Former Community – We Moved

🆕 Coached community here, for posts & feedback public community here.

ForumPublic Forum: Self-DevelopmentValuesOn Good and Evil

Please or Register to create posts and topics.

On Good and Evil

#1 · July 30, 2023, 9:23 pm

Quote from John Freeman on July 30, 2023, 9:23 pm
Hello,
I started to write a long off-topic answer from this post and decided to make a thread since then it's wayy too off topic.
Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 29, 2023, 11:04 pm
Yep, you said it.
In more open, trusting, collaborative, ad meritocratic societies where individuals are respected and freely decide to do something and where they gnerally see (part of) the fruits of their good work to come to them (rather than being all stolen from the top), those individuals simply produce and innovate more.
It's the same across smaller groups as well as nations.
Put an asshole or a despot on top, and for the gain of the asshole (and his few cronies) the whole group is worse off.
That's one of the rationale behind TPM's mission BTW: more good men on top, better for almost everyone.
That's why I do believe in "good" and "evil". Since it has a lot of cultural and religious connotations I prefer the matter-of-fact explanation (probably have already expressed it). Evil is harming other people/taking value. What I mean by these comments is that in the post-modern era, one can hear: "there is no good and evil" which actually bring more confusion than clarity.
Same concept with gender identity, saying there is no male nor female and it's just a fluid dynamics does not help people to understand themselves and the World. Of course there are grey areas in good and evil and sexuality. The thing is the grey exists because the black and white do. So sometimes people go from one extreme to the other: "it's either black or white" to "everything is a shade of grey". This is indeed true but some grey is greyer than other (since we defined black is bad and white is good and I don't like this idea because our minds apply it quite directly and stupidly to people's skin colour).
So I think it's important to be able to talk about good and evil in conversations. Not in a virtue-signaling sense but more in a solution-oriented sense: "how can I become a better person? You have an idea? I tried this and that". These are conversations I like to have. I like to know and share with people how I can become a better person and learn from them and the other way around. I think it's an important conversation to be able to have among friends for instance.
This kind of concept hit me when I got interested in stoics. To them virtue is the highest value. Their reasoning (I might have already talked about it) is that it makes you feel good to act virtuous. So it's typically a win-win scenario: you feel good and bring value to the group.
Also, Socrates' whole philosophy was about the "good, true, beautiful". So I do think we have an inner inspiration to go in this direction. The problem is that it often contradicts with instant gratification. What the germans call our "Innerer Schweinehund" (our inner pig-dog). In English:
The term inner bastard circumscribes - often as a reproach - the allegory of weakness of will , which prevents a person from carrying out unpleasant activities, although they are either seen as ethically necessary (e.g. tackling problems, exposing oneself to danger, etc.) or for the person concerned makes sense (e.g. to stick to a diet). Allegory can thus be directly related to motivation ; and it is a metaphorical paraphrase of akrasia .
Overcoming the weaker self is usually mentioned to make it clear that it is not personal inclination that is decisive for completing a certain task, but self-discipline . This connection also suggests a view that ultimately everyone has a weaker self and the only flaw is to give in to this reluctance.
Of course the matter is more complicated than that. Because if we just restrain all our animal desires then we build inner conflict. But that's another conversation.
Anyway, it started as a comment on good and evil. Thanks Lucio for the inspiration.

Hello,

I started to write a long off-topic answer from this post and decided to make a thread since then it's wayy too off topic.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 29, 2023, 11:04 pm
Yep, you said it.
In more open, trusting, collaborative, ad meritocratic societies where individuals are respected and freely decide to do something and where they gnerally see (part of) the fruits of their good work to come to them (rather than being all stolen from the top), those individuals simply produce and innovate more.
It's the same across smaller groups as well as nations.
Put an asshole or a despot on top, and for the gain of the asshole (and his few cronies) the whole group is worse off.
That's one of the rationale behind TPM's mission BTW: more good men on top, better for almost everyone.

That's why I do believe in "good" and "evil". Since it has a lot of cultural and religious connotations I prefer the matter-of-fact explanation (probably have already expressed it). Evil is harming other people/taking value. What I mean by these comments is that in the post-modern era, one can hear: "there is no good and evil" which actually bring more confusion than clarity.

