LordReed:


How am I supposed to know this before I make a choice? I will read their minds?

Also what I prefer is irrelevant to the question which is does the good being done change because of the doer's motivations?

@bolded
I will reply you by pasting my reply to triplechoice that I asked you to read earlier showing that sometimes the good being done change if the motive is not right.

You see, motive is very important because if a good is used as a means to an end and the end is not realised, people tend to destroy the good. Let me give two examples.

These happened to two of my friends.

1. The laptop charger of a friend got spoilt so it became stressful to charge her laptop because she has to wait for others to finish charging and the light was not stable.
This guy offered (she didn't ask him to) to buy her a charger with the intention that through that she will agree to his advances.
When the guy got rejected again after buying the charger, he angrily collected the charger back and destroyed it to spite her.

2. She was out on the street, it was about to rain. A guy offered to give her a lift but with the intention of getting her number. After driving for some minutes, it starts to rain, one thing lead to another, he asked for her number, she declined, and can you guess what the guy did? He dropped her on the road while it was still raining.

Those guys used the "good" as a means to an end but when the end was not achieved they destroyed the good.

justlove91:


@bolded
I will reply you by pasting my reply to triplechoice that I asked you to read earlier showing that sometimes the good being done change if the motive is not right.

You see, motive is very important because if a good is used as a means to an end and the end is not realised, people tend to destroy the good. Let me give two examples.

These happened to two of my friends.

1. The laptop charger of a friend got spoilt so it became stressful to charge her laptop because she has to wait for others to finish charging and the light was not stable.
This guy offered (she didn't ask him to) to buy her a charger with the intention that through that she will agree to his advances.
When the guy got rejected again after buying the charger, he angrily collected the charger back and destroyed it to spite her.

2. She was out on the street, it was about to rain. A guy offered to give her a lift but with the intention of getting her number. After driving for some minutes, it starts to rain, one thing lead to another, he asked for her number, she declined, and can you guess what the guy did? He dropped her on the road while it was still raining.

Those guys used the "good" as a means to an end but when the end was not achieved they destroyed the good.

The good actions didn't change, the characters took additional bad actions.

Blitzerz:


Google who championed the abolition of slavery.?



So let me ask you.
Is euthanasia good?
Or bad?
Also is abortion after sex good or evil?

Answer for yourself.

I can't answer whether euthanasia is good or bad, as for abortion, I believe it is bad and should be avoided by avoiding unwanted pregnancies.

LordReed:


The good actions didn't change, the characters took additional bad actions.

But they wouldn't have taken the additional bad actions if the first actions were taken with good intention.

justlove91:


But they wouldn't have taken the additional bad actions if the first actions were taken with good intention.

That is a different question altogether though.

LordReed:


That is a different question altogether though.

Do you realise that our legal system takes motivation into account if it could be established. For example shooting someone due to self defense or accidental discharge.

justlove91:

I can't answer whether euthanasia is good or bad, as for abortion, I believe it is bad and should be avoided by avoiding unwanted pregnancies.

These are the issues.
Some people believe abortion is good.

And So they can preach it to your kids while you are not there.
If you object, they will claim it doesnt affect u.

And to be honest, it doesnt affect you.

Only the concept of good and evil

LordReed:


But by participating in society you give consent to be ruled by the laws of the society which includes that death penalty.

No it is not. The basis for law is an attempt to impose order so that society doesn't descend into chaos. What we find is both morality and law seem to achieve the seem ends in certain matters but that doesn't mean they are the same nor does it mean one is the basis for the other.

You can't compare the complexities of interaction in more modern societies with earlier ones. Traffic laws for instance have nothing to do with morality.

Traffic laws are needed to secure human life
Which if lost, is a dearth on our conscience.

Blitzerz:


Traffic laws are needed to secure human life
Which if lost, is a dearth on our conscience.

Of course but even if we developed cars that couldn't kill we'd still need traffic laws.

justlove91:


Do you realise that our legal system takes motivation into account if it could be established. For example shooting someone due to self defense or accidental discharge.

So?

LordReed:


Of course but even if we developed cars that couldn't kill we'd still need traffic laws.

Anything that cant kill cant be made

Blitzerz:

Anything that cant kill cant be made

It was just a hypothetical to show that traffic laws are not about morality but about order.

The late Nobel Prize-winning biologist Jacques Monod stated: “Man knows at last that he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe from which he emerged by chance. His destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty.”

A similar thought is expressed by Oxford professor of chemistry Peter William Atkins, who declares: “I regard the existence of this extraordinary universe as having a wonderful, awesome grandeur. It hangs there in all its glory, wholly and completely useless.”


MORALITY comes from a purposeful reasoning so if someone feels his life has no meaning nor purpose how do you think such a person can value morality?

