“Good” vs “Bad”



Last judgement

The adjectives “good” or “bad” used frequently in our Café often sound rather puerile to start with. We remember how our parents used to lecture us on how to be “good”: “Be a good girl/boy. Do what your teacher says. Stay with the group. Don’t talk to strangers...” What does it mean to “be good”? When our parents taught us to be good, it often implies that we ought to follow the rules, to be obedient to authority.  If the object of “being good” is to maintain social order, then perhaps a communist society, or a police state would be a good place to live because there no rebellious behaviour or criticism of the government would be tolerated. A totalitarian society is built upon conformism where individualism and original ideas are not encouraged.

Perhaps religion (no matter which faith or belief) is a more effective disciplinary tool than state policing, as religion under the guise of spiritual teaching, often uses the promises and punishment in the afterlife to regulate the behaviour of its followers. Can we say that religious doctrine is our yardstick of “goodness”?

How do you judge who is good who is bad? To be “good” do we have to be a saint? A person who sacrifices all earthly desires and devotes his life to helping others is generally praised as a “good person”. How do you describe a person who steals a loaf of bread in order to save some starving children? Or a person that kills an aggressor to help a victim? How do you qualify a "good thing" or a "bad thing"? If we define that an action that benefits majority of people but only harms a minority of people is a “good thing”; can we also classify an act of gang rape which satisfies a group of rapists but damages only one woman as a “good thing”?



If we say that all killing, rape, theft are “bad things” because they are morally wrong, why then there are such distinctions as “just war”, or “unjust war” where in both instances great numbers of innocent people were killed, raped, plundered? Why some historical instances were described as “crime against humanity”, “genocide”, but some others were described as “war on terror”, “war against tyranny”? The flip side of “bad” thing is considered a “good” thing depending on which side you are on.  If what Nazi did in the WWII was an act of genocide, why then the bombing of Dresden and dropping Atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not also acts of genocide? Does it mean that punitive action, no matter how barbaric, can be justified as “good thing”? This proves the point that history is only written by the winners. 

Suffering...

After our last session of café-philo in the V&A, I went for a tour of the Museum. Loitering in the Italian court for hours lost in thought. The topic of the day was still lingering in my mind: Is it justifiable to alleviate one’s perception of “suffering” by breaking one’s moral principles or values?

1. What is suffering?

Bound slave

I stopped in front of the statue of a bound slave by Michelangelo, the master of profound empathy for human suffering. The bound slave’s anguished facial expression and contorted torso struck a deep cord in my mind: “Man was born free. But everywhere, I see him in chains.” We suffer because we can never find the ultimate freedom that we desire. A few steps away, I saw the statue of a dying slave. The serene calm expression of the dying slave contrasts sharply with the pained grimace of the rebelling slave. Is death the ultimate alleviation of our suffering? I had that impression that the notion of “suffering” is an exclusive concept in Catholicism. Catholic art views human suffering as a redemption of our sins. Take the image of the Crucifixion of the Christ for example: a manifestation of a martyr who endured excruciating physical sufferings for his spiritual belief, preaching his flock to sacrifice their earthly pleasure for a happy after-life in Heaven, to avoid punishment in Hell.

Dying slave

Religion is a spiritual refuge for sufferers.  Religion is the Opium of the masses, the Prozac for the poor, the Soma for the Epsilon. It is interesting to know how the Oriental Buddhist view differs from the Occidental Christian view on the way of alleviation of sufferings. (I hope Peter can elaborate on this point.)

2. What are the causes of suffering?

Is physical suffering caused by poverty and illness mainly in the “Third World” given their deprived economic situation? Whereas mental suffering, depression and suicide a particular phenomenon of the post-industrial Revolution West, judging by the statistics of Prozac usage? asks Grace.

Not true, replies Christian.  Depression as a mental suffering was recorded long before Industrial Revolution in classical time as “melancholia,” a manifestation of one of the four "humours" in human body: black bile. (three other "humours" with corresponding temperaments: blood - sanguine, yellow bile - choleric, phlegm - phlegmatic). According to some 17th century writer, Melancholia is mainly caused by an unfulfilled desire, in other words, a longing for something lacking, it could be the lack of money, or lack of good health, or lack of love...

Depression has now been classified by medical profession as a physical “illness”, in other words, it is no longer a “mental suffering.” It is now in the same category as flu, headache, stomachache, toothache, gum infection, gastroenteritis, or any other infections which can be cured by popping a few antibiotics and Paracetamol.

3. To what extent can one alleviate one’s perception of “suffering”?

Gerry is more interested in finding answers to moral dilemmas in specific social context. Can one go against one’s moral principle even break the law in order to alleviate one’s suffering?

