy (or power).

Well, if good is defined by some divine being – or rather, what humans are telling you is the will of some divine being – then “good” is no less arbitrary. You’ve just succeeded in pushing the arbitrariness back a level, with the added problem that no one can actually provide evidence that there is a god, nevermind agree on what his/her will might be.

Just asserting “good is what my god’s will is!” doesn’t help the problem any.

The best approach, so far as I can tell, is to be upfront that what we consider “good” is a reflection of our values. Now values are largely shaped by societies, traditions, biology, and the needs of the social contract, so it’s extremely likely that large groups of people living in the same communities for thousands of years will share similar values – you know, values like not living in a society where people are murdered too frequently and not living in a society where other people can steal your stuff…those kind of values.

In the context of the values that all people share, it’s very easy to determine whether some actions would be considered “good” or “bad” by those values. It’s not objective in the sense of being “ultimately true outside of the human mind,” but since we’re talking in the context of a set of values, we can determine whether or not some things are objectively good or bad in that context. Sure, there’ll be some grey areas, but that’s what courts and legal arbitration are for.

 

[AntiTheist]

While I’m thinking of it, I might as well ask this question: if you claim to believe in god and believe that god’s will is good, how do you know that it’s good?

Either you don’t have a reason for thinking that god’s will is good – in which case you have no reason to make the claim – or you do have good reason for thinking that it’s good, in which case you must have an idea of “good” as a concept apart from god that you’re using to evaluate god’s actions.

For example, there are all kinds of passages in the Old Testament in which god explicitly commands people to murder and commit genocide, and god explicitly gives instructions for owning slaves and rules for beating those slaves and passing them down as property. [And no, don’t give me that, “Oh, but slavery was so different then!” nonsense – we’re talking about the principle of owning other people, which is always bad by the standards of my values]

Are these good or bad actions? If you sincerely believe that “good” is whatever the will of god is, then you have to admit that there are contexts in which murder, genocide, and slavery are “good,” which is pushing the meaning of “good” quite past the breaking point, don’t you think?

If, on the other hand, you believe that we can call these actions “bad,” then you must have a standard of good and bad that you have arrived at independently of god in order to evaluate the actions attributed to him.

Take your pick.

 

[inocente]

While I’m thinking of it, I might as well ask this question: if you claim to believe in god and believe that god’s will is good, how do you know that it’s good?

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” – Luke 10:27 NIV

Starting at the back of that verse, I must find something worth loving in me, as otherwise it seems unlikely I could find the good in others.

In Christianity, God loves each of us and we find that out by returning His love, which is where the “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” bit fits in. If God loves even a wretch like me then maybe I’m not so worthless after all. You’ve presumably found an alternative approach that helps you here – one rather sentimental metaphor is “You are a child of the universe, you have a right to be here”, but yours may be a little more robust.

Whatever, once we can find some good in ourselves we can have compassion for others. As you suggested, our behavior here is far from formulaic - we usually care more about our immediate family, then our friends, then our own society, but our hearts can also go out to folk we see on TV caught up in some calamity on the other side of the world. “Love your neighbor” is a shorthand for this somewhat complicated behavior. In the following verses Jesus tells a story about the Good Samaritan, which is worth more than any lengthy philosophical treatise in helping us to understand. Notice Jesus never mentions God in the parable, and even suggests mercy has nothing to do with our views about God (the priest passes by on the other side). Notice also that the Samaritan isn’t motivated by ego, convenience or reward - he just does a bang-up professional job.

This then trumps anything you may find in the OT. By praising God we find what is praiseworthy in ourselves and in others. Some would argue that it’s possible to use it to determine absolute goods, although we may not want to get into that again as it’s been done to death on other threads.

 

[colmcille1]

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” – Luke 10:27 NIV

Starting at the back of that verse, I must find something worth loving in me, as otherwise it seems unlikely I could find the good in others.
This then trumps anything you may find in the OT. By praising God we find what is praiseworthy in ourselves and in others. Some would argue that it’s possible to use it to determine absolute goods, although we may not want to get into that again as it’s been done to death on other threads.

