• Philosophy and Spirituality
    Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Threads of Note Socialize
  • P&S Moderators: JackARoe | Cheshire_Kat

Can we judge good or bad as a species?

P

prometheus72

Greenlighter
Joined
Apr 1, 2009
Messages
36
People are constantly arguing if humans are good or bad, but who are we to judge?

Now it is the nature of animals as far as we know to do what we have done to this planet. Until we find a species more intellectual and decide whether or not that species has done better or worse for itself than we have, we can't legitimately judge anything in this world or beyond it until we find something to compare it to.

It relates to the A Clockwork Orange idea. If you take away the good from the bad, and leave the bad, or vice versa, the one left becomes insignificant being there is nothing to compare it to. It becomes the only truth, and you will never know if what you are doing is positive or negative due to the fact that you only have one.

Judge within your knowledge, theorize outside of it.
 
Sorry, but do you mean

"Can our species judge what is good and what is bad?"

or

"Can we judge whether or not our species is good or bad?"

I wrote a response to one, and then realized it could sort of be taken either way.
 
^yes that should be cleared up. In regards to the first, I'd say yes definitely. In regards to the second, I'd say that there is no comparison to be made, so relative judgment is out the window.
 
I had a conversation earlier with Promethius, the roots for this conversation were in judging humans as good or bad and than as most philosophical conversations do, boiled down to fucking cartesian dualism, which i have recently declined acceptance to. I now have better ideas on these things but that is for a different thread at a different time ;D. Also, there is a definite connection between all conscousness's of man i.e. we are one.
 
yeah, i was saying "Can we judge whether or not our species is good or bad?" as for "Can our species judge what is good and what is bad?" that's a definite yes
 
as for "Can our species judge what is good and what is bad?" that's a definite yes
Click to expand...
8o ???
i must have missed something and landed a few light years away!

there are not 2 persons on this planet who would entirely agree on what is "good" and what is "bad"
there's no way our species could



"good" and "bad" don't even exist

they only exist as subjective judgments changing with the system of thoughts of each individual at one precise moment in his live

the notions of "good" and "bad" don't only change from an individual to another, but also for the same individual during his life


"ain't no wrong, ain't no right. there's only pleasure and pain"
(name the singer and get a candy)

even pleasure and pain vary from one individual to another
but at least, if someone says he is suffering, it is an objective comment, in regard to this person
 
prometheus72 said:
Until we find a species more intellectual and decide whether or not that species has done better or worse for itself than we have, we can't legitimately judge anything in this world or beyond it until we find something to compare it to.
Click to expand...
if you have a glass of warm water, it's hotter than a glass of cold water and colder than a glass of hot water.

your paragraph here seems to say "until we find a glass of water hotter than this warm glass, we can not legitimately judge the relative temperature of this glass". this doesn't make any sense to me at all.


alasdair
 
We can judge right from wrong as human beings.

Are we good or bad as a species?

Some members of the species are moral, some are immoral.
 
alasdairm said:
if you have a glass of warm water, it's hotter than a glass of cold water and colder than a glass of hot water.

your paragraph here seems to say "until we find a glass of water hotter than this warm glass, we can not legitimately judge the relative temperature of this glass". this doesn't make any sense to me at all.


alasdair
Click to expand...

Im pretty sure they elaborated on this in clockwork orange. If you have nothing to compare one thing to, the thing loses its meaning.
 
"Can we judge whether or not our species is good or bad?"

the human mind CAN judge anything as right or wrong, however each person will create a different judgement depending on their values, society, where they grew up, if their parents got divorced, how many times they brush their teeth a week, etc.
 
There is good and bad.

Sure what that is varies from person to person, but everyone makes relative value distinctions.

Apparently many of you think it is somehow better to not make value distinctions. Vegan, do you see how ironic this is?
If we did judge, would it not be comparable to racism?
I say we can't.
Click to expand...

First off, we're talking about if we have the ability to, not if we should. Very different.

That being said, it is not comparable to racism. We're talking about the entirety of the species, not the marginalization of one segment of the population by another. We must try to judge ourselves. We must make distinctions of good and bad. And we must do a good job of it too. If we do not we will surely destroy ourselves and a large portion of the natural world.
 
straycatphizzle said:
Im pretty sure they elaborated on this in clockwork orange. If you have nothing to compare one thing to, the thing loses its meaning.
Click to expand...
you missed my point (or perhaps i didn't make it very well).

the op argues that we can't judge our goodness (or badness) until we find a "more intellectual" species than ourselves. well, why do they have to be more intellectual (hotter, if you will)?

why can't they be less intellectual (colder, if you will) than we are to serve as a reference?

alasdair
 
Shakti said:
That being said, it is not comparable to racism. We're talking about the entirety of the species, not the marginalization of one segment of the population by another. We must try to judge ourselves. We must make distinctions of good and bad. And we must do a good job of it too. If we do not we will surely destroy ourselves and a large portion of the natural world.
Click to expand...

As a species we are all different.
To place our species into one 'same' group is about as ridiculous as being a racist.
 
Nothing is bad, and nothing is good. Its your personal opinion that decides such things. For one person, spitting might be bad, the other, good. This goes for everything and anything, the only reason we have a majority of our population condemning certain acts(murder, rape, theft) is because of social engineering, through schools, governments, tv and other advertising, religion, our upbringing(by parents who were also socially engineered to believe this stuff) and so on.. I laugh when people condemn a certain activity....

People, hundrds of years ago(and in some places today) use to:

Do public hangings, beheadings, and stonings
Force young girls to marry grown men
Go on witch hunts
Use people as slaves


Yet, these things are all frowned on now? Errmmm.. did these things suddenly become wrong? No, they were the same now as they were then, we've just been engineered as a society to think of these things as bad.
 
Last edited:
As a species we are all different.
To place our species into one 'same' group is about as ridiculous as being a racist.
Click to expand...

As a species we all have common characteristics. You yourself have placed us all into one same group by calling us a species. So what's your point? Think I'm a speciesist?
 
Apparently many of you think it is somehow better to not make value distinctions. Vegan, do you see how ironic this is?
Click to expand...
i don't know if you're refering to what i said or what others said

i definitely didn't say it was better. i said it was not possible

if you're saying it about others' posts, they either chose their words ineptly; let out those words because we're so used to using them (even if we don't think they have actual meaning, they're often the easy short-cut instead of explaining your complete opinion) ; or they just have to remember to apply their ideas to the way they're talking about these ideas
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top