Mindcoolness

A Cool Mind for a Full Life

  • Blog
  • Glossary
  • About
  • Contact

Let’s Define ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’

March 8, 2021 Dominic Reichl

Good is what is useful to you, that is, what facilitates your capacity to preserve yourself; for your body, good is what facilitates your power of activity; for your mind, good is what facilitates your capacity to form accurate ideas.

Bad is the opposite of good: it’s what hinders or erodes your conatus, what diminishes your power to act, and what undermines your rationality.

These Spinozian1 definitions are what I have in mind whenever I use the words ‘good’ and ‘bad’ on this blog. Even more, they are the touchstone of every conscious decision that I make, as this idea of goodness helps me to concretize my True Will.

Notes

  • Self-preservation must be the primary constituent of goodness because without it, there is no possibility of anything else being good.
  • There is no need to incorporate concepts like ‘flourishing’, ‘well-being’, or ‘happiness’ into the definition of ‘good’, because they are already empirically implied in the notion of ‘self-preservation’ (e.g., happy, healthy people live longer; also, they have a greater power of activity).
  • The values of freedom and self-determination are implied in the notion of ‘power of activity’.
  • The values of truth and honesty are implied in the notion of ‘accurate ideas’.
  • The scope of goodness can be scaled from you to your family, to society, to humanity, and to life altogether; between these scopes, however, conflicts may arise.
  • Goodness is always relative to something (good for me, good for you, good for society,…), rather than absolute (good in itself); thus, unlike the religious ‘good–evil’ antonymy, it does not lend itself to judging the intrinsic moral worth of anyone or anything. For example, a man who violently restricts my freedom is bad for me if I lack the means to overpower him, yet I could not call him a bad person without committing a category error, even if he were a murderous dictator (I might call him an evil person, but that would be a religious statement, and I’m not religious).

Further Reading

  • Beyond Good and Bad?
  • What Do You Want? On Will and Desire
  1. For references, see Ethica: pars IV def. I (“Per bonum id intelligam, quod certo scimus nobis esse utile.”), pars IV prop. VIII dem. (“Id bonum, aut malum vocamus, quod nostro esse conservando prodest, vel obest, hoc est, quod nostram agendi potentiam auget, vel minuit, juvat, vel coercet.”), and pars III prop. XI (“Quicquid Corporis nostri agendi potentiam auget, vel minuit, juvat, vel coercet, ejusdem rei idea Mentis nostrae cogitandi potentiam auget, vel minuit, juvat, vel coercet.”).

Blog ethics

Latest Post

Newsletter

Please check your inbox to confirm your subscription.

Copyright © 2023 • Content Disclaimer • Privacy Policy • Affiliate Disclosure • About
Dear reader, this website uses cookies for analytical purposes. We'll assume you're ok with it, but you can opt-out if you wish.
OK Give me more information.
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT