Something that was brought up in class the other day was a fascinating discussion about what sort of things are "good" and what makes them "good". The solution that was proposed for discussion was that of Socrates, and the first that was brought up was: "Doing things that make you feel good about yourself are good things, where as things that make you feel bad are just generally bad things". I thought that this was an interesting statement when it was first brought up, since I could immediately relate to the fact that doing the right thing indeed does feel good.
But then I had a strange thought, the question that had come to mind while disputing this theory in my head was that: "If feeling good makes what you are doing good, than are the people we see as evil just taking pleasure by doing bad?"
What is your opinion?
Sunday, February 21, 2010
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I think it may be entirely true that people we see as evil feel pleasure in doing bad. At face value this statement is depressing, but I think if you take it another step forward that changes.
ReplyDeleteI think that the human mind has a conscience whether we want one or not and those we see as evil then have a problem. I think they have, to a certain degree, tricked themselves. They feel empowered by the ability to override their conscience, and this contributes to their pleasure at doing "bad."
My belief, though, is that you can fool some of the consciences some of the time but you can't fool any conscience all of the time. I think this is a source of, if not mental illness, mental torment. A person can lie to everyone on the planet, and they may be completely convincing, but what it completely impossible is to lie to yourself. If you do bad things, your mind knows it no matter what, and you may feel pleasure doing them but in the end, there is a price to pay.
That's what I think anyway... thoughts?
I do believe that tricking the conscience is possible to illustrate elaborate illusions in conversation between people. What I am not yet convinced about though is that people are forever aware of this fabrication.
ReplyDeleteI think the only thing that can be used against your argument is the fact that people lie and forget. It may be true that they are lying about forgetting, but I feel that there are certain cases in habitual liars where they lie enough that they forget the actual truth. Thus to them, there is this situation where they literally believe that they are telling nothing but the truth, but indeed there is deciet in their past.