Monday, October 31, 2011

Nothing is good or bad in itself

We always label and categorize things as good or bad but in actuality there is nothing  good or bad in itself. Either we can say everything is good or everything is bad, not like certain things are good and the others are bad. As a thing has got multipurpose and multiuse meticulous labeling of the thing as good or bad is of great difficulty.

It is our use, over use, how we use and for what purpose we use make things good or bad. The same thing can be used constructively and destructively so how can we label as it is good or bad so what makes a thing good or bad is, for the what purpose it has been used and what result it has elicited. 

For instance; a pen that is used for writing can be used for good as well as bad intentions. When the pen is used for writing down something it is a good use of a pen and at the same time it can be used to poke someone so it is for bad intention. So how can we group pen into the list of good things or bad things then? So for what purpose and what result the use of a particular thing elicits make a thing good or bad. So things are of two dimensional good or bad.

However, social acceptance and generalization have listed out things as good or bad. It is categorized that certain things are for good purpose therefore they are good and others are for bad purpose therefore they are bad. Therefore, our use and the result elicited push things into different categorizes as good and bad. So we the user and for what purpose we use a thing give the rightful place for a thing and in reality no thing is good or bad in itself.

2 comments:

  1. Obviously, when we speak about some object, it is senseless to argue whether it is good or bad in itself, such as the pen, but actions produced by the will or volition are different. The will can be either good or bad in itself.

    If one wills to commit murder, but by accident does not kill the other person, that will and attempt to murder is bad in and of itself. If another person wills and strives to save a person from being injured, but accidentally kills the person, that person's will could still be a good one. The reason why in the latter case is because the person may have good intentions to help others the entire time.

    Breaking promises is bad in itself (malum in se). if the promise is broken in order to help even more people than keeping the promise would help, then the person, of course, is inclined to break the promise, but such a volition to break the promise is still always bad in itself. Moreover, the act to help the majority in this case might completely lack a moral worth since the person would be acting according to his or her own best interests.

    Best regards,

    W.A.T. Brant

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