It is easy to agree that all human values are conditional. You agree, right? Even a schoolchild can understand this on an intellectual level. But there is one subtle but extremely important point that usually escapes attention.
Watch your hands! If all values are conditional, then how do we choose what to call good and what to call evil? What is the criterion by which a neutral objective reality we divide into light and dark, good and evil, right and wrong?
By honestly answering this question, we will cut out from under our feet the main support that allows us to maintain a position of sincere delusion and innocently avoid all responsibility for our lives.
By designating right things as “right” and even agreeing that it is more correct to be “right,” we always have an ace up our sleeve, which leaves us a loophole to commit any “wrongness.” After all, even when doing something very wrong, we always get away with it, because we easily find an opportunity to tilt the scales of internal justice in our favor.
How does this happen? Let's figure it out.
Rationalism
The main line of defense in a world that proudly calls itself civilized is faith in human reason. What is the first thing we do when life confronts us with a choice? We are thinking! We try to use our memory, our experience, our intellect, to judge which choice would be “smarter” in a given situation.
We will not even discuss here the question to what extent the mind has power over our real behavior and our experiences. Let's assume that we are really capable of acting based on the decisions made by our reason.
But how do we reason? Isn't it possible that under seemingly logical thoughts we are hiding something that is not logical?
For example, we rely on memory. First, we believe that the memory of similar situations in the past can somehow help us evaluate the current situation. But do you know what they say about experience? Experience is the knowledge of how to act in situations that will never happen again. And these are not just nice words.
In fact, by trusting experience, we rely on the laws of statistics, which tell us which choice will be more correct with some degree of probability. And this would be quite satisfactory if our mind did not then play a trick on us, turning probability into certainty. Who cares about the theory of probability when a plane crashes and all the passengers die, despite the fact that statistically it is the safest mode of transport? Who should I submit the bill to then? God of statistics?
That is, life experience is not such a convincing basis for unambiguously separating right from wrong. Even if a hundred times in a row the situation developed the same way and it was more correct to go to the right, nothing prevents the same situation the hundred and first time from going according to a different scenario, where it would be more correct to go to the left. And experience here will more likely harm us than help us.
Secondly, we generally tend to trust our memories, as if they were carefully guarded archives of life experience. But in practice, memory in fulfilling its direct duties turns out to be very, let’s say, flexible. All of psychological science arose exactly at the very moment when Freud convincingly proved that we remember only what we want to remember, easily and thoroughly forgetting what we do not want to remember.
“I did it,” says my memory. “I couldn’t do it,” says my pride and remains adamant. Eventually memory gives way.
And if this is the case, if memory is not an impartial mechanism for storing and providing useful information, if it tends to find and produce exactly the result that we expect from it, then how can we rely on it? It turns out that personal memory is as unreliable an ally as life experience.
In the third case, in our reasoning we rely on certain ideas about life that have always seemed to us to be axioms that do not require proof. However, if the scientific axiom is really something completely obvious, then the psychological axiom, although it seems just as convincing, has no objective basis at all.
Parents must take care of their children. Men should look after women. Children must respect their parents. Women should get married and have children. The state must take care of its citizens. Everything in the world should be fair. Promises must be kept. You can't steal or kill. It is necessary to protect the weak. And so on and so forth…
Take any point that seems most convincing to you and ask yourself the question - “How do I know that the world works this way? Who said that I should do this, or that I have the right to do this? Answer honestly and you will inevitably run into... emptiness.
We drew our ideas about life from our environment and the pressure it put on us. Our consent was required, and we agreed. But even when there are no longer any requirements and we can no longer disguise ourselves, we cannot stop. We have become so attached to our ideas that we ourselves are now ready to put pressure on other people so that they agree with us. We would rather change the world in accordance with our ideas about it than admit that our ideas are an unfounded belief, a fiction, an object of whim.
We have an excellent computing complex installed on our shoulders. The ability for logical thinking, rationality is the greatest achievement of evolution. But what is the use of the most powerful computer if we supply it with false data at the input? What is the use of the most precise logic if the initial premises are not true? We can talk very beautifully and coherently about duty and honor, but if we look at where we got these concepts from in the first place, a very unpleasant surprise awaits us, which will leave no stone unturned in all further constructions.
We say, “This is correct, because my experience tells me so,” and we believe that it really sounds convincing. We say, “This is right, because I remember how it was last time,” and we believe that our memories are not biased. We say, “This is right because it is reasonable,” and we believe that our reflections are based on the solid ground of truth. And all this together gives us a feeling of control over our lives, while it systematically slides into complete chaos.
And even when our experience is truly applicable to a given specific situation, even when our memory is impeccably honest, even when our logic is irrefutable, the last problem remains - in our lives there are too many examples of how we do the wrong things and experience the wrong feelings contrary to requirements and logic of your mind. That is, even when we know the right thing to do is go right, we too often find ourselves going left.
What then guides our logic and reason? Why do they act like bribed jurors every time? And what if we can no longer justify our choices in life on their rationality? Where to find support when the intellect with all its accumulated knowledge about life has demonstrated its weakness and unreliability?
Moral
When logic fails, morality comes into play. If we cannot logically justify our position, we throw up our hands and move on to moral categories. Once our beautiful logical constructs are destroyed, we find ourselves completely naked, and we can only hide behind the fig leaf of our ideas about good and evil.
When we can't say anymore - “This is correct because logic requires it”, We are speaking - “This is right because morality demands it.”.
Morality is a universal response to a child when a parent cannot justify his position. “You can’t do this because it’s bad. You need to do this because it’s good” - this is the favorite trick of an irresponsible parent. By referring to morality, we get rid of the need to answer slippery questions for ourselves - after all, we so want to maintain faith in the authority and righteousness of our position.
