Can Good exist without Evil?
Can a shadow exist without a light source?
Nope, it sure cannot.
So we know evil can exist if good does.
But is good contingent on evil? I dunno…
Can light exist without shadow?
I guess in some respects it can, but why do I choose light as being analogous to good and shadow as being analogous to evil?
Perhaps light and shadow are the same thing, and we’re just choosing to look at it in a particular way. For a race where bright lights blind you, perhaps shadows will seem good whereas the light would only dim reality.
It seems to me that we can only percieve Good and Evil as relative to each other, that’s just part of the way humans see these things. If Good and Evil exist outside of human minds, though, then concievably one could exist without the other- people just would be unable to see it as such.
Well shadows are not the opposite of light, but I think he knows what you mean. That is kind of a weak analogy, Rafajafar. World, to answer your question, no, good can not exist without evil. That’s all I have to say at this late hour.
~After Death~
Shadows are the absense of light. What is more opposing to an idea than the idea of its non-existence?
Annnyway. Yeah, I kinda think it’s a weak analogy, too, but only because it never took into account personal perspective properly… and neither did you.
I guess you’re sort of right. But I still don’t consider it near as opposite in relation to good and bad.
~After Death~
What is good- That’s a personal preference, what ever you enjoy or like is good.
What is bad- That is also a personal preference. You might think the killing of 3 million Jews is bad, some Nazi’s thought it was a good thing. There is no bad. Bad is just a description for stuff unpleasing to what you are used to. If you don’t benefit from it and or it harms you then it’s bad.
Yes, sex could exist with out STD couldnt it? But its doesnt. [/code]
It seems that Good cannot exist without Evil because Good is defined by contrast to Evil. How would we know Good if it weren’t for Evil. It would be like, as Alan Watts would put it, Stacking a pile of Books so that they only go Up and not Down. Does this make any sense?
It does. I find it odd, though, that you are leaping from “Without Evil, we wouldn’t recognize Good” to “Good cannot exist without Evil”. Aren’t those two different things?
Thanks for bringing that out, I should have chosen my words more carefully; I see what you’re saying - It is a big leap from recognition to existance. But if we assume that Good is Defined by contrast to Evil, aren’t we also saying that It’s definition ( or existance) is also contingent upon Evil? I guess this may be justified in accepting that “Good” and “Evil” are mere descriptions of quality. But unfortunately I have the feeling that we are not concerned with the description, but rather with the described. Is this so?
Thanks again![/i]
I'm not so sure that it [i]is[/i] defined that way. Can't we say more about good than 'not evil', and more about evil than 'not good'?
What we have to decide is whether or not there is a difference. If G&E exist only as conceptions in people’s heads, then I would say that one relies on the other- perception is reality in that case. If not, not.
That was me.
I fully agree with you.
does any one know of any philosophers who were in to this kind of thing? where can i get some literature on it?
cheers