The reality of good and evil

A detailed Summary of The reality of good and evil

Before I start this essay, lets take a minute to review the definition of good and evil. What is good and what is evil? Good by definition is a cause of action that we do something that will benefits others let's say by helping them in their time of need. Where else evil can be considered a cause of action when we have cruel intentions for others and make them suffer.

There are certain considerations and experience in our life that will lead us to doubt the existence of good and evil. We may deny that this makes no sense but in reality it does happen. Lets talk in the sense of experience, what would make an individual doubt the reality of good and evil. For this we can say that doubt would be the biggest skeptical of all time. Why is this? Simply because there is a manual of good and evil to follow. Lets say now, if we see an old lady trying to cross the road, what would we do? I can for sure say that I will help the lady to cross the road. By definition we will say that this is a good action. But if I would have not help the old lady at that time we can define it as an evil action. As I stated earlier if we consider it from experience point of view, there is a manual to follow. So we can't really say that the action tha

This is another question that I would like to ask, should instrumental reason play a shorter role in life. If you ask me I would say yes it should, but then again I am not looking at the big picture. This is just what I think. But if I take the present day environment and situation then I would say that instrumental reason should not play a small role but a big role. The way that the world is heading today it cannot play a small role. I would say no but then again I am a human being I might end up following the instrumental reason. Then that does make me an evil person and then again that does not make me an good person, its just that situation makes me to behave the way I am today.

Another point of view that can lead us to doubt the reality of good and evil would be the considerations that we take in. This I can say that the person would be very skeptical for everything. This is because there is no set of good and evil values or attributes for this kind of person. For this kind of individual everything would depend on the situation. For example, lets take the old lady crossing the road again. For most of us helping the old lady to cross road would be good but then for this kind of individual it would be depending on the situation. They would ask why must they help the old lady to cross the road. That's because to them there must be reason to help the old lady. Let's say for instance if they push down the old lady, they would say it's justified because there is a reason why they did that. So in other words, what they do is not based on good or evil or even right and wrong, they just based it on they 're on personal feelings. This by right would make people to doubt or even ask if good or evil exist.

As I said that this two are the most major factor that actually make anyone doubt the reality of good and evil. I mean considerations or experience may change a person's view in life so why can't it make someone doubt the reality of good and evil. Who's to ever say what is right and what is wrong.

From reading the book by Charles Taylor, there were certain things that I could extract from the book that can be used for this essay. There were a lot of things that were mention in the book that can be said to be a major factor to make anyone to doubt the reality of good and evil. In his book there were three major factors, which are the following individualism, instrumental reason and the mix between the both.

The next thing that we should talk on is would be instrumental reasoning. What is this and how is this related to the topic that I am discussing? Instrumental reasoning is based on the economics and it has a lot do with the topic discussed. In this one of the main thing would be the cost-benefit analysis. This is where a situation is based on what I do for you and what would I get in return for helping you. For example, if a friend of mine comes and ask me for help, in day and time of the present, I wouldn't straight away say yes to him. Why is this? This is because I would like to know what is the benefit for me or what is my reward for helping my friend. I don't want to do something that is not beneficial for me. If it was like days before, I would just help my friend and I would say no problem to anything he wants.

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Approximate Word count = 2442
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)

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