A child must be obedient, a child must respect his parents, a child must obey his elders... and so on. Why does he have to do all this? Because being obedient is good, obeying and respecting elders is good, but being disobedient and disrespectful is bad.
One could say that morality reflects the natural laws of nature and therefore does not require additional reasons. But this is not so! We could say that the child must eat, but in saying this we understand the absurdity of such a requirement. The law of nature does not need such statements. An apple does not need to be explained that it must fall, a child does not need to be explained that it must eat. But you can change everything, as we do, and start convincing the child that he should eat on a schedule.
That makes all the difference. Moral laws always lack a natural basis, which is why we constantly have to demand that we fulfill them. Morality is never natural, so there is always a club attached to it - for persuasiveness.
Social morality is a universal self-sustaining self-deception. Parents believe in moral values and teach the child that doing wrong is wrong. The child tests this hypothesis in practice and receives confirmation - they really stop loving him as soon as he starts doing something bad. And after several repetitions, the reflex is strengthened, and now in the child’s mind the moral law is on a par with the law of universal gravitation.
You should not drop heavy objects because they hurt your fingers. You cannot do bad things because they hurt your conscience. Logical?
But we understand that moral requirements are nothing more than a subject of agreement. And conscience is nothing more than a cancerous tumor that arose under the influence of radioactive parental “love.” There is no morality or conscience in nature - there are only laws of nature and basic survival instincts that do not need justification.
By and large, the trouble is that parents do not have the courage to admit what they are really guided by when they demand submission and obedience from their child. It is only because of this weakness that reasonable social agreements take on the sinister form of a moral law, the violation of which is a sin. If parents were honest with themselves, their children would grow up to be exemplary citizens, and would be so out of reasonable free will, and not under the threat of ostracism.
Now pay attention to one more thing. If we take two children, place them in more or less identical conditions and teach them the same moral values, we will notice a curious thing - over time, these children’s ideas about good and evil will be very different! And why?
Make a long list of commandments, show it to different people and you will see that everyone will choose something different from this list. A person will enthusiastically agree with some commandments, he will confirm some reluctantly, he will ignore some, and he will reject the rest. Why does this happen? Why do we easily agree to obey some laws and struggle to defend our freedom from fulfilling others? What is the criterion by which we distinguish some laws from others?
Moreover, our personal moral values are highly variable over time. Be honest with yourself and you will find plenty of evidence of this. Yesterday's good today may seem to us like disguised evil, and yesterday's evil may seem like undervalued good. At what point exactly do these jumps in values occur?
When they beat us, aggression and cruelty are bad. When we strike, mercilessness towards the enemy is good. When we are offended, being an insensitive person is bad. When we offend, selfishness is our best quality.
Morality has always been and will be a bargaining chip in our hands. When we lack the intellect to justify our position logically, all its processing power is directed towards justifying it morally. There is no better lawyer in the world than the one who sits in our heads and juggles the letter of the universal law, subordinating it to the spirit of personal egoism. And even when we pronounce a guilty verdict on ourselves, another part of us admires and is proud of this ability to condemn ourselves. Confess your sin to prove your righteousness...
Selfishness
So, when we pretend that we are guided by sober reason, it often turns out that reason, under the guise of a logically sound choice, slips in misinformation that is convenient for us. When we are guided by moral values, it turns out that our values are very unstable and somehow also always end up on our side.
It turns out that both of our ways of separating right from wrong are discredited. The intellect uses information too cleverly and is able to prove the validity of any of the alternatives. Morals are easily interpreted and subject to enough qualifications to justify any sinner and condemn any saint.
But if both instruments are not impartial in themselves, then whose will do they carry out, juggling the facts and bending morality in the direction we need? After all, in the end, we always choose something “reasonably”! Who is behind the stage of this theater and what guides him when making real choices for us?
All rationalizations aside, why do we do what we do? Why do we go left and not right at the next crossroads of life? Why do we choose a pear and not an apple in the store? Why do we choose to be lazy rather than work around the clock? Why do we choose one person and reject another? If we don’t know how to live “correctly,” then how does it turn out that day after day we are busy with one thing - living?
The answer is simple: the only guiding principle in our lives is the principle of pleasure. Ovation for Freud. Everything we do in life is a constant desire to reduce internal tension in the simplest and most effective way.
This is exactly the same thing that happens with the physical body and the desire to get rid of physical discomfort, only in the case of the mental apparatus we are talking about mental discomfort - be it pain, desire, fear or any other emotional stress.
Simply put, the only real desire we have is for us to feel good, for the comfort of soul and body. And this is where the collision we are talking about occurs. We are one hundred percent egoists, but since our internal tensions, among other things, are connected with the fact that we need approval, we have to either put our egoism in the stall, or find such an excuse for our egoism so as not to be responsible for it.
This is where all the power and ingenuity of our intellect and the masterly flexibility of our conscience come into play. Imagine what a great job it is to find an explanation for every purely selfish urge so that you can say that I am doing it because it is right, and not because it is my whim.
If, without any logical or moral justification, I admitted that I was just fulfilling my desires, the heavens would not fall, but it seems to me that as a result I would be rejected by other people - who the hell needs such an egoist. And here I make a feint - I still fulfill my desire (!), but I turn the matter around so that I have clear and clear justifications for why I did this and why bribes from me are smooth.
This is exactly the maneuver that parents and children do. Guided solely by their personal comfort, they explain to children why they should be obedient and comfortable - because it is “right”, because obedience is “good”, because disobedience is “evil”. And in the end, the set of moral values that a child acquires is nothing more than a set of parental whims, clothed in the form of moral laws or pseudo-rational explanations.
