you think harming other people is right in the short term?

If you are a sadist it might appeal but you would regret it later. I am not one personally.

If good is white and evil is black which shade of grey is the dividing line? If that line can't be ascertained then surely good and evil are one.

If good is white and evil is black which shade of grey is the dividing line? If that line can't be ascertained then surely good and evil are one — TWI

All that counts is pleasure Vs pain:

- If you do something right, you get long term pleasure, short term pain
- If you do something wrong, you get short term pleasure, long term pain

All we need to judge between the shades of grey is the pleasure minus pain calculation; as long as there is more net pleasure than pain, we are doing the right/good thing.

Yes I can go along with that rather than saying 'right' or 'wrong'. This accords with my belief that we are all God who wants to experience everything so that it can see itself from a perspective away from itself, represented by all of us wondering how we are perceived by others.

"Long term > short term, so long term is the most important; we should strive to make the ‘right’ / ‘good’ decisions."

How do you feel about eugenics?

I think there is a flaw in your definition of wrong.
"Wrong as what is right in the short term". Many actions are right in the short term and the long term. Many actions are plainly wrong in the short term as well. Furthermore, if you are ranking "right in the short term" as what creates the maximum short term pleasure, I think that is plainly incorrect. Killing someone for short term pleasure (as revenge or whatever is used to justify murder as a short term pleasure) is still wrong.
1. Every person has natural rights.
2. One natural right is the right to your own life.
3. If everyone has the right to their own life then they necessarily don't have a right over anyone else's life.
4. Murder is taking the right over someone else's life.
5. Murder is wrong.

I am sure you would agree with this claim that "murder is wrong" but I am showing that something wrong in the long term is not right in the short term, even if it creates temporary pleasure.

Many actions are right in the short term and the long term — princessofdarkness

There are a few, I call them right-squared. For things that are both wrong in the short and long term, they are wrong-squared.

Murder is wrong or wrong-squared depending on if you are a sadist or not.

How do you feel about eugenics? — Relativist

Got a bad wrap in WW2 to say the least. Because of modern society and social support structures like the welfare state, evolution / survival of the fittest is not taking place to the same degree as it does in nature. So human progress and happiness could be accelerated with Eugenics. So Eugenics would be a good thing if done right

You are showing an incredible ignorance of evolution. Survival of the fittest is the natural selection process, so eugenics is what would actually remove that natural selection process. Furthermore evolution is not progressive, it is random.

Also "fittest" does not alway mean the strongest, fastest or smartest. It means they survived long enough to have offspring. In many cases this would mean they had sex appeal.

Survival of the fittest is the natural selection process, — Jeremiah

But the definition of survival of the fittest has chained in the information age; it's smarts that lead to success Our breeding strategy should relict this. Sorry of that sounds a little cold.

Right/Wrong and good/evil have to do with our goals and how they are either promoted are inhibited by others' actions.

Since we are members of the same species and also members of a shared culture, we can often share our goals, but there are times when our goals come into conflict. When someone inhibits our goals, that action is seen as bad, or wrong. When our goals are promoted, then we see that action as good, or right.

This is why we have moral dilemmas for which there are no solutions. It comes down to whose goals get to be promoted at the expense of others' goals being inhibited.

I didn't say you sounded cold I say you were " showing an incredible ignorance of evolution." Learn how to read, then go read the Origin of Species.

Darwin talks about selective breeding right out of the gate, not on humans on animals, but it is the same principle. Actual Darwinian evolution is what is cold, and that this why people misinterpret it, like you, and tend towards a more Lamarckian spin on evolution (the idea of some type of progression).

Survival of the Fittest (aka natural selection) is the natural law which governs the selection process in the variation of species, in the case of eugenics that law would be removed. Eugenics would end natural selection in the human population. Natural selection is a selection process, so applying selective breeding removes that natural process.

Furthermore, whether or not humans are currently outside natural selection depend on if humans have escaped the Malthusian trap, which there are people on both sides of the fence on that one. Evolution is an incredibly slow process, and only time will tell if we have truly escaped Malthus' trap.

So to recap, it is not that I think you are being cold; I think that you don't know what you are talking about.