Same concept with gender identity, saying there is no male nor female and it's just a fluid dynamics does not help people to understand themselves and the World. Of course there are grey areas in good and evil and sexuality. The thing is the grey exists because the black and white do. So sometimes people go from one extreme to the other: "it's either black or white" to "everything is a shade of grey". This is indeed true but some grey is greyer than other (since we defined black is bad and white is good and I don't like this idea because our minds apply it quite directly and stupidly to people's skin colour).

So I think it's important to be able to talk about good and evil in conversations. Not in a virtue-signaling sense but more in a solution-oriented sense: "how can I become a better person? You have an idea? I tried this and that". These are conversations I like to have. I like to know and share with people how I can become a better person and learn from them and the other way around. I think it's an important conversation to be able to have among friends for instance.

This kind of concept hit me when I got interested in stoics. To them virtue is the highest value. Their reasoning (I might have already talked about it) is that it makes you feel good to act virtuous. So it's typically a win-win scenario: you feel good and bring value to the group.

Also, Socrates' whole philosophy was about the "good, true, beautiful". So I do think we have an inner inspiration to go in this direction. The problem is that it often contradicts with instant gratification. What the germans call our "Innerer Schweinehund" (our inner pig-dog). In English:

The term inner bastard circumscribes - often as a reproach - the allegory of weakness of will , which prevents a person from carrying out unpleasant activities, although they are either seen as ethically necessary (e.g. tackling problems, exposing oneself to danger, etc.) or for the person concerned makes sense (e.g. to stick to a diet). Allegory can thus be directly related to motivation ; and it is a metaphorical paraphrase of akrasia .
Overcoming the weaker self is usually mentioned to make it clear that it is not personal inclination that is decisive for completing a certain task, but self-discipline . This connection also suggests a view that ultimately everyone has a weaker self and the only flaw is to give in to this reluctance.

Of course the matter is more complicated than that. Because if we just restrain all our animal desires then we build inner conflict. But that's another conversation.

Anyway, it started as a comment on good and evil. Thanks Lucio for the inspiration.

Lucio Buffalmano, Serena Irina and 4 other users have reacted to this post.

#2 · July 31, 2023, 7:23 am

I don't think good and evil or morality exists in absolute sense, each person views what is good or evil differently, it somewhat overlaps thanks to our similar psychology as humans, but then there's all kind of people that are deemed as "evil" because they don't adhere to agreed principles.

Even in religious setting, there is no absolute morality, you may say that whatever God desires is good and what he dislikes is evil, but in the end that's just taking morality of something else than you and setting it as the go to, it may make perfect sense but it's still just an agreement.

But that's philosophy, in real life you are right the concepts are useful and the words itself carry very strong meaning.
As I believe in win-win what is good is what helps me to reach my goals without hurting others, and even better if it helps others too.
What is bad or "evil" is what interrupts me in achieving my goals, or achieves them by hurting others.

I think most people see in similar way, and it's very close to how you view it. Those that don't believe in win-win cross out the hurting others and just do what they can to reach their goals without concern for collateral damage.

John Freeman, Roberto and Power Duck have reacted to this post.

#3 · July 31, 2023, 8:34 am

Quote from John Freeman on July 31, 2023, 8:34 am
Thanks for your answer, DGX37.
I want to add more details. What I mean is that absolute relativism in morality does not make really sense to me. I'll give an example: someone kills a baby which is a close parent. In absolute relativism no one could say if it's good or bad. Maybe it's good for the planet as one less human is there? Maybe this baby would have done harm? In the grand scheme of things of the universe, maybe it was for the better in 1000 years in another Galaxy? So it becomes undecidable.
So when we think like that we're unable to use such labels as good and evil and therefore to decide. I'm not talking about judging other people. I'm talking about having an idea as clear as possible to oneself: "is that a desirable outcome/behaviour?". And be able to say yes or no (for oneself). I'm not talking about moral dilemmas: here we're all in there.
In the grand scheme of things of course no one knows. No one knows many things. The goal is to able to navigate reality despite having limited information. I'm not talking about absolutes either. I'm talking about "guideposts". And yes there will be variations in personal codes but there are also absolutes.
I'm not aware of cultures where it's ok to leave "human feces" on someone else's bed. What I mean is that in postmodernism (where ideology and religion have less or no value, then by association philosophy and spirituality have less or no value) someone would come up and say: "maybe there is and we don't know about it?". So of course no one can contradicts this. The idea is to be able to say: "most probably not ok in any culture in the World". What I mean is that relativism can become extreme and therefore becomes absolute. And then it does not help us to make decisions. That's why ethics exist as a science: to be able to make rational decisions about what's the most desirable outcome most likely (likely being the key word as we will never have perfect information).
All of this I'm talking outside of religious concepts of course. I could be wrong of course, that's how I view it.

