Mathemitics of Morals?

Question

If you were to accurately quantify all actions and states of being as having a digit to represent it's 'good' and a seperate digit to represent it's 'evil' and than tally the world if you found the total of good to be significantly less than the total of evil, and if you define the extinction of all life on earth as zero good and zero evil...I find myself living with this assumption. It seems to me that evil (and it's twin ignorance) in all manners can be done more easily and more socially acceptably than good. If I somehow possessed the ability to end all life on earth immidiently than how would you tell me I should not (please don't mention hope, people have been hoping for 20,000 years since humanity existed!).

If evil is murder, and all life on earth ends at the same time no one will be sad once this huge murder happens.

Answer 1

First you have to ask yourself if existence is Good.

If the answer is yes then the scenario you paint above will never happen because if existence in itself is Good then the good units and the evil units you are adding up all exist within existence - therefore all together they are only part of existence itself - which is Good.

So evil can never outnumber good since it exists inside of it.

Anyway, you don't have that ability, which is also good!

Answer 2

You sound like some sort of demented utilitarian. :)

I don't see why you think the extinction of life would be zero evil. It seems like that would be a very bad thing. You think murder is bad, right? I mean you say that evil and ignorance are very easy and acceptable, but what are some examples of evil? Is stealing an evil? Is killing? This is where your argument breaks down. If you want to say that there are "evils," you are likely going to have to admit that murder is an evil. But if you admit that murder is evil, you can scarcely assume that a mass murder (you causing all life to go extinct) would not be an evil! And so you contradict your own premise that mass-extinction is not an evil.

In other words you are depressed because there are so many bad things. Whatever examples you give of bad things - rape, theft, pollution, etc. - your logic is likely going to lead to you including murder in that list. So if, for example, theft is wrong because it infringes on someone's rights, murder will also be wrong because it infirnges on someone's rights. If torture is wrong because you would not want somebody to do it to you, murder is wrong because you would not want somebody to do it to you. If rape is wrong because it leads to a less happy world, murder is wrong because it leads to a less happy world (as long as the victim's life would contain more good experiences than bad, which most lives do.) Whatever justifications you have for calling something wrong will almost certainly also apply to murder. And if murder is wrong, then mass-murder is at least as wrong.

So causing a mass-extinction would be a wrong. If you were to reject this and claim that it was not wrong, you would likely lose any reason to think that other "evils" were wrong either, and thus lose your entire reason for wanting the world to end!

By the way, where do you get the number 20,000 from? Humanity has been around longer than that.

Answer 3

Not sure how your "math" yields a predominantly evil world -

As you're sitting there typing on your computer, or watching TV, or reading a comic book, are you "good" or "evil"? When you stand in line instead of killing the guy in front of you, is that "good" or "evil". When you pay for something instead of stealing it, is that "good" or "evil"?

Most people spend most of their time engaged in activity that is not abhorent to any ethical, moral, religious, or legal standard, and are therefore "good" most of their day. So if you scale Good minutes vs. bad minutes of human life, good will easily predominate. Most people conduct very few if any moments of true evil.

For example, it's probably safe to say that crime rates would rise and fall with "evil" rates. Less than 3% of the population commit a significant crime for their entire lives. If we use this as a sample of the existance of evil, the world is 97% evil free. And even those 3% are not committing evil all of the time. Sometimes, even bad guys take a break from evil to eat dinner, play with their kids, or type on computers.

I'm glad you recognize that evil twin "ignorance". You might want to familiarize yourself of the billions of forms of "good" before assuming that there's a predominance of evil simply because you failed to appreciate the simplicity of a "good" act.

And your implication that the act of total human anihilation wouldn't be evil because no-one would be around to testify clearly shows that you don't understand the concept of good or evil. Take my word for it, intentionally blowing up the world would not be a neutral act, it would be evil - even without witnesses.

Answer 4

Your mathematical formula is indeed correct but let me refresh you that there is nothing bizarrley new in your conception. In morals we need not expect startling innovations. Despite the interesting adventures in life, all moral conceptions revolve about the good of the whole. Morality begins with association and interdependence and organization. Life in society requires the concession of some part of the individuals sovereignthy to the common order. And ultimately the the norm of conduct becomes the welfare of the group. Nature will have it so, and her judgment is always final.

Great question and thanks for asking. Have a great day!

Answer 5

We cannot escape our biology!

We are the descendants of hunter-gatherer groups that came out of Africa. As such, our ancestors had to evolve a way to get along in groups, share common resources and provide common defense of the tribe. An individual would learn a sort of "moral code" because if he shared his catch or find with the group he would be likely rewarded later because it was unlikely that a single individual would consistently out-hunt or out-gather the collection of individuals that made up the tribe. Similarly shared defense was superior to individual defense. Hence it was learned that if an individual cooperated most of the time; practiced altruism in sharing the workload or food most of the time she tended to be more successful than those individuals who did not. In this way our moral code evolved.

It should be pointed out that this morality initially was intra-tribal but as the Human experience evolved it became more and more inter-tribal and eventually became international. This is not to say that conflict does not exist. It does and will continue to do so. But at any one time most humans on the earth are not in conflict with others. Most nations are not at war with each other most of the time. Because of this we have successfully colonized nearly the entire planet and will soon number 7-billion.

It can easily be shown today that humans for the most part:
Cooperate with each other most of the time.
Do not steal most of the time.
Do not kill most of the time.
Share most of the time.
Most husbands at any one time are not cheating.
Most wives at any one time are not cheating.

It should be understood that even in Iraq today most of the population are not killing one-another. Most of the population are not setting roadside bombs. Most are not engaging in ethnic cleansing. This does not mean that bad things are not happening and that we should not be appalled by the violence in Baghdad. But your initial statement that the result of ALL actions and states of being totaled up would result in far less good is incorrect.

Violence is simply noisier than cooperation. It commands our attention. It commands our attention because it is actually the exception.

Answer 6

It is an assumption, not nessasarily truth. Every single person i've met are kind to atleast one person, normaly a good friend. How many times have you seen someone accidently bump into someone and the person turns and begins "mouthing" them, just to see it was their friend, and then immidiatly say it was ok? Or atleast something of this sort. Like the "who did this?" "i did" "o... in that case, it's good"

Answer 7

Satan.