Children's ideas about good and evil are entirely a reflection of their parents' irresponsible selfishness. Only what is good and convenient for parents is good and correct. What is bad and wrong is what is bad and inconvenient for parents. That's the whole moral. No parent will teach a child any morality other than that which justifies his personal selfishness.
And then we grow up and adopt the same technique. We cannot stop being egoists - this is an invariable reality, but we are now smart and cunning enough to begin to bend morality and logic to suit our own needs and desires.
Once again for clarity. The result of this mechanism is that all our ideas about good and evil, right and wrong are in the service of our egoism. We consider good that which allows and helps us maintain our comfort and convenience. We call evil that which interferes with our comfort and convenience. It's the same with logic.
Our strongest instinct, the tyrant in us, is subject not only to our reason, but also to our conscience.
Thus, we live in a state of constant and continuous self-deception - while remaining completely and completely egoists, we nevertheless retain faith in our correctness, righteousness and kindness. And if you pay attention to your internal dialogue that accompanies you through life, you will notice that it is not busy with anything other than constant self-justification. This is the same self-hypnosis that allows us to believe in our own lies.
Selfishness squared
But this is not the whole picture. Selfishness in itself is not a problem. Isn’t it natural to strive to relieve internal tension and spiritual comfort? And if this mechanism did not put a spoke in its wheels, it would automatically lead a person to natural harmony in his relationships with himself and the outside world.
If it seems to you that a person without morality will turn into a beast, that without militant good in the world there will be only triumphant evil, then this is a great delusion, characteristic primarily of people who have devoted their entire lives to war with themselves and attempts to cope with their selfish nature. The stronger this internal conflict, the stronger this person's belief in the need for morality to curb inner evil.
But there is no evil inside. And the same principle of pleasure will place a person under the necessity of maintaining polite, tactful and honest relations with other people. When a person is not obliged to be kind under pain of punishment, he does not become evil because of this, he becomes tough, and it is this inner firmness that arouses the greatest envy and respect of ordinary “kind” people.
Natural selfishness leads to honesty, responsibility and harmony with the world. The only problem is that it also leads to a conflict with the world of habitual self-deception. And if one person takes upon himself the courage to recognize and accept his selfish nature, then this automatically leads to a severance of ties with all those people who, being just as selfish, do not want to admit it. An honest egoist will be kicked out of society in no time precisely because he interferes with maintaining the stability of the general illusion.
That is, our psyche is structured rationally and, if nothing interfered with it, then universal happiness would inevitably come, but in the way of the natural flow of psychic energy there is a monumental dam called “Personality”. And here natural egoism turns into “square”.
As soon as the survival instinct of the organism is replaced by the survival instinct of the individual, the whole world immediately turns upside down. We form our personality with our own hands in order to present it to the world around us and receive the approval we so need. And this game captivates us so much that very quickly we forget about how we made the mask with our own hands, how we put it on for the first time, how we honed our acting skills. And after a while we forget the most important thing - how to remove this mask.
From this moment on, we become one with our mask-personality, and natural egoism is now replaced by personal egoism. If earlier all efforts were aimed at relieving general mental discomfort, now they are concentrated on the comfort of the individual. Where natural egoism required me to act and live in harmony with myself, there false personal egoism forces me to live in accordance with my mask - with my fairy tale about myself, which I so want to believe.
And now ideas about good and evil are undergoing the latest and most disgusting transformation. They were conditional before, we used to play with them as we wanted, but now everything is getting a hundred times worse. As soon as we have become “personalities” with an inexhaustible need to strengthen and maintain a sense of self-importance, we immediately begin to transform our value system so that it, too, protects our importance.
We now call good what helps our self-affirmation, and evil what interferes with this strategic goal. Parents begin to demand obedience from their children - because this supports their idea of self-importance. Children reason that their parents should love them (or leave them alone) because it reinforces their sense of self-importance. Friends expect loyalty from each other - because this is mutual recognition of importance. We expect and demand justice from the world - because we consider ourselves very important and significant.
We are always busy only demanding respect from everyone around us, and all our ideas about good and evil, right and wrong are now entirely subordinated to this goal.
It’s good that my wife is faithful to me, because otherwise it will affect my importance. It’s bad to cheat on my wife - because I chose to pretend to be a good man, because this image commands respect, and if I cheat, the image will collapse. It’s good for people to keep their promises, because if they don’t, it means they don’t respect you. It is bad to lie - because honest people are respected more than liars. And so on.
Each of us has our own set of theses that correspond to our unique and precious personality. At the same time, we always claim that it is OUR ideas about good and evil that are universal, and therefore we demand from others that we are right - which will precisely give us the opportunity to confirm our own importance. After all, we get the most acute and sweet feeling of our own importance precisely when we manage to bring another person to his knees in front of us - that is, to prove someone else’s unimportance!
Any human conflict, any quarrel between friends, any family quarrel is a clash of importances. Resentment or anger occurs when another person has treated me “badly.” But if you look at this “bad” more carefully, then there is no other basis for it except that I demand respect for myself and the fulfillment of my whims. I want to be respected, but since in reality I am no more important than my opponent, I have to justify my claims - and the easiest way to achieve this is to turn the barometer of good and evil in the direction I need and convince the person that I am good and he is good. bad.
This desire to assert one’s own importance at the expense of other people, supported and justified by moral values bent in the right direction - this is the most real and irrespective evil.
And when in books, films or in our lives there is an eternal and never-ending struggle between good and evil, it is always and without exception a struggle for one’s own importance, disguised by a sincere but false belief in the righteousness of some and the sinfulness of others. This is the very good that is the cause of all evil.
p. s.