Thanks for your answer, DGX37.

I want to add more details. What I mean is that absolute relativism in morality does not make really sense to me. I'll give an example: someone kills a baby which is a close parent. In absolute relativism no one could say if it's good or bad. Maybe it's good for the planet as one less human is there? Maybe this baby would have done harm? In the grand scheme of things of the universe, maybe it was for the better in 1000 years in another Galaxy? So it becomes undecidable.

So when we think like that we're unable to use such labels as good and evil and therefore to decide. I'm not talking about judging other people. I'm talking about having an idea as clear as possible to oneself: "is that a desirable outcome/behaviour?". And be able to say yes or no (for oneself). I'm not talking about moral dilemmas: here we're all in there.

In the grand scheme of things of course no one knows. No one knows many things. The goal is to able to navigate reality despite having limited information. I'm not talking about absolutes either. I'm talking about "guideposts". And yes there will be variations in personal codes but there are also absolutes.

I'm not aware of cultures where it's ok to leave "human feces" on someone else's bed. What I mean is that in postmodernism (where ideology and religion have less or no value, then by association philosophy and spirituality have less or no value) someone would come up and say: "maybe there is and we don't know about it?". So of course no one can contradicts this. The idea is to be able to say: "most probably not ok in any culture in the World". What I mean is that relativism can become extreme and therefore becomes absolute. And then it does not help us to make decisions. That's why ethics exist as a science: to be able to make rational decisions about what's the most desirable outcome most likely (likely being the key word as we will never have perfect information).

All of this I'm talking outside of religious concepts of course. I could be wrong of course, that's how I view it.

Lucio Buffalmano, Roberto and Power Duck have reacted to this post.

#4 · July 31, 2023, 12:01 pm

Outside of the philosophical conversation and on a practical note: I think the most important thing is to have a personal moral code that fits (as well as possible) the culture we live in and stick to it as much as possible.

Lucio Buffalmano, Roberto and Power Duck have reacted to this post.

#5 · July 31, 2023, 1:03 pm

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 31, 2023, 1:03 pm
Yeah, agree with the first message.
Of course you first have to add some definitions and add some goal posts such as.
For example, you'd define both evil and good.
And you can do that in very realistic terms.
Starting with definitions that most people would agree with
Just some possible ways of defining that most people would agree with:
We define evil as:
making others or the world worse off as a pattern of behavior (rather than one-off)
not feeling bad about making others worse off or feeling good about it
preferring win-lose to win-win even when win-win is preferrable
to have no interest or preference in adding value, and potentially to prefer taking without giving
....
Once you do that, then the argument that "good/evil" don't exist falls down.
Avoiding the trap of "good and evil is naive"
And it's important, because I believe that:
the danger of good and evil talking is that, despite it's a fundamental shared experience for humans, it can still be easy for someone to frame it as naive, simplisitic or moralistic.
Shades of grey are a natural part of good/evil
As you guys already said:
There are shades of grey.
And those shades of grey are also welcome and even great to have.
Welcoming the shades of grey
It's important to acknowledge that also for your own life effectiveness, to avoid being too harsh a judge, and to avoid falling for extremist "do gooder" traps.
For example, you can be asshole on a one-off if it's REALLY important to you (or if you just made a mistake).
Or you can take without giving if it's a survival thing for you.
But if you're overall a value-adding person, and if you generally prefer adding value, you're still generally a value-adding person.
The shades of grey do NOT undermine the validity of good/evil
As John said, you can find endless examples that 99% of people would agree is either good or bad.
That already tells you that good/evil are real for the simple fact of being real in most human's minds.
Also, as we often said on TPM, the shades of grey are not infinitely expandible.
And, equally important, the shades of grey do not deny the reality of good/evil.
Hyper-relativist degreed-idiots
That is the trap that the hyper-relativists fall into.
It's common among modern virtue-signalers, wokists, lefists and, albeit we generally don't use that terminology here... "modern soyboys" :).
Funny enough, it's often the folks that have the highest degree credential or philosopher wannabe ambitious that fall for it.
To use a concrete real-life example, it's one of the reasons why I stopped listening to the Charisma on Command podcast.
Without mincing words and just speaking what I thought:
Charlie sometimes (not always!) sounded like a pretentious philosopher who wished to be "open-minded" and "erudite", but truly only just was thinking and speaking like a naive idiot (will make a video review on Charisma on Command in the future, both as value-adding information, and as a marketing tool).
Also, that just felt so hipocritical when in actuality he was (sometimes!) pulling power moves on what should have been his best friend.