Hi inocente, my friend, and kind greetings to you!
Your post is, as usual, excellent. It reminded me of the text of a speech given by Pope John Paul II. Here is an abridged version:

‘Christ said to the apostles, during his prayer in Gethsemane: ‘Watch and pray that you do not enter into temptation’ (St Matt 26:41).
What does it mean, ‘I watch’?
It means that I make an effort to be a person with a conscience. I do not stifle this conscience and I do not deform it; I call good and evil by name and I do not blur them; I develop in myself what is good and I seek to correct what is evil, by overcoming it in myself.
‘I watch’ also means: I see another. I do not close in on myself, in a narrow search for my own interests, my own judgements.
‘I watch’ means: love of neighbour; it means fundamental interhuman solidarity.
Every life is determined and evaluated by the interior form of love. Tell me what you love and I will tell you who you are. The response to this love must be precisely the fact that I watch!’

God Bless,
Colmcille.

 

[JerryS]

If, on the other hand, you believe that we can call these actions “bad,” then you must have a standard of good and bad that you have arrived at independently of god in order to evaluate the actions attributed to him.Take your pick.

“But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’”

The question is whether God exists and whether he cares what we do. If both are affirmative, then good is defined by God. It may be difficult to discern what exactly God wills, but that’s a different question.

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

 

[inocente]

It reminded me of the text of a speech given by Pope John Paul II.

Hi friend, great to meet up again. Thanks for posting that excellent quote. I’ve printed it out - it deserves reflection as JPII obviously distilled a lot of thought there.

I used to stick with Protestant theologians but am now a big fan of JPII and Benedict too. They always cut to the chase, unlike most these days. It’s their understanding of what it is to be human that grabs me. This is also on topic:

*Yes, Pilate is correct when he says: “Behold the man.” In him, in Jesus Christ, we can discern what the human being, God’s project, is, and thereby also our own status. In the humiliated Jesus we can see how tragic, how little, how abased the human being can be. In him we can discern the whole history of human hate and sin. But in him and in his suffering love for us we can still more clearly discern God’s response: Yes, that is the man who is loved by God to the very dust, who is so loved by God that he pursues him to the uttermost toils of death.

And even in our own greatest humiliation we are still called by God to be the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ and so to share in God’s eternal love. The question about what the human being is finds its response in the following of Jesus Christ. Following in his steps from day to day in patient love and suffering we can learn with him what it means to be a human being and to become a human being. - “In the Beginning…”, Benedict XVI*

 

[Thales]

Just asserting “good is what my god’s will is!” doesn’t help the problem any.

The best approach, so far as I can tell, is to be upfront that what we consider “good” is a reflection of our values. Now values are largely shaped by societies, traditions, biology, and the needs of the social contract, so it’s extremely likely that large groups of people living in the same communities for thousands of years will share similar values – you know, values like not living in a society where people are murdered too frequently and not living in a society where other people can steal your stuff…those kind of values.

Thanks for your response AntiTheist. You present what seems to me the standard atheistic point of view on morality without God. It is innevitable that this discussion on “good” will turn towards morality, but the original prompt is not specifically about goodness and it relates to human behavior and actions, what we would call morality.

I the Nicomachean Etics, Aristotle sees that goodness has different meanings when applied to different things. With a good pen and a good person, good cannot mean the same thing. Good here does seem to describe the quality of the thing, which favors the definition by Raymond De Souza, that good is the fulfillment of a things purpose.

Anyway, to address your evolutionary or anthropologic moral system (morality without God), I would say defines morality in a non-objective and relative sense. Even though you say morality is evolved and developed through the course of societal developement, and it is kind of established in people this way, doesn’t give anyone a reason why they should behave in such a way. You are kind of describing the way things are but not why we should or ought to act that way. That system works for animals who act on pure instinctual nature, but for people who can reason and have free will we need more than just nature to direct our actions. We need authority that says “you ought”, this is something evolution does not do.

 

[Thales]

While I’m thinking of it, I might as well ask this question: if you claim to believe in god and believe that god’s will is good, how do you know that it’s good?

Either you don’t have a reason for thinking that god’s will is good – in which case you have no reason to make the claim – or you do have good reason for thinking that it’s good, in which case you must have an idea of “good” as a concept apart from god that you’re using to evaluate god’s actions.

For example, there are all kinds of passages in the Old Testament in which god explicitly commands people to murder and commit genocide, and god explicitly gives instructions for owning slaves and rules for beating those slaves and passing them down as property. [And no, don’t give me that, “Oh, but slavery was so different then!” nonsense – we’re talking about the principle of owning other people, which is always bad by the standards of my values]

Are these good or bad actions? If you sincerely believe that “good” is whatever the will of god is, then you have to admit that there are contexts in which murder, genocide, and slavery are “good,” which is pushing the meaning of “good” quite past the breaking point, don’t you think?

