The Good: Introduction

"Good” is such a terribly vague and ambiguous word. From birth, we are taught to be good and to do good by the agents of socialization: our family, peers, school, church, workplace, the government and the media. If someone asks an average person what is good, he or she would have an answer: it is good if you don’t kill people. It is good if you don’t steal. But the problem with the word is that its meaning is constantly evolving through the different eras of human development, while also evolving in separate locations at the same time.

For example, during the age of the Crusades, it is good to kill as much Muslims as possible while searching for the fabled Holy Grail as well as securing the Kingdom of God, Jerusalem. But the Muslim leaders believe the exact opposite. It is good to defend their territories and to kill as much Christian defilers as possible. A millennium or so later, killing, in whatever form, is commonly regarded with revulsion. The value of human life has gone up and the “good” has become much harder to define as lines between absolute values are blurred with the advent of technological development and advanced knowledge.

Around the late 1800’s, Nietzsche announced that god is dead. He correctly observed the decline of religion which I believe still continues up to this day. Without a solid belief in god, the “good” has lost its standard definition for all people, for all time.

This paper aims to tackle the different definitions of what is good according to the four major ethical theories to date. It also seeks to determine which is the most practical and credible among them.

The Good: Utilitarianism next Wednesday