Good and Evil

In my previous post the assertion of God's apparent apathy towards good (assuming he exists) makes one think that maybe God's notion of good and evil is different from ours. Or maybe he never did make a distinction between the two. Maybe there is no absoulute classification into good and evil. Maybe they are social constructs created by man.

A few good qualities are kindness, modesty, justice, honesty, truthfullnes. If you examine each of these, you'll find that all of them serve one purpose: the common good i.e. the benefit of all. For e.g. being unkind doesn't benefit you but being kind benefits the person you are kind to. So if the whole society practices kindness then everyone is benefited. Same for modesty.

Now for justice. The nature and origin of justice is beautifully explained in Plato's Republic:

"They say to do wrong is naturally good (profitable), to be wronged is bad (causing loss), but the suffering of injury so far exceeds in badness the good of inflicting it that when men have done wrong to each other and suffered it, and have had a taste of both, those who are unable to avoid the latter and practice the former decide that it is profitable to come to an agreement with each other neither to inflict injury nor to suffer it. As a result they begin to make laws and the law's command they call lawful and just. This, they say is the origin and essence of justice; it stands between the best and the worst, the best being to do wrong without paying the penalty and the worst to be wronged without the power of revenge. The just then is a mean beween two exremes; it is welcomed and honoured because of men's lack of the power to do wrong. The man who has that power, would not make a compact with anyone not to inflict injury or suffer it. For him that would be foolish."

That forms the basis of justice. All the rest of what constitutes justice is but an extension of this central concept. Same goes for honesty. Similiarly everybody lying serves nobody's purpose. Better uphold truthfullness as a virtue.

So anything beneficial to society was encouraged and anything detrimental to society was frowned upon. This is how classification into good and evil was carried out. And this is why you are exhorted to do good and dissuaded from doing evil.