If, on the other hand, you believe that we can call these actions “bad,” then you must have a standard of good and bad that you have arrived at independently of god in order to evaluate the actions attributed to him.

Take your pick.

What you are laying out is the Euthyphro dilema which is found in Plato’s dialogue, “Euthyphro”. It is a good read! The dilemma goes like this:
“Is the pious (τὸ ὅσιον) loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?”
For our argument we could replace pius with good and gods with God.

First of all, those sections in the Bible of genocide or God having the Isrealites wipe out other tribes of people are not commandments or moral obligations for posterity. They were one time actions directed by God, most likely for the survival of the Isrealites. I thought about this when Dan Barker was giving his definition of good and trying to defend it when he was asked; certain people consume too much resources, in a conceivable world where resources are limited wouldn’t it do less harm to kill those people to conserve those valuable resources? I kind of forget what Dan said in response, but I would apply some Biblical passages to this also. Maybe the survival of those tribes would have done far more harm in the long run than wiping them out would have.

God never told the Isrealites, “this is how you handle all of your enemies, by killing them, men, woman, and children.” These are isolated incidents and the commands were given directly from God in these specific cases. God in His infinite knowledge is the only being capable of knowing whether the survival of a tribe, or people, or even an individual person will be more harmful in the long run, so He can make this sort of judgement. Fort the rest of us we cannot never make this judgement.

The imortatnt thing to know is that concerning these Biblical passages of mass killing, they are not moral commands.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

AntiTheist

Either you don’t have a reason for thinking that god’s will is good – in which case you have no reason to make the claim – or you do have good reason for thinking that it’s good, in which case you must have an idea of “good” as a concept apart from god that you’re using to evaluate god’s actions.

This does not follow. My concept of good is planted in me by God. I desire the good which I have not discovered or invented by myself. I can deny that good, of course. I can even pretend I have invented it without God. That is self deception. All human beings, unless they are demented, have a notion of good and evil. Most humans agree on what good and evil are. When they disagree, it is generally a sign that someone is deceiving himself, or trying to deceive others about good and evil.

The reason I know God is good is that He created me, not for the purpose of torturing me, but for the purpose of loving me and challenging me to choose good over evil. And if God were not good, He would not practice what He preached. He would not die on a cross to prove there is no greater love one man can have than to lay down his life for his friends.

 

[Thales]

I don’t want to start off with the assumption that, the “good” is God or what God wills, because as we can see we will end up getting stuck in the quagmire of then having to define what God is and what He wills, which someone rightly said is a different subject. It also brings in too many disputes between atheism and theism which takes us far off track. With this question, “What is good?” I hope that the atheist, as a reasoning human being, just like us Christians, can offer their own perfectly valid insights.

By investigating what we know to be good and how we come to think these things are good I would hope that we can come to an understanding of what the “good” really is and how we have come to associate it with something that is transcendent, like God. I think by this investigation we can reason from the quality of goodness and come to some conclusions about whether it points as its source only in God or not.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Thales

*By investigating what we know to be good and how we come to think these things are good I would hope that we can come to an understanding of what the “good” really is and how we have come to associate it with something that is transcendent, like God. I think by this investigation we can reason from the quality of goodness and come to some conclusions about whether it points as its source only in God or not. *

You can always hope. And if the atheist is true to the natural law that God planted in his heart, we can always agree. Unfortunately, without God all bets are off. When the ego gets to make the final call, and the call is motivated by an impure heart, there is no correcting device but God left to call upon. For the atheist, steeped in his own infallible authority,that is a no brainer.

 

[AntiTheist]

Anyway, to address your evolutionary or anthropologic moral system (morality without God), I would say defines morality in a non-objective and relative sense.

Your god-given morality is no less relative – it is relative on what god wills. Under your view of morality, genocide, murder, slavery, etc. are not always bad. There are contexts in which they can be good. That is textbook relativism.

Even though you say morality is evolved and developed through the course of societal developement, and it is kind of established in people this way, doesn’t give anyone a reason why they should behave in such a way.

“Should” only exists in relation to a set of shared values and goals.

There’s no reason why one should make certain movements on a chessboard, for example, but given the context of a set of rules and goals shared by people playing a game, we can determine with a good deal of objectivity whether or not a move is good or bad.

Similarly, there’s no “should” in nature, but given a set of shared values and goals – like, cooperative survival, for example – we can determine whether or not actions are good or bad in the context of those values, whether or not one should do them if one wishes to promote those values (which, as we’ve already determined, most people in our society do want).

