WARNING! Philosophical Content!- What Does it Mean for Something to be Bad?

[LostTimeLady]

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." -- William Shakespeare

Although Shakey has it down to a tee with this phrase I think it requires a little exploring.
It's interesting that in all cultures and even in different species certain things are considered bad.
If you threaten the young of a bear or a swan you better believe that the parents are going to come at you claws and beaks, so we could conclude that the threatening of young is considered a universal 'bad' thing. Also, murder of another member of the same species also seems to hold univeral status as a 'bad' thing but besides those I think bad really is subjective, the 'thinking makes it so' part of the Shakespeare quotation.

I think it's easier to define when something is good than bad becuase bad is so ambiguious. Is something that is missguided also bad or because it is missguided does that stop it being bad? Tricky stuff.

(Excellent thread by the way!)

 

[loodmoney]

Moral: [Redacted to prevent extensive rambling about things I'm not qualified to ramble about.] I suggest that you read moral philosophy. G.E. Moore would be a good place to start. J.S. Mill gives a hedonistic definition of good in Utilitarianism, see what you think of that.

As for ideas themselves being bad: inconsitency is bad. If holding two things to be true at the same time leads to a contradiction, you must give up one or the other, or find a way that they do not contradict one another.

You might want to check out this [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-theory/]. The Stanford Enyclopedia of Philosophy is really the best starting point for things like this.

 

[Benjamin Moore]

I'm assuming here that you are really looking at the difference between morally wrong versus morally right. In particular, how this differs from Good and Evil. This is my interpretation, and it may be a simplification; I haven't thought about this for the last twelve years...

Evil is just Greed. Everything that can be considered evil stems simply from greed, which is the state of pursuing personal gratification over all other considerations. Good, therefore is the opposite: altruism, the consideration of others over personal considerations. However, Evil isn't necessarily wrong, and neither is Good right.

Right is the Nash Equilibrium of Good and Evil, within a particular social group.
Wrong is all other strategies. Note, obviously in real life, there may be many sub-optimal, but close, strategies. Hence we define 'wrong-ness' to be the deviation from the Nash equilibrium: W = fi(xi*,x_i*) - fi(xi, x_i).

We can define bad to be a strategy with a high 'wrong-ness'.

(strategy here is being used to mean the set of actions taken out of all possible actions available)

EDIT: Been reading a bit on the Nash Equilibrium, it doesn't always give the most optimal solutions. I may have to think about this a bit more. Besides, information about the other parties may not be completely known; in which case a Bayesian-Nash Equilibrium may be more appropriate...

 

[Typhon1388]

I take G. E. Moore's stance on the matter when it comes to good and bad. Its diffuclt to meaningfully define such a basic term since it is like trying to define what "yellow" is. We use good and bad like we use left and right, as the most basic of reference points. They have intuitive meanings.

This is one of the classic philosophy debates which I think will never be settled. Wittgenstein said it best, "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language."

 

[JoJo]

I see "bad" as when something has more negative consequences than positive, issues with morality generally arise over disagreements over what the effect is of those actions:

E.g: Pro-homosexuality: Same-sex love is positive as the two parcipants gain and no-one is harmed
Anti-homosexuality: Same-sex love is negative as the two parcipants are sinning against God and so dooming themselves to Hell

 

[Xixikal]

Not in line with my self-interest.

 

[Drakulea]

"Good" and "Bad" can have different meanings depending on two dimensions :
-Scope
-Time

Scope : Individual vs Others ( Mate,Kin,Clan,Community,Nation,etc)
Time : Short-Term vs Long-Term

Good and Bad are defined in terms of "desired outcomes" within these two dimensions.

Example :

In the context of "Individual - Short-Term", a child can view vaccine injections as "Bad" because they cause him immediate searing pain. The fact that the vaccine has future benefits is irrelevant as the kid thinks in terms of "Me - Now".

Therefore, each action can be judged from different perspectives, there is indeed no absolute "Good" and "Bad".

However, one can consider the "Others - Future" perspective as "transcendent" and in general cultures view actions that benefit everybody in the long term as worthy of remembrance and revering.

So for every deed, there's at least 4 ways to look at and even then there's sub-divisions. What can be good for your mate, can be bad for the family. Good for the family, bad for the community, good for the community, bad for the nation. Good for the nation, bad for the region/planet,etc.

That's a really tall order for "absolute good" ( and even "absolute bad" ).

That's why "good" and "bad" need defining criteria.

So the question is not "Is this good/bad?"

It's "Who benefits from this and when/for how long?".

( It is not a coincidence that the most basic question in crime solving is "Qui bono?"/"Who profits?" )

 

[XHolySmokesX]

BAD is an ideology created by people as a way of defining experiences which result in negative emotions and feelings.

A bad egg for example would result in illness, discomfort, pain etc.
A bad idea would lead to an event which would have negative consiquences, e.g. you lose all your money.

you get the picture.

Moral bad however, is a phrase coined for use as a template for rules which dissalow people to commit acts which would leave others with negative emotions or feelings. This is a natural part of the human psyche, but the phrase itself locks the concept inside the brain of another person making it impossible for it to be an absolute.

ill leave it at that...

 

[Your once and future Fanboy]

Bad as we often use it, is based on personal taste, the fully subjective "bad", this is often colored by the Societal "bad" (by colored i mean its influenced by the social "bad", because many either go with the crowd or stand against them no mater what the subject)
.
the Societal "bad" is also subjective, but a evolving subjective where time, politics, art and sience change the view over time (i.e the issue of slavery or witch burnings, artist like Van Gough or Picasso, etc)

the true objective term "bad" is something that is in direct "challenge" to good, these are the moral issues we all have (in one form of another),i.e killing is bad (to a certain degree, for most this line is self preservation). For most, its only the moral "bad" that can be attached to actions, but for some the moral bad doesn't apply to certain things and it becomes a subjective bad (i.e hanging or torturing people of other races, stealing, touching children, etc).

I hope this made sense...

 

[Brandon237]

I generally consider hurting someone physically or emotionally when not in self-defence, using people for your own gain and anything along these lines to be "bad".

To be downright evil requires something more along the lines of being sick, brutal, a mass extortioner and generally not having any empathy and letting people know it.

Not the best definitions, but they work for me.