Yeah, agree with the first message.

Of course you first have to add some definitions and add some goal posts such as.

For example, you'd define both evil and good.

And you can do that in very realistic terms.

Starting with definitions that most people would agree with

Just some possible ways of defining that most people would agree with:

We define evil as:
- making others or the world worse off as a pattern of behavior (rather than one-off)
- not feeling bad about making others worse off or feeling good about it
- preferring win-lose to win-win even when win-win is preferrable
- to have no interest or preference in adding value, and potentially to prefer taking without giving
- ....

Once you do that, then the argument that "good/evil" don't exist falls down.

Avoiding the trap of "good and evil is naive"

And it's important, because I believe that:

the danger of good and evil talking is that, despite it's a fundamental shared experience for humans, it can still be easy for someone to frame it as naive, simplisitic or moralistic.

Shades of grey are a natural part of good/evil

As you guys already said:

There are shades of grey.

And those shades of grey are also welcome and even great to have.

Welcoming the shades of grey

It's important to acknowledge that also for your own life effectiveness, to avoid being too harsh a judge, and to avoid falling for extremist "do gooder" traps.

For example, you can be asshole on a one-off if it's REALLY important to you (or if you just made a mistake).

Or you can take without giving if it's a survival thing for you.

But if you're overall a value-adding person, and if you generally prefer adding value, you're still generally a value-adding person.

The shades of grey do NOT undermine the validity of good/evil

As John said, you can find endless examples that 99% of people would agree is either good or bad.

That already tells you that good/evil are real for the simple fact of being real in most human's minds.

Also, as we often said on TPM, the shades of grey are not infinitely expandible.

And, equally important, the shades of grey do not deny the reality of good/evil.

Hyper-relativist degreed-idiots

That is the trap that the hyper-relativists fall into.

It's common among modern virtue-signalers, wokists, lefists and, albeit we generally don't use that terminology here... "modern soyboys" :).

Funny enough, it's often the folks that have the highest degree credential or philosopher wannabe ambitious that fall for it.

To use a concrete real-life example, it's one of the reasons why I stopped listening to the Charisma on Command podcast.

Without mincing words and just speaking what I thought:

Charlie sometimes (not always!) sounded like a pretentious philosopher who wished to be "open-minded" and "erudite", but truly only just was thinking and speaking like a naive idiot (will make a video review on Charisma on Command in the future, both as value-adding information, and as a marketing tool).

Also, that just felt so hipocritical when in actuality he was (sometimes!) pulling power moves on what should have been his best friend.

John Freeman, Mats G and 2 other users have reacted to this post.

Community, new content and Confidence University now available here.

