What does it mean to be a good person?
If you think that good and evil don't really exist but are artificial concepts? Should a person try to be good?
For example let's say a man saves a child from a burning building. Everyone says he's good.
50 years later the child starts a world war and commits massive genocide. Everyone says he did a bad thing by saving the child.
100 years later the world learns from the wars of the past and a millennia of peace comes about. Everyone says the man did a good thing by allowing the child to carry out the war.
Isn't it obvious that evil deeds do exist? People are murdered and treated unfairly in the world. There must be a moral difference then between the actions of people.
@Aayla I agree that moral principles are universal. Going against morality can be rewarding though. You could gain money by murdering someone. You could gain pleasure by lying to your partner. You could gain a promotion at work by slandering your colleague. I think it is rare for people to do evil simply because they enjoy it.
Should a person always choose the moral action no matter the cost? If someone chooses to consistently do the right thing at a loss, does this make them a good person?
@Aayla
That approach makes sense logically. However, it has a drawback. Our human minds are slow to process information because we think linearly. We rely largely upon our emotional programming to make decisions. The world is too detailed with too many variables.
Analyzing every action to determine whether it will help the most people in the future would be too tiresome and time consuming.
Now, my opinion is that each person is born with a predisposition to morality. These people with a natural inclination towards goodness will choose to do the right thing even if it only helps 1 person. Then there are those in the middle (normal folks) who are indifferent to morality and focus mainly on the consequences leading to pleasure or pain. Finally there are those who consciously plan to do evil because it is part of their philosophy and they oppose morality (analogous to the Sith in Star Wars).
When it comes to the nature vs nurture debate I'm on the side of nature.
I see I made a typo in the description. It should be:
"If you think that good and evil are artificial concepts and don't really exist, should a person try to be good?"