To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school…it is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. – Henry David Thoreau
Thursday, November 19, 2015
No definition
Good is when a person's actions are done with good intentions. Actions done with the intention to help others and not hurt them. Good can benefit just one person without hurting anyone or it can benefit a larger population. The part where it gets tricky to define is when you have to weigh the damage versus helpfulness. For instance in one situation we saw in a video you had the choice to kill one man or five. When you weigh the facts I think it is better to let one person die rather than five. When other factors are added such as having to pen one man in front of the train to stop it from killing the other five the decision becomes even more complicated. One death is better than five but the one man was completely innocent and should not have even been on the tracks. This is not "good" because of the forceful pushing of someone to their death. Another situation to consider is the one presented in the movie Traitor. Allowing terrorists to kill a few people in order to save many. In this situation I initially though pt it was crazy that anyone would ever give terrorists explosives. But as time went on I realized why. It saved many lives in the future. I think this is "good". I wish there was a way to prevent all deaths in this situation but seeing no way to do that I think the actions taken were the right choice. They were done in an effort to help the world, not injure it. To conclude my view I believe that there is no simple view of what is good. It is to complex to determine one definition of "good". If I were to begin the definition though I would begins with saying that good is when the actions are done with the intention to help rather than hurt. However there are many situations involving careful thought and calculation on which outcome is more beneficial. When it is impossible to have a completely harm free outcome it is better to have the outcome that is the least harmful. But then there are many different cases here too. Good is relative to the situation. It is not as simple as one definition.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
You have many thoughtful insights! I like how you addressed the various topics we were introduced to during this unit and through them demonstrated how you define the "good." I agree that it is often to hard to put a set definition on what is good as it varies so differently on the particular situation.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that goodness can be different depending on the situation. It is like when the elders say they do something "for your good". Yet their “goodness" might not be appreciated by us. When people do things, they should put themselves in others' shoes. One thing can be good to you while being bad to others.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that good is not as simple as one definition. I also really like that you wrote that goodness are really tricky and sometimes can be difficult to define and just like your title "No definition". This is a really interesting topic. I like how you wrote that goodness can be determine by different situations and also depend on how people think it's going to benefit them.
ReplyDelete