#6 · July 31, 2023, 4:52 pm

Quote from Gguwad on July 31, 2023, 4:52 pm
Quote from John Freeman on July 31, 2023, 8:34 am
I want to add more details. What I mean is that absolute relativism in morality does not make really sense to me. I'll give an example: someone kills a baby which is a close parent. In absolute relativism no one could say if it's good or bad. Maybe it's good for the planet as one less human is there? Maybe this baby would have done harm? In the grand scheme of things of the universe, maybe it was for the better in 1000 years in another Galaxy? So it becomes undecidable.
I get what you're saying. Absolute relativism makes concept of good and bad useless, because if nothing is really good or evil, there are problems with deciding what should be done and what should not be done, choosing the right decision.
So that's why there is desire to make a decision objectively right or objectively wrong, so people know what to do. That's how I understand what you're saying.
But there's a problem with that, ultimately what is good is what people decide is good. "human faces" it's not a good example, nobody cares about privilege of shitting on someone else's bed, so nobody talks about it. But looking at history, people treating others like slaves during slavery, or mass slaughtering them in case of nazis, if you think you are superior to kill a person without feeling guilty, would that person find shitting on someone's bed "not ok"?
When you go with your definition of evil in a more relevant case, for example hunting animals. One will say it's absolutely bad, another person will say there's nothing wrong with it. In this case idea of "evil" or "good" is just unhelpful, because it's really just imposing someone's definition of "good" on somone else, often then rationalizing why it's okay to hate on them because they are "evildoers".
And to rational person, deciding people worth based on opinions is very bad, deciding what is "good" and then saying, those that don't adhere to it are "bad".
It's a great tool to create conflict or get the masses on your sides and hurt the other side. It's an amazing political tool but in reality, there's no such thing as "good" and "evil", it's not even talking about gray areas, it's just not real.
It's like saying, water is objectively wet because I think wet is one of the properties of water and somene else can say, "well, it's not wet because according to my definition wet is something that is surrounded by water". This is not useful because being wet is losely defined, good and evil is also just an idea, it's not something grounded in reality like gravity or electricity, it's based on opinions, culture and feelings.

Quote from John Freeman on July 31, 2023, 8:34 am
I want to add more details. What I mean is that absolute relativism in morality does not make really sense to me. I'll give an example: someone kills a baby which is a close parent. In absolute relativism no one could say if it's good or bad. Maybe it's good for the planet as one less human is there? Maybe this baby would have done harm? In the grand scheme of things of the universe, maybe it was for the better in 1000 years in another Galaxy? So it becomes undecidable.

I get what you're saying. Absolute relativism makes concept of good and bad useless, because if nothing is really good or evil, there are problems with deciding what should be done and what should not be done, choosing the right decision.

So that's why there is desire to make a decision objectively right or objectively wrong, so people know what to do. That's how I understand what you're saying.

But there's a problem with that, ultimately what is good is what people decide is good. "human faces" it's not a good example, nobody cares about privilege of shitting on someone else's bed, so nobody talks about it. But looking at history, people treating others like slaves during slavery, or mass slaughtering them in case of nazis, if you think you are superior to kill a person without feeling guilty, would that person find shitting on someone's bed "not ok"?

When you go with your definition of evil in a more relevant case, for example hunting animals. One will say it's absolutely bad, another person will say there's nothing wrong with it. In this case idea of "evil" or "good" is just unhelpful, because it's really just imposing someone's definition of "good" on somone else, often then rationalizing why it's okay to hate on them because they are "evildoers".

And to rational person, deciding people worth based on opinions is very bad, deciding what is "good" and then saying, those that don't adhere to it are "bad".
It's a great tool to create conflict or get the masses on your sides and hurt the other side. It's an amazing political tool but in reality, there's no such thing as "good" and "evil", it's not even talking about gray areas, it's just not real.

It's like saying, water is objectively wet because I think wet is one of the properties of water and somene else can say, "well, it's not wet because according to my definition wet is something that is surrounded by water". This is not useful because being wet is losely defined, good and evil is also just an idea, it's not something grounded in reality like gravity or electricity, it's based on opinions, culture and feelings.

John Freeman has reacted to this post.

#7 · July 31, 2023, 5:14 pm

Quote from Gguwad on July 31, 2023, 5:14 pm
Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 31, 2023, 1:03 pm
Hyper-relativist degreed-idiots
That is the trap that the hyper-relativists fall into.
It's common among modern virtue-signalers, wokists, lefists and, albeit we generally don't use that terminology here... "modern soyboys" :).
Funny enough, it's often the folks that have the highest degree credential or philosopher wannabe ambitious that fall for it.
To use a concrete real-life example, it's one of the reasons why I stopped listening to the Charisma on Command podcast.
Without mincing words and just speaking what I thought:
Charlie sometimes (not always!) sounded like a pretentious philosopher who wished to be "open-minded" and "erudite", but truly only just was thinking and speaking like a naive idiot (will make a video review on Charisma on Command in the future, both as value-adding information, and as a marketing tool).
Also, that just felt so hipocritical when in actuality he was (sometimes!) pulling power moves on what should have been his best friend.
As a person whose opinions fit with those "hyper-relativists", I can't fail to see it as an insult. I am not really offended but it does leave a bad taste.
While you my not respect the way those people see morality, they are right.
"Morality", "good" and "evil" is a reduntant idea. What is truly behind good and evil is what one sees as good or bad according to himself, or adapting and internalizing what society sees as good or bad to itself.
What the guy from Charisma does wrong, is that because there's no "morality" he is scared of taking ownership for his own actions and decisions and just do what is good for him. I see it as a true owning your true nature to leave the idea whenever one's actions are "good" or "bad" but simply decide that you see the way of win-win as the most effective and will stick to it because it helps to achieve his goals.
If one can understand then he is above social constructs and can go and achieve all there is to achieve.
They don't need to have morality to decide what to do, they my simply say "it's good for me" and "it's bad for me", they don't need to hide behind social constructs like good or bad to move forward ( only use it as a tool like any other ).
I just don't understand the need for "Good" and "Evil". It may give someone a good feeling to know what they do is "good" but ultimately, but if you are an eagle I only see it as a flaw in thinking. Did I understood your mindset incorrectly?