MaxInDHouse:
The late Nobel Prize-winning biologist Jacques Monod stated: “Man knows at last that he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe from which he emerged by chance. His destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty.”

A similar thought is expressed by Oxford professor of chemistry Peter William Atkins, who declares: “I regard the existence of this extraordinary universe as having a wonderful, awesome grandeur. It hangs there in all its glory, wholly and completely useless.”


MORALITY comes from a purposeful reasoning so if someone feels his life has no meaning nor purpose how do you think such a person can value morality?

"Life doesn't have an inherent purpose but it is an opportunity to create purpose,"
Roy T. Bennett

You are walking down the road, you saw a snake on your path, there is a stick laying on the ground, you picked it to scare the snake away.
Prior to you using the stick, it has no purpose but you gave it a purpose.

Prior to emergence of human as self conscious beings, life doesn't have a purpose (animals don't give life any purpose) but human can give life a purpose even if it doesn't have an inherent purpose.

So, if someone feels his life has no purpose or meaning, he can create one and such a person has to value morality if he wants to live in human society. If he can manage to leave the earth and live on the moon then he doesn't have to care or value morality.

justlove91:


"Life doesn't have an inherent purpose but it is an opportunity to create purpose,"
Roy T. Bennett

You are walking down the road, you saw a snake on your path, there is a stick laying on the ground, you picked it to scare the snake away.
Prior to you using the stick, it has no purpose but you gave it a purpose.

Prior to emergence of human as self conscious beings, life doesn't have a purpose (animals don't give life any purpose) but human can give life a purpose even if it doesn't have an inherent purpose.

So, if someone feels his life has no purpose or meaning, he can create one and such a person has to value morality if he wants to live in human society. If he can manage to leave the earth and live on the moon then he doesn't have to care or value morality.

So how can we all agree on morality since we want to live as a society?

justlove91:


What I mean by that in the context of the example is that the rich man ought to build the hospital or charity organisation simply for the improved health and living condition the people will get, that is making the people the end. .

Don't forget that the rich man in your context is also a politician . In other words ,the context is politics and the rich man is who? a politician .

So ,he did no wrong at all to build an hospital for the people in order to motivate them to vote for him . The rules behind the game of politics allows for that kind of behaviour ,and on the personal level we all engage in that kind of politics which is normal :To marry a woman or man ,you must play politics ,if not ,you remain single .

In politics ,people are only motivated to vote for you if you first of all demonstrate what you can do in the present moment , or capable of doing later after you win the election. The electorates won't vote for you for voting sake .You must make promises or better still do something first they can enjoy to encourage them. That's it. .

Rather than taking those actions as a stepping stone on the way to his end (political power or fame), that is making the people the means to an end.

It's to motivate the electorates to vote for him . It's not wrong and at least the people are benefiting something and may continue to benefit after the election if he wins .
And you 're getting it wrong .The peope are not the means to an end ,but the hospital itself ,without which they won't vote for him .

justlove91:


@bolded
I will reply you by pasting my reply to triplechoice that I asked you to read earlier showing that sometimes the good being done change if the motive is not right.

You see, motive is very important because if a good is used as a means to an end and the end is not realised, people tend to destroy the good. Let me give two examples.

These happened to two of my friends.

1. The laptop charger of a friend got spoilt so it became stressful to charge her laptop because she has to wait for others to finish charging and the light was not stable.
This guy offered (she didn't ask him to) to buy her a charger with the intention that through that she will agree to his advances.
When the guy got rejected again after buying the charger, he angrily collected the charger back and destroyed it to spite her.

2. She was out on the street, it was about to rain. A guy offered to give her a lift but with the intention of getting her number. After driving for some minutes, it starts to rain, one thing lead to another, he asked for her number, she declined, and can you guess what the guy did? He dropped her on the road while it was still raining.

Those guys used the "good" as a means to an end but when the end was not achieved they destroyed the good.

No. They didn't destroy the good they did at first . They only discontinued doing good due to lack of motivation from realising they wont benefit anything if they continue .

Your reaction to your friends action is subjective . You cannot see that any good can come from it in the end hence you judge them wrongly . It's possible it leads to marriage . Who knows ?

Their reaction after, not before, the girl rejected them is also subjective . I neither support that kind of behaviour , or encourage it.Not everyone reacts that way .

So, I think it's safe to say ,your friends are no gentlement from the way they behaved later ,but however, they actually tried to do some good as a means to an end, and that good was never destroyed . The lady enjoyed it if only temporarily

MaxInDHouse:


So how can we all agree on morality since we want to live as a society?

Just as we all agree on our traffic law.

justlove91:

Just as we all agree on our traffic law.

The traffic laws were set by those who are SUPREME that's why there is punishment for offenders.
So how do we come to agreement on who is supreme regarding morals?

triplechoice:
Don't forget that the rich man in your context is also a politician . In other words ,the context is politics and the rich man is who? a politician .