Eugenics would end natural selection in the human population — Jeremiah

But natural selection is mis-functional in the information world; it does not select for a big brain.

You are a rude and ignorant person. Please do not breed.

You are a rude and ignorant person. Please do not breed. — Devans99

But I am clearly smarter than you, and I thought you wanted the smart people to breed.

Good = the (inter)personal behavior you approve of, the (inter)personal behavior you feel is recommendable, etc.

Evil = the (inter)personal behavior you disapprove of as strongly as you can disapprove of anything. Mere "bad" is weaker--simply the (inter)personal behavior you disapprove of. "Evil" is on an extreme end of the scale.

Good = the (inter)personal behavior you approve of, the (inter)personal behavior you feel is recommendable, etc.

Evil = the (inter)personal behavior you disapprove of as strongly as you can disapprove of anything — Terrapin Station

If society is functioning properly, you can define good and evil in terms of what's good/evil for society and the individual.

An individual is part of society so interests usefully align; whats good for the individual is good for society. 'Conflicts of interest' between individuals and society are down to unreasonable behaviour or expectations of individuals.

If society is functioning properly, you can define good and evil in terms of what's good/evil for society and the individual. — Devans99

If you're trying to define x, you can't include x in the definition.

At any rate, society itself doesn't think. What's "good for society" is something that each individual makes a judgment about.

If you're trying to define x, you can't include x in the definition. — Terrapin Station

But you can define good/evil for the individual and then the sum of that for society. If people are making the right decisions then this should be right for society too.

If you take any example of a conflicts of interest between individual and a well functioning society; it is always the individual at fault; thats what we have prison for.

But you can define good/evil for the individual — Devans99

Okay, but as I said, good/evil for the individual is simply:

Good = the (inter)personal behavior you approve of, the (inter)personal behavior you feel is recommendable, etc.

Evil = the (inter)personal behavior you disapprove of as strongly as you can disapprove of anything. Mere "bad" is weaker--simply the (inter)personal behavior you disapprove of. "Evil" is on an extreme end of the scale.

If people are making the right decisions — Devans99

The "right decisions" are simply the decisions, to an individual, that are in line with the (inter)personal behavior they approve of.

That doesn't imply that other people will agree. Different people will have different opinions.

Good = the (inter)personal behavior you approve of, the (inter)personal behavior you feel is recommendable, etc. — Terrapin Station

Good is what's demonstrably good for the individual (and therefore the group):

- Helping others
- Sharing ideas
- Exercise
- Consensual sex

Evil is what is bad for the individual and group:

- Murder
- Excessive eating
- Lying

That doesn't imply that other people will agree. Different people will have different opinions — Terrapin Station

I think you will find its a purely mathematical relationship; an individual is part of a group. What's right for the individual is right for the group.

If person A is robbing/raping other people in a group and person B murders them, thus benefitting the majority of the group, is person B good or evil? both of them were acting in their own best interests,but by definition one if decidedly evil and the other good.

If person A is robbing/raping other people in a group and person B murders them, thus benefitting the majority of the group, is person B good or evil? both of them were acting in their own best interests,but by definition one if decidedly evil and the other good — Nathaniel

Person A is wrong; Robbing/raping is detrimental to the group.
Person B is wrong; murder is an extreme form of punishment; much better to keep them alive so they can contribute to the group once corrected.

and if never corrected? A continued determent to the group would be wrong.

Murder might seem right for the group if there is no other possible action; but we should not reach that situation - people are fundamentally the same barring their upbringing - it should always be possible to correct an individual (retrain their neural network for right).

But if a person is so pathetic that they really cannot be taught the difference between right and wrong then maybe a compassionate death is in that individual's interests (and the group's).

A person growing up in a cannibalistic tribe would feel that killing and eating of other humans is right, whereas someone who grew up else where would consider it wrong. What is the right and wrong in that situation?

Cannibalism is wrong for the individual and the group.

How so?

Cannibalism makes the group unpopular with other groups causing the group and individual to suffer persecution.

This is about survival, popularity don't enter into it. The soccer team that crashed in the alps should they have starved to death rather then eat the fallen? At least people would have liked their dead bodies?