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 31, 2023, 1:03 pm
Hyper-relativist degreed-idiots
That is the trap that the hyper-relativists fall into.
It's common among modern virtue-signalers, wokists, lefists and, albeit we generally don't use that terminology here... "modern soyboys" :).
Funny enough, it's often the folks that have the highest degree credential or philosopher wannabe ambitious that fall for it.
To use a concrete real-life example, it's one of the reasons why I stopped listening to the Charisma on Command podcast.
Without mincing words and just speaking what I thought:
Charlie sometimes (not always!) sounded like a pretentious philosopher who wished to be "open-minded" and "erudite", but truly only just was thinking and speaking like a naive idiot (will make a video review on Charisma on Command in the future, both as value-adding information, and as a marketing tool).
Also, that just felt so hipocritical when in actuality he was (sometimes!) pulling power moves on what should have been his best friend.

As a person whose opinions fit with those "hyper-relativists", I can't fail to see it as an insult. I am not really offended but it does leave a bad taste.

While you my not respect the way those people see morality, they are right.

"Morality", "good" and "evil" is a reduntant idea. What is truly behind good and evil is what one sees as good or bad according to himself, or adapting and internalizing what society sees as good or bad to itself.

What the guy from Charisma does wrong, is that because there's no "morality" he is scared of taking ownership for his own actions and decisions and just do what is good for him. I see it as a true owning your true nature to leave the idea whenever one's actions are "good" or "bad" but simply decide that you see the way of win-win as the most effective and will stick to it because it helps to achieve his goals.

If one can understand then he is above social constructs and can go and achieve all there is to achieve.

They don't need to have morality to decide what to do, they my simply say "it's good for me" and "it's bad for me", they don't need to hide behind social constructs like good or bad to move forward ( only use it as a tool like any other ).

I just don't understand the need for "Good" and "Evil". It may give someone a good feeling to know what they do is "good" but ultimately, but if you are an eagle I only see it as a flaw in thinking. Did I understood your mindset incorrectly?