Judging by the first wave of comments, not everything in the article turned out to be clear and understood, although I tried my best to chew on the main points. Therefore, a request and recommendation: if this text offends you in one way or another, do not rush to agree and do not rush to argue - read it once, let your thoughts settle, and after a day or two come back and re-read it carefully again. And only then, if you have something to say, leave comments.
Don't buy into the easy way of writing. This topic is one of the most complex, if not the most complex, discussed on the site.
Did you like the post?
- Share the link with your friends. This is not a small thing at all!
- Leave a few words in the comments
Share your find!
You might also be interested in:
Let's talk about it!
Login using:
You can’t even imagine, dear friends, how much your understanding of good and evil affects your life. We are taught to distinguish between good and evil from early childhood, when we are carefully convinced of the correctness of some actions and the incorrectness of others. And we ourselves, to the best of our ability, try to figure out what is good for us in this life and what is bad. And not always, far from always, we manage to find out the truth about good and evil, right and wrong, good and bad. As a result, we face various problems in our lives due to our inadequate perception of reality. We make unnecessary mistakes, the consequences of which can be very, very disastrous for us.
Many problems of a psychological nature come down to a person’s definition of good and evil and his development of an adequate, from his point of view, reaction to both. Many of you are probably unhappy with your situation in life, and this is a very common phenomenon. All sorts of philosophical and religious beliefs about the attitude towards money, towards one’s neighbor, towards lifestyle, towards moderation and the like, try to convince us of what we feel with our whole body. Well, it seems like money is evil, the desire to possess some woman you like is a sin, the desire to live in a palace is an optional luxury. It turns out that things that are completely natural for our lives are something wrong and bad, and we should not want what we really want. Sorry, but what about those people who have it all, who live life to the fullest and are not going to give it up? Why on earth should we limit ourselves in some way and concede something to someone?
What is good for us and what is bad for us, we can probably understand ourselves if no one imposes on us their point of view on certain things and instills in us their ideas about good and evil. A person has a basic set of instincts that give rise to natural desires in him, and by listening to our instincts, but giving them a reasonable form, we can easily understand what exactly and why we need, what is good for us and what is evil. If you follow your true desires, learn to satisfy your basic needs, and you will have significantly fewer problems with your mental and psychological health.
I know what I'm talking about, thousands of people with various problems have gone through me. And very often these problems rested on their incorrect, or rather, deliberately distorted worldview. But one has only to show a person the right path, and he gradually comes to the understanding that he has driven himself into a dead end, following other people’s beliefs about good and evil. Well, for example, people write to me that their family life is like hell and that they can no longer tolerate the pigish attitude towards themselves, but they don’t know what to do, how best to act. But they don’t have the courage to simply break off a relationship with the wrong person, because it’s somehow not good to leave a person who perhaps loves you in the depths of his soul. Well, yes, of course he loves, he loves so much that he beats, insults, humiliates, mercilessly exploits, and even threatens to kill. Very sincere love, which sometimes ends in very disastrous results. Yes, sometimes you shouldn’t rush into divorces because the problem may lie within yourself, but when things go too far, when family life turns into a game of survival, a decision should be made immediately. True, sometimes making the right decision is not easy, because a person is overcome by doubts regarding the correctness of this decision, and besides, there is such a thing as habit, which forces a person to get used to everything, including a very bad, and even very dangerous life .
Well, in this case, given that we live in the modern world, you should seek help from a psychologist who will help you make the right decision and explain to you its correctness. You can go to an appointment with a psychologist, or even better, contact him on the Internet, for example, write him a letter and ask him to help you understand a difficult situation for you, ask him to help you decide on the right step. Believe me, good specialists are not poisoned by any inadequate nonsense, they look at life with sober eyes, and the advice they give is guaranteed to be correct, following which you will gain more than you lose. A wise answer from a specialist to your question does not necessarily have to be a revelation for you, it can simply help you decide on the action that you yourself perfectly understand is correct.
So the meaning of a psychologist’s advice, as well as any wise advice in general, comes down to encouraging a person to make the only right decision for him in life. What sometimes seems evil to a person, and about which he is very worried, can, in fact, be good for him and for other people. Conversely, what we perceive as good may turn out to be evil. If our mental decoder of the external world is configured incorrectly, in this case we also make incorrect decisions, moreover, we also suffer from our incorrect attitude towards this or that situation in life, or from our attitude towards this or that action. Sometimes a person believes that he acted wrongly, that he acted badly, if his action is at odds with his beliefs, whereas in fact, he feels very good and the result of his actions convincingly proves that they were correct. And the question is, what should we believe, what someone inspired us, or our own feelings?
Why should we ever believe what other people tell us about good and bad deeds, good and evil, right and wrong? What reasons do we have for this? Look at all these virtues, bringing pure and bright things to the masses, but many of them drowned in vices and lies, many of them, such as priests in the Vatican, commit sexual crimes against children, and we are taught to follow God’s commandments. A mother who defends her son, who mercilessly killed several people, including small children, sees evil not in her son, but in society, which is supposedly to blame for the way she raised him. So, should we believe all this, should we follow the rules that people like this impose on us? To be able to distinguish good from evil, you just need to learn to foresee the consequences of certain of your actions and take into account their impact on your life and the lives of other people in the long term. I think you understand that you cannot live on your own, therefore, you need to somehow take into account the interests of the people around you, and not do everything just for your own sake. Unhealthy selfishness is fraught with unhealthy consequences. On the other hand, doing wrong and thoughtless good to other people is also unreasonable; no one will appreciate your efforts; rather, people will try to get more from you, taking advantage of your kindness. So do things that are useful for yourself and for other people, if necessary, taking into account all the possible consequences of these things. Having calculated the consequences of your actions and adequately assessed these consequences, you will not encounter unpleasant surprises.
