What is Good?

How do we determine what "moral" and "immoral", "good" and "bad" are? A congressman who stood against "gay marriage" changed his mind midstream when his son announced that he was gay. Prior to this event, it was bad. Now it's good. In this case, "good" and "bad" are determined by "what's going on at my house".

A coworker told her daughters, "If you ever get a boyfriend and decide to live with him before marrying him, I will be disappointed." "Really, Mom?" She told me, "I felt bad." Because "good" and "bad" are determined not by what is actually "good" or "bad", but what's going on at my house.

A very popular argument is that good and bad are determined by the harm that it may or may not cause. If it causes harm, it is bad. If not, it is good. This fails to take into account a couple of really important considerations. First, is "good" simply defined as "not harmful"? Is that all it takes to determine "good"? I ask because it would seem patently obvious that "good" isn't merely that which does no harm, but that which does ... good. But the second aspect missed in this definition is the fact that we don't know. The notion is that we can tell if something does harm and, thus, can tell if it's good or bad. But the truth is that we often don't know. They made divorce "no fault" because it would not do harm and would make divorce easier. As it turns out divorce harms children with problems that often don't appear until later in life and can actually harm the physical health of the adults that do it. The effects are often silent but deadly, so to speak. We thought we were doing something good -- you know, "no harm" -- but, as it turns out, we have done irreparable and long lasting damage. We didn't know. (By "we" I mean society.) We know, for instance, that sticking needles in the arms of little children causes harm, but it is wrong to fail to do so when it is to give them immunity to future illnesses. Just a couple of examples. In these two illustrations we see that removing pain can cause real harm and that in inflicting pain we might cause real benefit. And these are ones that we can figure out.

Maybe, then, just maybe it is true that morality is well determined by the harm that it may or may not cause, but that's as far as we're going to get on that question. We're really bad at determining both harm and benefit. So if we're not good at this, what source should we use? The atheist would like to suggest that we use purely material means. Your DNA, your feelings, your view of the world, all these are reasonable approaches. Of course, if your feelings tell you that I'm a piece of genetic material with no real value or purpose and eliminating me will make your life easier, on what basis would someone else (like me, for instance) be able to argue that it was wrong? If you argue that Evolution is the answer and Evolution favors those who survive, then your survival at all costs is the only real good. Is stealing wrong? Not if it means you don't get to eat today, so in that case it would be not merely acceptable, but good. So while the anti-theist will argue that we don't need the divine to determine morality, it becomes absolutely impossible to determine morality without borrowing from the divine. You must consider "the good of society" and "consistency" and other things that, without some higher power in charge, cannot actually be defined as "good". They certainly can't be obligations laid on anyone but yourself.

But, look, I'm not trying to argue against the morality of atheism. That's for others to do (and others have done it quite well). My point is to ask you to consider how you determine good and bad. The standard rule in the world today is pure situational ethics. Gay is wrong ... unless it's someone in my family, and then it's not. Sex outside of marriage is immoral ... unless, of course, I or someone I care about wants to engage in it and then it's okay. It's evil to kill a child ... unless that child is an inconvenient pregnancy, in which case it is a "woman's right" to murder at will. Morality is purely determined by "what's going on at my house". And you have to know that 1) what's going on at your house does not determine what is moral for anyone elsewhere and 2) when what's going on at your house conflicts with what's going on at your neighbor's house, it can get a little problematic, to say the least. As long as you have a moral code that is arbitrary, you will have instability. Further, as long as this ethical system is of your own determination, you will have no basis on which to inflict it on others. You cannot argue "What you're doing or saying is bad" if your basis has no objective foundation (and "harm" is not an objective foundation).

So, you'll need to decide. Are you going with your own moral code? Welcome to the world in which we live. You are in the majority. Please, don't inflict that moral code on the rest of us. It is not reliable, it is variable, and it is not authoritative. Keep it for yourself, if you wish, but don't expect the rest of us to agree. Are you going with the moral code of the One who made us? Now that would be a reliable, solid, authoritative code to follow. I recommend it. However, if that is your position, know your code. Claiming to go with God's moral instructions while ignoring God's moral instructions isn't only irrational; it is immoral.