#8 · July 31, 2023, 5:32 pm

Quote from John Freeman on July 31, 2023, 5:32 pm
Hello Lucio,
I'm glad we share the same perspective on this topic. Thanks for your answer, it does better clarify the arguments and points of frictions.
Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 31, 2023, 1:03 pm
Yeah, agree with the first message.
Of course you first have to add some definitions and add some goal posts such as.
For example, you'd define both evil and good.
And you can do that in very realistic terms.
We agree on that.
Starting with definitions that most people would agree with
Just some possible ways of defining that most people would agree with:
We define evil as:
making others or the world worse off as a pattern of behavior (rather than one-off)
not feeling bad about making others worse off or feeling good about it
preferring win-lose to win-win even when win-win is preferrable
to have no interest or preference in adding value, and potentially to prefer taking without giving
....
Once you do that, then the argument that "good/evil" don't exist falls down.
This is quite clear written like that I think the same thing.
Avoiding the trap of "good and evil is naive"
And it's important, because I believe that:
the danger of good and evil talking is that, despite it's a fundamental shared experience for humans, it can still be easy for someone to frame it as naive, simplisitic or moralistic.
That is often what happens indeed. Because now the dominant idea is that i's an outdated concept. One can appear like naive or even stupid for thinking this.
Shades of grey are a natural part of good/evil
As you guys already said:
There are shades of grey.
And those shades of grey are also welcome and even great to have.
Welcoming the shades of grey
It's important to acknowledge that also for your own life effectiveness, to avoid being too harsh a judge, and to avoid falling for extremist "do gooder" traps.
For example, you can be asshole on a one-off if it's REALLY important to you (or if you just made a mistake).
Or you can take without giving if it's a survival thing for you.
But if you're overall a value-adding person, and if you generally prefer adding value, you're still generally a value-adding person.
That's really important. It's also what I intended to express in the thread with the sunglasses: no need to beat oneself down if one makes a mistake or has a value-taking move rarely. No one is perfect and it falls then until a cognitive distortion: I'm a bad person if I do a bad action.
The shades of grey do NOT undermine the validity of good/evil
As John said, you can find endless examples that 99% of people would agree is either good or bad.
That already tells you that good/evil are real for the simple fact of being real in most human's minds.
I agree. Like currencies like money or any concept actually. When we use other concepts like justice or love, any concept really. If we gave it a name it's because it's real as you say in the human experience. If we begin to say that good and evil do not exist then we can say the same about pretty much any other concept. And it's true in the sense of any abstract idea. We can never really grasp it as it is an abstract concept. It's an idea. However ideas are what the World is built on.
Also, as we often said on TPM, the shades of grey are not infinitely expandible.
And, equally important, the shades of grey do not deny the reality of good/evil.
Yes. Like I wrote above it's not because there are no picture of it or that religion has its own version of it that it's not something that we can experience.
Hyper-relativist degreed-idiots
That is the trap that the hyper-relativists fall into.
It's common among modern virtue-signalers, wokists, lefists and, albeit we generally don't use that terminology here... "modern soyboys" :).
Funny enough, it's often the folks that have the highest degree credential or philosopher wannabe ambitious that fall for it.
To use a concrete real-life example, it's one of the reasons why I stopped listening to the Charisma on Command podcast.
Without mincing words and just speaking what I thought:
Charlie sometimes (not always!) sounded like a pretentious philosopher who wished to be "open-minded" and "erudite", but truly only just was thinking and speaking like a naive idiot (will make a video review on Charisma on Command in the future, both as value-adding information, and as a marketing tool).
Also, that just felt so hipocritical when in actuality he was (sometimes!) pulling power moves on what should have been his best friend.
When we start believing our own hype we are done. Cultivating humility is the only protection against this or even hypocrisy. Because if we cultivate humility when we are faced with our self-aggrandizing self or our hypocrisy we can recognize it and correct it.

Hello Lucio,

I'm glad we share the same perspective on this topic. Thanks for your answer, it does better clarify the arguments and points of frictions.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 31, 2023, 1:03 pm
Yeah, agree with the first message.
Of course you first have to add some definitions and add some goal posts such as.
For example, you'd define both evil and good.
And you can do that in very realistic terms.

We agree on that.

Starting with definitions that most people would agree with
Just some possible ways of defining that most people would agree with:
We define evil as:
making others or the world worse off as a pattern of behavior (rather than one-off)
not feeling bad about making others worse off or feeling good about it
preferring win-lose to win-win even when win-win is preferrable
to have no interest or preference in adding value, and potentially to prefer taking without giving
....
Once you do that, then the argument that "good/evil" don't exist falls down.

This is quite clear written like that I think the same thing.

Avoiding the trap of "good and evil is naive"
And it's important, because I believe that:
the danger of good and evil talking is that, despite it's a fundamental shared experience for humans, it can still be easy for someone to frame it as naive, simplisitic or moralistic.

That is often what happens indeed. Because now the dominant idea is that i's an outdated concept. One can appear like naive or even stupid for thinking this.

Shades of grey are a natural part of good/evil
As you guys already said:
There are shades of grey.
And those shades of grey are also welcome and even great to have.
Welcoming the shades of grey
It's important to acknowledge that also for your own life effectiveness, to avoid being too harsh a judge, and to avoid falling for extremist "do gooder" traps.
For example, you can be asshole on a one-off if it's REALLY important to you (or if you just made a mistake).
Or you can take without giving if it's a survival thing for you.
But if you're overall a value-adding person, and if you generally prefer adding value, you're still generally a value-adding person.