Sometimes this is not easy to do, it is not easy to understand what this or that action you have committed can lead to, and therefore, it is impossible to give it a correct assessment, defining it as a good or bad action, as right or wrong. That is why we turn to other people for advice who, thanks to their experience and knowledge, can warn us about the likely consequences of our actions, about which we ourselves know nothing. Whether your acquaintance, your relative or a psychologist will be such an adviser for you does not matter, the main thing is that it is a wise person who understands life. And this can only be a person who faces various life problems directly, who knows what they are and knows how to solve them. Do not listen to various advisers who, having made a lot of mistakes in life, begin to teach other people how they should live. They certainly won’t tell you anything worthwhile about what is good and what is bad.
Remember how many times in your life did you do everything you thought was right, but in the end didn’t get the best result? How do we say in this case: we wanted the best, but it turned out as always? Where did you get the idea that you wanted the best, did you even know how best to act in this or that situation, or did you just think that you knew? It often turns out that people did not know or understand this, and so they received the same unexpected and completely unacceptable result for them. This is the whole problem, without knowing how best to act in a given situation, you cannot achieve what you planned to achieve. Sometimes you don’t need to do anything at all, you shouldn’t interfere in other people’s affairs and even in the situation in your own life, and then the end result of other people’s efforts will benefit you. Inaction, to a certain extent, is also an action, and often a very effective one, capable of significantly influencing the outcome of certain events.
It happens that people turn to me for help, describe their situation, considering it unfavorable for them, and forgive me to give them practical advice on what they should do to influence this situation. However, when deeply analyzing the situation described by these people, I sometimes come to the conclusion that they should not interfere in anything at all and they do not need to change anything in their lives. I see that sometimes it is more profitable for a person to remain indifferent to certain matters and then they will end in his favor. To understand this, you must, of course, be able to calculate the likely outcome of certain events that occur in our lives, you need to think several steps ahead, then in some cases you can do nothing at all and still get the results you need. Well, this is when you know, a fool is doing something, and we simply do not interfere with him, do not interfere in his activities, and in the end, the result of this activity turns out to be quite acceptable to us.
Sometimes it just seems to us that a person is doing a good, or vice versa, an evil deed, and we are indignant, worried, interfere and try to change something, not realizing that even without us everything is going exactly as it should, including as it should us. And all because of our incorrect idea of good and evil, which awakens in us emotions that are adequate to our beliefs and thereby forces us to react in a certain way to a particular situation. Only, if you think carefully, if you carefully weigh everything and evaluate it properly, then you will probably find positive sides in everything that happens in your life and will be able to take advantage of this or that situation to your advantage.
How many mistakes in life could be avoided if people were able to accurately distinguish good from evil, good from bad, right from wrong. But as usually happens, if we see, hear, or learn about something, we immediately give this information our own explanation, which may be completely untrue. Thus, we can be upset in situations when we actually should be happy, or, conversely, we can be happy when we should be concerned about what is happening, taking into account all the possible consequences of certain events and preparing for these consequences. In other words, the fallacy of our beliefs is a very, very serious thing, and if everything in a person’s life is not going in the best way for him, he should reconsider his views on life, independently or with the help of a specialist.
Remember that beyond good and evil lies the truth, a truth that reveals to us all the secrets of our existence. We live according to the strict and inviolable laws of the universe or God's laws, as they are also called, which in fact, no matter what we call them, determine our entire life from beginning to end. Knowing these laws, you can always adapt to them, you can always use them for your own benefit. These laws are partly known to religion, partly to science, partly to each of us, depending on our education. Using these laws, we can protect ourselves from various threats, both from nature and from other people, we can make our lives better by developing science and technology, and we can predict our future. And every good deed in this case will mean that we are doing something that improves our life, which makes it safer, more satisfying, more interesting and promising.
Good is order and the measure that this order provides. When everything is in moderation, when there is order in everything, a competent sequence, when everything is coherent and there is discipline in everything, then everything works out for us in the best possible way. Evil, on the contrary, destroys everything, deprives us of benefits and opportunities to develop, makes our life chaotic, unpredictable, meaningless. We can feel all this on our own skin, our sensations will never deceive us, unlike other people, all phenomena should be explained from the perspective of their final result. Maybe we are not all so educated as to correctly assess all the events that happen in our lives, maybe we don’t all and don’t always understand our feelings, but despite this, it’s better to remain in search of the right answer to your questions than be content with ready-made but incorrect answers.
And for those of you, dear readers, who want to get rid of the problems poisoning your life, I strongly recommend that you put things in order in your head, reconsider all your beliefs, all your desires and actions, and come to a full understanding of the course you are currently on. moment you are moving. If you need help with this, please contact us. The main thing is that you see a way out of any situation, or at least understand that it exists at all. And it really exists, believe me, it cannot but exist, there are no dead-end situations in life, in life there are only people who cannot find a way out of the dead end, and who need help to do so. Do not rush to make fateful decisions in your life without consulting with smart people, do not act on emotions, they often force people to make very serious mistakes, which are not easy to correct later.
Good and evil have always been perceived and are perceived by us, mainly from the position of other people's beliefs, which we adhere to, considering them our own. Well, let’s say you think that giving alms to beggars is a good deed, and you don’t think about the fact that you are actually doing evil, because by your action you are condoning poverty. Moreover, in our world of good and evil, begging is often associated with crime, in which infants suffer, drugged with vodka, which puts them to sleep and at the same time kills them. This is done to create the image of a poor mother asking for money for her child, that is, there is pressure on pity. Such animal savagery, children often die from alcohol, is supported by those who give such mothers money. And people do this with the firm confidence that they are doing the right thing, that is, doing a good deed.
