The Good Life Redux

I apologize for not getting a new question out earlier but we got quite a few comments on the last question, so I let that go for a while and life got in the way for a while.

Ok, so we started out by asking what is a human being:

Here's what we got:

Specific Genetic Makeup
Potential to become more
Free Will
Morality
Products of our environments
Created in the image of God (My Mom's comment, she had trouble posting, so I'm putting this here for her)

From there, I wanted to ask what makes someone good or bad, but due to my "extensive" philosophical training ;-) had to ask what it means for something to be good or bad or if good and bad exist at all. To which I recieved some fascinating answers.

I think the resounding answer was that good and bad definitely exist. Figuring out what good and bad are however, is a much more difficult question.

Here are some of the answers we got for good and bad:

Meeting or exceeding an expectation
Pragmatism or General Utility
Something is good or bad relative to it's context
There are some clear cut cases of right and wrong e.g. abusing children, etc.
Personal experience
Another interesting point that I think Neil was trying to get at was we can determine good or bad by choice. You can change your attitude to turn a negative into a positive.
Religous or social conditioning
Rationality or Personal Reasoning (often called Moral Rationalism)

I think we can probably boil down most of those answers to saying that good or bad is determined by people, with a few possible exceptions. I don't necessarily subscribe to this belief, but that seems to be the general consensus, so here's the plan: we're going to proceed with the consensus and based upon our previous two answers, see what we come up with here.

So, taking that information I think we can move on and ask the question I had planned to ask in the last entry. How do we determine what it means to be a "good human being" or to live "the good life."

So, here's a little philosophy for you all. (Sorry I can't resist ;-) Philosophical arguments have a distinct structure. To reach a conclusion, you must first have your premises. So, based upon our discussion to this point here are our premises:

Premise 1: Humans are genetically distinct, possess the ability to become more than they are, have free will, possess a knowledge of right and wrong, are products of their environments, and are made in the image of God.

Premise 2: There is such a thing as good and bad

Premise 3: Good is defined as meeting or exceeding an expectation, something that is useful, something that is pleasing to the senses, our definitions of good are shaped by outside factors (society, religion, culture), we can control what is good through our attitude and we determine good and bad through our reason.

So, now here's the question or puzzle for this week: What conclusions can be drawn from these premises? It generally isn't this difficult because you usually have only simple premises, these are more complex. If it gets too complex, just take the answers that you gave for what it means to be a human and what it means for something to be good and draw your conclusions from that.

Here's an example of a conclusion that could be drawn:

Premise 1: Humans are defined by being able to choose good from bad

Premise 2: Good means something useful

Conclusion: Being a good human being means being able to choose something that is useful.

I'm afraid I may have gone off the philosophical cliff here. If I have, just answer this question: Based on what it means to be a human being to you and what it means for something to be good. Put those two together and figure out what it means to be a "good human being" What is a good human being?


Reasons for Hope:


Ok, so the reason for hope this week is the phenomenon known as "The Secret." I haven't read, seen, or heard the story yet but I've heard about it from many people. And from what I've heard of it, it sounds great. The power of positive thinking and visualization.

But the message isn't the sole reason for hope. The speed with which it has spread around the world really gives me hope. It just shows that a good message can spread virtually overnight, which really says to me that you can in a sense "change the world" overnight.

Quote of the Week

"If we did all the things we were capable of doing, we would astound ourselves." -Edison