So ,he did no wrong at all to build an hospital for the people in order to motivate them to vote for him . The rules behind the game of politics allows for that kind of behaviour ,and on the personal level we all engage in that kind of politics which is normal :To marry a woman or man ,you must play politics ,if not ,you remain single .

In politics ,people are only motivated to vote for you if you first of all demonstrate what you can do in the present moment , or capable of doing later after you win the election. The electorates won't vote for you for voting sake .You must make promises or better still do something first they can enjoy to encourage them. That's it. . It's to motivate the electorates to vote for him . It's not wrong and at least the people are benefiting something and may continue to benefit after the election if he wins .
And you 're getting it wrong .The peope are not the means to an end ,but the hospital itself ,without which they won't vote for him .

So we can both agree there are two ways to use "Good"
- As a mean to an end (the politician)
- As an end in itself.

The question of which is better remain subjective.

To me, the first "good" is like replacing all flowers on earth with plastic flowers, the earth will still look beautiful but it wouldn't be an alive beauty, it will be a pancake beauty, a cosmetic.

@triplechoice

No. They didn't destroy the good they did at first . They only discontinued doing good due to lack of motivation from realising they wont benefit anything if they continue .

This only applies to the second guy, the first guy has already bought the charger, had given it to her so the good is already completed, but he went back and nullify the good.

Your reaction to your friends action is subjective . You cannot see that any good can come from it in the end hence you judge them wrongly . It's possible it leads to marriage . Who knows ?

I don't understand what you mean here.

Their reaction after, not before, the girl rejected them is also subjective . I neither support that kind of behaviour , or encourage it.Not everyone reacts that way .

I'm happy you don't support such behaviour.

So, I think it's safe to say ,your friends are no gentlement from the way they behaved later ,but however, they actually tried to do some good as a means to an end, and that good was never destroyed . The lady enjoyed it if only temporarily

My friends are actually the ladies telling me of their unpleasant experience with guys.

MaxInDHouse:


The traffic laws were set by those who are SUPREME that's why there is punishment for offenders.
So how do we come to agreement on who is supreme regarding morals?

We do not agree on the traffic law because it was set by those who are supreme but because the reciprocal effect of the law will accomplish our ideal which is to drive safely on the road.

If the "SUPREME" decides to remove traffic light from junctions and tell us all to drive however we want, do you think we would all agree because they are "SUPREME"? No! why?
Because the reciprocal effect of such decision will not accomplish our ideal (driving save on the road).

justlove91:

So we can both agree there are two ways to use "Good"
- As a mean to an end (the politician)
- As an end in itself.

The question of which is better remain subjective.

Why have you placed the word ,good ,in quotes and then follow it up with something that doesn't connect to it.

An action of good will always result in something for the doer of good ,and that's why everyone does good with the hope thejy benefit from it somehow .

And good is good inrespective of what we want to achieve with it. The good of the politician and those of others are the same good .

And I'm afraid you still continue to see it subjectively and that's because you want to argue that people can do good all the time without any kind of motivation , moral mandala as against doing it for a God . You 're resisting reality since it's not possible to do good everytime for 'itself "

Peope can find motivation for doing good from any where and it doesn't matter where . What matters is that it helps them to do good and continue doing so.

So God or moral mandala for humanity sake ,the choice is yours .

I don't practice any religion but won't because of that condemn or judge harshly anyone doing good because of a God.

Good is good no matter what motivates you to do it .

The intention to do good is not the same as the motivation for doing good . You seem not to know the difference .

Someone may have the intention to do good ,but cannot find the motivation to proceed and because of that does nothing .

triplechoice:


I don't practice any religion but won't because of that condemn or judge harshly anyone doing good because of a God.

I'm not condemning or judging anyone harshly for doing good because of God, I believe it's better than doing bad because of God.

And if you read OP well you will see where I said I wish I do not believe in law of sowing and reaping so as to practice moral mandala much more. This means I still do good with the intention of reaping good in mind. I just find the concept of moral mandala such more appealing.

Good is good no matter what motivates you to do it .

I do not believe this, as a Spiritist I believe in afterlife, law of sowing and reaping and channeled messages through mediums. All messages channelled through medium agree that what motivates an action is much more relevant than the action itself in the life beyond.

justlove91:

I'm not condemning or judging anyone harshly for doing good because of God, I believe it's better than doing bad because of God.

And if you read OP well you will see where I said I wish I do not believe in law of sowing and reaping so as to practice moral mandala much more. This means I still do good with the intention of reaping good in mind. I just find the concept of moral mandala such more appealing. .

Ok. But do you agree that the concept of moral mandala is not practicable.

It's hard to continue with that for long without getting disinterested at some point or struggling to continue. You need some form of motivation to propel you forward .