In this way, driven by good intentions, we can do evil, and then be surprised that the end result is exactly the opposite of our expectations. Friends, if you don’t know what’s right, ask wise people for advice, let them tell you what is truly a good deed and what is an evil deed. Just ask them to explain to you why they consider something good and something evil. I understand that you won’t find wise people these days, and yet they exist, and you can always find them and consult with them.
Your life will become much easier if you look at it with a sober look, if you understand what is really happening to you and your life, where it can lead you and what you should do or what you should not do in order to influence her. Knowing the truth and knowing how to use it, you will always be able to make the most correct decisions for you, in any situation.
Introduction
1. Concepts of good and evil
3. The problem of the struggle between good and evil
4. Justice: victory of good and evil
Conclusion
Glossary of terms
Bibliography
Introduction
In a broad sense, the words good and evil denote positive and negative values in general. We use these words to mean a variety of things: “kind” simply means good, “evil” means bad. In V. Dahl’s dictionary, for example (remember, what he called the “Dictionary of the Living Russian Language”), “good” is defined first as material wealth, property, acquisitions, then as necessary, suitable, and only “in a spiritual sense” - as honest and useful , corresponding to the duty of a person, citizen, family man. As a property, “good” also applies to Dahlem, first of all, to a thing, livestock, and then only to a person. As a characteristic of a person, “kind” is first identified by Dahl with “efficient”, “knowledgeable”, “skillful”, and only then with “loving”, “doing good”, “kind-hearted”. In most modern European languages, the same word is used to denote material goods and moral goods, which provides extensive food for moral and philosophical discussions about good in general and what is good in itself.
Concepts of good and evil
Good and Evil are among the most general concepts of moral consciousness that distinguish between moral and immoral. Traditionally, Good is associated with the concept of Good, which includes what is useful to people. Accordingly, something that is useless, unnecessary or harmful is not good. However, just as good is not the benefit itself, but only that which brings benefit, so evil is not the harm itself, but that which causes harm, leads to it.
Good exists in the form of a variety of things. Books and food, friendship and electricity, technological progress and justice are called blessings. What unites these different things into one class, in what respect are they similar? They have one common feature: they have a positive meaning in people’s lives, they are useful for meeting their needs - vital, social, spiritual. Good is relative: there is nothing that would be only harmful, as well as nothing that would be only beneficial. Therefore, good in one respect can be evil in another. What is good for people of one historical period may not be good for people of another period. Benefits have unequal value at different periods of an individual’s life (for example, in youth and old age). Not everything that is useful to one person is useful to another.
Thus, social progress, while bringing certain and considerable benefits to people (improvement of living conditions, mastery of the forces of nature, victory over incurable diseases, democratization of social relations, etc.), often turns into equally considerable disasters (invention of means of mass destruction, wars for the possession of material wealth , Chernobyl) and is accompanied by the manifestation of disgusting human qualities (malice, vindictiveness, envy, greed, meanness, betrayal).
Ethics is not interested in any, but only in spiritual goods, which include such higher moral values like freedom, justice, happiness, love. In this series, Good is a special type of good in the sphere of human behavior. In other words, the meaning of goodness as a quality of actions is what relation these actions have to good.
Good, like evil, is an ethical characteristic of human activity, people’s behavior, and their relationships. Therefore, everything that is aimed at creating, preserving and strengthening the good is good. Evil is destruction, the destruction of that which is good. And since the highest good is the improvement of relations in society and the improvement of the individual himself, that is, the development of man and humanity, then everything that in the actions of an individual contributes to this is good; everything that hinders is evil.
Based on the fact that humanistic ethics puts Man, his uniqueness and originality, his happiness, needs and interests at the forefront, we can determine the criteria of goodness. This, first of all, is what contributes to the manifestation of the true human essence - self-disclosure, self-identification, self-realization of the individual, of course, provided that this individual “has the right to the title of Human” (A. Blok).
And then good is love, wisdom, talent, activity, citizenship, a sense of involvement in the problems of one’s people and humanity as a whole. This is faith and hope, truth and beauty. In other words, everything that gives meaning to human existence.
But in this case, another criterion of goodness and, at the same time, a condition ensuring human self-realization is humanism as the “absolute goal of being” (Hegel).
And then good is everything that is connected with the humanization of human relations: it is peace, love, respect and attention from person to person; this is scientific, technical, social, cultural progress - but only in those aspects that are aimed at establishing humanism.
Thus, the category of Good embodies people’s ideas about the most positive in the sphere of morality, about what corresponds to the moral ideal; and in the concept of Evil - ideas about what opposes the moral ideal and prevents the achievement of happiness and humanity in relations between people.
Goodness has its own “secrets” that should be remembered. Firstly, like all moral phenomena, goodness is the unity of motivation (motive) and result (action). Good motives, intentions that are not manifested in actions are not yet real good: this is, so to speak, potential good. A good deed that is the accidental result of malicious motives is not fully good. However, these statements are far from certain, and therefore we invite readers to discuss them. Secondly, both the goal and the means to achieve it must be good. Even the most good, good goal cannot justify any, especially immoral, means. Thus, the good goal of ensuring order and safety of citizens does not justify, from a moral point of view, the use of the death penalty in society.
As personality traits, good and evil appear in the form of virtues and vices. As properties of behavior - in the form of kindness and anger. What does kindness consist of and how is it manifested? Kindness is, on the one hand, a line of behavior - a friendly smile or a timely courtesy. On the other hand, kindness is a point of view, a consciously or unconsciously professed philosophy, and not a natural inclination. Moreover, kindness does not end with what is said or done. It contains the whole human being.