That's really important. It's also what I intended to express in the thread with the sunglasses: no need to beat oneself down if one makes a mistake or has a value-taking move rarely. No one is perfect and it falls then until a cognitive distortion: I'm a bad person if I do a bad action.

The shades of grey do NOT undermine the validity of good/evil
As John said, you can find endless examples that 99% of people would agree is either good or bad.
That already tells you that good/evil are real for the simple fact of being real in most human's minds.

I agree. Like currencies like money or any concept actually. When we use other concepts like justice or love, any concept really. If we gave it a name it's because it's real as you say in the human experience. If we begin to say that good and evil do not exist then we can say the same about pretty much any other concept. And it's true in the sense of any abstract idea. We can never really grasp it as it is an abstract concept. It's an idea. However ideas are what the World is built on.

Also, as we often said on TPM, the shades of grey are not infinitely expandible.
And, equally important, the shades of grey do not deny the reality of good/evil.

Yes. Like I wrote above it's not because there are no picture of it or that religion has its own version of it that it's not something that we can experience.

Hyper-relativist degreed-idiots
That is the trap that the hyper-relativists fall into.
It's common among modern virtue-signalers, wokists, lefists and, albeit we generally don't use that terminology here... "modern soyboys" :).
Funny enough, it's often the folks that have the highest degree credential or philosopher wannabe ambitious that fall for it.
To use a concrete real-life example, it's one of the reasons why I stopped listening to the Charisma on Command podcast.
Without mincing words and just speaking what I thought:
Charlie sometimes (not always!) sounded like a pretentious philosopher who wished to be "open-minded" and "erudite", but truly only just was thinking and speaking like a naive idiot (will make a video review on Charisma on Command in the future, both as value-adding information, and as a marketing tool).
Also, that just felt so hipocritical when in actuality he was (sometimes!) pulling power moves on what should have been his best friend.

When we start believing our own hype we are done. Cultivating humility is the only protection against this or even hypocrisy. Because if we cultivate humility when we are faced with our self-aggrandizing self or our hypocrisy we can recognize it and correct it.

Lucio Buffalmano has reacted to this post.

#9 · July 31, 2023, 6:25 pm

Quote from DGX37 on July 31, 2023, 5:14 pm
As a person whose opinions fit with those "hyper-relativists", I can't fail to see it as an insult. I am not really offended but it does leave a bad taste.
(...)

Hello DGX37,

Albeit I saw the risk of a misunderstanding when I wrote that strong word, I didn't think your message made you an hyper-relativist in the slightest -or I'd have certainly been more careful with my words and most certainly not used the one I used-.

Such as, if you think that what is good is what helps me to reach my goals without hurting others, then you most certainly have a good idea of how to label what's good, VS what's not.
Whether you wanna label it "good/evil", it doesn't really matter, but the foundations of the divide between the two is still there.

Still, if you think of yourself as one, that's perfectly valid and I acknowledge my message may have come across as an attack / offensive / insulting.

My bad, that wans't my intention, as it wouldn't be my intention to insult pretty much anyone on this forum.

So, if it wasn't already obvious from our past interactions, I actually think you're an awesome guy, smart, empowered, going places, and even an eagle (in the making, just like we all work in progress).

And if you still feel something's not cool, feel free to write on the clarification thread and we can better clarify any time.

John Freeman, Mats G and 2 other users have reacted to this post.

Community, new content and Confidence University now available here.

#10 · July 31, 2023, 6:33 pm

Quote from John Freeman on July 31, 2023, 5:32 pm
(...)

Yeah, little to add really, seems like we see it pretty much the same on this one.

Could deserve an article actually.

Now that TPM's angle is to serve "good men" and "nice guys", that really boils down to this discussion of good/evil.

And I see the risk of that angle being misunderstood as "immature", self-serving (as in "look at me, I'm a good guy!" or "I get to feel good if I say I'm good"), naive, and similar.

I think this is something you don't need to explain to good -or even "non totally rotten people"- who've dealt or met truly dark characters.

But not everyone has the power awareness to recognize "normal" pursuit of self-interest VS actually nastiness (and some who have met those characters may have not been able to spot the difference or, dark joke on them, their own hyper-relativism set them up for abuse).

John Freeman and Roberto have reacted to this post.

Community, new content and Confidence University now available here.