 

[Thales]

This does not follow. My concept of good is planted in me by God. I desire the good which I have not discovered or invented by myself. I can deny that good, of course. I can even pretend I have invented it without God. That is self deception. All human beings, unless they are demented, have a notion of good and evil. Most humans agree on what good and evil are. When they disagree, it is generally a sign that someone is deceiving himself, or trying to deceive others about good and evil.

This is interesting. I kind of do think we all have some idea of what good is or at least we have an idea of what good is not. In G.K. Chesterton’s “What is Wrong with the World” he says something like; we all know that there is something wrong with the world and that it needs to be addressed. On this we all agree however, where the trouble comes in is the solutions to the problem. This is where all the bad ideas in history arise, all the secular utopian ideas that wreaked havoc in the 20th century.

I wonder if you could paraphrase Chesterton by saying, we know what good is not, but on what it is we can’t quite agree.

I agree with you that what is good cannot invented by man. By definition that would mean it is subjective. I can’t agree with a subjective definition of good since it would mean for someone something is good and for another it is not good and then we have a contradiction. To avoid the contradiction we would have to say that goodness is not only subjective but also relative to each person and to particular situations and times. Following this one could easily say what Hitler did was justifiable because for himself and his particular time and situation, killing jews was good. I cannot accept such a thing, and I don’t think many other people will either.

Maybe by this we can conclude that “good” is something apart from the creative mind of man. It exists to be discovered rather than invented.

 

[Thales]

“Should” only exists in relation to a set of shared values and goals.

The “should” or “ought” exists only when there is a standard by which to declare that something is supposed to be a certain way. You say the standard is shared values and goals. We could say this does define the purpose of actions and behaviors, but you are still left with what creates those values and goals; what sets the standard for how a thing (in this case man) is supposed to be.

In the case of the chess game you have men who have defined the rules of the game and the standards of play. It is easy from there to know how to play the game well or good, becasue the standard is in place created by the author of the game.

I’m beginning to think it is all coming down to authority, and by this I mean the author of the thing. Like Raymond De Souza says, the good is the fulfillment of the purpose of a thing. For man, we need to know his purpose. The only way to get at this is to know what or who the author or creator of man is and figure out what, his purpose for us is.

 

[Thales]

Your god-given morality is no less relative – it is relative on what god wills. Under your view of morality, genocide, murder, slavery, etc. are not always bad. There are contexts in which they can be good. That is textbook relativism.

Going with this line of reasoning one could just say then that God’s will is what is good and what one ought to do. By changing the idea/definition of good to “the will of God”, you escape the accusation of God-given morality as being relative, because the moral “ought” to the service of goodness is fulfilled in anything God wills. So if God wills for the Isrealites to kill some other tribe, the moral thing to do is to do it. If he says love thy enemy, the moral imperative is to do it. No contradiction and no relativism here.

You have preconceived of a definition for good as being “not genocide, not murder, and not slavery”, which are fine, because I agree those things aren’t good in themselves, but I should think the greater definition of good is more than just that. I think reason can tell us why genocide, murder, and slavery are not good and maybe lead us closer to what is the good.

Morality is in the service of what is good, it urges us to good actions and goodness in general, but I’m not asking for the understanding of morality. I want to know what morality points to; what is the good morality directs us to.

This is why I ask the question of “what is good?” It seems like all meaningful things are predicated on it.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

AntiTheist

*Your god-given morality is no less relative – it is relative on what god wills. Under your view of morality, genocide, murder, slavery, etc. are not always bad. There are contexts in which they can be good. That is textbook relativism. *

What’s not taken into consideration here is that God’s will is absolutely good and trumps all acts of men. If God orders genocide or slavery, as in the Old Testament, obviously God is not sinning, and men are not sinning to obey him, just as Abraham was willing to kill Isaac, not by his own will … which would have been evil, but in obedience to God’s will. Whereas if men order such things on their own authority, they are clearly in violation of God’s will. Thales has said all this and I think he has an unanswerable argument.

God, in order to protect and advance the cause of His people, that they may not lose heart and perish, has commanded acts that men on their own authority may not commit. While to an atheist this might seem like rank relativism, that is only because the atheist is not able to see God except as no better than the people who believe in Him, never mind that His will in all things is good and to be obeyed. Moreover, it is because the atheist cannot even admit the existence of God that he has to assume the genocide and the slavery ordered in the Old Testament really originated in the minds of men, rather than in the mind of God. If it were true that there is no God, the atheist would have a valid point.