When we say about someone that he is a kind person, we mean that he is a sympathetic, warm-hearted, attentive person, capable of sharing our joy, even when he is preoccupied with his own problems, grief or is very tired, when he has an excuse for harsh word or gesture. Usually this is a sociable person, he is a good conversationalist. When a person has kindness, he radiates warmth, generosity and generosity. He is natural, approachable and responsive. At the same time, he does not humiliate us with his kindness and does not set any conditions. Of course, he is not an angel, not a hero from a fairy tale, and not a magician with a magic wand. He cannot always resist an inveterate scoundrel who does evil for the sake of evil itself - simply “for the love of art.”
Unfortunately, there are still a lot of such not just evil, but evil people. With their evil, they seem to take revenge on others for their inability to satisfy their unjustified ambitions - in the profession, in public life, in the personal sphere. Some of them cover up base feelings with beautiful manners and pleasant words. Others do not hesitate to use harsh words, be rude and arrogant.
Evil includes such qualities as envy, pride, revenge, arrogance, and crime. Envy is one of the best “friends” of evil. The feeling of envy disfigures the personality and relationships of people; it arouses in a person the desire for another to fail, misfortune, and discredit himself in the eyes of others. Envy often pushes people to commit immoral acts. It is no coincidence that it is considered one of the most serious sins, for all other sins can be considered as a consequence or manifestation of envy. Arrogance, characterized by a disrespectful, contemptuous, arrogant attitude towards people, is also evil. The opposite of arrogance is modesty and respect for people. One of the most terrible manifestations of evil is revenge. Sometimes it can be directed not only against the one who caused the original evil, but also against his relatives and friends - blood feud. Christian morality condemns revenge, contrasting it with non-resistance to evil with violence.
Ideas about good and evil have changed among different peoples from century to century, while remaining the cornerstone of any ethics. Already ancient Greek philosophers tried to define these concepts. Socrates, for example, argued that only a clear awareness of what is good and evil contributes to a correct (virtuous) life and knowledge of oneself. He considered the difference between good and evil to be absolute and saw it in the degree of virtue and awareness of a person. No one does evil on purpose, of his own free will, he said, but only out of ignorance. Evil is the result of ignorance of truth and, therefore, good. Even knowledge of one’s own ignorance is already a Step on the path to goodness. Therefore, the greatest evil is ignorance, which Socrates saw not in the fact that we do not know something, but in the fact that we do not realize it and do not need (or believe that we do not need) knowledge.
A person cannot live following only natural instincts. In his life there are concepts about good and bad deeds, good and evil people, moral and immoral behavior. All this is closely related to the categories of good and evil.
Good and evil as manifestations of humanity
Good and evil are human concepts, they were invented only in society, introduced by the rules of community life, formed over many millennia of the existence of the human race. In nature there are no categories of good and evil. If you take a closer look at natural laws, then everything in it will turn out to be natural: light brings a new day, full of active activity, and darkness brings rest and calm. Some animals eat others, and then themselves become victims of a stronger or more cunning predator. These are the laws of the planet; everything in it has its own balance and place.
However, humans are characterized not only by natural instincts, but also by thinking, curiosity, and the desire to understand all the laws of life. This is how he developed a division into good and evil, dark and light, good and bad. And on the one hand, this is absolutely correct, because only a person can cause intentional harm to living things, destroy, humiliate other beings, do it for profit or pleasure. This means that his behavior is different from the instincts of most creatures. On the other hand, a person deliberately divides these two categories of life into opposite ones, and now good is perceived as something bright and innocent, while evil appears in dark tones, as something insidious. In the understanding of many people, these categories of life cannot and should not intersect.
Interaction of good and evil
However, it often happens that good and evil not only intersect with each other, but even change places. Morality and moral actions of a person, concepts of good and evil - all these are such subjective concepts that over time, views on them can change. If just a few thousand years ago the killing of people, the death of small children or death from disease were considered quite familiar and commonplace, today they can be counted among the evil acts that descended on a person for his sins or were the result of the influence of dark forces on him. And if earlier polytheism was considered the basis of almost all religions of peoples, then gradually polytheism began to be considered the machinations of evil, and monotheistic ones became true religions.
Such moral changes occur constantly in human culture, because the very concept of good and evil can only be defined approximately, very vaguely. When the cultural paradigm of society changes, it is likely that they will change more than once and today’s good will become tomorrow’s evil. In addition, one cannot separate these concepts and completely renounce all evil in the human world. After all, often it is not only something bad, but also something unpleasant, alien to a person, and sometimes just something unknown, new. A person simply writes down what he does not know into the category of evil, but these trials that befall him and everything unusual that can happen to him can later turn out to be a step towards a better future. It is not for nothing that they say that without the presence of evil, people would not be able to appreciate the greatness and beauty of good in this world.
We often use the words “evil” and “good”, “good” and “bad” in everyday speech, without even thinking about their meaning. These concepts represent the most generalized forms of moral and ethical assessment, which serve to distinguish between moral and immoral.
General definitions
Since ancient times, good and evil have traditionally been interpreted as the main dominant forces. They are endowed with an impersonal nature. These categories are central to moral issues. The essence of good and evil has been studied for centuries by philosophers, scientists, theologians, and artists. Evil is an ethical category, which in its content is opposite to good.
In a generalized form, it refers to everything immoral, which contradicts the requirements of public morality and deserves all censure and condemnation. On the other hand, the category of good is inextricably linked with the concept of virtue - a positive property of a person, indicating his high moral value. Vice is opposed to virtue.
What constitutes a good
The concept of good means everything that contributes to life, helps to satisfy human needs (both spiritual and material). These are natural resources, education, and various cultural items. Moreover, utility is not always equivalent to good. For example, art has absolutely no utilitarian benefit. On the other hand, industrial development is leading humanity to the brink of environmental disaster.