Christine thinks that those who had broken their moral principles to relieve their temporary suffering often live to regret their action afterwards. She offered an interesting example to illustrate her point: A group of air-crash survivors in the snow-bound mountains of Andes, owing to a moment of insanity triggered by starvation, succumbed to cannibalism to relieve their hunger pain. At the time, it seemed to them justifiable to eat another fellow human in order to save their own lives. Years later when they reflected on that episode, they could not resolve to ease their conscience and they lived the rest of their life in remorse.

Gerry’s question is more specific: Is it justifiable for an illegal immigrant, a penniless single mother with two starving children, to resort to prostitution? Is it lawful for a battered wife to kill her abusive husband in order to end her misery?

There is a distinction between a person who harms or destroys him/herself in order to alleviate his/her suffering, and a person who seeks to blame others for his own suffering, and tried to alleviate his pain at the expenses of others, says Malcolm.

Christine, full of anecdotes, picks out another example: the current NHS system offering to pay for Obesity sufferers to have elective operations such as liposuction and stomach binding at the expenses of other seriously ill patients who urgently needed life-saving operations. That is an example of transferring one’s own suffering to others.

The final question is: does prostitution actually alleviate or aggravate the suffering of the woman (or the man)? This is an entirely different kettle of fish. One can write a whole book on the subject: the battle of the sexes.
...

Essay: Sainthood and Conscience

Dear Philosophers,

Our meetings are more about wisdom than sainthood, but let me invoke Saint Martin here. He ranks among Christianity’s most popular figures. Opulent churches across Europe and America are dedicated to his veneration, and yet most people have only a trivial anecdote to quote about his life: As he was on patrol with his legionnaires Centurion Martin came across a beggar, half-naked and shivering in a biting winter day. Moved by compassion Martin took off his ample army cloak, slashed it, and gave the beggar half. Isn’t that a generous move? Martin suffered more from the cold, but the poor man suffered less. That’s solidarity.

Rewind the film and twist the story. Imagine the general ordered a subordinate to share his coat with the beggar. The result would look exactly the same: a half-freezing soldier, a half-warmed up pauper. But who is generous now? Who is showing solidarity? The general, who keeps comfortably clothed? The soldier, who can only obey orders? And ought the poor man to accept an object from someone who didn’t want to give it? The poor have their pride too, and if the general had to intervene it must be because the soldier was reluctant. Should the receiver thank the general, who deprived somebody else, not himself, or thank the unwilling soldier?

Of course, beneficiaries don’t brood moral issues. Not when they are cold and hungry. But their perspective, however emotional, is not the only valid one if you worry about the long term.
For consider the soldier. What can his feelings be towards two individuals, who are causing him misery? He looks askance at his warmly clothed commander, who displays the smug smile of good conscience; and he looks down at the new coat wearer, in whom he sees no merit, for whom he feels no compassion, and he is probably ready to despise both of them equally.

You catch my drift. You are not giving when you are ordered to. The poor surround us, at home and afar, and our generals command us to provide for their care. They even chase aggressively the few who evade the order to “give”, or give less than ordered.

Notwithstanding, of course, their conflicts of interest as whilst they claim the moral high ground, they take their cut before distribution.

Can solidarity be coercive? Interpersonal relationships are based on risk. Professionals won’t turn you down; but when you hope for fraternity, rather than impersonal assistance based on computer entries, only freely given relationships will do. Is the grand ambition to achieve a society of bean counters, where everyone has a cash to check on reluctant payers; or are we aspiring to a more vibrant, generous, and yes, less regulated, community?

Christian

Forum: Question of tolerance in society

Strands of discussion:

• Should morality be separate from politics?
• Evolution of tolerance: homosexuality was not acceptable in the past but is widely recognised as equal to heterosexuality now. Would Paedophilia be accepted in the future?
• Morally unacceptable ideas or conduct can be drummed into people’s mind as acceptable – politicians often use marketing techniques to dress up a “bad” policy as a “good” policy.
• Part of political oppression is to persuade or coerce people to accept or reject certain concepts which are morally "wrong".

See also: Speaking ill of the dead

Forum: does altruism exist?

Strands of discussion:

• Selfishness inherent in human nature?
• Love, compassion, give and take a human instinct or moral sense?
• Is altruism a form of hypocrisy? e.g. gifts/presents are often seen as bribery or humiliation to the recipient. The donor of gift can be perceived as manipulator of power by using gift to control the behaviour of the receiver.
• Egoism v reciprocity

See also: Is human nature essentially egotistic or altruistic?

Forum: Can human beings live without conscience and consciousness?

Strands of discussion

• difference between consciousness and conscience
• instinct v conscience
• what is conscience – an inversion of guilt?
• what is instinct – sexual, maternal, survival, killing.
• were we born with conscience?
• moral sense – conscience – guilt is indoctrinated into our mind during our adult life.
• moral question: different countries have different standards of right and wrong