The good/bad dichotomy has brought about much ugliness in my life, so I'm sorta down on it. It seems that assigning every action to one of these two categories opens up a plethora of pitfalls to one's personal morality.
I guess that the root of the problem is that everyone has their own definitions of good and bad. Even for an individual, what he considers good or bad changes over time. Everyone knows this. Philosophers have long discussed relative morality; some holding forth that everyone's various experiences give everyone a different sense of what's right and what's wrong. These cogent arguments are usually refuted with equally cogent arguments, usually involving a hypothetical case where the counterparty is somehow brutally savaged by some 'obviously evil' act. I find both sides of the argument are equally convincing.
Humanity has likely lived on the 'right/wrong' or 'good/bad' standard for hundreds of thousands of years. And it seems to have worked pretty well. Some would argue, but I think that humanity has become kinder over its history. Yet, considering how these concepts have played out in my life, I feel compelled to entertain the thought that perhaps it's time for humanity to chuck the good/bad judgment thing.
We are all taught what is right and what is wrong. We are all encouraged to choose the right and disdain the wrong. We are all biased to favor our personal views of propriety. That's a recipe for disaster, isn't it? I'm right. You're wrong. Those two simple statements have been the progenitors of war and murder and hate for untold thousands of years.
I'm a Roman Catholic. This church is always emphatic as to what is right and what is wrong, as determined by the dubious authority of 'the church'. The same authority that burned Jews and homosexuals. The church was very similar to Adolf Hitler is that respect, wasn't it? As I said though, right and wrong does work a little bit and so, the church doesn't burn anyone anymore.
Now they say its fine to be homosexual, so long as you commit yourself to an abnormal life of sexual abstinence because homosexual sex is 'wrong'. Yes...a little better...but still no good. The most horrid thing about this is that this view teaches believers to look down on the vast majority of homosexuals for whom abstinence is neither desired nor possible. An equally horrid thing is the possibility that this supplication towards abstinence deprives the world of good wholesome homosexual loves. If a homo is 'good' and abstains, his would be partner leads a diminished life. There's nothing 'good' about that.
I was taught that divorce was wrong, so I had a tendency to look down on people who suffered tragic divorces. I was taught that sex outside of marriage was wrong, so I had a tendency to look down upon sexually active singles. I even went one better than that. I would categorize people as good or bad. Then when someone seemed too good (which usually meant that they seemed better than me), I would begin to watch them closely for some 'wrongs', so that I could feel that I was better than them. The scary thing is 'what if religion instills this kind of activity into all believers'. What if all believers work towards elevating their opinions of themselves at the expense of others? Everyone considers themselves the repository of all good and all others flawed. That's the evil of the good/bad dichotomy. Maybe there's a better way.
Perhaps it's time for a paradigm shift. Something that would give us all the benefits of the right/wrong dichotomy, but none of the evils. What if each baby is taught that his purpose in life is to promote the happiness of others. That's really the only way to true happiness anyway. Would the last man in the world, who owned and controlled everything, be happy? Obviously not. Why not? Because we can only be happy by feeling that we are valuable to others. It's absolutely true. So why not make this the obvious goal of each human life? Wouldn't such an attitude give us the benefits of 'good/bad' without the evils?
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