.

I do not believe this, as a Spiritist I believe in afterlife, law of sowing and reaping and channeled messages through mediums. All messages channelled through medium agree that what motivates an action is much more relevant than the action itself in the life beyond.

"No matter what motivates you "should not have been interpreted by you to mean motivation is not relevant .

I have not said motivation is not important or relevant . Infact ,I emphasised it's relevance in kick-starting and sustaining ones drive in doing good . That's what I said .
Please go back and read again .

triplechoice:
Ok. But do you agree that the concept of moral mandala is not practicable.

It is hard but it's practicable.

It's hard to continue with that for long without getting disinterested at some point or struggling to continue. You need some form of motivation to propel you forward .

It seems you do not understand the concept of moral mandala well. It doesn't mean there is no motivation for doing good but that the motivation is humanity orientated and not self orientated. Let me give examples of moral mandala.

1. I'm wealthy, I noticed people in my village are suffering from poor health due to no access to pure source of water. I decide to improve their living condition by building hospital and provide pure source of water.

In the above scenario, I have a motivation but the motivation is directed at them (improve their living condition) and not directed at me (to gain fame or be viewed as a good person, or to gain favour from God etc).

2. A house is burning, you rushed inside to save a child inside.
Saving the child is your motivation and not becoming a hero.

"No matter what motivates you "should not have been interpreted by you to mean motivation is not relevant .

I have not said motivation is not important or relevant . Infact ,I emphasised it's relevance in kick-starting and sustaining ones drive in doing good . That's what I said .
Please go back and read again .

My bad

justlove91:

This is not about feeling superior or inferior, it's about making the good an end in itself and not as a means to an end.

The good of say, building a hospital, is to the end of improving health. If an unhealthy person comes for mending, the good is them leaving healthy.

I'd charge you of course, and make myself wealthy in the process, and that might even have been the underlying end to my means of building the hospital, but I'm certain you'd not consider me bad therefore, since you wouldn't expect me not to pay the staff I hired to help cure you, and pay for the investment in my education that enables me to cure you and build a hospital to cure you in.

My fruits you see, and not the ends in my heart.

justlove91:

In the above scenario, I have a motivation but the motivation is directed at them (improve their living condition) and not directed at me (to gain fame or be viewed as a good person, or to gain favour from God etc).

Like I shouldn't expect fame or be viewed as a good person or get favour from god or earn lots of money when I heal you with the knowledge I acquired through years of expensive study so I can build the hospital in which I cured you?

Why would I bother if I did not expect all the above and more? Was my education free too, and did I build the hospital for free?

If you don't want me to profit from curing you, please go to the hospital that was built without the expectations I have since I'm not the only hospital, you'd hope. For I am not that dumb to not know and expect to profit and fame and favour from humans from curing you, and whatever the gods add is very welcome.

budaatum:


I'd charge you of course, and make myself wealthy in the process, and that might even have been the underlying end to my means of building the hospital, but I'm certain you'd not consider me bad therefore, since you wouldn't expect me not to pay the staff I hired to help cure you, and pay for the investment in my education that enables me to cure you and build a hospital to cure you in.

If you built the hospital for the sole purpose of building wealth, then you're neither good nor bad (so far people get the treatment they paid for), you're just a business man just like if I sell you a bag of rice and get paid, I'm neither good nor bad, I'm just doing business.

budaatum:


Like I shouldn't expect fame or be viewed as a good person or get favour from god or earn lots of money when I heal you with the knowledge I acquired through years of expensive study so I can build the hospital in which I cured you?

Why would I bother if I did not expect all the above and more? Was my education free too, and did I build the hospital for free?

If you don't want me to profit from curing you, please go to the hospital that was built without the expectations I have since I'm not the only hospital, you'd hope. For I am not that dumb to not know and expect to profit and fame and favour from humans from curing you, and whatever the gods add is very welcome.

As I said you're simply a business man and there is nothing wrong with that.

justlove91:

As I said you're simply a business man and there is nothing wrong with that.

It is not the businessman in me that cures you, but a combination of a lot of other things too, like my joy and pride in healing you, and the favour of the gods and the money I'd obviously make. And you thinking it's the business and not all those other things is just uninsightful and shows your desire to pigeonhole me and my motivations.

I was once told by a doctor with a hospital to go where I could get free healthcare. If his motivation was his business, I would have been long dead.

budaatum:


It is not the businessman in me that cures you, but a combination of a lot of other things too, like my joy and pride in healing you, and the favour of the gods and the money I'd obviously make. And you thinking it's the business and not all those other things is just uninsightful and shows your desire to pigeonhole me and my motivations.

I was once told by a doctor with a hospital to go where I could get free healthcare. If his motivation was his business, I would have been long dead.

This man... Oda, it is the business and all those other things.