Goodness is a type of spiritual good. In the moral and ethical sense, this concept is often used as a synonym for “good.” These words (good, benefit) indicate the most common interests, aspirations - what should happen in life and what deserves approval.
Modern ethics reveals the concept of goodness in several different but related aspects:
- Goodness as the quality of a certain action.
- As a set of moral norms of a positive nature.
- As a moral goal of activity.
- As a moral quality of a person.
The problem of good and evil: dialectics of concepts
In philosophy it is believed that the categories of good and bad are in close interdependence. There is no absolute good, just as there is no absolute bad. Every evil deed contains at least a tiny particle of good, and every good action contains elements of evil. In addition, good and bad can change places. For example, in Sparta, newborn children with physical defects were thrown into the abyss. And in Japan, once upon a time, old and helpless people were transported alive to the so-called “valley of death.” What is now called barbarism was once considered a good deed.
Even in our time, the same act can be regarded as bad and good at the same time. It directly depends on the context of the situation. For example, if a police officer takes the life of a serial killer in a shootout, then in this case killing the offender will be regarded as a good thing.
What is evil
Evil is an ethical category opposite to good. It summarizes various ideas about immoral acts, as well as about personality traits that harm other people. These actions and qualities deserve moral censure. Evil is everything that opposes the good of society and the individual: disease, racism, bureaucracy, various crimes, chauvinism, alcoholism, drug addiction.
The Good and the Bad in Kabbalah
Supporters of the ancient Jewish teaching called Kabbalah believe: as much good as there is in the world, there is exactly the same amount of evil. A person should appreciate both the first and the second, accepting with gratitude any gifts of fate.
As a rule, a person tries to avoid evil and strives for good. However, Kabbalists believe that this is not entirely the correct approach. Good and evil should be valued equally, because the latter is a necessary element of reality that balances life.
A person should give thanks for evil in the same way as for good. After all, both of these phenomena exist for the same purpose - to push people to a higher level of development. Evil exists only so that God's creation can exist. If there were only goodness, it would be impossible to consider it. After all, good is a manifestation of the Creator. And in order to feel it, a person must initially have the opposite nature within him.
Religious ideas
Religion, in particular Orthodoxy, states: good and evil are the determining forces in human life. It's hard to disagree with this. Every person says about himself that he strives for good. If a person has not decided what is good and what is bad for him, what is black and what is white, then he is stepping on shaky ground. Such uncertainty deprives him of any moral guidelines.
The church fathers do not recognize good and evil as two equivalent principles. Similar dualism arose in the heretical teachings of the Gnostics and Manichaeans. Creative power belongs to good alone. Evil is depravity, a complete absence of being. It has no independent meaning and exists only at the expense of good, distorting its true nature.
Philosophers' ideas about human nature
Reasoning about good and bad makes us think about one of the most important questions: which person is good or evil? Some consider him good by his inner nature, others - evil. Still others believe that man is neither good nor bad.
F. Nietzsche called man an “evil animal.” Rousseau, in his Discourse on Inequality, wrote that a person is initially good in his inner nature. Only society makes her evil. Rousseau's statement can be considered the antithesis of the religious doctrine of original sin and the subsequent acquisition of salvation in faith.
I. Kant’s idea of good and evil in man is also interesting. He believed that human nature is evil. It contains an ineradicable tendency to create evil. However, at the same time, people also have the makings of goodness. The moral education of the individual should consist in giving life to these inclinations. This gives them a chance to overcome their destructive tendency to do bad things.
Many philosophers believe that initially a person is still kind. Anyone who has given preference to evil in his life is an anomaly, an exception to the rule. Good and evil in the world can be correlated like health and illness. The one who chooses the good is morally healthy. The evil one suffers from moral illness, ugliness.
What is jurisprudence based on?
There is a principle in law based on this idea. This is the presumption of innocence. According to this concept, a person is considered innocent until compelling arguments are presented to prove his guilt. In other words, all citizens are considered initially respectable - not violating laws and morals. A person is found guilty only in one case - by a court decision. If people were initially evil or neither evil nor good, then this principle would have absolutely no moral justification.
There is another indirect argument in favor of the fact that people are intrinsically good - the concept of conscientiousness. It is unlikely that anyone will deny that conscientiousness is an indispensable condition for any professional and creative activity. Everything that is created by man on planet Earth is the result of his conscientiousness.
Is “goodness” added to the word “conscientiousness” just for a catchphrase? Or is this an essential condition for determining the described phenomenon? The answer here is clear: if a person were not internally directed toward goodness, then there would be no conscience, no honest performance of one’s work.
What kind of people predominate in the world?
It is difficult to give a definite answer to the question of which people are more numerous - good or evil. After all, there are definitely no good and bad. Each personality contains both. But sometimes it happens that a person makes more mistakes than correct actions. And then they can say about him that he is angry, although this will not fully characterize his nature. Mistakes are an inherent property of Homo sapiens. They cannot be avoided.
Good and evil in the world are often difficult to recognize. Kindness can be hidden from strangers. For example, a good person does good deeds, guided by the biblical principle: “When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” On the other hand, evil is always better organized. There are all kinds of criminal groups and gangs that are ruled by money and robbery. In order for their “plans” to be carried out, the bandits have to be better organized. Since this is noticeable, it seems that there are more evil people in the world.
The confrontation between good and bad: which wins?
People often wonder why good triumphs over evil. Indeed, in many fairy tales and films, justice ultimately triumphs, and all enemies and negative characters get what they deserve. In life, a person who has done a bad deed must also “pay the bills” after some time. If he is not punished by his kind, fate itself will take care of it. Goodness and justice win for the reason that to create good things requires activity, courage, courage. In other words, being evil is always easy and simple. It takes effort to be kind. Since evil is devoid of creativity, it always turns out to be short-lived.