Mummy, when people die in the war... Where do they go?
Oh, what a question.
-It depends.
-On what?
Whether they fought on the side of the goodies or the baddies.
Your father, for example, fought for England on the side of the goodies.
How do you know who the goodies and the baddies are?
[Sighs] That's enough questions.
Eat your food.
This conversation from the movie "The others" which was between children and their Mother.
Now we all know how difficult it is to answer that question "How to know which side is good and which is bad?". If there is a definite answer for that question there we should be able to end all wars
So why is it so hard to tell good from bad?
I thought it isn't, and so being a very logical person I tried to come up with a set of rules which - ideally - if followed I could always tell which side is good and which is bad
Result: Complete failure!
First reason is obvious: You need to know all the facts including people's inner intentions among other things to judge.
But lets say for the sake of argument that I know everything can I tell which is right and which is wrong?
Turns out that its not possible
To know why let me give a simple example.
Lets say you live somewhere in north Egypt and you want to visit somewhere in south Egypt and so you started to head north.
Is that right direction or wrong direction?
A quick answer would be of course wrong. If you live in the north and want to go somewhere in the south then you should head south not north.
But that is not always true, maybe I am moving north to reach the airport.
Also in theory if I keep moving to the north I will eventually (after going around the earth) reach my destination in the south
On the other hand if I live in the north and want to have a walk with no specific destination in mind, any direction would right and no direction would be wrong
Conclusion: good or bad depends on your own personal goals
If your goal is to reach the southern place fast then you should head north to the airport. (the other solutions are bad/wrong)
If your goal is to reach cheap then go south.
If your goal is to reach after 20 years, then head north.
If you have no goal, right and wrong become irrelevant
Applications in real life
If your goal is to make a lot of money in short time, then robbing houses is "good" while having a full time job is "bad".
BUT If your goal is to make a lot of money in short time while living long enough to enjoy it then robbing houses is bad
That is none sense, Morals are universal and everyone knows good from bad!
True but that's only because humans share same universal goal
This goal is to survive and thrive
Killing is terrible crime everywhere because its against surviving
Stealing is less terrible because it reduces chance of survival for the robbed one rather than eliminate it all together
Helping others is good because it increases the chances of survival for the ones being helped
The rule for global morals
Its easy to make a rule now that we know the universal goal
The good is anything I do that increase chance of survival for others and/or their offspring
The heroic is anything I do that increase chance of survival for others and/or their offspring while greatly DECEASING mine [ ex: saving a drawning person ]
The bad is simply the opposite
Where does the conflict comes from then?
It comes from the question: Who are the "others" ?
For a serial killer, the others are only him
For a gang, the others are the gang members and their families so the rule above only applies to them.
For a normal civilian, the others are people living in their country, other countries don't matter much
........
And so on until you reach a vegan person who consider the others to be every living creature on the planet.
Is it still bad to do bad things if I am sure it will not affect my "survive and thrive" goal?
In principal yes but in practice I would say No, because eventually it will conflict with that goal.
Lets say you have a powerful position in a corrupted country and you can steal as much as you want without anyone dare to hurt you.
At first you will be greatly increasing your chance of survival while decreasing chance of survival for the rest of population (which is ok). but as your community become weaker and weaker another community/country will be tempted to invade it. That would endanger the whole community including yourself
[ of course the above example can happen over decades by you and your offspring, the result will eventually be the same ]
What if I am a super human would it still be bad to do bad things?
If you are a super human - that is you belong to a species superior to humans - and hurting humans would increase your chance of survival then its is considered a good thing to hurt them.
We do all sort of terrible things to other species that we consider lower than ours like
Monkies => Medical experiements
Dolphins => Enslave to have some entertainment
Whales => Kill them because they reduce our fishing stock
All of that is generally accepted and considered an honest job.
So if you are much smarter, much stronger than normal humans and you decided to use some of them as pets or slaves or run some medical experiments on them that would be totally acceptable by your "super humans" community
Why do I have to commit to that survive and thrive goal rather than having a different goal of my own?
You don't have to and in fact a small percentage of people don't commit to that goal. for example people looking for risky adventures, people who don't want kids, monks to name few examples.
The reason those people will remain a small ineffective minority is because they generally don't get to transfer their genes to next generation.
If you are one of those who don't commit to the universal goal then right or wrong depends on your religion or your own personal goals if you have no religion.
If you neither have religion nor a personal goal then right or wrong become irrelevant to you
