“Deliberately Diverse” represents the individual thoughts and opinions of a group of Taylor friends who almost never completely agree about anything but are gratified by the opportunity to stimulate deliberately diverse discussions in our beloved community. Today’s column does NOT represents the thoughts and opinions the Taylor Press.
We tell our children to be good. “God wants you to be good.” “Santa will not bring presents if you are bad” and my favorite, “You better be good, or the goblins will get you.”
What does it mean to be good; what is “good?” I guess we could say to be good is to live a moral life. Morality is the code of conduct we are asked to live by in a society, a social contract to enforce our cooperative instincts. One cannot be immoral in isolation, only in community. Children are not born immoral; it’s only after the age of reason, around seven years, that people begin to consider morality.
It has been said that God is good and morality comes from God. If so, is that action good and moral because God commands it or does God command it because it’s good? If the latter is true, then there must be a set of moral principles preexisting. Or does God just make them up on the fly, in which case rape, torture, slavery, and murder could be called good? A good God would never do that, but then again, what is “good?” If there is no God, what is the source of these principles; does the individual, the community, the dominant culture, or the government, get to decide?
Subjective morality will not work for we cannot live together peacefully if we can’t agree on right and wrong actions.
An objective moral law must be rational and true independently of what anyone anywhere happens to think about it. There must be a test that we can use to objectively decide between right and wrong, good and evil.
In 1785 a German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, wrote what is called the “Categorical Imperative” meaning it should be followed by all rational beings. It reads “Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” In other words, how would it be if everyone acted so?
Jesus said as much in Matthew 7:12, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” Will this make one a good person? How many right actions must one take to be labeled good or how many wrong actions to be evil? Maybe it’s like math and they cancel each other out to leave a positive or negative balance. If there is not God, then only society gets to decide.
People are not good or evil by definition, only actions can be labeled good or evil. Recently, one of our citizens burned the future Dickey Museum. Was it an evil action? Yes! Is the man evil? No. Maybe he was mentally ill, angry, fearful, depressed, or misled. He possibly thought this was a rightful action.
Sometimes, even our best efforts to do right go wrong and cause pain. Are we evil? No.
We’re just human – trying to do good.
